Shopping Saturday - Selfridges decorations for the Coronation in 1937

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Selfridges is a store that has always known how to put on a show. A special occasion like a coronation is a great excuse to hang out the flags - literally. This week Britain has been marking the 60th anniversary of the present queen's coronation, so it seems like an appropriate time to look back at the coronation of her father, King George VI, in 1937.

The whole of Selfridge's Oxford Street and Orchard Street frontages were decorated with flags, sculptures, pictures and banners bearing the Royal arms, and the company produced a 20-page booklet, from which these illustrations are taken.

 The centrepiece was a sculptural group 'The Empire's Homage to the Throne' over the main entrance, and above this was the Royal Medallion featuring portraits of the new king and queen.

Above this was a giant representation of the Imperial State Crown, amid a gold and silver sunburst, and the whole thing was surmounted by the figure of Peace 'Let Peace Prevail' which towered 150 feet above ground level.

Just above window level on the Oxford Street front was a series of 18 bas-relief panels depicting scenes in British history, from the Druids and Stonehenge to the Armistice in 1918. These were flanked by two 35-foot high sculptures representing Canada and India.

Round the corner in Orchard Street was a giant picture depicting the great seaports of the British empire, with a border consisting of the house flags and funnel markings of major British shipping companies. Either side of this were two more sculptures, this time for Australia and South Africa. Finally, each of the large plate-glass windows all round the store at street level, normally full of merchandise, contained an oil painting of a scene from the His Majesty's life. There were 30 of these in all. It must have been quite a sight.

Shopping Saturday - by Royal Appointment

Liberty & Co, London, royal warrant holder

You can scan the various online royal pedigrees if you like, to see if you are related to the Windsors (or the Middletons) but there is another way that your family might be connected with royalty.

If your ancestor served the royal family in some way there is a good chance that there will be a record of it somewhere. Some records of people were employed in the royal household might be held by the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, although earlier records are more likely to be at The National Archives.

There are online research guides Royal household and wardrobe before 1660, Royal Warrant holders and household servants and Royal warrant holders and suppliers of goods after 1600.

I am particularly interested in the second and third of these guides, because they deal with references to shopkeepers and others who supplied goods to the royal household. A household of that size has always done a lot of consuming, much of it from regular suppliers; just think of all the places where you shop and how much you spend there, then multiply it by a large number (depending on the size of your family and how rich you are), and you will see that an awful lot of businesses must have sold goods or services to members of the royal family over the last few centuries.

One of the sources referred to in the guides is the London Gazette, where annual lists were published from 1900 onwards. Part of the list from 1905 is shown below; the entire list occupies 21 pages. It includes well-known businesses like large London department stores, but also businesses of all sizes from all over the UK and even further afield. Some of them are small shops near royal residences such as Sandringham, Osborne, Windsor and Balmoral; so if you discover an ancestor who ran a sweet shop or a dairy in one of these areas about a century ago, the London Gazette might be worth a look, you never know your luck. It's free to search and dowload - one of the best bargains in family history!

Royal Wedding - there is no escape!

Prince George of Wales aged 18

I'm not a great fan of weddings at the best of times; I don't ever remember having what is often described as 'every girl's dream' about walking down the aisle in a big white dress. In my immediate family there has only been one church wedding in the last hundred years. So perhaps it's hereditary, but. for whatever reason, I have never discovered my inner Bridezilla. And although I remain bemused by all the fuss, I can't deny that most people seem to enjoy a good wedding, and it's a good excuse for a party, which I'm all in favour of. Today is of course Royal Wedding day, and we got a bank holiday out of it, which I'm also in favour of.

I can admit to being slightly interested in Prince William, because he is a few days younger than my younger son, so I was pregnant at the same time as Princess Diana. If I had a daughter she was going to be Elizabeth, and I was worried that if Diana had a girl, she might be Elizabeth too, and people would think I'd copied the royals. I was very relieved that we both produced boys.

Prince George of Wales aged 25

It is hard to grow up in Britain without having at least a basic grasp of the genealogy of the royal family, and if you become interested in history and genealogy, as I did, it comes with the territory. A few days ago the Prince of Wales was in the news when he became the longest-serving heir-apparent to the British throne, exceeding the record set by Edward VII, at 59 years, 2 months and 13 days. Naturally parallels have been drawn between Prince Charles and Edward, his great-great grandfather, but that set me thinking about parallels between Prince William and his great-great grandfather, George V. I came across a set of pictures of Prince George of Wales, as he then was, in the Strand magazine of 1891. Most pictures of George V show him with the full beard that he sported for his adult life, like the one on the left, when we was 25, but in the top picture, when he was 18, he is clean-shaven, and I was struck by the resemblance between him and Prince William. What they also have in common was that they both married at the age of 28, while serving in the armed forces - George was in the royal Navy - and while their grandmother was queen.

The parallels don't go all the way, though; George was married to Princess Mary of Teck in the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, not Westminster Abbey, and he was the second son, not the eldest, his elder brother having died of pneumonia in the flu pandemic of 1889-92. What remains to be seen is whether the newlyweds emulate the example of George and Mary in having a long and devoted marriage. Royalist or republican, no-one would begrudge them that.

Royal registration rivalry



Queen Victoria   

Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced in England and Wales in 1837, the year that Queen Victoria came to the throne. When her children were born, they had to be registered like everyone else's, with the local registrar, but which one? It should be simple enough; the registrar of births and deaths for the district where the birth occurred, of course.

But the queen gave birth to her children in Buckingham Palace, so big that it was in two different registration districts. When her first child, Princess Victoria, the Princess Royal, was born on 21 November 1840, George Rawlins, the registrar of births and deaths in the Charing Cross sub-district of St Martin-in-the-Fields believed that he was entitled to register the birth. He had, however, heard that a person from outside the district had been appointed for all the royal palaces, and wrote to the Registrar General on 5 December for clarification, pointing out that a registrar was empowered by Act of Parliament to register all the births in his district, and it would take another Act to deprive him of this right.


Princess Victoria born 21 November 1840

 The Registrar General, Thomas Lister, 'caused enquiry to be made', and found that since most of Buckingham Palace was in the Belgrave sub-district of St George Hanover Square, the registrar of that sub-district was to have the honour of registering the birth of the princess. So Mr Rawlins was disappointed. (The National Archives reference HO 39/5)

Queen Victoria went on to have nine children in all, and when the fifth of them, Princess Helena, arrived in 1846, George Rawlins was no longer registrar of the Charing Cross sub-district. His successor, James Leonard, made a valiant attempt at reclaiming the registration of royal births for St Martin-in-the-Fields. He wrote to the Registrar General '...it being certified to me by the Churchwardens and other Parochial Authorities of the Parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, that the north wing of the said Palace, in which are the private apartments of Her Majesty the Queen, and wherein the birth took place, is within the Charing Cross District for registration...I did on the 26th of May present myself with my Register Book of Births at Buckingham Palace and left a written request that a time might be named to register the birth of the said Royal Infant... ' The response from the Palace was to suggest that Mr Leonard should refer to the Home Secretary for guidance, which he duly did.

The matter was once again referred to the Registrar General, Lister's successor George Graham, who confirmed the earlier decision. His records showed that the question had also been raised in 1841 and 1843 on the births of the Prince of Wales and of Princess Alice, by both parishes, and that plans of Buckingham Palace and boundary maps had been consulted. George Graham wrote 'I am of the opinion that the same course should again now be pursued;...and to inform the Registrar of Births and Deaths for the Charing Cross District...that his services will not be required' (The National Archives reference HO 45/1424)