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Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother: A Life in Decades – 1950s

In this instalment of The Queen Mother’s life, we look at the 1950s, no doubt a sad but also memorable decade for Elizabeth.

The decade started off on a high for Queen Elizabeth, as she welcomed her second grandchild in 1950: Princess Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise, a sister for Prince Charles, born in 1948.

After an operation to improve his circulation, The King needed his wife and daughters to help carry out his duties at the beginning of the 1950s.

Then, things took a turn for the worse: September of 1951 saw King George diagnosed with lung cancer. Following a lung resection, Bertie initially appeared to be recovering, but soon his health deteriorated, and prevented him from carrying out his Royal duties. The Queen had performed her last significant engagement with her husband by opening of the Festival of Britain in May that year.

Later that year, Princess Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh took The King’s place on a tour of Canada, and the following January on a postponed visit to Australia and New Zealand. Queen Elizabeth stayed with her husband in Sandringham, and helped nurse and comfort him.

Her tenure as Queen Consort that lasted just over 15 years came to a close in 1952, as her husband passed away in his sleep on 6th February at Sandringham.

As her title would have been too similar to that of her daughter’s if styled in the traditional way, Queen Elizabeth became ‘Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother’. Following the death of her husband, Elizabeth understandably retired to Scotland in grief.

A meeting with PM Winston Churchill saw her return to public duties shortly after. Her daughter now Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Commonwealth, Elizabeth no doubt felt proud of the 25-year-old, taking over her father’s role as Head of State.

Queen Elizabeth moved out of Buckingham Palace and just down the Mall into Clarence House in 1952. Her family came from Scotland, and Elizabeth bought the Castle of Mey, in the extreme north-east of Scotland, and renovated it. She spent time there in August and October of each year to get away from the business of London.

1953 saw the new Queen crowned at Westminster Abbey, her mother and son, Charles, in attendance, watched from the balcony.

As The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh began a tour of the Commonwealth aboard HMS Britannia in the same year, The Queen Mother acted as a Counsellor of State. Her role meant she would act on her daughter’s behalf for certain powers of State. She also assisted in the care of Charles and Anne, who did not accompany their parents abroad.

In her capacity as Queen Mother, she performed a steady stream of engagements, just as she had as Queen Consort. In 1955, The Queen Mother accepted the Chancellorship of the University of London. In 1957, she opened Lloyd’s new home with Princess Margaret.

The Queen Mother made numerous trips across the globe, including to Canada, The United States and Paris. She visited Dunkirk to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the mission’s success. In 1959, she made a visit to the Heinz factory.

She undertook a tour of Rhodesia and Nyasaland with her younger daughter, Margaret, in 1953, where she laid the foundation stone of the current University of Zimbabwe and became it’s President four years later.

It appears that it was in the 1950s that The Queen Mother developed a passion for horse racing, particularly the steeplechase. Steeple-chasing was the poor relation of flat-racing between the two World Wars, but Elizabeth’s interest helped give it a new, more upper-class reputation.

Elizabeth loved horse racing, and estimates claim she owned more than 500 winners in her lifetime. She famously almost won the 1956 Grand National. Her horse, Devon Loch, in a good lead towards the last part of the race, inexplicably half-jumped metres from the finishing post, and landed on its stomach, losing. The Queen Mother reportedly said afterwards ‘Oh, that’s racing.’

There is a well-known rumour she had racing commentaries directly played into Clarence House so that she may keep up with the results.

This decade was when the Townsend issue arose, in relation to Princess Margaret. The Princess lived with her mother in Clarence House, and in 1955, there was reportedly a family discussion on the matter, which resulted in The Queen Mother leaving the room and slamming the door. The saga was a tense time for everyone, following the Abdication crisis less than 20 years earlier, which Elizabeth had witnessed, and it’s outcome meant she became Queen.

The romance was called off when Princess Margaret issued a statement on 31st October 1955.

The Queen Mother witnessed a number of notable events happen in the 1950s. Some of the highlights included: the death of Josef Stalin and DNA discovered in 1953. She saw the 4-minute mile broken by Roger Bannister in 1954. The Queen Mother was around to witness another war, this time in Vietnam and see a Royal wedding when Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco (1956).

Photo: Paul Ratcliffe

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