From the Post archives: the death of King George VI

“London, Feb. 6: King George VI died in his sleep at his country home at Sandringham early today. A Buckingham Palace announce­ment said early this morning: ‘It was announced from Sandringham at 10.45a.m. today, February 6, 1952, that The King, who retired to rest last night in his usual health, passed peacefully away in his sleep early this morning.’

“With King George’s death, his daughter, Elizabeth, who is flying home from Nairobi, Kenya, immediately became Queen.”

So ran the report in the South China Morning Post on February 7, 1952. It was said to have come as a “stunning surprise to Britons who thought their king was on the way to recovering from a lung operation on September 23 [1951]”.

“News of The King’s death was kept within the Royal Family and the highest Government circles until Queen Elizabeth [...] could be told of her father’s death,” the report continued.

King George VI had reigned for 15 years and one month having succeeded to the throne on the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII, on December 11, 1936, reported the Post. “He did not want to be King. He wanted to be left alone to be a ‘very ordinary person’. He once said so, rather wistfully, to a boy who asked him for his autograph.”

Over the days that followed, the Post reported reaction from around the world.