Vice Governor Pichet presided over the ceremony, held at the Pluk Panya Municipal School in Phuket’s Old Town where a monument to Rama VI is located.
Officials from various government offices and agencies took part is the event as well as students and members of general public.
Government officers were to wear their full dress white uniforms at the ceremony. Other attendees were pink in honour of the colour for the day of the monarch’s birth.
Thai people celebrate the life and reign of King Vajiravudh on the anniversary of his death in 1925. Rama VI ruled during the First World War and the years after and was the sixth king of the Chakri Dynasty.
King Vajiravudh is recognised for his great input into Thai literature as he was not only a talented author of modern novels, stories, poems, and plays, but also translated into Thai many English and French masterpieces including Shakespeare and Agatha Christie. Rama VI was well-versed in Sanskrit and Hindu literature, including the Ramayana.
Rama VI continued his father’s, King Rama V’s, path of reforms to modernise the nation. King Vajiravudh founded Chulalongkorn University, the first university in Siam, named in honor of his father. He also founded the Dusit Thani micronation project as an experimental sandbox for democracy development.
Rama VI organised Siam’s defence and established military academies as well as introduced a new armed forces rank of general. Thai students know King Vajiravudh as the Father of Thai Scouting. King Rama VI brought the idea of Scouting from Great Britain where he studied and made Siam one of the first countries to create a Scout Corps.