Reflections on British Royalty

In this original volume, Jennifer J. Purcell and Fiona Courage curate and contextualize the rich archival materials of social research organisation Mass-Observation on the British popular imagination of the monarchy and the royal family between 1937 and 2022.
From the coronation of George VI in 1937 to Elizabeth II's death - via war, weddings, a jubilee and a tragedy - this book incorporates everything from diaries and detailed responses to questionnaires, internal organisational documents and published reports on popular attitudes to royalty in order to reveal the complex nature of Britain's relationship with its monarchy in the modern era.
How does the British public imagine the monarchy and its role in British society and governance? What is the relationship between the British people and the Crown? Using material from Mass-Observation, which has been asking these questions for over 80 years, Reflections on British Royalty gets to the heart of these issues and more besides.

Jennifer J. Purcell is Professor of History at Saint Michael's College in Vermont, USA. Using Mass-Observation diaries and directives, her first book, Domestic Soldiers (2010), seeks to understand the day-to-day lives of six women on the home front during the Second World War. She is also the author of Mother of the BBC: Mabel Constanduros and the Development of Light Entertainment on the BBC, 1925-1957 (Bloomsbury, 2020) and editor of Mass Observation: Text, Context and Analysis of the Pioneering Pamphlet and Movement (Bloomsbury, 2023) and Reflections on British Royalty: Mass Observation and the Monarchy, 1937-2022 (with Fiona Courage; Bloomsbury, 2024). Fiona Courage is Deputy Director of Library, Culture and Heritage & Director of the Mass Observation Archive, University of Sussex, UK. Her publications include 'Recipes for co-production with children and young people' in Time, Technology and Documentation in a Digital Age (Bloomsbury, 2018; with Liam Berriman and Kate Howland) and 'Mass Observing Sport' in Recording Leisure Lives: sports, spectacles and spectators in 20th century Britain (2013; with Jessica Scantlebury).

1. Introduction 2. Coronation of George VI (1937) 3. Royalty in Wartime 4. Royal Wedding (1947) 5. Coronation of Elizabeth II (1953) 6. Ordinary or Extraordinary? The Royal Family in the 1950s and 60s 7. Middle-Aged Royalty: The 1977 Silver Jubilee 8. Mass Observation Project: 1980s-1990s 9. Mass Observation Project: Today Index