Royalty - Coronation of King George VI - Peers paying homage - Valentines RP

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• Picture / Image:  'Peers Paying Homage to the King' Coronation of King George VI, Westminster Abbey, 1937 - real photo
• Publisher:  Valentines
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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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The coronation of George VI and his wife Elizabeth as king and queen of the British Empire and Commonwealth took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on 12 May 1937. George ascended the throne upon the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII, on 11 December 1936, three days before his 41st birthday. Edward's coronation had been planned for 12 May 1937 and it was decided to continue with his brother and sister-in-law's coronation on the same date.

Although the music included a range of new anthems and the ceremony underwent some alterations to include the dominions, it remained a largely conservative affair and followed closely to the ceremonial of King George V's Coronation in 1911. The ceremony began with the anointing of the King, symbolising his spiritual entry into kingship, and then his crowning and inthronization, representing his assumption of his temporal powers and responsibilities. The peers of the realm then paid homage to the King before a shorter and simpler ceremony was conducted for the Queen's coronation. The return procession to Buckingham Palace was over six miles in length, making it the longest coronation procession at that time; crowds of people lined the streets to watch it, over thirty-two thousand soldiers took part and twenty thousand police officers lined the route. The coronation was commemorated by the issuing of official medals, coinage and stamps, by military parades across the Empire and by numerous unofficial celebrations, including street parties and the production of memorabilia.

The event was designed to be not only a sacred anointing and formal crowning, but also a public spectacle, which was also planned as a display of the British Empire. May 1937 included a programme of Royal events lasting nearly the entire month to commemorate and mark the occasion. In the lead up to the Coronation, guests from across the Empire and around the world assembled on Buckingham Palace and official receptions were held to welcome them; amongst those attending were Indian princes and, for the first time, native African royalty. For the event itself, the Prime Ministers of each dominion took part in the procession to the Abbey, while representatives of nearly every country attended. Contingents from most colonies and each dominion participated in the return procession through London's streets.

The media played an important part in broadcasting this show of pageantry and imperialism to the Empire, which has marked George and Elizabeth's coronation as an important event in the history of television, being the world's first major outside broadcast. It was also the first coronation to be filmed, as well as the first to be broadcast on radio.

In January 1936, King George V died and his eldest son, Edward, Prince of Wales, succeeded him as King-Emperor of the British Empire under the regnal name Edward VIII. He was unmarried at that time, but the American socialite, Wallis Simpson, had accompanied him on numerous social occasions in years lead up to 1936; she was married to the shipping executive Ernest Aldrich Simpson and had previously been divorced. The relationship had not been reported in the British press, but was receiving considerable media attention in the United States; it was controversial due to her being divorced, a position considered untenable with the King's position as the nominal head of the Church of England, which did not recognise divorce. In October 1936, Simpson filed for divorce a second time and the King informed the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, that he intended to propose to her. Baldwin and several leading imperial administrators advised the King that popular opinion in the dominions was hostile to the potential marriage; at home, the King also faced opposition from the Church of England and factions in Parliament. The widespread unwillingness to accept Simpson as the King's consort, and Edward's refusal to give her up, led to his abdication in December 1936.^[1]

He was succeeded by his next younger brother, Albert, Duke of York, who chose the regnal name of George VI, in honour of his father. George was married to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the daughter of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.

Although the reign of the British monarch begins on their succession to the throne, the Coronation service marks their formal crowning. In 1937, the ceremony was organised by a Coronation Committee, established by the Privy Council and chaired by the Lord President of the Council, a political appointment; its central component, the Executive Committee, was chaired by Bernard Fitzalan-Howard, 16th Duke of Norfolk, who inherited the office of Earl Marshal, which carried with it, by convention, the responsibility for the organisation and coordination of the Coronation ceremony.^[2][3]

The Coronation Committee had been delayed when it met for the first time on 24 June 1936; Ramsay MacDonald, the Lord President of the Council, met with the Duke of Norfolk to discuss the proceedings; MacDonald would chair the Coronation Committee as a whole, and the Duke would chair the Executive Committee. While the Edward VIII was away on cruising the on the Nahlin with Wallis Simpson, his brother, Albert, Duke of York (the future George VI) sat in his place on the committees.^[2] Edward VIII had initially been reluctant to have a coronation at all (asking the Archbishop of Canterbury whether it could be dispensed with), but conceded that a shorter service would be acceptable; his desire for a lower-key event led to the planned abandonment of the royal procession through London the following day, the thanks-giving service at St Paul's Cathedral and the dinner with London dignitaries.^[4]

However, after the abdication of Edward VIII, the authorities simply assumed it had been planned so far for George VI and continued where they left off;^[5] according to Sir Roy Strong, at the next meeting after the abdication ""no reference was made at all to the change of sovereign, everything immediately being assumed to have been done for the new king.""^[6] After the abdication, though, many of the traditional elements, which Edward VIII cared less for, were restored, with Queen Mary taking an interest in the design of furniture and insisting on a more traditional appearance; indeed, much of the service and the furnishings were to closely resemble that of the 1911 Coronation of George V.^[7]

Although the Executive Committee was at the direction of the Earl Marshal, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, was also a driving force behind the preparations for the 1937 coronation, and many of the decisions in respect to the order of service were made by or with him. Owing to his office, he was a member of both the Executive Committee and the Coronation Committee which dealt with the detail, and, as such he attended all of the rehearsals. He tended to take a leading role in the planning process, becoming a key mediator when queries arose, and dealing with questions over how the service should be broadcast by the media.^[8] Lang also spoke to the nation through the BBC services in the run up to Coronation day; he saw the coronation as an opportunity for the spiritual renewal of the nation and he organised a campaign of evangelism called ""Recall to Religion"" which he launched on 27 December 1936 with an address on BBC radio. He was also keen to ensure that the King and Queen understood the religious nuances of the service, and held two meetings with the couple beforehand.^[9]

The Archbishop met with the King and Queen on the evening before their coronation, running through the ceremony and explaining the most important parts. He was also concerned about King George's stutter and discussed the matter with Lord Dawson of Penn and Lord Wigram; Lionel Logue was then the King's speech therapist and the Archbishop discussed replacing him, but decided to monitor the King's improvement and Logue remained his therapist. As it happened, the King delivered his speech without stuttering.^[9]

The coronation cost £454,000, which was more than three times the cost of the 1911 ceremony.^[10] This cost included the construction of the annexe, which was built as a temporary add-on at the entrance of the Abbey for each coronation. In previous years, it had taken the form of an imitation Gothic entrance, but, as a remnant of Edward VIII's modernising attitude, it was now an art-deco design, adorned with stylised heraldic beasts and tapestries belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch.^[11] For each coronation, special seating was also constructed to incorporate the large number of guests; 1937 was the first year to make use of metal structures to support the seats, in the form of tubular steel. 400 tons were used alongside 72,000 cubic feet of wood, with 400 men working on the construction. The theatre and sacrarium were also lowered to floor level for the first time since the restoration.^[12]

In 1911, standards of the dominions, autonomous communities of the British Empire, were borne during the procession, but, after the 1931 Statute of Westminster, which established legislative equality between the dominions and the United Kingdom, the actual service and coronation rite needed to be updated to reflect this change in political power within the Empire. Furthermore, the fact that the service was an Anglican rite excluded other faiths and denominations; in 1937, several dominions had premiers who were Catholic and, by that time, laws which previously excluded people from public office on religious grounds had been repealed.^[13] The Coronation Committee altered the rite to reflect this change; the King now swore to maintain ""the Protestant Reformed Religion only as established by law in the United Kingdom.""^[13] During Edward VIII's reign, a committee was established and chaired by the Duke of York to investigate how colonial representatives might be included within the ceremony, but the Committee failed to implement any changes, except to the King's oath, wherein he promised to govern the peoples of his new dominions specifically. Although 1937 saw an increase in the colonial contingents partaking in the procession, and an official lunch in Westminster Hall was given to Parliamentary representatives of Commonwealth states for the first time, the service itself was barely altered to reflect the new status of the dominions.^[14]

The ceremony was attended by the King and Queen's daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, as well as by the King's mother, the dowager Queen Mary, making it the first British coronation attended by an already crowned queen.^[5] Members of the extended Royal Family attended and all peers and Members of Parliament were invited. Additionally, leading colonial administrators, ambassadors, Indian Princes and Premiers of the Dominions featured on the Guest list.^[15] Working-class representatives included representatives of the trade unions and co-operative societies,^[16] while native Africans were allowed to attend for the first time.^[17]

The Abbey's doors were closed to guests at 08:30 on the morning of the coronation. The official record of the ceremonial, published in the London Gazette describes the seating plan: ""The Lords Spiritual were seated on the North side of the Area, or Sacrarium, the Lords Temporal in the South Transept, and the Dowager Peeresses and Peeresses in the North Transept.""^[18]

^...

Inthronization and homage to the king

The Archbishop presented the Bible to the King and the King returned it to him, who gave it to the Dean, who placed it on the Alter. The King handed the glove over to the Lord Chamberlain of the Household and the Sceptre with the Cross to the Lord of the Manor of Worksop. The Benediction followed and then the King moved over to the other throne, accompanied by the Bishops of Bath and Wells and Durham, the Great Officers of State, the Lords carrying the swords and the Lords who had carried the regalia. The Archbishop knelt and paid homage to the King; the Archbishop of York did so next, followed by each of the Bishops. The Dukes of the Blood Royal then did homage, followed by the Lords Temporal (Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Viscounts, Barons);^[32] six anthems were sung by the Choir during the homage: ""O come ye servants of the Lord"", ""Hear my prayer, O Lord"", ""O clap your hands together, all ye people"", ""All the ends of the world shall remember themselves"", ""O praise God in His holiness"" and ""Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace"".^[33]

type=real photographic (rp)

subject=coronation

period=inter-war (1918-39)

postage condition=unposted

number of items=single

size=standard (140x89 mm)

county/ country=london