Tedium - The Coronation Will Be Televised 👑

Today in Tedium: We take for granted a lot in this world—the access to information we have, the access to people we have. Especially if they’re famous. Over the last 20 years or so, any day of the week, you likely had a pretty good idea of what Queen Elizabeth II was doing, because of the closeness in which she was followed by the media. In many ways, the queen and the media were made for one another, which makes her death last week something of a big blow for a certain contingent who appreciated the formerPrincess Elizabeth of York. She lived an extremely long life, one full of cameras and speculative news articles on the way she lived, her family, and how the way her family lived affected the way she lived. A lot of that was enabled by technology—and it’s likely the tech played a way in how we embraced the queen almost from the very start. With that in mind, let’s take a look at one of Queen Elizabeth II’s first big decisions—her decision to let television cameras capture her first moments as queen, despite rules against it. — Louis Anslow @ Pessimists Archive

The Queen’s coronation was almost banned from TV

On June 2nd 1953, Queen Elizabeth was sworn as Queen of Englan. She was only 25—prematurely turning from Princess to Queen after the untimely death of her father King George VI. His coronation 17 years prior was the first to be broadcast live over radio and the assumption was Queen Elizabeth’s coronation would be similarly broadcast live via the latest broadcast innovation of the times: television.

Just as Nikola Tesla had predicted in 1926 when he imagined “We shall be able to witness and hear events-the inauguration of a President … just as though they were present,” the coronation could now be experienced not just by royals and gentry, but by regular Britons just as though they were present in Westminster Abbey.

It was the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, who proposed the coronation be televised as one of his first recommendations as royal spouse. He believed it was an important step in modernising the monarchy and making it more accessible to its subjects. The suggestion was met with resistance, including from the Queen Mother and then Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill who believed:

“It would be unfitting that the whole ceremony, not only in its secular but also in its religious and spiritual aspects, should be presented as if it were a theatrical performance.“

Prince Philip’s proposal was ignored and on October 20th 1952 the royal ‘Coronation Committee’ made the decision to ban live television cameras from the coronation. The British public were not happy, and the ensuing controversy was referred to by one outlet as “one of the loudest controversies in years.”

The issue “boiled into a hot political stew” and outrage amongst the public meant “letters poured into newspaper editors energetically protesting the ban.” In Parliament, 79 Labour members introduced a motion on the subject. They criticized Sir Winston Churchill for not making the Conservatives party stance on the subject clear.

Proponents of allowing live televised broadcast of the coronation saw it as a democratizing force, extending the right to see the highest of public servants being anointed beyond high society and those lucky enough to be a royal by birth or marriage. Opponents of the ban said it would add undue pressure on the Queen and “detract from the dignity and religious character of the event.“

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On October 28th Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a statement in Parliament regarding the subject:

“It is our hope that it will prove possible in practice to carry into effect the principle that the world should see and hear what the congregation in the abbey see and hear.”

Afterwards, it was reported that the atmosphere in Parliament was “unhappy” and “excitable” with Churchill tapping his knuckles on his knee with “an expression of surprise and indignation that such controversy should be imported into the Queen’s coronation” on his face. The Coronation Committee announced they would convene a meeting the following week to discuss the matter.

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On the 6th of November, the coronation committee met to discuss the ban giving hope to millions of Britons who wanted to tune in live. A month later, on December 8th it announced the ban on televising the coronation was overturned—with the blessing of the not-yet-crowned Queen Elizabeth.