Coronation of William IV and Adelaide

King William IV succeeded his brother King George IV on 26 June 1830. His first prime minister was Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington who had led a chaotic Tory administration since January 1828. Until 1867, the Demise of the Crown automatically triggered the dissolution of parliament and a general election was therefore necessary with voting between 29 July and 1 September 1830. Although the King's death was the official reason for the election, its importance in British constitutional history was that electoral reform was the major issue of the day, especially with the ongoing Swing Riots. Wellington's Tories won a plurality but continuing divisions on the reform issue resulted in the loss of a vote of confidence on 15 November 1830. Wellington had to resign and, on 22 November, Earl Grey formed the Whig administration which eventually passed the Representation of the People Act 1832 (the "Great Reform Act") on 7 June 1832. William's coronation was overshadowed by the political turbulence of the time, while the Reform Bill was undergoing debate.[1]

The Gold State Coach, drawn by eight horses, in the Royal Mews

William's coronation, following that of his brother and predecessor, George IV, on 19 July 1821, was the second of three in the nineteenth century. The next coronation was that of his niece and successor, Queen Victoria, on Thursday, 28 June 1838.

According to the historian Roy Strong, William IV had "an inbred dislike of ceremonial" and he wanted to dispense with the coronation altogether.[1] He conceded that there was a constitutional necessity but insisted that there must be no ceremonial or procession associated with Westminster Hall and this outraged the Tories, who called the event the "Half Crown-nation".[2] As Strong says, William's insistence "signalled the end of a whole litany of symbolic acts going back to the middle ages, including the coronation banquet, the ritual of the King's Champion throwing down the gauntlet, and endless petty actions related to land tenure".[1]

William and Adelaide travelled to and from the Abbey in the Gold State Coach, or Coronation Coach, made for George III in 1762 and used in all coronations from 1831. This began the provision of public spectacle for the masses.[1] The King wore his admiral's uniform and the Queen wore a white and gold dress.[3]

In terms of cost, William IV and the government refused to repeat the extreme of George IV's lavish coronation in 1821, which cost £240,000, but they went to the opposite extreme and spent only £30,000 on a "cut-price" event. Seven years later, Queen Victoria's coronation was budgeted at £70,000 to achieve a compromise between the two extremes.[2]

William IV's coronation established much of what remains today the pageantry of the event, which had previously involved peerage-only ceremonies in Westminster Hall (now attached to the Houses of Parliament) before a procession on foot across the road to the Abbey. The in the Coronation Coach with a cavalry escort.[1] The new monarch travelled in procession by coach to and from the abbey, starting a tradition which has been followed in all subsequent coronations. The budget stressed the procession and there was no coronation banquet.[1] Unlike the Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838, no real consideration was given to the matter of public entertainment and the people had to make do with the two processions between St James's and the Abbey. At 5 am, a gun salute was fired in Hyde Park and at 9 am, the royal family left the palace followed an hour later by the king and queen in the Gold State Coach, the first time that it had been used at a coronation. The coaches, escorted by Life Guards, passed along Pall Mall to Charing Cross and then along Whitehall to the abbey. Along the route, which was lined by foot guards, temporary stands for spectators had been built, those at Charing Cross could up to three thousand.[4] The return procession left the abbey at 3:30 pm in fine weather. That evening, the "New Avenue", now known as The Mall, was illuminated and opened to the public for the first time.[5]

The choice of music played during the ceremony rested mainly with Handel and Thomas Attwood. Zadok the Priest and the Hallelujah Chorus, both by Handel, were among the performances.[6]

• The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland and Teviotdale, the king's brother and sister-in-law[7]
• The Duke of Sussex, the king's brother[7]
  • Sir Augustus d'Este, the king's nephew[7]
• The Duchess of Cambridge, the king's sister-in-law[7]
• The Duchess and Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, the king's sister and brother-in-law[7]
• The Earl of Munster, the king's illegitimate son[7]
• Lord Frederick FitzClarence, the king's illegitimate son[7]
• Lord Adolphus FitzClarence, the king's illegitimate son[7]
• The Countess and Earl of Erroll, the king's illegitimate daughter and son-in-law'[7]

• Sandars, Mary F. (1915). The life and times of Queen Adelaide. London: Stanley Paul & Co.
• Strong, Sir Roy (2005). Coronation: a History of Kingship and the British Monarchy. London: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0007160549.
• Worsley, Lucy (2018). Queen Victoria – Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4736-5138-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• "King William IV (1830 – 1837)". www.britroyals.com. Britroyals. Retrieved 15 April 2019.