This film is one of over sixty films made by Fred Brackenbury between 1948 and 1966.  Fred was a member of Harrogate Cine Club, and made all the films with a 16 mm cine camera, virtually all in Kodachrome.  He made films for Harrogate Council, and other documentaries on Yorkshire, some with a separate soundtrack with commentaries by his wife, Nora.  A great many of them have a horticultural theme.  The YFA has a complementary film, Harrogate Coronation Celebrations, showing the celebrations...

This film is one of over sixty films made by Fred Brackenbury between 1948 and 1966.  Fred was a member of Harrogate Cine Club, and made all the films with a 16 mm cine camera, virtually all in Kodachrome.  He made films for Harrogate Council, and other documentaries on Yorkshire, some with a separate soundtrack with commentaries by his wife, Nora.  A great many of them have a horticultural theme.  The YFA has a complementary film, Harrogate Coronation Celebrations, showing the celebrations for the coronation of King George VI in 1937.

The film has a nice contrast between the usual parade of floats – a mixture of local groups and commercial enterprises – and the street party.  The former, an impressive display as befitting a wealthy town like Harrogate; the latter, presenting a more down-to-earth festivity.  Yet not even Harrogate would have some of the Crown Jewels displayed in a shop window.  The crown shown is that of St. Edward’s, supposedly the ‘official’ coronation crown (although many monarchs didn’t use it).  What gives the game away is that here it is silver, rather like the Imperial State Crown, and not gold, as it should be (as is the orb).

Not every film of the celebrations went so successfully, David Kynaston cites a Kenneth Preston in Keighley who had brought his cine camera to film the celebrations there, only to declare that, “photography was out of the question.  The tableaux when they did come were travelling too fast for one to make be able to make much of them.    The youngsters standing upon them looked starved to the marrow and the lads who marched in front, carrying a small notice announcing what each tableaux represented, were so cold that  their words and notices were almost slipping from their nerveless hands . . .  The whole procession was a miserable business and in the circumstances represented hundreds of pounds of money wasted.”  (p. 302) A Mass Observation report concluded that the average party cost £90, with money raised mainly from collections, and donations of produce from local shops (p 304).  Apparently the name for the TV soap, Coronation Street, which started out in 1960, refers to the ascension to the throne of Edward VII, the period when street’s terrace houses would have been built.

The accession of Queen Elizabeth II to the throne followed the death of her father, George VI, of a heart attack on 5th February 1952, aged just 56.  At the news, the normal schedule of programmes on the wireless was cancelled, and was drastically altered for the duration leading up to the funeral.   This kind of response from the media – not unheard of in more recent times – was objected to by 59% of people in a BBC survey (Kynaston).  At the time of her father’s death Princess Elizabeth was in Kenya, on her way to a tour of Australia and New Zealand.   She was 25, the same age as Elizabeth I when she became Queen. 

June the 2nd was chosen by the Meteorological Office, 16 months in advance, as a day most likely to be dry: unsurprisingly, it turned out wet and cold (although those who could afford tickets for the select seats were kept dry – going on the black market for up to £50, £1,100 in today’s money). Five days before, on the 29th May, the summit of Mount Everest was reached for the first time (that we can be sure of) by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.  News of the success of the British expedition reached home on Coronation Day and was regarded as a coronation gift (even though Hillary was a New Zealander).  As is customary, all the arrangements were in the hands of the Earl Marshall of England, at the time the Duke of Norfolk. 

The day, a public holiday, was marked by dances, sports, festivals, tea parties, plays, competitions and coronation queens with their attendants.  Over 2 million souvenir mugs were made.  Even Robert Lacey, the author of several books on the Queen, and hardly a republican, states that the cult of Stalin in Russia at the time didn’t compare with “Britain’s home-grown profusion of posters and souvenirs, from tin pots to tea towels, emblazoned with the solemn, dark-eyed likeness of Elizabeth.” (A Brief Life of the Queen, p 360) For more on the popularity of the Royal family see the Context for Tickhill Coronation Celebrations. 

The ceremony was a mixture of the pagan and the Christian (or, at least in certain respects, it resembled aspects of Biblical accounts of coronations).  The coronation took up all the news in the run up to the day, and already by May 23rd London had been decked out in royal bunting.  By the evening of June 1st nearly half a million people lined the seven mile route, despite the lousy weather – rising to some 2 million for the day itself (Kynaston states that women outnumbered men by seven to one).  British Rail laid on an extra 6,500 special trains to London.  To cater for this number there were 8,000 first aid workers and 30,000 catering staff.  For their pains in getting to see the procession, the crowds were treated to a procession including 27 carriages and 29 marching bands from all around the Commonwealth – see the Context for Fearby Silver Jubilee for on the popularity of the Royal family.

Back in the villages, towns and cities of the land street parties were organised, with usually each street having a Coronation Queen.  This was not a new phenomena: similar ones were held for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897.  Not surprisingly the end of the Great War, and the signing of the Versailles peace treaty, led to celebrations in July 1919 with 'Peace Teas'.  These were tea parties that were focussed on a special treat for children in those times of hardship and were quite formal sit down affairs.  Any national event could be an excuse to have one: there were street parties for VE Day and the 1951 Festival of Britain (see, for example, the collection of photographs on the Plumstead Stories website),

Originally these would have been official, and rather formal, public street dinners, before residents would organise them themselves, making them popular mass participation affairs.  Hence it was up to the local organisers themselves to decide exactly what they wanted to do, but often a similar range of activities can be found across the country, with events such as a fancy dress parade, a 'glamorous grandmas' contest, a pram race and so on – see also the example of Fearby Silver Jubilee.

The coronation has achieved extra fame by being the event that really kicked start television ownership: between March 1952 and March 1954 TV licence ownership more than doubled.   This was a time when the average cost of a TV, at £90, was about the same as a family car.  Yet it wasn’t the first coronation procession to be filmed by the BBC, as that of George VI had been in 1937 – although then viewing was restricted to the London area.  Apart from TV, it could also be seen in cinemas and other public places.  The special coronation edition of Radio Times sold over nine million.  Live broadcasts went across the channel to Germany, France and Holland, and later to the US.  Some 56% of the population (20.4 million) watched at least half an hour of the service (slightly less for the procession).  At the time the Queen, along with her Press Secretary and the Prime Minister, was strongly opposed to letting TV cameras into the Abbey.  But after a media campaign they relented and a compromise was reached.

The media attention given to the Royal family was hardly a new thing, and has remained at an amazing level ever since – with blanket coverage for major events.  According to analysis by the British Film Institute the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997, with a combined BBC/ITV audience of 32.10m, was the second most watched programme in the UK ever – just below the 1966 World Cup final, with 32.3m viewers across both BBC and ITV.  In third place comes the 1969 documentary Royal Family, with a combined viewership of 30.69.  The wedding of Charles and Diana comes in seventh place, watched by 28.40m viewers, putting it ahead of the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Kate, in 2011 – although at 26m this easily topped the poll for that year.

References

Robert Hardman, Our Queen, Hutchinson, 2011.
David Kynaston, Family Britain: 1951-57, Bloomsbury, London, 2009.
Robert Lacey, A Brief Life of the Queen, Duckworth, 2012.
Tracking 30 years of TV's most watched programmes
The Street Party Site
Plumstead Stories