The logistical challenges posed by this summer’s celebrations for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee are echoing the events of 1897, explains

Christopher Joll

The current debate about how the Queen is to attend the Platinum Jubilee celebrations is, to anyone with a knowledge of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897, strikingly familiar. Like the present incumbent of Britain’s throne, by the time The Widow of Windsor reached her 60th anniversary, she, too, was seriously infirm. In Victoria’s case, it was her arthritic hips which made her virtually immobile at the age of 76.

For this year’s events, the Queen, due to comfort issues, will not be using the gold state coach, and will travel by car on Friday June 3 to the Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral, arriving at an easier entrance than the Great West Door.

Back in 1897, the problem of how to get Queen Victoria out of her carriage and into St Paul’s Cathedral in a dignified way vexed the planners for weeks. They even considered unhitching the eight Royal Hanoverian creams that would be pulling the Queen’s open State Landau, then having it hauled up a ramp into the Cathedral by a party of sailors.

Fortunately, this idea was rejected and it was decided that the massed ranks of archbishops, bishops, the Dean of St Paul’s, assorted minor clergy and 500 choristers would hold a short service on the West steps, followed by a blessing pronounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, while Victoria sat watching the entire service from her carriage.

Needless to say, this sensible solution drew considerable criticism. When she heard of the plan, Queen Victoria’s cousin, the Grand Duchess Augusta of

Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wrote in outrage to her niece, the future Queen Mary: “No! that out of door Service before St Paul’s! Has one ever heard of such a thing!”.

However, although the 1897 Diamond Jubilee Service of Thanksgiving set a precedent, thankfully it is one that is not being followed this year. Nor, thanks in part to Britain’s severely depleted Armed Forces, will there be a Platinum Jubilee Procession to escort the present Queen to and from St Paul’s.

How different were things in 1897. Then, instead of a fast drive in a motor car using the most direct route from Buckingham Palace to St Paul’s and back, there was a six-mile-long processional route.

Lavishly decorated and extensively furnished with temporary viewing stands, this started at Buckingham Palace, eventually halting at Temple Bar for the traditional ceremony of the monarch requesting the permission of the Lord Mayor to enter the City. This accomplished, and with the Queen’s carriage now led by the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs, the procession made its way up Ludgate Hill to the West steps of St Paul’s Cathedral.

The return leg took the procession over London Bridge, and then along Borough High Street and St George’s Circus to Westminster Bridge. Passing along Whitehall and through Horse Guards Arch (by tradition the ceremonial front gate to the royal palaces), it then crossed Horse Guards Parade, into The Mall and so to Buckingham Palace.

The entire route was lined shoulder-to-shoulder by 20,000

The problem of how to get Victoria out of her carriage vexed the planners for weeks

troops, who held back the hundreds of thousands of spectators as more than 3,500 horses trotted past. So large were the mounted and dismounted elements of the procession that tented stables and accommodation had to be set up in Hyde Park.

This massive number of cavalrymen was led by the Colonial Procession, which set off from Hyde Park at an early hour and formed up in the streets behind and around Buckingham Palace in order to be in position to move off from the front gates promptly at 9am.

After the service at St Paul’s Cathedral, this procession fell in behind the Queen’s carriage, followed by The Queen’s Procession. This comprised 17 carriages carrying assorted members of Queen Victoria’s extended family, in the last of which was the Queen herself, dressed in black relieved by panels of grey satin under black lace. She was accompanied by one of her daughters, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, and the Princess of Wales.

On this occasion, however, The Queen’s Procession, in addition to the Sovereign’s escort by the 2nd Life Guards, were 30 representatives of the Indian Cavalry, 16 mounted bands, seven Batteries of the Royal Horse Artillery, and 16 Squadrons of the Household and Line Cavalry.

Were that not impressive enough, this element was led by a marching party of the Royal Navy with six guns, and between the carriages rode 56 senior staff officers, an Admiral of the Fleet, five field marshals, seven holders of the Victoria Cross, and 130 equerries, Aide-de-Camps and members of the Suites-in-Waiting to the 40 British and foreign royals, who themselves were either mounted or seated in the carriages, one of which was shared by the unlikely pairing of the Chinese ambassador and the Papal envoy.

As an indication of the sheer size of this dazzling parade, Queen Victoria’s carriage only left Buckingham Palace at 11.15am, two-and-a-half hours after the leading horsemen of the Colonial Procession had set off from outside the palace.

Although the day had started rather overcast, by the time that the Queen’s carriage was rolling up Constitution Hill, with a Royal Salute booming out from St James’s Park and the Queen’s “Message to Her People” had been telegraphed to the Empire, London was bathed in some warm sunshine.

As Colonel the Earl of Dundonald of the 2nd Life Guards, who was Field Officer of the Escort and riding next to the carriage, repeatedly tried to calm his mare by saying: “Steady, old lady! Whoa, old girl!”, Queen Victoria at first thought he was talking to her.

Lord Dundonald was luckier than General the Earl Howe, the elderly Colonel of the 2nd Life Guards and Gold Stick-in-Waiting. In his heavy full dress uniform, topped with a helmet and cuirasses, he was overcome by the heat on the return journey, fainted and fell off his horse just as the Queen’s carriage reached the gates of Buckingham Palace. This was an event that was repeated on almost