Demise of the Crown: #23: Sandringham to St George's (Part III)

As the official public record since 1665, The Gazette has been recording the deaths of monarchs for over three centuries. As part of our ‘Demise of the Crown’ series, historian Russell Malloch looks through the archives at The Gazette’s reporting of the death and funeral of King George VI.

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A second demise of the crown occurred at Sandringham House in Norfolk on 6 February 1952, when King George VI expired at the age of just 56 years (Gazette issue 39457).

In the period since his succession to the crown, which came in the wake of the abdication crisis at the end of 1936, The Gazette had reported bulletins relating to the expiry of a few senior members of his family, including Prince Arthur of Connaught in 1938 (Gazette issue 34550), and the last three surviving children of Victoria and Albert: Louise, Duchess of Argyll, in 1939 (Gazette issue 34746); Arthur, Duke of Connaught, in 1942 (Gazette issue 35427); and Beatrice, formerly Princess Henry of Battenberg, who died peacefully in her sleep in 1944 (Gazette issue 36784).

The departures of Prince Arthur of Connaught, as well as those of his father and Aunt Louise, were all conducted under the ‘Rule of 1928’, and so the funeral service was held in St George’s Chapel, and their remains were temporarily housed in the royal vault under the Albert Memorial Chapel, before being interred in the royal ground at Frogmore.

The service for the Duke of Connaught was a notable occasion, as his pall bearers were not members of the prince’s household, but instead they reflected his long association with the armed forces, as his coffin was accompanied by field-marshals, some of whom had formerly served as chief of the Imperial General Staff, or commander-in-chief of the army in India.

Princess Beatrice’s obsequies were also performed in St George’s, but her remains were later moved to the Battenberg aisle in the family’s church at Whippingham on the Isle of Wight, where they joined those of her husband, whose funeral was gazetted in 1896.

Similar procedures, involving a ceremony in St George’s followed by burial at Frogmore, were observed in 1942 for the King’s brother George, Duke of Kent, who died in a plane crash in Scotland while on active service, and in 1948 for Princess Helena Victoria, one of Queen Victoria’s Schleswig-Holstein granddaughters, whose parents were re-located to Frogmore in the 1920s.

As with the war-time service for the Duke of Connaught, the Duke of Kent’s air force career, including temporarily relinquishing his air rank and resuming the rank of group captain (Gazette issue 34844), was reflected in the fact that his pall bearers were officers of the Royal Air Force, rather than members of his personal household.

Bowes-Lyon family

The treatment of family members was uneven, as Queen Mary’s Teck relations who were resident in England were accorded the honour of access to the royal vault at Windsor or later the graveyard at Frogmore, but that privilege was not afforded to any of the relatives of George VI’s wife, and instead Queen Elizabeth’s parents, and many of her Bowes-Lyon siblings, were committed to their ancestral lands in Scotland.

The first of the Bowes-Lyon relatives to depart after Lady Elizabeth became Duchess of York in 1923 was her brother John, who died at the family home of Glamis Castle in 1930, but was buried near his parents’ residence of St Paul’s Walden Bury. The then Duke of York attended the ceremony in Hertfordshire, while the memorial service that was held for John Bowes-Lyon a few days later had royal connections, as it was taken by John Ellison, who was the vicar of Windsor when Queen Victoria and Edward VII expired.

Three Bowes-Lyon ceremonies were held during George VI’s reign, and each took place at Glamis. The King was present at the funeral service for his mother-in-law, the Countess of Strathmore, which was conducted by the bishop of St Andrews in 1938, while on the same day the archbishop of Canterbury officiated at a memorial event in St Martin in the Fields in London, which was attended by members of the royal family, foreign ambassadors, the prime minister and others.

The Earl of Strathmore’s funeral took place during the war, a circumstance that was reflected in the fact that on the same day the King attended his father-in-law’s service at Glamis in 1944, he was represented in Westminster Abbey at a thanksgiving for the liberation of Belgrade. The earl’s coffin, covered with a Union Jack, was borne by foresters and gamekeepers, and placed on a farm lorry, which was drawn by two horses to the private burial ground, all in marked contrast to the passing of the ancestors of other royal consorts, including Alexandra’s father, King Christian of Denmark, and Mary’s father (Gazette issue 26689), the Duke of Teck.

A local arrangement was also made following the death of the heir to the Strathmore title, as the Union Jack and farm lorry were employed again in 1949, when the Queen attended her brother’s funeral, and the King was represented by his brother-in-law, Michael Bowes-Lyon, at the passing of Lord Glamis.

Sandringham to London

King George VI had a strong personal connection with Sandringham, having been born at York Cottage on the Norfolk estate in 1895. His brothers Henry, George and John, and his sister Mary, were also born there, and Sandringham was, almost inevitably, the place where family members expired, among whom were the infant Prince Alexander of Wales in 1871, the Duke of Clarence in 1892, Prince John in 1919, Queen Alexandra in 1925, and King George V in 1936.

The King’s remains were subjected to the same journey as his father in 1936, with:

an informal procession taking the uncrowned coffin from Sandringham to Wolferton
a journey by train from Wolferton to King’s Cross
a second informal procession conveying the crowned coffin from King’s Cross to Westminster Hall
a lying in state in Westminster Hall
a state procession from Westminster Hall to Paddington, with the coffin and full regalia
a final journey by train from Paddington to Windsor
a second state procession from Windsor station to Windsor Castle, with the officers of arms in attendance
a closing service in St George’s Chapel

One important consideration in terms of organising events following the demise of the crown in 1952, was the distance that separated the King’s remains from the successor to the crown, as Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, was in Africa when her father died, whereas The Gazette had confirmed that her three predecessors were all with their parents when they breathed their last at Osborne (Victoria), Buckingham Palace (Edward VII), and Sandringham (George V).

Funeral service

The funeral arrangements started at St Mary Magdalene Church in Norfolk, where the King’s remains were guarded by men from the royal estate. The site on which the coffin sat was marked by a cross in the chancel, which was inscribed with the Duke of Clarence’s A-V-C cypher and “January 15-20. 1892”, and Queen Alexandra’s A-A cypher and “Nov. 22-26. 1925”. Separate plaques were placed in the church, showing the dates for George V’s lying at rest in 1936, and George VI’s in 1952.

The Gazette’s report began with the arrival of the train from Norfolk on 11 February, when the bearer party of the Grenadier Guards placed the King’s remains on a gun carriage drawn by the Royal Horse Artillery. The programme was similar to 1936, as the casket lay in state in Westminster Hall, but without being covered by the Actors’ pall that was used for the Unknown Warrior, Queen Alexandra and King George V.

As before, the state processions engaged two naval gun crews, the first taking the coffin through London from Westminster Hall to Paddington, while a second team took it from the station to the castle at Windsor. The size of the second procession was reduced, as some of those who walked in London did not travel to Windsor for the closing part of the ceremony, and the officers of arms only joined the proceedings at Windsor.

Sir George Bellew, as Garter king of arms (Gazette issue 39086), proclaimed the titles of the late King, after earth was cast upon the body, and the archbishop of Canterbury used the familiar wording:

“Forasmuch as it hath pleased almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.”

Gazette reports

The ceremonials for the passing of King George VI were not gazetted until June of 1952 (Gazette issue 39575), which gave the authorities time to reflect changes that occurred on the day, as compared with the detail set out in the printed documents that were used by those who attended the lying in state service on 11 February, and/or the funeral on 15 February. The Gazette’s account provided a reminder that last minute alterations might need to be made to a ceremonial for a variety of reasons, including the presence of parties who were not expected, and the absence of those who were.

There was, for example, no reference in the printed ceremonial to the detachments from the colonial police and King’s Flight who attended and, perhaps more importantly, the printed ceremonial showed Geoffrey Fisher of Canterbury receiving the King’s coffin at Westminster Hall, rather than Cyril Garbett, the archbishop of York, who acted on that occasion.

Similarly, the printed programme indicated that the French republic would be represented by the prime minister, but Edgar Faure was unable to attend, and General Juin took his place. There was also no mention of Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover, whose presence provided a reminder of the Windsor service in the 1870s for his great-grandfather, the former King of Hanover, and the expulsion of his father from the Garter during the first world war.

Honours awarded

A fourth series of awards was approved in connection with the demise of the crown and the funeral. The first Victorian Order appointment of Elizabeth II’s reign was conferred on Chief Superintendent Hugh Cameron of the Metropolitan Police (Gazette issue 39491), who had been the King’s police officer, and walked in the procession.

Next, the naval and military honours were gazetted on 18 March (Gazette issue 39494), and included the commander’s cross (CVO) for Captain Parry who commanded the naval gun crew in London, and Captain Elkins who did so in Windsor. As usual, several officers who were noticed after the King’s funeral appeared in later editions of The Gazette, as with the Marques of Douro of the Royal Horse Guards, who became duke of Wellington and a knight of the Garter (Gazette issue 52120).

The Royal Victorian Medal was conferred on around 40 army and 280 navy personnel, who were invested at Buckingham Palace on 2 April 1952. Unfortunately, the names of medallists were not, as a matter of policy, gazetted before the summer of 1952, and so there is no public record of the men who helped on this occasion.

The 1952 Gazette revealed the difference in the level of service needed to qualify for an honour, as the distribution of the Victorian Medal had settled into a fairly well-established pattern since the first medals were awarded to the naval detachment who helped to avert a crisis after the horses became restive at Queen Victoria’s funeral.

By the early 1950s, it was clear that the naval crew had little responsibility for the safe delivery of the ceremonial, as they executed manoeuvres that had been planned and prepared for, in stark contrast to the situation in 1901. The duties of the hundreds of men of the naval crew may also be compared with the weight that was literally placed on the shoulders of the bearer parties, who continued to have to ensure that the coffin and regalia reached their destination without incident, and in particular during the steep climb into St George’s Chapel.

The awards to the gun crew of 1952 after a day’s work, may be contrasted with the first medallists who were gazetted later that year when the reporting policy changed, as they included staff from Balmoral and Windsor who had served the sovereign for more than 20 years, and a forester who had worked at Sandringham since before the start of the first world war. The relevant regulations provided for the award of the medal in gold, silver and bronze, but silver was used for one day’s light but public work, as well as a lifetime’s service out of sight on the royal estate.

Two recipients of the Victorian Medal from 1952 were later gazetted as recipients of bars to their funeral medal, as Charles Maxted was noticed in 1977 as a sergeant major in the Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (Gazette issue 47418), and Arthur Showell was rewarded in 1991 for his work as head coachman of the Royal Mews (Gazette issue 52767).

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Succession to the Crown: From Charles II to Charles III

Succession to the Crown is essential reading for anyone with a keen interest in the British royal family and provides an excellent and trusted source of information for historians, researchers and academics alike. The book takes you on a journey exploring the coronations, honours and emblems of the British monarchy, from the demise of King Charles II in 1685, through to the accession of King Charles III, as recorded in The London Gazette.

Historian Russell Malloch tells the story of the Crown through trusted, factual information found in the UK's official public record. Learn about the traditions and ceremony engrained in successions right up to the demise of Queen Elizabeth II and the resulting proclamation and accession of King Charles III.

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About the author

Russell Malloch is a member of the Orders and Medals Research Society and an authority on British honours. He authored Succession to the Crown: From Charles II to Charles III, which explores the coronations, honours and emblems of the British monarchy.

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Publication date

24 March 2025

Any opinion expressed in this article is that of the author and the author alone, and does not necessarily represent that of The Gazette.