The royal Christmas speech is now an important part of the festive season with the Monarch addressing country and Commonwealth every December 25th at 3pm. Christmas lunches and celebrations are built around it and millions tune in to hear the address. However, this special tradition is less than a century old and it is very much an innovation of the House of WIndsor.
The first Christmas speech was made in 1932 by King George V who broadcast from Sandringham House on the still relatively new medium of radio. The BBC transmitted the message which was made in the year that it launched its ‘Empire Service’, the forerunner of the World Service.
The speech was written by Rudyard Kipling and focused on peace and reconciliation.
The idea of a Christmas speech had been talked of for several years before that but once George V had made the initial address, the tradition quickly took hold. He broadcast again on Christmas Day in the next two years. In 1934, there was a heavier focus on his own personal family, a trait that would become usual in royal festive messages. George V expressed his family’s joy at the marriage of his youngest surviving son, Prince George, and Princess Marina.
By 1935, George V was so convinced by radio messages that he made one to mark his Silver Jubilee. It was his most emotional broadcast and his voice can be heard to waver on the brink of tears as he expresses his gratitude for the good wishes sent to him as he marked 25 years of rule.
He would go on to speak to the nation again in December 1935 when he once more thanked people for their good wishes on a royal wedding, reflecting on the celebrations for the marriage of his third son, Prince Henry. But this was the speech of a man in grief for the king had just lost his beloved sister, Princess Victoria, and he reflected their parting in his message.
It would be the last time that George V spoke on Christmas Day – he died on January 20th 1936. But by then, the idea of a royal Christmas speech was cemented and although it would be several years before another was made, it had become a tradition that would only continue to grow.
