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Tuesday 5 June 2012

The Queen's Coronation - Winnipeg Style

Coronation AdCoronation Greetings
Coronation ads from City of Winnipeg and City of St. Boniface (bottom).
Winnipeg Free Press, June 2, 195

I've enjoyed watching the events taking place in England for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and thought I would take a look back at Coronation Day here in Winnipeg and see what it was like.

Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne upon the death of her father King George on February 6, 1952. The twenty-five-year-old princess was in Kenya at the time of his death.

Winnipeggers were familiar with Elizabeth as she, as Princess Elizabeth, and Phillip visited in October 1951. At the time, around 9 percent of Manitoba's population was born in the U.K., so the ties to the monarchy were very strong.

June 1, 1953, Winnipeg Free Press

Coronation Day was Tuesday, June 2, 1953 and cities throughout the Commonwealth - including right here in Winnipeg - celebrated.

Many Winnipeggers had the day off as it was declared a federal holiday. Federal and civic government employees were off, schools and banks were closed, as were many stores, including Eaton's, The Bay and Holt Renfrew..

Festivities began on the eve of Coronation Day with a concert at the Civic Auditorium.
that on Vaughan Street that featured a 50-peice orchestra and three choirs. The highlight of the event was a special Coronation Cantata written and conducted by Walter Kaufmann, conductor of the Winnipeg Philharmonic Orchestra.

If you couldn't get into the official concert, many halls and clubs took advantage of the mid-week holiday and held their own supper dances until the wee hours of the morning.

June 2, 1953, Winnipeg Free Press

There was, of course, extensive media coverage of the Coronation ceremony.

At 4:00 a.m. on June 2nd, all six Winnipeg radio stations broadcast the Coronation and throughout the day there was other special programming. Most of the stations rebroadcast the ceremony later in the day for those who missed it.

Both the Free Press and Tribune printed special Coronation editions that night after their retrospective chartered planes arrived in the city with photographs of the morning's events in London.

June 1, 1953, Winnipeg Free Press

This was the first Coronation to be filmed but Winnipeg didn't have a local television station yet.

For those communities that did have CBC TV, the RCAF's Operation Pony Express rushed the film reels to Canada where it was broadcast on CBC television, 27 minutes ahead of NBC in the U.S., and were then copied and distributed across the country for showing.

For those here who wanted to see the ceremony, it was shown at the Garrick and Odeon cinemas the following week.

Coronation Day, Winnipeg Free Press, June 1, 1953

In Winnipeg, the main event was the coronation parade. Thousands jammed the streets to watch the procession that included 20 military bands and took an hour to wind its way from Higgins and Main to the Legislature.

After various military ceremonies were held on the Legislature grounds, a 21-gun salute and military fly past took place at noon.

Other municipalities also held events.

St. Boniface had a special mass at the basilica at 9 a.m.. Later in the afternoon, Brooklands and St. Vital had their own parades, and in St. James there was an afternoon picnic in Assiniboine Park.

Eaton's ad, June 2, 1953, Winnipeg Free Press.

Things didn't end on Coronation Day. News stories and photographs continued to fill the paper for days after the event. Also, through the summer there were additional concerts, banquets, dances and other events celebrating the new queen.

1 comment:

davidandkay said...

I marched in the parade - one of the large contingent from the R.C.A.F. station, where I was an R.A.F. Officer-Cadet learning navigation. Some way ahead of us was the Central Band of the R.C.A.F. As we approached the saluting-base this band gave a fine rendering of the Royal Air Force March. All of us were marching smartly, in step. But rather unfortunately the Band of R.C.A.F. Winnipeg was close behind us. At the crucial moment, they began playing (badly) the only march in their small repertoire ( a tune which I cannot forget). The result was chaos - or so it seemed, as we lost step and found it hard to keep our composure!