Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was like her ‘second wedding’ as she was marrying the Commonwealth

As the word watched, Princess Elizabeth was crowned Queen in a dress unlike any other. It also had a hidden meaning to her.

It was a day she hadn’t expected to arrive so soon, but on June 2, 1953, the 27-year-old princess was crowned Queen Elizabeth II.

The rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of the thousands of wellwishers lining the streets once more to Westminster Abbey, cheering at the Gold Coach bearing Elizabeth to her destiny. Even the coverage of the coronation embodied the changing times – cameras were allowed inside the Abbey and the ceremony was broadcast live on TV to 27 million people, for the first time, exceeding the radio.

People who didn’t have TV sets gathered at friends’ houses, in pubs and cinemas and this event did more than any other to herald in the new era of television. The coronation was celebrated all over the world. “As a four-year-old at the time in Sydney, I can remember days of fabulous fireworks and Harbour fire boats spraying coloured water high into the air. My first memory,” Graham Ireland told the BBC.

Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh on the day of their coronation, Buckingham Palace, 1953.

Queen Elizabeth II after her Coronation

The Queen and Prince Philip were the embodiment of a new start post-war – a glamorous young Queen with her war-hero husband and two young children. There was “a sense of rebirth, what Margaret called ‘a phoenix time’,” says biographer Matthew Dennison.

Once again, the Queen chose Norman Hartnell to create her Coronation Gown – it, even more than her wedding dress – embodied the fairy-tale the public so wanted her coronation and reign to be. The dress, a lavish white duchess satin gown, covered in gold and silver embroidered emblems of the Dominions, had a corset bodice and wide skirt festooned with beads, diamantés and pearls.

Queen Elizabeth II at the coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey, London.

The newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II waves to the crowd from the balcony at Buckingham Palace. Her children Prince Charles and Princess Anne stand with her.

Hartnell later said, “Her Majesty had told me graciously that the dress was triumphant. To me, it seems to take on the Order of a holy vestment – both stood out and blended with that lovely honey-coloured carpet, and mingled sympathetically

with the cloth upon the altar.”

It was fitting the gown was similar to the Queen’s wedding dress – because in the space of six years, the Queen had effectively been married twice – once to Philip and secondly, to the nation and Commonwealth.

Originally published as Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was like her ‘second wedding’ as she was marrying the Commonwealth