Elizabeth II's coronation
Queen Elizabeth II was crowned on June 2, 1953, at Westminster Abbey, following her succession to the throne after the death of her father, King George VI. The coronation was a significant event, meticulously planned with attention to details such as guest invitations, seating arrangements for over 7,000 attendees, and decorations throughout London. Elizabeth arrived in a gilded coach, wearing a striking white satin gown adorned with symbols representing the Commonwealth. The ceremony, rooted in traditions dating back to 973, included the queen taking an oath, being anointed with holy oil, and receiving the St. Edward's crown.
What set this coronation apart was its transformation into a public spectacle; it was the first to be televised, allowing millions in Britain and North America to witness the event. The broadcast generated immense interest, with schools closing so students could watch. The pageantry and media coverage cultivated a lasting fascination with the British monarchy, particularly in North America, reflecting the royal family's significant cultural impact during that era.
Elizabeth II's coronation
The Event Formal crowning of Elizabeth II as queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Date June 2, 1953
Place Westminster Abbey, London, England
The coronation festivities signaled Great Britain’s emergence from the dark days of World War II and acknowledged the survival of the British crown of a thousand years. The magnificent and glittering ceremony with its ancient rituals gave the entire world reasons to celebrate.
Princess Elizabeth succeeded to the throne at the death of her father, King George VI , on February 6, 1952. Preparations for her formal coronation ceremony immediately began. Complicated and difficult decisions were made about the invitation list, precedence of visiting dignitaries and other protocol issues, participants, music, and other minutiae of the ceremony. At London’s Westminster Abbey, an annex was built, more than two thousand square yards of carpet were laid, and seating for seven thousand people was constructed. Stands for an additional 100,000 people were built along the royal route. London was refurbished from its gloomy wartime state and decorated with new paint, flags, flowers, banners, arches, and other street decorations.
Elizabeth herself, attired in a white satin gown embroidered with symbols of the Commonwealth nations and encrusted with precious and semi-precious stones, traveled to the abbey in a gilded coach. The roots of the coronation service went back to the coronation of King Edgar in the year 973 but had been altered and modified by successive generations. The ceremony had four major phases. First, the queen was accepted by the people in the abbey, a relict of ancient practice of election of monarchs. She then took the oath to govern her peoples according to their laws and to preserve the state religion. Next, as part of the communion service, the queen was anointed with the holy oil that represented divine confirmation of the people’s choice and was invested with the emblems of sovereignty. The archbishop of Canterbury then placed the St. Edward’s crown on the queen. Finally, she was enthroned and received the homage of her subjects. Carrying the scepter with the cross and the orb, the queen, wearing the lighter imperial state crown and the purple velvet imperial robe of state for the first time, led the distinguished assembly from the abbey.
The return procession to Buckingham Palace included more than ten thousand soldiers and the Royal Canadian Mounties, who received a special cheer from the crowd that had been standing in the intermittent rain for hours. The queen and her family repeatedly appeared during the evening on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to great roars of approval from the gathered crowd.
Impact
While past coronations had been essentially private observations, witnessed by the relatively small groups of people who could fit inside Westminster Abbey, Elizabeth’s coronation was very much a public event. Initially, media coverage of the ceremony was to be limited to print, radio, and cinema; however, the queen reversed the decision and permitted the ceremony to be broadcast on television as well. Still photos of the event were transmitted in two-minute intervals over new transatlantic cables to appear on television screens in North America within seven minutes. Audiences in Great Britain, France, Holland, and Germany viewed the events live while the Royal Air Force flew tapes of the ceremony to Canada and the United States that later were viewed on television by eighty-five million North Americans.
Television broadcasts in Canada and the United States showed the ceremony in color, and the scope of the audiences in both countries indicated the widespread fascination both with the pageantry itself and with the immediacy of television. Many North American schools were closed so that students could observe and report on the historic event. In all, the intense media coverage of the royal family and the events preceding the coronation as well as the ceremony itself generated a deep fascination with the British crown among North Americans that continued to grow in the following decades.
Bibliography
Barker, Brian. When the Queen Was Crowned. New York: David McKay, 1976. A participant’s in-depth description of the planning for the coronation ceremony and the surrounding events.
McLeish, Kenneth, and Valerie McLeish. Long to Reign Over Us: Memories of Coronation Day and of Life in the 1950’s. Leicester, England: G. B: Charnwood, 1993. Collection of individuals’ memories of the events and of the decade.