1897 jubilee gift for children
AS the nation prepares for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, a unique event in our history, Bugle reader Alan Trumper of Gornal has contacted the Bugle with a souvenir from an earlier celebration.
His family still has the copy of the New Testament that was presented to Harry Wassall for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Harry was the father of Alan’s wife Margaret.
The book is the standard version of the New Testament published by the Cambridge University Press in 1881 but it has a special cover and includes Queen Victoria’s official photograph for her Diamond Jubilee. There is also a bookplate stating that the book was a gift from the town of Dudley.
Harry was just a lad at the time, and all schoolchildren in the borough were given a New Testament, as part of the official celebrations, by the borough council.
Harry went on to serve throughout the First World War but Alan tell us that, like so many who fought in that war, he would never speak of his experiences in the trenches.
Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was officially celebrated on June 22, 1897 – 60 years after she came to the throne on June 20, 1837.
The main event of the jubilee was a grand procession through the streets of London, with the Queen riding in carriage with her daughter, Princess Christian of Schleswig-holstein, and her daughter-in-law, the Princess of Wales. They were conducted to St Paul’s Cathedral for a thanksgiving service, attended by 11 colonial prime ministers.
Victoria, because of her arthritis, was unable to leave her carriage and mount the steps to the cathedral, so she remained outside for the short service. She later wrote: “No-one ever, I believe, has met with such an ovation as was given to me, passing through those six miles of streets. The crowds were quite indescribable.”