The King and I

George VI’s coronation was lavish, with sparkling diamond coronets, clergy wrapped in spectacular copes, foreign notables in pearl-encrusted caps and the young King and Queen in their gleaming crowns, as Dorothy Maltby’s record reveals

- Dorothy Maltby

COMPARED with the pared-down coronation expected on May 6, George VI’s in 1937 looked like a grand, if monochrome, affair in the newsreels. However, artist Dorothy Maltby—wife of Bedford MP Sir Richard Wells—experienced it in full, blazing colour from her seat in Westminster Abbey and chronicled it all in a newsletter that she typed for her children, as kindly given to us by her grandson, Mike Wells. Here’s an extract from her engagingly detailed report:

‘Mary, the housekeeper, called us at five o’clock and we had breakfast at six. I managed to dress my own hair—Dick gave me a sweet little “pearl” tiara, the feathers and veil were set in a comb, and, with two hairpins, I was quite secure all day. I wore the blue lace dress I was presented in five years ago and, as things turned out, I’m thankful I didn’t get a new frock. With a white fur tippet and long white gloves, I was quite snug and warm all day.

‘We had fun the night before preparing supplies; no cases or parcels were allowed in the Abbey; neither were opera glasses to be used. So Mary made up tiny packets of sandwiches in envelopes; I had Horlicks tablets and plain chocolate drops and we all provided ourselves with little smelling salts. All these had to go into my silver evening bag, which consequently bulged.

‘We alighted at Poets’ Corner and there was no crush at that hour. We were lucky to be in the second gallery, with a perfect view of the centre of the Abbey, where there was a raised dais covered with cloth of gold, with two scarlet thrones in the middle.