IT was a moment beyond wonder and beyond awe, and those who saw it would never forget it.
“Spiritual exaltation radiated from her,” recalled one official who stood near the young Queen as she was anointed before God at the most sacred moment of her Coronation at Westminster Abbey.
“She was really shining,” recalled another onlooker. “It was quite remarkable.”
And on the radio that night, Prime Minister Winston Churchill described, “the gleaming figure whom providence has brought to us in times where the present is hard, and the future veiled”.
It was clear to all that the 27-year-old Queen was the beacon of a new age — not just for the monarchy but for a Britain still suffering from the aftermath of war.
It was time for a new beginning, and this was the Queen’s first gift to her people.
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As Princess Margaret put it years later: “The Coronation was like a phoenix-time. Everything was being raised from the ashes. There was this gorgeous-looking, lovely young lady, and nothing to stop anything getting better and better.”
But the new beginning also held something of an ending. The war had greatly diminished Britain’s place in the world.
Historian Ben Pimlott called the event, “The last great imperial display . . . a magnificent funeral tribute to a world order that was ending”.
But he added: “If the Coronation was a burial service for the Empire, it was also a baptism for a new kind of mass participation in national events, which changed for ever the way royalty would be perceived.”
The Coronation on June 2, 1953, took place more than a year after the death of George VI in order to give plenty of time for mourning — and for the elaborate preparations.
Elizabeth had her own grief to come to terms with, as well as the shock of stepping into her enormous new role. But as always, she was guided by duty.
By February 8, 1952, just 36 hours after she had learned her father had died, Elizabeth gave a simple, moving accession speech at St James’s Palace, having flown back to London from Kenya.
She stated: “By the sudden death of my dear father I am called upon to assume the duties and responsibility of sovereignty. My heart is too full for me to say more to you today than I shall always work, as my father did throughout his reign, to advance the happiness and prosperity of my peoples, spread as they are all the world over.”
At 25, she was the 42nd sovereign of England since William the Conqueror, and only the sixth queen to occupy the throne in her own right.
One of the first questions she faced as monarch came from her assistant, private secretary Martin Charteris, who asked what name she would choose to use as Queen.
It was quite usual to choose a new dynastic name as monarch — her father Bertie, for example, had become George VI.
Elizabeth replied: “My own name, of course — what else?”
After giving her accession speech, the Queen and Prince Philip drove to Sandringham. It was there that the King had been found dead in his bed after a long battle with lung cancer.
His body was brought to London on February 11 and lay in state at Westminster Hall for three days. Some 300,000 people filed past to pay their last respects. And at his funeral at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on February 15, the Queen walked alone immediately behind his coffin, as was her right as the new sovereign.
She wore a simple, modern black dress and veil, a stark contrast to her grandmother Queen Mary, the 84-year-old mother of the King.
Born in the reign of Victoria, Mary wore full Victorian-style mourning clothes including a dramatic peaked veil.
The generational change under way was already very clear.
In the weeks that followed, all minds turned to the coronation — and 14 months of preparation began.
Prince Philip, desperate for a public role, was made chairman of a Coronation Commission set up to make all arrangements.
The people took the event to their hearts, but it was not until spring 1953 that Coronation fever truly began. Buildings were painted red, white and blue, piles of every possible kind of souvenir filled the shops, councils and residents organised street parties and schoolchildren whipped themselves into frenzies of excitement and creation.
In St Keverne, Cornwall, locals were at loggerheads with the Ministry of Food. They had roasted a whole ox for the last Coronation and, despite meat rationing, were determined to do so again.
Eventually, they and 81 other places were given the go-ahead. Meanwhile, the Queen was learning her lines and considering how to bear the weight of St Edward’s Crown when it was placed on her head.
Created for Charles II in 1661, it is made of solid 22-carat gold, adorned with 444 precious and semi-precious stones. It is 12 inches high and weighs 4.9lb or 2.2kg.
So the young sovereign began a training regime, walking around with a bag of flour strapped to her head and bed sheets to mimic her 60ft Coronation train.
Despite the enormity of her role, she remained cool. On the eve of the ceremony, at a lunch for Commonwealth Prime Ministers, a lady-in-waiting said: “You must be nervous Ma’am.” She replied, “Of course I am, but I really do think Aureole will win” — a reference to a horse she had running in the Derby.
Finally, the big day dawned. London was packed, all rentable rooms rented and hotels full. Traffic snarled the streets. June 2 had been chosen after consultation with meteorologists who declared it the best bet for fine weather. In fact, it was cold and wet.
But rain did not dampen the enthusiasm of the 30,000 people who had camped out all night in The Mall to see the procession to and from the Palace. Or among the more upmarket, some of whom paid £4 a ticket (£100 in today’s money) to watch from specially built grandstands.
The Abbey, where every monarch has been crowned since 1066, housed 8,251 guests — kings, queens, princes, princesses, sheiks and maharajahs, as well as scores of political leaders. The irrepressible Queen Salote of Tonga won the hearts of the crowds by travelling in an open carriage despite the rain.
It was freezing in the Abbey. The Countess Huntington later wrote: “Our teeth chattered, we quaked inwardly with cold, we wrapped ourselves in our trains and watched our arms turn blue.”
BBC TV host Richard Dimbleby climbed into his position at 5.30am and would spend the next 17 hours there.
He was later surprised to see the peers’ stalls, “Covered with sandwich wrapping, sandwiches, newspaper, fruit peel, sweets and even a few empty bottles”.
Countess Huntington said a lasting memory would be the “element of pity and sympathy” for the Queen, “For between the inhuman magnificence of the crown and the glittering of the vestment-like robe, her face was very young, very human, very tense”.
Queen Mary, the queen’s grandmother, was not there. She had died at home on March 24 aged 85, having left instructions that if she passed away before the Coronation it should go ahead. Elizabeth travelled from the palace to the Abbey in the Gold State Coach, built in 1762, pulled by eight grey horses.
The ride, the Queen remembered decades later, was “horrible”. She added: “It’s not meant for travelling in at all. Not very comfortable.” To make it cosier, she had six hot water bottles tucked around her.
As she prepared to enter the Abbey, she said to her six Maids of Honour, all daughters of the aristocracy: “Ready girls?”
Then the magic took over. The ritual was first performed in Anglo-Saxon times, in 973, when King Edgar was crowned at Bath.
From the moment the Queen walked up the aisle towards the altar — to the sound of a choir singing the psalm I Was Glad — a spell was cast.
The ceremony began with the Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher announcing: “Sirs, I here present unto you Queen Elizabeth, your undoubted Queen.”
She wore a robe shimmering with seed pearls, crystals and gold and silver thread, and an ermine cape and crimson velvet train.
Boys of Westminster School cried out: “Vivat, Regina Elizabeth, vivat, vivat, vivat!”
After a few minutes in prayer, Elizabeth made her Coronation Oath, swearing to rule her people according to the law, and to maintain the laws of God.
Then she sat on the Coronation Chair, commissioned by Edward I in 1296 to hold the ancient Stone of Scone, also known as the Stone of Destiny.
It was now time for the most sacred part of the ceremony: The anointing with holy oil by the Archbishop. All the Queen’s robes were removed, down to a simple white dress, and she was screened from eyes and cameras by a golden canopy borne by four knights of the garter.
It was a moment that moved her deeply, the moment that, in her eyes, a God-given responsibility was bestowed on her.
“Be thy head anointed with holy oil,” intoned Fisher, “as kings, priests and prophets were anointed . . . so thou be anointed, blessed and consecrated Queen over the peoples, whom the Lord thy God hath given thee to rule and govern.”
A golden robe, the “supertunica”, was then placed over her dress, and while still on the Coronation Chair she was presented with regalia including the orb and sceptres.
Finally, St Edward’s Crown was placed on her head and the congregation called out three times: “God save the Queen!”
After this came the homage from peers and the Church — and the first person to kneel and pledge his loyalty was Prince Philip.
Kissing her on the cheek, he promised to be: “Your liege-man of life and limb and of earthly worship; and faith and truth I will bear unto you, to live and die, against all manner of folks”.
Among the guests at the Abbey was four-year-old Prince Charles, who behaved impeccably throughout the nearly three-hour ceremony. He had been given a special, hand-painted invitation by his mother. Princess Anne, at just shy of three, had been deemed too young to attend.
Finally, it was all over and Her Majesty left the Abbey wearing the lighter Imperial State Crown, which she jokingly called, “My going-away hat”.
Nearly 30,000 people took part in the procession back to Buckingham Palace, which had been planned over four miles to allow as many as possible to watch — including 3,600 Royal Navy personnel, 16,100 from the Army, 7,000 from the RAF and 2,000 from the Commonwealth.
The Queen and her family greeted cheering crowds from the balcony and then again at 9.45pm, when a huge floodlight show cascaded down the Mall to Admiralty Arch and Trafalgar Square.
Outside London, a nation partied. Many gatherings featured the new dish of Coronation chicken, invented for the Queen to enjoy at a banquet, and whose recipe had already been published across the country.
Meanwhile, around the world, dignitaries in Commonwealth countries planted acorns shipped from Windsor Great Park to grow “Coronation oaks” in parks and schools.
There were also toasts for the other big news coming through that day: That Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay had reached the summit of Mount Everest.
There had never been anything like it. As historian C.V Wedgwood said, no sovereign “Was ever crowned more fully in the presence of the people”.
And that night Churchill said in his speech: “We have had a day which the oldest are proud to have lived to see and the youngest will remember all their lives.”
By Brian Hoey and Jon Moorhead.
IT would be unthinkable today – the Coronation was NOT going to be shown live on television.
Even in the largely TV-free days of 1952, the decision by the organising commission caused an outcry. Initial broadcast plans scheduled live coverage for the procession only, not the service itself.
That would be edited, with excerpts shown later in the day.
But millions felt that the blackout was robbing them of a chance to witness history. The traditionalists, including PM Winston Churchill, much of the Cabinet and the Palace old guard, were horrified at the idea of a live broadcast, considering TV “vulgar” and believing the mystique of royalty must be preserved.
Churchill thundered against the notion of “modern mechanical arrangements” in Westminster Abbey. He told the House of Commons: “It would be unfitting that the ceremony . . . be presented as if it were a theatrical performance.”
Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher said a live broadcast would be, “an intolerable strain on the Queen and everyone else”. Even the Queen herself was reluctant, being somewhat suspicious of TV. There was a genuine fear that any errors would be embarrassingly laid bare to the world.
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Then the mood began to change. Modernisers led by Prince Philip, chairman of the Coronation Commission, felt it was vital that the Queen’s subjects should see the whole proceedings.
As protests continued – in newspapers and from MPs bombarded by their constituents – and alongside heavy lobbying from the BBC, Her Majesty changed her mind. Everything would be broadcast live, except the most sacred part of the service, the consecration, when the Queen is anointed with holy oil and would be shielded by a canopy.
The BBC unleashed its biggest outside broadcast, with an unprecedented 22 cameras, including five in the Abbey.
Then began a search for the smallest cameramen, who would be more “inconspicuous”. Crew were told to wear stone-coloured shirts to blend into the background.
The lead commentator was Richard Dimbleby. In Canada in 1939, as the first BBC reporter on a royal tour, he had sat up into the night with George VI, playing piano and discussing Hitler. Seven other BBC correspondents included Brian Johnston, legendary cricket commentator in the making.
Dimbleby, an ardent royalist, spent six months preparing, researching every aspect in minutest detail. The broadcast lasted just over seven hours, from 10.15am to 5.20pm.
Cameramen crammed into tight spots for the entire day. One, tasked with getting the first shot of the Queen in her crown, had to perch cross-legged on a platform for 12 hours. He was provided with a BBC lunch, including a half-bottle of wine.
More than 27million people – well over half the country – tuned in. In the US, there were a further 85million viewers. It was fed live to Germany, Holland and France, and in South Africa, 69 per cent of the English-speaking population listened in. Film reels of the event were scrambled to Canada on an RAF Canberra bomber.
The Coronation was a watershed moment for TV in Britain – the nation fell in love with the box.
On average, 17 people crowded around each home set to witness the event. Others gathered in pubs and at special screenings in cinemas.
Sales and rentals of 12in black-and-white sets rocketed. Licence holders increased from 1.5million to 3million, despite only six hours of daily programming and large areas of the country that could not get a signal.
It was the first moment a TV audience had outnumbered radio listeners – a historic start to the new Elizabethan Age.
