Proud county celebrates the Coronation
‘THE KING Dead’ shouted the bold headline from the Yorkshire Evening Post front page on Wednesday February 6, 1952.
The whole nation and empire were stunned by the news which came from Sandringham at 10.45am earlier that day. George VI had been hare-shooting at Sandringham on the previous day and was said to appear in good health but passed away quietly in his sleep. The King was 57 and in the sixteenth year of his reign since his coronation on May 12, 1937. He had taken over from brother Edward VIII following the earlier abdication crisis. George VI was seen in Yorkshire a number of times during his reign, the last time being in September, 1948 when he broke his journey from Balmoral to London to see the St Leger run at Doncaster.
His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, born in April 1926, succeeded to the throne. Away in Kenya, she broke down and wept when her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, gave the news to her after a radio-telephone call had been received from Sandringham. This was, reportedly, the first time a British Sovereign had acceded to the throne while abroad in the Commonwealth. On the same day, the elaborate plans for the Royal tour were abandoned. Hurrying back to London, she was quickly proclaimed Sovereign at a meeting of the Privy council at St James’ Palace.
Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation was planned for June 2, 1953 in Westminster Abbey. During February of that year, the Leeds Coronation Committee, with the Lord Mayor (Ald. Frank
Burnley) as chairman announced a number of proposals for the event: the Leeds water towers
- at Moortown, Cookridge and Middleton - were to become ‘umbrellas’ of coloured lights for the city’s celebrations; City Square was to be lit up; and an interleague cricket match was to be held at Headingley on Coronation day. It was also announced that the committee had commissioned Francis Mumby, lecturer in music at Leeds University, to compose an overture to be included in a concert arranged for a week after Coronation Day.
On June 2, Elizabeth II smiled happily as the gold coach glided through a vast sea of cheers on the way to Westminster Abbey. She made her replies during the moving ceremony in a strong, clear voice. Then, the solemn event moved dramatically to its climax – The Crowning. The Queen was composed and extremely at ease, sitting in King Edward’s chair, as the archbishop placed on her head the Crown of St Edward. Voices of the vast congregation at once shouted: ‘God Save the Queen’. Trumpeters sounded a triumphant fanfare, bells rang and the guns at the Tower boomed out in salute. Much of the event was televised for the first time.
Around Yorkshire, the Coronation festivities were plentiful and wide-ranging albeit on a grey cold day. At Harrogate a cavalcade stretching for about a mile and including a tableau of national and local life passed through the brightly dressed streets. Amongst the parade were 500 Service and youth personnel, and four bands including the Royal Artillery, the drums and pipes of ‘The Jocks’ and the Harrogate Silver Prize band. Five hundred old people had tea in the Royal Hall, and as many again enjoyed Coronation teas, delivered to their homes. Eight thousand schoolchildren were given 1s 6d (121/2 p) vouchers for free ice-cream or rides on the roundabouts. Three thousand six hundred gilt Coronation medals, ordered by Harrogate Corporation, for the ‘under fives’, were distributed from clinics and schools.
In York and nearby villages, residents turned away from their wireless and TV sets, once the Queen had returned to Buckingham Palace after being crowned, to begin their celebrations and festivities. These had been planned in council chamber, church hall and livingrooms for months. In York itself, the city was bedecked with flags and flowers, with the historic buildings ethereal in the glow of floodlighting. For the children more than 300 street parties were organised; a variety show and rodeo was opened on the rugby ground; and at 6pm the old street criers in their costumes shouted their wares through the city streets. Two hours later there was open air dancing in the city’s main market place while not far away the official Coronation ball, organised by the city council, took place in the assembly rooms. As dusk fell and the floodlighting was turned on, the city walls were picked out with moving lights as the York Harriers, carrying lighted torches, ran in procession along the battlements and through the streets.
A whole, ‘top secret’ ox was roasted on a spit at the village of Brockholes, near Huddersfield. And, for the centuries-old method 78-year-old Charlie Turner, said to be the only man in the district who knew just how to do it, used a century-old tool a copper ladle. He had used it to roast seven pigs, a dozen sheep and one ox. The Brockholes ox was roasted on the recreation ground, surrounded by Union Jacks and 50 yards from the maypole round which Brockholes danced and ate their meat sandwiches. Then, a little later the ‘secret’ of the ox – its weight – was to be revealed.
Seven Coronation Day babies were born in Leeds and each
one born in Huddersfield was presented, by the Mayor Councillor Wilfrid Mallinson, with a set of Coronation coins. In Leeds city centre, where large numbers of banners were to be found, a stiff breeze made the flags flutter continually. However, the ravages of wind and rain took a cruel overnight
toll on decorations in the back streets. Oatland Terrace, Camp Road, where the cobblestones were painted red, white and blue, looked a bedraggled sight.
One of the few people to boast the ownership of a camera in Leeds, during the austere 1950s, was Herbert Thompson at number 41 Oxford Road whose house was at the junction with Ashfield Street. He was very much involved in the organisation of the celebrations in Ashfield Street, taking pictures of the area festooned with bunting and decorations. Across the street was strung a Union Jack and a sign reading ‘God Bless Our Queen’. Herbert was later involved with furnishing the street with tables and chairs. All the local families in this close-knit community joined together to provide food and drink for a party. During the remainder of 1953 and into the following year, the Queen and her husband embarked on a long, round-the-world tour, visiting over a dozen countries and covering an estimated 40,000 miles by land, sea and air.
Returning to the UK in May 1954, the Royal couple then embarked on a nation-wide tour. Parts of the North were visited including a two-day stop-over in the West Riding. On Thursday October 28, they were seen at Dewsbury, Batley, Morley and Bradford. A group of images exist of the brief Royal visit to Morley and they are from David Atkinson archive housed in the in the Leeds Library collection.
Crowds lined the route as the Queen and Prince Philip drove up Scotchman Lane from Batley, went down Britannia Road and along Bridge Street to Morley Town Hall. They were greeted by the Mayor of Morley, Alderman Joseph Rhodes and Mayoress, his sister Alice Rhodes.
■ Thanks to Susan Stepan, at Leeds Library, and Anthony Thompson for help with this piece.
A cavalcade stretching for a mile and including a tableau passed through the streets.