Every few months, we will present a different item from West Dunbartonshire Council's collection. We would be interested to hear from you if this photograph stimulates any memories.
E-mail the Collections Officer with any memories.
Object for May/June 2011
The Illustrated London News, Royal Wedding Special, November 1947.
As Royal Wedding fever hits the people of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, it would seem a good time to look through the museum collection at another Royal Wedding that had the nation enthralled, the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh in 1947. It had been thirteen years since Princess Elizabeth (our current Queen) and Prince Phillip of Greece and Denmark had first met, although it wasn’t until 1939 that the thirteen year old Princess fell in love with her future husband and they began to exchange letters. By 1946 they were secretly engaged, when Phillip asked the king for his daughter’s hand in marriage, although George VI asked for a formal engagement announcement to be held off until his daughter was twenty one, the engagement was officially announced on July 9th 1947. Before the wedding Philip renounced his Greek and Danish titles, becoming Lieutenant Phillip Mountbatten, taking the surname of his mother’s English family. He did not remain simply Lt Mountbatten for long, being granted the title His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich of Greenwich, by his future father-in-law on the morning of his wedding.
The wedding took place at 11:30 on 20th November 1947 at Westminster Abbey and was broadcast to the nation, empire and world by the BBC radio service to an estimated 200 million people. The newly weds received over 10,000 telegrams of congratulations and over 2500 wedding gifts. Amongst the gifts received were an electric washing machine, a refrigerator, 76 handkerchiefs, 30 scarves, 148 pairs of stockings, 16 nightgowns, an HMV Radiogram from Sir Malcolm Sargent, a piece of Indian lace woven by Mahatma Gandhi and Singer Sewing Machine from the Provost and Council of Clydebank. The Singer Sewing Machine is still held in the Royal Collection and was last displayed to mark the couple’s sixtieth wedding anniversary.
After all the excitement of the day the newly weds headed off on honeymoon, but there was no trip to the Caribbean or Indian Ocean as is often the case today, the royal couple were quite content to spend a few days at Philip’s Uncle’s house in Hampshire before they returned to their royal duties.
