Oh, to have been a fly on the wall wall in The Tatler’s offices on 24 June 1902. With its pre-coronation issue finished and rolling off the printing presses, and staff already preparing for a follow-up issue that would do justice to the big day, the news suddenly broke that King Edward VII had been diagnosed with appendicitis and was undergoing surgery. His coronation was due to take place just two days later. It was, by any standard, the most shockingly bad timing. The Tatler’s 25 June issue had shown the country on the brink of full-blown celebration. Wooden stands and platforms lined the procession route, a full page was devoted to the plans for the King’s banquet being held for 500,000 of London’s poor, while another listed some of the capital’s finest residences – Dorchester House, Wimborne House and Harcourt House among them – that had been put at the disposal of His Majesty to accommodate foreign dignitaries and royal guests, who had already arrived in London (along with several thousand colonial troops).
Where possible, celebratory events were postponed. Foreign visitors who were able to remained in London until the rescheduled coronation on 9 August and The Tatler replaced what it had planned for its coronation cover with a more sombre photograph of Sir Frederick Treves, the surgeon responsible for King Edward VII’s lifesaving operation. When the coronation eventually went ahead, Clement Shorter, The Tatler’s editor at the time, was there with other journalists in the triforium high up in the abbey, with a view over the spectacle below. ‘It was a great and splendid ceremony,’ he told his readers. ‘The most imposing sight most of us will ever see.’
The full version of this feature appears in the June 2023 issue of Tatler.
