A Magnificent Maple Leaf Brooch for the Princess Royal to Celebrate Canada Day

Today is Canada Day, but the celebrations of the day actually began last week in Britain, when the Princess Royal wore a maple leaf brooch for a special commemoration in Hampshire.

On Wednesday, Princess Anne headed to the parish of Bramshott and Liphook in Hampshire to attend a Canada Day service at St. Mary the Virgin. The little medieval churchyard beside the church is the final resting place of several Canadian soldiers, both those who died in war and those who were victims of the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918.

During both World War I and World War II, the Canadian army established Camp Bramshott, a temporary army camp near the villages of Liphook and Bramshott. An avenue of trees was planted near the site of the camp as a memorial to Canadian soldiers. Several streets in Liphook are named after places in Canada—Ontario, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary, Alberta, Quebec, Hudson, Huron, etc.

For the Canada Day service and cemetery visit, Princess Anne wore an ivory jacket over a neutral plaid dress. She accessorized with pearl drop earrings, a two-row pearl necklace, and a special, colorful brooch.

Here’s a closer look at the brooch, which was pinned to the lapel of Anne’s jacket for the visit. The piece is a colorful representation of a maple leaf. Enamel appears to have been used to produce the vibrant red, orange, yellow, and green colors of fall leaves in Canada.

The brooch has been in Princess Anne’s collection for some time. Here, she wears the jewel twelve years ago during a visit to Barrie, Ontario, during which she inspected troops of the Grey and Simcoe Foresters. She’s been the regiment’s Colonel-in-Chief since 1977.

She also wore the brooch in November 2014 during another Canadian visit. Above, she wears the jewel as she walks through the National Military Cemetery in Ottawa.

Anne has at least one more maple leaf pin in her collection, too. On Remembrance Day in 2014, she attended a ceremony in Ottawa wearing this smaller metallic maple leaf brooch. Depending on the lighting, the jewel looks either silver- or gold-toned.

Intriguingly, Anne’s jewelry collection also theoretically contains a special maple leaf brooch that dates to the 1950s. In the autumn of 1954, the Queen Mother made a trip to Canada. During a civic luncheon in Ottawa, she received gifts for her grandchildren, Prince Charles (a pair of boxing gloves) and Princess Anne (a golden maple leaf brooch). The brooch was presented to the Queen Mum by little Sheila Hamilton, daughter of a local alderman. Sadly, though there are pictures of the Queen Mother receiving the gift, I haven’t yet been able to source a photograph or illustration of the brooch itself.

Ahead of the luncheon, the Ottawa Journal did publish a fairly detailed description of the brooch: “The maple leaf brooch to be presented to the Queen Mother for Princess Anne will be of red, green and yellow gold, fused to imitate the colors which a maple leaf takes in Autumn. It will be about one and a half inches long.”

Here’s one more picture of Anne wearing one of her maple leaf brooches in Hampshire last week. I’d love to learn more about this brooch, and all of the maple leaf jewels in the princess’s jewelry collection!