University news

Copyright to the Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive, all rights reserved

Queen Elizabeth II has stabilised our constitution, helped Prime Ministers avert disaster, and faced an intrusive media for decades longer than many imagine. These are just some of the insights from experts at the University of Sussex ahead of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

Contemporaneous letters from the Queen’s coronation held by the Mass Observation Archive at the Keep at the University of Sussex detail how members of the public felt at the time.  One child wrote:

“On Thursday morning June 2 1953 I woke up feeling very excited because I was going to watch the television broadcast of the Coronation. It was 60 miles to Granny’s house where we were going so we had to set off early. Every member of our family had been invited including Freckles our spaniel puppy and Jimmy the kitten. I did not read in the car as usual but I looked out for processions and decorations. At the entrance of the Mersey tunnel were some beautiful red roses.”*

Reflecting on how today’s students react to footage from the coronation, Professor Martin Francis from the School of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex, said:  

“Watching film of the 1953 coronation ceremony, my students are amazed at the extent of religious ceremony and symbol: Elizabeth was anointed and not merely crowned. This is why she will never abdicate, but this is also why when she finally passes, we will have lost our last significant living link to a lost world.  Only then will memory finally eclipse history.”

On the constitutional role of the Queen, Professor Lindsay Stirton, an expert in public law from the School of Law, Politics and Sociology at the University of Sussex, said:

“Her Majesty has been a stabilising influence on our constitution that often lacks stability. The role of Her Majesty in politics has been a real one - and not a purely symbolic one. When Tony Blair was Prime Minister, he wanted to call an election in early 2001, but Her Majesty dissuaded him from doing so, because of the impact that rural voters traipsing to the polls might have had on the spread of Foot and Mouth Disease. So, her weekly meetings with the Prime Minister have been impactful.”

The University of Sussex has had a long association with the Queen. In 1964, two years after the University was founded, the Queen arrived to open the University Library. Then in 2013, 49 years later and accompanied by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, she officially opened The Keep, the £19m home for the University’s Special Collections archive.  Until then, the archive was housed in the University Library. 

Full comments by University of Sussex experts as the nation prepares to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee:

Lindsay Stirton, Professor of Public Law within the School of Law, Politics and Sociology commented on the role of a constitutional monarch today, saying:

“Her Majesty has been a stabilising influence on our constitution that often lacks stability. I am very much of the view that the role of Her Majesty in politics has been a real one - and not a purely symbolic one. Before the political parties had very clear leadership rules, she played an important role in the selection of a prime minister, though her role might be described best as a kind of 'midwife', helping with the 'delivery' by the parties of someone suitable to lead than exercising any kind of choice or will of her own. Essentially, her role is to exercise judgment rather than will.

“Her Majesty has also caused Prime Ministers to 'think again' on various matters. For example, when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, he wanted to call an election in early 2001, but Her Majesty dissuaded him from doing so, because of the impact of rural voters traipsing to the polls might have on the spread of Foot and Mouth Disease. So, her weekly meetings with the Prime Minister have been impactful.”

Martin Francis, Professor of War and History at the University of Sussex, said of the ‘celebrity’ culture of the Queen’s reign:

“We would be mistaken to assume that the transition of the royal family from dynastic figures to international media celebrities is a product of recent decades. Paparazzi-style photographers pestered the Queen’s uncle, Edward VIII, as early as the 1930s. 

“Britain’s national newspapers were circumspect during the Abdication crisis of 1936, but after World War Two, a new generation of editors and journalists was much less deferential and sought to publish ‘human interest’ stories about the monarchy, including Elizabeth. Indeed, they refused to await a formal announcement before disclosing that she had become engaged to Prince Philip in 1947 and also criticised, if not the Queen herself, at least her closest advisors, during the controversy over her sister Margaret’s affair with Group Captain Peter Townsend in the mid-1950s.   

“While the media became much more intrusive during the royal divorces of the 1990s, the Queen has been a ‘celebrity’ as much as a monarch throughout her reign.”

Martin Francis, Professor of War and History at the University of Sussex, on how tradition has played an overwhelming part in the Queen’s reign:

“There is a need to emphasise the Queen’s more traditional aspects, an inevitable corollary of her age and length of her reign. When she was born, Queen Victoria had been dead for only a quarter of a century, a British monarch had not been heard on the radio (that only came six years after she was born), and her father was not merely a king, but an Emperor.

“The notions of duty and respectability she has attempted to uphold were the products of a particular historical context: the need for the British monarchy to remain acceptable in an age transformed by the First World War, mass democracy and revolution.  Her deep personal Christian faith - an aspect of the Queen which really deserves much more attention - was also in part about the need for the monarchy to demonstrate the values of duty and personal morality during a time of change and anxiety. 

“Watching film of the 1953 coronation ceremony, my students are amazed at the extent of religious ceremony and symbol: Elizabeth was anointed and not merely crowned. This is why she will never abdicate, but this is also why when she finally passes, we will have lost our last significant living link to a lost world.  Only then will memory finally eclipse history.”

Back to news list