It became the emblem of the early years of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign and remains one of the most iconic images of her rule. And the tiara that helped tell the story of the transformation from princess to Monarch had a very special family significance. For Her Late Majesty often called it “Granny’s Tiara”, otherwise known as Queen Mary’s Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara.
Lady Eve Greville formed a committee of society women in 1893 to raise funds to purchase a tiara for Princess Mary of Teck in honour of wedding to Prince George. Mary had been previously engaged to George’s older brother but when Prince Albert Victor died of the flu in 1892, Mary and George gradually grew close and eventually announced their engagement.
The committee collected over £5,000. The majority of the funds were used to purchase a diamond and pearl tiara from royal jeweller Garrard, and the remaining money was donated to a fund that would be used to support the widows and orphans left behind after the sinking of the HMS Victoria.
In The Queen’s Jewels, author Leslie Field describes the tiara as “a diamond festoon-and–scroll design surmounted by nine large oriental pearls on diamond spikes and set on a bandeau base of alternate round and lozenge collets between two plain bands of diamonds.”
In 1914, Mary had Garrard remove the pearls and replace them with diamonds, and in the late 1910s, she removed the bandeau base to wear separately. While the pearls were then used for the Lover’s Knot Tiara, the base has been added back on occasionally.
Queen Mary gave the then-Princess Elizabeth the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara as a gift for her 1947 wedding; the tiara went on display with thousands of other wedding gifts at St. James’s Palace.
Queen Elizabeth II wore the tiara for a sitting with photographer Dorothy Wilding, just weeks after her accession in February 1952. The tiara remained one of The Queen’s favourites, and she wore it for countless portraits and state events. In the last year of her life, it took centre stage in a special exhibition marking her Platinum Jubilee at Buckingham Palace.
