Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip came to Cambridge in 1973

His brother, the Duke of York, along with the Duchess of York, was welcomed to Waterloo County even before the Governor General visited. The Duke of York came to Berlin (later Kitchener) on October 12, 1901, where a crowd estimated to be nearly 10,000 strong, greeted them.

“When the Royal guests stepped on the train,” noted The Record of October 12, 1901, the 29th Regimental Band struck up God Save the King, the children and grown people joining in. Its equal has never been heard in Berlin before.”

At the time, Berlin had a population of 11,000, and one solitary policeman, who was seldom called upon to act in his official capacity.

Forty-one years earlier the Duke’s father, the Prince of Wales—later King Edward—visited Waterloo County and Berlin during his 1860 tour. A rug that was used on the train platform for his visit was stored until the 1901 visit by the Duke, when it was used a second time.

Less than 20 years after his Galt visit following the Great War, Edward VIII, by then King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, would abdicate the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson in 1936—Simpson’s husband had been a Canadian—thereby thrusting his younger brother, George, onto the throne and placing Princess Elizabeth as heir to the throne.

Years later, when Queen Elizabeth's parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited Kitchener on June 6, 1939, their daughter, the future Monarch, was 13. They were greeted by huge throngs of people, who cheered the royal couple wildly. Galt’s Bob Green, along with hundreds of other Galt schoolchildren, took the train to Kitchener that day to see them. 

Several hundred schoolchildren from Galt travelled by train to Kitchener to see Their Majesties. Tired and dizzy from the sun and heat, the children, like the adults who had arrived early, waited in the hot sun for two hours to see the Monarchs. “Some of us fainted,” said Green, “and cold compresses appeared.”

A Waterloo Brownie collapsed within a few feet of the royal platform. Senior officers bathed her head and face with cool water. After lying on the ground for a few minutes in the shade, she recovered in time to join in the cheers for Their Majesties. Had the schoolchildren not arrived early to stake out their claim on real estate, wrote Clifford Cunningham, a Record reporter, "they would have been crushed and trampled upon."

All around was a sea of humanity; people brought chairs, camp stools and orange crates to sit and stand upon in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the royals. 

First among the youngsters to be in position along the rails to see Their Majesties were the students from Galt; they had arrived at 10:30 a.m. on their special train, and were joined later by others from outlying parts of the county and still later, by the Kitchener school children.

“I am sorry that our visit is so short,” said the King to Kitchener mayor George W. Gordon. Departing Kitchener that day, he shook hands with the mayor, saying simply: “Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for this splendid welcome.”

At Baden there were 1500 people massed over nearly three-quarters of a mile of train tracks, while at Breslau nearly 5,000 people came out to see Their Majesties. All told, estimates of the crowd that had seen Their Majesties neared 125,000 people.

In most places along the royal route, people gathered early, some arriving at 4 or 5 a.m., more than nine hours before the train was scheduled to arrive at 2:15 p.m. That was about when the first people began arriving at Cambridge’s Riverside Park in 1973 to see the royal couple. 

But there was some controversy surrounding the route the Queen took to reach Riverside Park. The scheduled route took her from Breslau down the Fountain Street hill and past a house where one of Preston’s eccentrics lived. The house was considered somewhat of an eyesore, especially for a visiting Queen, and the city arranged to clean it up.