King George VI (1895-1952)

[Tiggersk8]

George VI played a key role in Britain's decision to host the olympics in London in 1948

Royals at the Olympics: The Involvement of European Royalty in the Modern Olympic Games | Carolyn Harris: Royal Historian

I fixed your link for you Carolyn. To post a link, you need to put [ url ] the address to the article/picture/whatever [ /url ], but w/out the spaces in the code.

Looking forward to checking that article out as it's about two of my favourite hobbies. Royalty and the Olympic Games.

 

[Grandduchess24]

Do you guys think that the movie "the King's speech" portrays the late king well ? I am thinking about watching it in order to learn a little more about King George VI.

 

[Tiggersk8]

Wish I could answer you Grandduchess, as I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. I got the DVD a couple of weeks ago, but due to blocked kitchen sink pipes, the access to said pipes being through the ceiling of my bedroom, but my bedroom needing to undergo a complete redo and overhaul, me going through what's going on w/me health wise and now w/the World Figure Skating Championships starting tomorrow and we getting live coverage in Canada and...

Yeah...Been *slightly* occupied.

I can say this however. Because my love of Royal History, I knew about Bertie's speech problems and seeing Dr. Logue to overcome them. I always thought *if* the story got to the right people and then *if* the right actors were cast, it would make an incredable movie and one that deserved to be made in order to get the story out there.

From all I've heard, sometimes dreams do come true. ) I am beyond looking forward to finally getting a chance to sit down and watch TKS. It's looking like it might be many days down the road however. D

Carolyn, thank you so much for sharing your article w/us. I never knew the reason the Marathon is the length that it is, is due to Princess Mary asking it to start under the Windsor Nursery window. I went "Awwww!!!" after reading that.

Just one thing...One Royal I didn't see mentioned in the article is Princess Nathalie of Berleburg-et al. She helped Denmark win a Bronze Medal in Team Dressage at the Beijing Olympics. Also ended up producing one of my favourite Beijing moments too.

King Constantine in his capacity of IOC Member gave out those medals. Princess Nathalie was the last one of the team to recieve her Medal and as the others were given theirs it was, "Thank you Your Majesty...Yes Your Majesty, it wasn't easy to achieve that pattern and Thank you so much...Etc..."

When he got to Nathalie? She just threw her arms open and squealed, "UNCLE TINO!!!" and then gave him this huge hug. D

As I said...One of my favourite Beijing memories. )

 

[Lucy63]

Do you guys think that the movie "the King's speech" portrays the late king well ? I am thinking about watching it in order to learn a little more about King George VI.

It is a good movie to watch...not so sure about how it portrays George VI but I don't think they did a terrible job.

From the various bios I've read and documentaries I have seen, George VI was a pretty solemn guy, shy and reserved, who never wanted to be center stage. When he was, he did his best, which turned out to be pretty good and in my opinion, just what was needed for the time. His wife was a strong-minded woman, who did her best to make sure they both were always proper and on-course.

Of course he did not look like the actor

Youtube has some documentaries and clips of George VI and Elizabeth, as well as other Royals, that show the actual Kings and Queens and their mannerisms and speech, etc...

 

[purple_Lulu]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/cr/B004T29YC0/ref=aw_d_cr_dvd?qid=1333591049&sr=8-1

I'm going to get this DVD. It's a good price and looks a good factual backup to The King's Speech which made a good entertaining drama.

Or even better, this link!
Bertie and Elizabeth [DVD]:Amazon:Film & TV

v cover
reproduced for promotional purposes

 

[Royal Smurfness]

Not only did King George VI die prematurely from a heavy smoking habit

Wasn't he acctually advised to smoke by his doctors who thought it would help him overcome his stammer?
I saw the film about him and he tells his speach trainer so.
Is it true that as a child king George was maltreated by his nanny because she didn't like the boy?

 

[anarchyfps]

Hi everyone,


This is my first post on this forum.


Anyways, I'd just like to say that George VI has been a personal hero of mine for quite a while now..


I've always had an interest in the british monarchy and it's history.

I first got interested in Edward longshanks(admittedly after watching Braveheart) but then moved onto Henry VIII and so on.

But what got me so interested in George VI was the fact that this was a man who was very shy, never wanted to become king and had a speech impediment. He is by far my favourite British monarch of all time because he overcame these problems at a time when his country needed him the most.

I think his story is one of inspiration and I'm glad that this shy but Selflessness king got the recognition he deserved in the king's speech.

 

[Tsar bobo Iv]

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv0w9egVAs1qg0umko1_500.jpg the queen mum looks so relaxed ut king george looks so serious

 

[Muhler]

I need a little help.

I understand King George VI served at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 as a young prince.
Could anyone please tell me on which ship he served?

Then I'll track down the movements of that ship during the battle and learn what happened.

 

[Artemisia]

Prince Albert (later George VI) served on HMS Collingwood as a sub-lieutenant in 'A' turret.
Brief history of the battleship from Forces War Records:

HMS Collingwood was a St. Vincent-class battleship of the Royal Navy. The ship was launched 7 November 1908, and completed in 1910, serving in the 1st Division of the British Home Fleet. In February, 1911 Collingwood grounded on an uncharted rock off Ferrol. She became flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron in June 1912, joined the Grand Fleet in August 1914, and participated at the Battle of Jutland. Prince Albert (later King George VI) served on Collingwood at Jutland. In 1916, Collingwood joined the Fourth Battle Squadron and later served as a gunnery training ship at Portsmouth. The ship was sold for scrap in 1922

 

[MarkUK]

He was on board the battleship HMS Collingwood as a sub-lieutenant commanding "A" turret at the battle of Jutland.

 

[Muhler]

Thank you, MarkUK & Artemisia

So he remained onboard HMS Collingwood. I thought he had changed to another ship prior to the battle.
Cool, now I'll look at that ships whereabouts during the battle.

 

[MarkUK]

I don't think HMS Collingwood played a major part in the battle. As far as I'm aware she suffered no casualties and I don't think she was even hit.

 

[Muhler]

Oh, the ship did see action for about 40 minutes or so as the sun went down on 31. May.
I'm still not finished having a closer look at exactly what happened but I'll return with my findings.

 

[Artemisia]

It will be much appreciated if you share your findings, Muhler.

 

[Muhler]

Okay, I've looked at the battle. In order to fully understand what went on some background info is necessary. Very simple and very brief.

The Battle of Jutland took place on 31. May 1916. It involved about 100.000 men in total, of which about 10 % became casualties. The vast majority became fatalities.

The situation up to the battle was that the British navy was the undisputed largest in the world and the German navy could not take on the full strength of the British navy and hope to survive, let alone win. So the German plan was to destroy the British navy piecemeal.
The British plan was to throw everything at the German navy should it venture out to see and destroy it as fast as possible.

The German navy was called the Hochsee Flotte, the British, the Grand Fleet, was divided into two, the battlecruisers under Admiral Beatty in front and the dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts under Admiral Jelicoe further behind.

Dreadnoughts was an all-big gun class of battleships. Large ships with four sometimes five turrets with as large canons as possible, with a few smaller rapid firing canons as defence against destroyers. And that's it.
Pre-dreadnoughts were all battleships before the HMS Dreadnought class was introduced. They were smaller, slower, armed with canons of all sorts of weird calibers placed all over the ship. They were by 1916 hopelessly oldfashioned and as such omniously labelled "five-minutes-ships".
Battlecruisers were hyper modern. Armed with all big guns like the dreadnought battleships, but with the speed of a cruiser they were the main-force in both navies.

On the morning of the 31. May 1916 the Hochsee Flotte sailed out. Half way up along the coast of Jutland the German vanguard was spotted by British ships, who alerted the battle Cruisers under Beatty. They in turn alerted the main fleet under Jelicoe and as fast as it was possible dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts and everything else that could float steamed out from Scapa Flow and into the North Sea.
The German plan worked. The British battle cruiser sailed right into a German ambush and after a heavy beating the British turned north towards Jelicoes ships, with the German ships in hot pursuit.
A few hours later it was the German ships that crashed into the vaguard of the approaching dreadnoughts. The German ships made a U-turn and managed to slip away.
With all that going on the entire British fleet was sailing south at full steam attempting to get to grips with the German and force them into a major battle the Germans could not win.
There were running skirmishes all through the evening and well into the night and as dawn broke, the German navy had managed to escape.

The battle was very confused as encounter battles, (where neither sides know the strength and positions of the enemy but suddenly meet) tends to be. Not least because communication and intelligence exchange, in particular on the British side, broke down completely.

That was the background, now let's look at Prince George. He was a gunnery officer in the aft turret, of two gun turrets onboard HMS Cumberland, a slow, oldfashioned, inadequetly armed and armoured pre-dreadnought.
In such gun-turrets there would normally be crammed some 70 men. In HMS Cumberland I'd estimate there were perhaps 25-30 men inside the turrets.
As there inside the turrets at any given moment were up to several hundred kilos of propellent to fire the grenades a direct hit on a turret would almost certainly ignite the propellent. Sealed inside a turret the gun crews would have no chance of escape and they would all burn to death. A quick but nevertheless horribly way to die.
Since the British ships lacked a safety feature, an explosive fire inside a turret would often instantly spread down to the magazines below and from then on it would be only a matter of a few minutes before the ship would not only explode, but disintegrate. And that indeed happened with quite a few ships. Hence Beatty's dry remark: "There seems to something wrong with our bloody ships today". In at least one instance a ship was saved, because the magazine was flooded. - Drowning the crew there.

HMS Cumberland was placed in one of four columns sailing south around 22.10 when the German mainforce approached to the west also sailing southwards. By then the sun had gone down and darkness had almost fallen. (I forgot about summertime, in 1916 the sun went down at around 21.00). And for the next 40 minutes, until the Germans managed to weer off to the west, there was heavy fighting between the British and German cruiser and destroyer screens. It seems like very few if any shots were fired between the battleships, eventhough there were mutual sightings. But these sightings tended to be ignored.
Back then main battleships preferred to avoid fighting in the dark, because of the risk of mines and destroyers sneaking in under the cover of darkness to fire their torpedos.
The British battleships formed a battleline and continued south through the night, while there were smaller skirmishes here and there.
HMS Cumberland was stationed to the rear in that battleline and shortly before midnight the German battleline sneaked back and crossed behind the British fleet.
Had the German ships been spotted, the Germans would have "crossed the T" to the rear of the British, meaning that all the German broadsides would have been able to hit the British column and considering the position and age of HMS Cumberland the odds would have been very much against her.

But prince George wouldn't have known all this. In fact the admirals knew very little of what went on. The individual captains had at best only a vague idea of the battle and the officers in the turrets knew absolutely nothing. Only when they occasionally recieved frantic directions from the cunning tower (the fire control centre) did they know that the enemy was near.

So all through the night Prince George would have been cooped up inside a hot, claustrophobic turret with other men. With the smell of oil, sweat, propellent and smoke from coal in his nostrils. Being an officer he would from time to time have been able to peer out into the darkness, see searchlights to the south, hear firing and see flashes to the west, sometimes interrupted by commands from the cunning tower, and having absolutely no clue as to how the battle went on.

When dawn broke there were only British ships in sight and the command came to turn north and return home. No one knew anything, there were lots of rumours. They had won, they presumed.

From a Danish prespective, people living along the west coast of Jutland heard distand thunder and saw the occasional flashes in the horizon and that was it. Until the bodies started to drift ashore the days after the battle. Many British and German sailors are now buried at local cemetaries along Jutland.

 

[MarkUK]

I don't want to stray too far from the point, but the battle of Jutland was one of those curious battles in which one side won the fighting, Germany (fewer ships and men lost than the British) but lost the battle in the sense that they never again attempted to take on the Royal Navy and remained impotently locked in the North Sea for the rest of the war.

 

[Daz_Voz]

When Albert succeeded, he became known as George VI to honour his father.
I never really thought about this before but there George V already had a son named in his honour, ie Prince George, Duke of Kent, George VI's brother. I wonder how he felt about his brother gazumping his name!

 

[NGalitzine]

Given that he knew his brother as Bertie I doubt if it bothered him too much.

 

[MarkUK]

Edward VIII's abdication document dated 10 December 1936 shows this. It was signed by four people; Edward, Albert, Henry and George. The uninitiated might think George was George VI, but it was his brother's signature, George, Duke of Kent. George VI signed himself by his first name Albert because the abdication did not become effective until an Act of Abdication had passed through Parliament, which it did the next day, 11 December.

 

[HRHThePrince]

It has been said that King George V felt that his eldest son Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII was irresponsible & reckless. If he thought that why did he allow Edward to succeed. I may be mistaken, but George V was somewhat of a more powerful Sovereign than the present Queen is now. Surely, Prince Albert, Duke of York became a better & more suitable king than his eldest brother.

 

[Duke-of-Earl]

It has been said that King George V felt that his eldest son Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII was irresponsible & reckless. If he thought that why did he allow Edward to succeed. I may be mistaken, but George V was somewhat of a more powerful Sovereign than the present Queen is now. Surely, Prince Albert, Duke of York became a better & more suitable king than his eldest brother.

Upon the death of George V, Edward VIII was automatically King without hesitation or delay. Succession is automatic and immediate.

 

[NGalitzine]

George V had no more power to alter the succession to the throne than QEII does. Succession is automatic. Monarch dies and the eldest son, in this case, succeeds. The King is dead, Long live the King.

 

[Iluvbertie]

It has been said that King George V felt that his eldest son Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII was irresponsible & reckless. If he thought that why did he allow Edward to succeed. I may be mistaken, but George V was somewhat of a more powerful Sovereign than the present Queen is now. Surely, Prince Albert, Duke of York became a better & more suitable king than his eldest brother.

Only Parliament can change the line of succession and they haven't done so since the 1701 Act of Settlement.

The monarch has no say in who their heir is - currently it is the first born son and only when there are no son do daughters have a chance to succeed.

Regardess of what George V thought of Edward VIII as a potential King he knew he couldn't stop Edward from becoming King. He could pray that something would happen to allow Bertie to become King - which did happen - but he couldn't prevent Edward's succession, any more than Elizabeth has any say over who is her heir. That was decided when she conceived a son as her first born child.

 

[Dman]

Very Nice Portrait of Members of the Royal Family on George VI's Coronation:
http://worldofwindsor.tumblr.com/image/38740678475

Look at the layers of coronation robes. I guess we will see senior members of the royal family in coronation robes again for Charles's Coronation someday.

 

[Tiggersk8]

First off...Amazing find!! I've never seen that one ever before.

Second...Who is the lady standing to the right of the Kents? I don't recognize her at all.

 

[Dman]

First off...Amazing find!! I've never seen that one ever before.

Second...Who is the lady standing to the right of the Kents? I don't recognize her at all.

I believe that's Queen Maude of Norway, youngest daughter of Edward VII & Queen Alexandra. Her attendence at the Coronation was her last appearence. She died a year later.

 

[Tiggersk8]

Thanks!!

I thought I could see some resemblance to Queen Alexandra in her face, but also wasn't sure if I wasn't just seeing something I wanted to see at the same time.

Thanks again and you and yours have a wonderful and Merry Christmas!!!

 

[windsorgirl]

First off...Amazing find!! I've never seen that one ever before.

Second...Who is the lady standing to the right of the Kents? I don't recognize her at all.

http://blog.londonconnection.com/20...-george-vi-and-queen-elizabeth-photo-sharing/

This photo link is captioned. The woman you asked about is Queen Maud of Norway who was an aunt to George VI.

ETA: Sorry, too late I see! Yes, she died in 1938.

 

[Dman]

Royal Road (1941) - YouTube

'Royal Road' takes a look at both the public-facing activities of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) during the Second World War, as well as a showing a glimpse of the royal family's private life in the gardens at Windsor.