LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

The Queen became Queen immediately on the death of her father, King George VI, on 6 February 1952. The Queen, however, did not know of her Accession until hours after the fact.

Princess Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh were in Kenya on 6 February 1952, at the beginning of a long Commonwealth tour. The Princess and the Duke had spent the night at Treetops, a hotel built into a tree, watching big game.

Soon after lunch a newsflash about the death of the King reached the East African Standard newspaper, and was passed to officials on the Royal tour. News of her father's death was broken to The Queen by The Duke of Edinburgh at 12.45 p.m. British time, after it had been confirmed by a radio telephone call to Sandringham.

The new Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh immediately postponed their tour, and set off for Entebbe airport in Uganda. From there the flight to London Airport, a distance of 4,127 miles, took 20 hours. On arrival at 4.19 p.m. on 7 February, the new Queen was met by Winston Churchill, The Duke of Gloucester, Anthony Eden, Clement Atlee and other Privy Councillors.

The last occasion on which a Sovereign acceded to the British Crown while abroad had been over 200 years previously, when George I became king on the death of Queen Anne in 1714. He was in Hanover as Elector of the Kingdom when he was summoned to England to accept the Crown.

On arrival in London The Queen travelled to Clarence House by car, where big crowds waited. After telephoning Sandringham to speak to her mother and sister, The Queen began to receive Ministers and other advisers.

The formalities of Accession took place. On 8 February The Queen attended an Accession Council with her Privy Councillors, and made a Declaration of Sovereignty. In it she said, 'My heart is too full for me to say more to you today than that I shall always work as my father did.'

The Accession proclamation, signed by members of the Privy Council on 6 February, was read publicly, beginning at 11 a.m.. In London the proclamation was read at St. James's Palace, Charing Cross, Temple Bar and the Royal Exchange. Gun salutes were fired from Hyde Park and the Tower of London. 

The process was repeated in Edinburgh, Windsor and York and at Shire Halls and Guildhalls throughout the country.

The proclamation declared Queen Elizabeth II 'by the Grace of God, Queen of this Realm and of all Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to whom Her lieges do acknowledge all of the Faith and constant Obedience, with hearty and humble Affection.......'

When the Queen was declared Head of the Commonwealth in the proclamation, it was the first time that a British monarch had been so described.  The Commonwealth had only been established in the reign of her father, and previously the crown had been referred to as 'imperial'.

Later on 8 February, The Queen travelled to Sandringham with the Duke, where she was present when the coffin was moved to St. Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham.

The following week, at the King's funeral held in St. George's Chapel, Windsor The Queen led the mourning with her mother and grandmother; all three women were queens.

Official Court mourning continued until early summer, during which time few public duties could be undertaken. The Queen was nevertheless already fully involved in the official duties of the Sovereign which she has continued to carry out for the past 50 years.

Read The Queen's Christmas broadcast in 1952 (pdf, 100kB)