81st Birthday Of The Queen Mother

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 May 1948, Page 9

81st Birthday Of The Queen Mother

Still enjoying excellent health and remarkable vitality, Queen Mary, mother of the present King and widow of one of Britain’s best loved monarchs, yesterday celebrated her 81st birthday. Born on May 26, 1867, at Kensington Palace, Queen Mary was the only daughter of the Duke of Teck and Princess Marie Adelaide, who was a granddaughter of King George 111 and a cousin of Queen Victoria.

Arrangements were made to fulfil Queen Victoria’s long-standing wish that Princess Mary should marry her childhood companion, Prince Albert Victor, then Duke of Clarence. In November, 1891, the engagement was announced, but tragedy struck the young Princess for the first time when, in the following January, the young man died of influenza after only five days’ illness. However, after a retirement abroad, she married King George V, then Duke of York, on July 6, 1893. Upon the accession of George V to the Throne in May, 1910, she became Queen Consort.

Perhaps it was not until 1935 that the British people first realised just how much Queen Mary had come to mean to them personally. The wave of public sentiment that swept through the country on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee —the 25th anniversary of the accession—infinitely touched King George and Queen Mary and even surprised the British people themselves. <1 With the outbreak of World War II a strict security censorship was imposed on Queen Mary’s movements. By pre-arranged plan she moved to Badminton, Gloucestershire, in the West of England, a lovely old mansion which was the home of her niece, the Duchess of Beaufort.

Last November Queen Mary was present at the wedding of her granddaughter and Heir Presumptive to the Throne, Princess Elizabeth, to the Duke of Edinburgh. Queen Mary now resides at Marlborough House, where she rules with the grasp of detail which distinguished her when she was mistress at Buckingham Palace.