Imperial diamond
This week’s diamond jubilee celebrations will be hard-pressed to outdo those of Queen Victoria’s in 1897.
— A diamond jubilee was supposed to be a 75th anniversary, but it was brought forward by the government as an excuse for a mass celebration aimed at promoting British trade.
— On 22 June, the Queen was conveyed in a carriage along a six-mile route ending at St Paul’s, where an open air service was held so she did not have to disembark.
— Six million were estimated to have watched the procession. For 400,000 of them, however, it was not necessarily just patriotism that spurred them to attend: they were plied with free ale and pipe tobacco supplied by grocer Sir Thomas Lipton.
Royally satisfied
An Ipsos-Mori opinion poll suggested that 80 per cent of Britons want to keep the monarchy.
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