An act removing the Lords' absolute veto and limiting their power over money bills (1911)
The Parliament Act 1911, passed after the King agreed to create peers if necessary
Monarchs · Saxe-Coburg & Windsor
George V
1865–1936
House of Windsor — war, empire and the first Labour government
In office: 1910–1936
A naval officer who became heir only when his elder brother died, George V steered the monarchy through the Parliament Act crisis, the First World War, the partition of Ireland, the first Labour government and the Depression. In 1917 he abandoned the family's German titles and took the name Windsor from the castle. His Christmas broadcasts and Silver Jubilee made the modern, domestic, broadcasting monarchy.
How to spot them
- ▸The sailor prince; a stamp collector with one of the world's great collections
- ▸Founder of the House of Windsor, 17 July 1917
- ▸Cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm II and of Tsar Nicholas II, whom he closely resembled
- ▸The first royal Christmas broadcast, 1932, written for him by Rudyard Kipling
In the reign
A king-emperor is crowned in India itself, wearing a crown made for the occasion (1911)
The Delhi Durbar of December 1911, the only one attended by the sovereign; the capital was moved to Delhi there
A royal house sheds its German names and takes that of a Berkshire castle (1917)
The proclamation of 17 July 1917 creating the House of Windsor; the Battenbergs became Mountbatten
A new order of chivalry with five classes, created to reward civilian war service (1917)
The Order of the British Empire
A general strike called in support of the miners lasts nine days (1926)
The General Strike of May 1926
A sovereign speaks to his empire by wireless from Sandringham on Christmas Day for the first time (1932)
'I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all' — written by Rudyard Kipling
A statute giving the dominions full legislative independence from Westminster (1931)
The Statute of Westminster
Twenty-five years on the throne, marked by a service at St Paul's and crowds that astonished the King (1935)
The Silver Jubilee; 'I cannot understand it, I am quite an ordinary sort of fellow'
Quick-fire facts
- •Second son of Edward VII; he became heir when his brother Prince Albert Victor died of influenza in 1892, and married his brother's fiancée, Mary of Teck, in 1893
- •He served in the Royal Navy from 1877 to 1892 and remained recognisably a naval officer in manner
- •In 1917 he declined to give asylum to the deposed Tsar Nicholas II and his family, fearing for his own position
- •The 1917 name change also converted Battenberg to Mountbatten and Teck to Cambridge
- •He summoned Ramsay MacDonald to form the first Labour government in 1924 and encouraged the National Government of 1931
- •The Government of Ireland Act 1920 and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 partitioned Ireland during his reign; he opened the Northern Ireland parliament at Belfast in 1921 with a plea for reconciliation
- •His stamp collection, built into the Royal Philatelic Collection, is among the finest in the world
- •He died at Sandringham on 20 January 1936; his physician Lord Dawson hastened the end with morphine and cocaine so the death would be announced in the morning papers
- •The story that his last words were 'Bugger Bognor' is disputed
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- The Royal Household — George V (r. 1910-1936)
- Kenneth Rose — King George V