An Observance for Commonwealth Day 2013
11th March 2013 at 3:15 pm
His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, attended the annual Commonwealth Day Observance at Westminster Abbey on Monday, 11th March 2013 at 3.15pm.
Sir Richard Branson, entrepreneur and philanthropist, gave the Address. There was music form the award-winning soul singer Beverley Knight, and indie-rock band The Noisettes. The children's poet, John Agard, read a poem which had been specially commissioned for the service.
In April 1949, Heads of State from Australia, Britain, Ceylon, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and the Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs met in London and deliberated over six days. The outcome was the Declaration of London which gave birth to the modern Commonwealth. The origins of the Commonwealth stretch back much further than sixty years, but 1949 marks the pivotal point at which the Commonwealth's colonial legacy was positively transformed into a partnership based on equality, choice, and consensus. The organisation decided at a meeting in Canberra in 1976 that Commonwealth Day would be celebrated on the second Monday in March each year.
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Abbey news: Duke of Edinburgh attends Commonwealth Observance