Her Majesty

The coronation of the young Queen heralded a new era, with the ceremony being broadcast on television to millions of viewers, writes Kerry Parnell

It was a day she hadn’t expected to arrive so soon, but on June 2, 1953, the 27-year-old princess was crowned Queen Elizabeth II. The rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of the thousands of wellwishers lining the streets once more to Westminster Abbey, cheering at the Gold State Coach taking Elizabeth to her destiny. Even the coverage of the coronation embodied the changing times – cameras were allowed inside the Abbey and the ceremony was broadcast live on TV to 27 million people, for the first time, exceeding the radio audience. People who didn’t have TV sets gathered at friends’ houses, in pubs and cinemas and this event did more than any other to herald in the new era of television. The coronation was celebrated all over the world. “As a four-year-old at the time in Sydney, I can remember days of fabulous fireworks and harbour fire boats spraying coloured water high into the air. It was my first memory,” Graham Ireland told the BBC.

The Queen and Prince Philip were the embodiment of a new start after the war – a glamorous young Queen with her handsome war-hero husband and two young children. There was “a sense of rebirth – what Margaret called ‘a phoenix time’,” wrote biographer Matthew Dennison.

Once again, the Queen chose Norman Hartnell to create her coronation gown – it, even more than her wedding dress, embodied the fairytale the public so wanted her coronation and reign to be. The dress, a lavish white duchess satin gown, covered in gold and silver embroidered emblems of the dominions, had a corset bodice and wide skirt festooned with beads, diamantes and pearls. Hartnell later said: “Her Majesty had told me graciously that the dress was triumphant. To me, it seems to take on the order of a holy vestment – it both stood out and blended with that lovely honey-coloured carpet, and mingled sympathetically with the cloth upon the altar.”

It was fitting the gown was similar to the Queen’s wedding dress, because in the space of six years, the Queen had in effect been married twice – once to Philip and, secondly, to the nation and the Commonwealth.

Her Majesty had told me graciously that the dress was triumphant

FASHION DESIGNER NORMAN HARTNELL

Prince Philip smiles as the Queen, in the Imperial State Crown and carrying the Orb and Sceptre, returns to Buckingham Palace after her coronation. The Queen at her coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey (left); and with Philip, the Queen Mother, her (above) sister Margaret and her children Anne, and other members of the Charles and extended royal family after the ceremony.

The Queen and Philip at Buckingham Palace after her coronation; and (left) in her coronation gown by royal designer Norman Hartnell.

The Queen has help alighting from her royal coach next to Prince Philip. Pictures: Getty Images, AFP

The Queen leaves Westminster Abbey after her coronation in the Gold State Coach.