Abingdon News No. 60

The King is Dead The country’s sorrow at the death of King George VI on 6 February 1952 is reflected in this sombre drawing by Richard Millard (1952) of the school flag at half-mast. Two days later the whole school was present in the Market Square to hear the proclamation of Queen Elizabeth II for which the school band had had to prepare itself ‘with feverish haste’ to play the National Anthem. A few days after this, invited by Sir Ralph Glyn the MP for Abingdon and a School Governor, the headmaster, James Cobban, and three boys represented the School at the King’s lying-in-state in Westminster Hall. For John Westall (1953) it was a never-to-be-forgotten scene: the huge hall, the silent crowds, the soldiers standing vigil and at the centre the coffin, draped with the Royal Standard on which lay the Imperial Crown, orb and sceptre, the jewels flashing in the subdued light. The Abingdon Foundation, Park Road, Abingdon, Oxford OX14 1DE 01235 521563 • Edited by Julia Cooke – [email protected] 01235 849123 • Design – www.petergreenland.com Abingdon Out of the Past @abingdonschool @abingdonschool @abingdon_school linkedin.com/school/abingdonschool Abingdon town celebrated the Coronation with a ten-day programme of festivities in which the School played an enthusiastic part. Afterwards the Corporation presented every school child with a copy of its Coronation programme. Long Live the Queen! There were many Abingdonians in London on the day of the Coronation, Tuesday 2 June 1953. Colin Wiggins (1953), then a senior CCF cadet, was one of six given a ticket to watch the Coronation procession from the Victoria Memorial Gardens. The Revd Thomas Layng (1906), in his capacity as a Queen’s Chaplain, took part in the Coronation procession in Westminster Abbey; Peter Lucas (1951), Royal Artillery, carried the regimental Colours in the parade, and Roy Gibaud (1942) Royal Armoured Corps, had the misfortune to suffer a bayonet wound in the head from a rifle that went astray on the command ‘Present Arms’. Colin Wiggins’ photograph of the parade in The Mall Colin Wiggins’ ticket Extracts from the diary of the Revd Joseph Hewlett, headmaster of Abingdon 1828-39, recording the death of George IV on 26 June 1830 and the proclamation of King William IV on the 30th. Out of the Distant Past School flag at half-mast Richard Millard