Next week marks the 70th Anniversary of the Death of Queen Mary! The Teck Princess who lived through the reigns of six monarchs and was the Queen Consort for 25 years, as well as a Queen Mother and Queen Grandmother, Queen Mary assembled much of the British Royal Family’s spectacular Jewellery Collection, so we are featuring some of the jewels in the days leading up to the anniversary, starting with Queen Mary’s Ladies of England Tiara!
Queen Mary’s Crown | Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara | Vladimir Tiara | Delhi Durbar Tiara | Cambridge Emerald Parure | Lover’s Knot Tiara | Fringe Tiara | Gloucester Honeysuckle Tiara | Cambridge Sapphire Parure | Iveagh Tiara | Amethyst Tiara | Ladies of England Tiara | Surrey Fringe Tiara | The Jewels of Queen Mary
When Princess May of Teck married the Duke of York, the future King George V, in 1893, she received a series of spectacular gifts of jewellery from various parts of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, among which was this Pearl and Diamond Tiara created by Hunt & Roskell as a wedding gift from a committee of 650 ‘Ladies of England’. The versatile jewel was not only a Tiara, but could also be worn as a necklace, a corsage ornament, with the central section detachable to be worn as a brooch while the remaining portions could be used as sprays.
The Duchess of York began wearing her Ladies of England Tiara soon after her wedding, with it appearing in a series of portraits with her 11-row Pearl Choker at some point in the mid-1890s.
Around the same time, Princess Mary wore the Ladies of England Tiara as a Necklace for a portrait with her Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara and the City of London Choker, which has a sign from 1896.
The Duchess of York also wore the piece as as corsage ornament while dresses as a ‘lady of the court of Marguerite de Valois’ for the iconic Devonshire House Ball held during Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Celebrations in 1897.
A few years later, the then Princess of Wales wore the Ladies of England Tiara as a Necklace for the Coronation of her father-in-law, King Edward VII, in 1902, with the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara and the 11-row Pearl Choker.
Not long after the Accession of King George V and Queen Mary in 1910, the Ladies of England Tiara was broken up, with some of its diamonds used to create the Gloucester Honeysuckle Tiara, while the Pearls were used in Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot Tiara.
Queen Mary’s Crown | Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara | Vladimir Tiara | Delhi Durbar Tiara | Cambridge Emerald Parure | Lover’s Knot Tiara | Fringe Tiara | Gloucester Honeysuckle Tiara | Cambridge Sapphire Parure | Iveagh Tiara | Amethyst Tiara | Ladies of England Tiara | Surrey Fringe Tiara | The Jewels of Queen Mary
