Marriage: Love and Law exhibition catalogue - Flipbook - Page 103
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On behalf of the Government and people of NSW, Governor James Rowland
offered his congratulations to Prince Charles and Diana Spencer on the
occasion of their engagement. Charles, Diana and Queen Elizabeth II offered
their thanks. Later, a selection of 65 books to ‘further enhance the Royal
Couple’s knowledge and appreciation of Australia’ was gifted. The wishes and
wedding gift were ‘greatly appreciated’ by Charles (77–80).
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But not everyone was swept up in the nuptial excitement. Radical feminist
groups cautioned the teenager against the marriage, appearing at events with
badges and posters that urged ‘Don’t do it Di’. Political activists protested
at the marriage’s symbolisation of imperial oppression, and its distraction
from economic recession and Thatcherism.
76 Megan Schlunke, Karen
Elliot, Susanne Jones, Kate
Millington, Sal O’Wheel,
Anarchist Feminist Poster
Collective
Don’t do it Di dance,
25 July 1981
Screen print, printed
in colour
1981
State Library of South Australia,
ZPS 0313
102
77 Queen Elizabeth II
Telegram to the Governor
of NSW, 26 February 1981
Paper
1981
NSW State Archives,
NRS 19797 File 1981
The records here concerning the engagement and marriage of Charles and
Diana can be found in the State Archives Collection in a series titled NRS 19797
Records relating to liaison between the Governor and the United Kingdom
Parliament and Royal Family. While the Collection is well known for detailing
colonial-era NSW, it is also a trove of primary source material that deals with
more recent history, including, for example, the 1980s. Projects such
as Marriage: Love and Law that span time and multiple spheres of policy and
regulation, require some clever research tactics to identify this material,
as archivist Bonnie Wildie discovered.
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