It was a day hailed the "proudest" Bendigo had ever known.

For 80 glorious minutes in 1954, a recently crowned Queen Elizabeth II swept through the city.

The Bendigo Advertiser devoted its entire front page to Her Majesty's visit - a rarity for what was then a broadsheet accustomed to running multiple local national and international stories on its most important page.

The main picture showed 9000 children packed onto what had just been renamed the Queen Elizabeth Oval, but the parade route was much longer.

Some newspapers reported 40,000 people had turned up, others put it close to 100,000.

People came from as far away as Swan Hill to get a glimpse of Queen Elizabeth, nine months after her coronation.

Four girls had left home at 4.15am to get a front row seat to the festivities - the Queen did not arrive in town until 4.15pm.

A throng of journalists followed Her Majesty on the tour.

Many were the "women reporters" - the cringeworthy name given to the practice of limiting many female reporters to pages of "ladies' interests".

Their copy captures something of the way Queen Elizabeth was already seen by men and women, and by people from all walks of life.

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"Hip-hip-horray, the Queen's on her way", one banner in Bendigo said, in a greeting The Herald's reporter Lois Lathlean said summed up what everyone had felt since her Australian trip had begun.

Queen Elizabeth presided in an era when women's worlds would change forever.

A female British prime minister would pay tribute to her outside Number 10 Downing Street when news broke of her death.

In 1954, a 19-year-old woman took on the high pressure job of receiving the Queen in front of dignitaries, the general public and the press.

Ruth Clayton, wife of the then mayor Frederick Clayton, performed that duty in her role as mayoress of Bendigo.

She did it with "calm and assurance", The Age reported.

Mrs Clayton was one young lady thrust into the limelight to meet another, at the dawn of a new era.

Earlier

AT 4.05PM on March 5, 1954 Queen Elizabeth arrived in Bendigo.

Crowds of nearly 100,000 excited subjects lined the streets to get a glimpse of the young monarch, in what the Bendigo Advertiser hailed the proudest, supremest moment this city has known.

It was the first tour to Australia by Queen Elizabeth II, just nine months after her coronation, and covered a large number of cities across the country over a two-month period.

As part of her exhausting itinerary the young queen, accompanied by her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, swept through Benalla, Shepparton, Echuca, Bendigo, Rochester, Castlemaine and Maryborough all in one day.

The Bendigo Advertiser detailed the 80 momentous minutes of her visit to the city from the moment she stepped out of the Bendigo Railway Station hall to be met by thousands.

Mayor Cr. F. Clayton escorted the Queen to the car after an official welcome.

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As part of her visit she spent 25 minutes at the Upper Reserve, which following her visit was renamed the Queen Elizabeth Oval.

Legacy ward Jean Fraser, 11, the daughter of an airman killed in action, gave the Queen a bouquet of flowers, while 9000 children cheered and waved their flags.

She also received a casket containing two gleaming specimens of gold as a gift from the city.

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