Corto Maltese

That is what i wonder ?

jeroenrottgering

Probably a hero in the way he behaved during the Great War.

Louise C

I don't know how he is viewed generally, but I think he was a good and conscientious monarch on the whole, and ready to adapt to change. It is probably at least partly due to his adaptability that the monarchy survived here when so many others fell in the post WW1 period.

Brunel

King George V, the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Dominions, Emperor of India, was the grandson of Queen Victoria and the grandfather of our current monarch Queen Elizabeth II.

He became a very popular monarch.



He served in the Royal Navy from 1877 to 1891 and became king on 6th May 1910 upon the death of his father King Edward VII.

He was the cousin of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, Britain's enemy during the Great War, who the British dubbed "Kaiser Bill."

As a result of the Great War, other European empires fell. However, George V's reign saw the mighty British Empire expand to its greatest-ever extent.

He was famously anti-intellectual. On returning from one evening at the opera he wrote, "Went to Covent Garden and saw Fidelio and damned dull it was." His favourite past-time was stamp collecting.

He loved his country and his Empire and understood the British Empire better than most of his ministers; as he explained, "it has always been my dream to identify myself with the great idea of Empire."

He was a very hard-working monarch and also guided the British Empire through the dark days of the Great War, which caused the people of the British Empire to admire him immensely.

He absolutely adored his wife Queen Mary (the grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II) and his wife adored him. Because of this he did a lot of good work in promoting good family values.

The Great War, though, took a toll on George V's health. He was seriously injured on 28 October 1915 when thrown by his horse at a troop review in France, and his heavy smoking exacerbated recurring breathing problems. He suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pleurisy. In 1925 he was sent by doctors on a recuperative private cruise to the Mediterranean even though he didn't want to. Since the war ended 7 years previously he had only been abroad three times, and this time would be the last.

He contacted septicaemia in 1928 and for the next two years his son Edward took over many of his duties - becoming, in effect, a partial prince regent.

When his doctors advised him to go abroad again in 1929 for the sake of his health the king angrily refused to go. Instead, he retired for three months to Craigweil House, Aldwick, in the seaside resort of Bognor, Sussex on the south coast. As a result of his stay, the town acquired the name of "Bognor Regis", which is Latin for "Royal Bognor".

One thing which did seem to raise the king's spirits and helped to partially recover his health was his young granddaughter Princess Elizabeth. He absolutely cherished her and the future queen's regular visits to her grandfather were credited in the popular press and by later biographers with raising his spirit during his serious illness in 1929 and aiding his recovery.


Princess Elizabeth aged 7, 1933. Her visits to her grandfather during his illness in 1929 was credited with raising his spirits and partially restoring his health

George never fully recovered. In his final year, 1936, he was often administered oxygen.

On the evening of 15 January 1936, the King took to his bedroom at Sandringham House complaining of a cold; he would never again leave the room alive. He became gradually weaker, drifting in and out of consciousness. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin later said,

each time he became conscious it was some kind inquiry or kind observation of someone, some words of gratitude for kindness shown. But he did say to his secretary when he sent for him: "How is the Empire?" An unusual phrase in that form, and the secretary said: "All is well, sir, with the Empire", and the King gave him a smile and relapsed once more into unconsciousness.

By 20 January, he was close to death. His physicians, led by Lord Dawson of Penn, issued a bulletin with words that became famous: "The King's life is moving peacefully towards its close."

The king died at 11.55pm on 20th January 1936 when Dawson gave him a lethal injection of cocaine and morphine. He chose this time to do the act so that he could announce the king's death in The Times rather than the "less appropriate ... evening journals".

George V's younger brother was proclaimed King Edward VIII. He should have been king until his death in 1972, but instead he abdicated on 11th December 1936.


A statue of King George V outside Brisbane City Hall, Australia

Statues of King George V include those in Hobart, Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide in Australia, and one by William Reid Dick outside Westminster Abbey, London. The King George V Playing Fields in the United Kingdom were created as a memorial. The many places named after him include King George V Park in St. John's, Newfoundland; Stade George V in Curepipe, Mauritius; major thoroughfares in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; an avenue, a hotel and an underground station in Paris; King George V School, Seremban, Malaysia; and King George V School and King George V Memorial Park in Hong Kong.

George V - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Louise C

In Recollections of Three Reigns, by Frederick Ponsonby, there is quite an interesting story about his enthusiasm for stamp collecting:

When he was Prince of Wales an old lady wrote him a long letter and at the same time sent an album full of stamps. She explained that her late husband had begun as early as 1855 to collect stamps and had continued until the day of his death. She had found the album among his effects, but was not sufficiently knowledgeable about stamps to estimate whether the collection was of any value. She had therefore written to a stamp dealer in a neighbouring town and asked him to come out and look at it. The dealer on looking through it had offered her fifty pounds for it, but she told him she would think it over. She then consulted her doctor and asked his advice as to whether she should accept fifty pounds. He unhesitatingly replied certainly not, and advised her to write to a relation or friend and ascertain what the best way of selling the collection would be. After going through a list of her relations and friends she came to the conclusion that there was no one who had even a rudimentary knowledge of stamp collecting to whom she could apply for advice. She therefore determined to write to the Prince of Wales, of whose collection she had read in the newspapers.

The prince of Wales glanced through the album and saw at once that it was a very valuable collection. In it he saw a 2 1/2d Bahama stamp for which he had been looking for years. he told Derek keppel to reply that the collection was a valuable one,and that she should send it to Puttick and Simpson, the auctioneers in London, and pay £10 in advance to advertise the sale.

The old lady carefully followed his advice and the collection was put into a good sale. Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales gave instructions to his curator of stamps to buy ths particular Baham stamp at any price. The whole collection fetched over £7,000 and the Bahama stamp alone realised as much as £1,400.

A week later Sir Arthur Davidson, equerry to King Edward, had occasion to telephone the prince of Wales about something, and having finished he added "I know how interested your Royal Highness is in stamps. Did you happen to see in the newspapers that some damned fool had given as much as £1,400 for one stamp?" A quiet and restrained voice answered "I was the damned fool."

shivfan

How was he viewed then, or how is he viewed now?

I have very little to say about constitutional monarchs, who are little more than PR figures.

The bigger figures during the First World War were the prime ministers, such as David Lloyd George.

botully

So essentially he died from a "speedball", like John Belushi.

kbear

i always wondered why he didn't help his cousin nicholas the tsar and his family escape russia??

Louise C

He was afraid it would cause trouble in Britain, the government at that time was very concerned about socialist agitation in this country, and George was afraid that bringing the Russian royal family here would lead to a British bolshevist uprising.

Whether they would have been able to get the Russian royal family out is doubtful anyway, possibly any such escape plan would have failed.

Brunel

I got it wrong.

Edward VIII, of course, wasn't George V's younger brother. He was his son.