Heirloom Diamonds and Pearls for Queen Camilla in Canberra

The royal tour of Australia is in full swing, and Queen Camilla brought out an heirloom brooch in Canberra with links to a beloved royal matriarch and a family dedicated to public service.

The events in Canberra on Monday followed up a Sunday church service appearance by King Charles and Queen Camilla at St. Thomas’ Anglican Church in North Sydney. It was a brooch-less event, with Camilla wearing one of her favorite pearl choker necklaces instead.

We were back in brooch business on Monday, however, when the King and Queen arrived in Canberra. They were greeted at the airport by a welcoming committee, including a Ngunnawal Elder, Aunty Serena Williams, who performed a traditional smoking ceremony.

The royal couple headed to Parliament House, where another ceremonial welcome awaited. (Also a brief protest moment.) Charles became the second Australian monarch to visit Parliament House during his reign, after his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who made her first visit during her coronation tour 70 years ago. Charles is wearing the insignia of the Order of Australia here.

The King and Queen also made a visit to the Australian War Memorial, where they viewed the Wall of Remembrance.

For the first engagements in Canberra, Queen Camilla wore a white coat dress from her wardrobe archives, paired with a coordinating bag and spectator pumps.

With the outfit, she wore diamond and pearl jewelry, including a special royal heirloom: the Courtauld Thomson Scallop-Shell Brooch.

The brooch is shaped like a diamond shell, with cascading diamond water drops, holding a single large pearl. The jewel was made in 1919 in London by the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Co., Ltd. and designed in part by Sir Courtauld Thomson. The son of the inventor of the refillable fountain pen, Thomson served as Commissioner for the Red Cross during the First World War. During World War II, he offered his country home, Dorneywood, in Buckinghamshire to be used as a hostel for officers in the Allied Air Forces. Later, he and his sisters donated the home to the National Trust for the use of senior members of the government.

Thomson gave the brooch to his sister, the writer Winifred Hope Thomson, who bequeathed it in 1944 to Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother). In her will, quoted by Sir Hugh Roberts in his landmark book on the jewels of Elizabeth II, Thomson noted that she had decided to leave the brooch to the Queen “as a mark of respect and profound admiration,” adding that she hoped that the jewel would “be passed on as a personal possession from Queen to Queen of England.”

The Queen Mother kept the brooch in her jewelry collection for the next six decades. In August 2000, she wore it for a very important milestone: a parade celebrating her 100th birthday.

After the Queen Mother’s passing in 2002, the brooch was inherited by her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. She also loved the brooch and wore it very often. Above, she is pictured wearing the brooch for the wedding of her eldest granddaughter, Zara Phillips Tindall, in Edinburgh in the summer of 2011.

Just as Winifed Hope Thomson had intended, the brooch has continued to be passed from monarch to monarch to be worn by the Queen of the United Kingdom. Queen Camilla made her first public appearance in the brooch at Royal Ascot in June 2023, a few weeks after the coronation.

Camilla also wore the brooch during the royal couple’s state visit to Nigeria in October 2023, almost exactly a year ago.

Camilla’s most memorable appearance in the brooch, perhaps, came during the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy in June 2024. The brooch handily nodded to so many of the aspects of the commemorations, from the maritime design of the jewel, echoing the amphibious landing of the Allied troops on the French beaches, to the Queen Mother’s pivotal role in bolstering public morale during the war. The fact that the brooch arrived in the royal vaults in 1944 was a sentimental echo as well.

Here’s another view of Camilla wearing the brooch on Monday in Canberra. You’ll note that she chose to repeat her entire D-Day commemoration ensemble, except for the hat and her poppy pin, for the early engagements in the Australian capital.

Later in the day, Camilla changed into a blue and white printed dress for additional stops in Canberra, including a visit to the National Botanic Gardens and discussions with groups supporting those affected by domestic violence and natural disasters. We didn’t see another brooch with this ensemble, but thanks to a momentary breeze, we did get a very good view of Camilla’s favorite earrings, which feature diamond floral clips and pearl drops.

Some scheduling notes: Over the next few days, there are some royal current events that may bring us some interesting jewelry. Along with the continuing royal tour in Australia, Scandinavian royals are heading to Berlin for the the 25th anniversary of the Nordic Embassies there. King Frederik and Queen Mary are already there, and Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Daniel, Crown Prince Haakon, and Crown Princess Mette-Marit are due to join them soon. Instead of regularly scheduled posts for part of the week, I’m planning to cover some of these bejeweled moments after they happen, so plan to check in here often for sparkling updates!