Royal pageantry comes North

The Queen visits Manchester in 1961

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At 11.50 a.m. on Wednesday Granado presents a live out-side broadcast of the opening by the Queen of Manchester’s new Courts of Justice. On Wednesday and Thursday the Northern newscast will include film of other highlights of the two-day tour.

Here TV TIMES looks at some of the Northern Royal tours of the past.

TVTimes masthead
From the TVTimes for week commencing 21 May 1961

MILLIONS of Northerners will be able to see the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh being received on the steps of Manchester’s new £1,250,000 [£23.5m in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] Courts of Justice by the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Alderman Arthur Donovan, on Wednesday.

Among the people they will see in Court dress, robes, or ceremonial uniforms, will be the Earl of Derby (Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire); Dr. Charles Hill (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster); Lord Parker (the Lord Chief Justice); a number of High Court judges; Col. W. M. Musgrave-Hoyle (High Sheriff of Lancashire), and civic heads from many parts of the North.

Prince Philip and the Queen

It will be a brilliant occasion as the long procession moves to the great hall inside the building, where the Queen will unveil a commemorative tablet.

Granada cameras will be strategically placed to bring viewers close-ups of the Queen and other members of the Royal party as commentator Bill Grundy describes the ceremony.

This will be a vastly different Royal visit to those made by the Queen’s ancestors.

Until Queen Victoria’s visit in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, Manchester — and Lancashire generally — had been sadly overlooked by England’s monarchs.

True, Manchester can claim to have had a visit from King Ina of Wessex and his Queen, Ethelburga, in 689 (he made it his headquarters for several months while repelling Irish and Welsh foes) and Canute the Dane marched in on his way to Cumberland in 1031, but the first real visit as such by a reigning sovereign was that of Henry VII in 1495.

James I passed by on his way from Edinburgh to London and Charles II is said to have slept at a house just off Market Street, Manchester, in 1651 while journeying to battle at Worcester.

But these were only fleeting glimpses of Royalty and it was Queen Victoria’s memorable visit that set the pattern of Royal visits as we know them today.

Queen Victoria was most impressed, too, for she wrote in her diary: “The day was fine and mild. The mechanics and workpeople dressed in their best were ranged along the streets with white rosettes in their button holes.

“We went into Peel Park before leaving Salford and saw a most extraordinary and, I suppose, unprecedented sight — 82,000 schoolchildren.

“All the children sang ‘God Save The Queen’ extremely well together.

“The streets were immensely filled and the cheering and enthusiasm was most gratifying.”

When the Queen wrote of the 82,000 children in Peel Park singing the National Anthem she was not quite correct. It was intended that they should and they did, in fact, get through the first verse.

But at that point their surging enthusiasm broke free and, completely ignoring the conductor, they cheered the Royal party until they were hoarse.

Painting of the Courts of Justice
The new Courts of Justice
Dignitaries hold an umbrella over the Queen
Flashback to 1954. The Queen and Prince Philip arrive for a Royal visit to Manchester

It was the sort of enthusiasm, affection and loyalty that has marked every Royal visit since and for which Lancashire is now famous, for since the turn of the century, Manchester has many times welcomed Royal guests and can no longer complain of feeling neglected.

Now excitement is in the air again as Lancashire prepares for next week’s two-day tour by the Queen and Prince Philip, a tour that has links with visits made by the Queen’s grandfather, King George V, and her great-grandfather, King Edward VII, at the be ginning of the century.

The Queen’s first engagement when she arrives in Manchester on Wednesday will be to present a new guidon to the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry at a ceremonial parade at Belle Vue Stadium. This replaces the old guidon presented to the regiment by King Edward VII at Worsley Park in 1909.

Another link is provided by the Queen’s visit on Thursday to a vast glassworks at St. Helens, for King George V toured the plant in 1913 and in the powerhouse started the 6,000 H.P. turbo generator which was named the King George.

These events, the opening of the new Royal Technical College and the Dockers’ Social Centre in Salford and the Royal visit to a charity theatre performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on Ice in Liverpool, will be covered in special Northern newscast reports.

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