George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.

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George was born on 3 June 1865, in Marlborough House, London. He was the second son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), and grandson of the then reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria. From the time of his birth, he was third in the line of succession behind his father and his own elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale. From 1877 to 1891, George served in the Royal Navy, until the unexpected death of his elder brother in early 1892 put him directly in line for the throne. On the death of his grandmother in 1901, George's father became King-Emperor of the British Empire, and George was created Prince of Wales. H in 1870e succeeded his father in 1910. He was the only Emperor of India to be present at his own Delhi Durbar.

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His reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the Indian independence movement, all of which radically changed the political landscape. The Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords. As a result of the First World War (1914–18) the empires of his first cousins Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany fell while the British Empire expanded to its greatest effective extent. In 1917, George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, which he renamed from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a result of anti-German public sentiment. In 1924 he appointed the first Labour ministry and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognised the dominions of the Empire as separate, independent states within the Commonwealth of Nations. He had health problems throughout much of his later reign and at his death was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII.

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As a young man destined to serve in the navy, Prince George served for many years under the command of his uncle, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, who was stationed in Malta.

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In November 1891, George's elder brother Albert Victor became engaged to his second cousin once removed, Princess Victoria Mary of Teck. She was known within the family as "May", nicknamed after her birth month. On 14 January 1892, six weeks after the formal engagement, Albert Victor died of pneumonia, leaving George second in line to the throne, and likely to succeed after his father. Queen Victoria still regarded Princess May as a suitable match for her grandson, and George and May grew close during their shared period of mourning. A year after Albert Victor's death, George proposed to May and was accepted. They married on 6 July 1893 at the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace, London.

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The death of his elder brother effectively ended George's naval career, as he was now second in line to succeed to the throne, after his father. George was created Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney by Queen Victoria on 24 May 1892. As Duke and Duchess of York, George and May carried out a wide variety of public duties. On the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January 1901, George's father ascended the throne as King Edward VII. George inherited the titles of Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay, and for much of the rest of that year, was known as the "Duke of Cornwall and York".

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On 6 May 1910, King Edward died, and George became king. He wrote in his diary, "I have lost my best friend and the best of fathers ... I never had a [cross] word with him in my life. I am heart-broken and overwhelmed with grief but God will help me in my responsibilities and darling May will be my comfort as she has always been. May God give me strength and guidance in the heavy task which has fallen on me".

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George inherited the throne at a politically turbulent time. Lloyd George's People's Budget had been rejected the previous year by the Conservative and Unionist-dominated House of Lords, contrary to the normal convention that the Lords did not veto money bills. Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith had asked the previous king to give an undertaking that he would create sufficient Liberal peers to force the budget through the House. Edward had reluctantly agreed, provided the Lords rejected the budget after two successive general elections. After a general election in January 1910, the Conservative peers allowed the budget, for which the government now had an electoral mandate, to pass without a vote.

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On 4 August 1914 the King wrote in his diary, "I held a council at 10.45 to declare war with Germany. It is a terrible catastrophe but it is not our fault. ... Please to God it may soon be over." From 1914 to 1918, Britain and its allies were at war with the Central Powers, led by the German Empire. The German Kaiser Wilhelm II, who for the British public came to symbolise all the horrors of the war, was the King's first cousin. The King's paternal grandfather was Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; consequently, the King and his children bore the titles Prince and Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke and Duchess of Saxony. Queen Mary, although British like her mother, was the daughter of the Duke of Teck, a descendant of the German Dukes of Württemberg. The King had brothers-in-law and cousins who were British subjects but who bore German titles such as Duke and Duchess of Teck, Prince and Princess of Battenberg, and Prince and Princess of Schleswig-Holstein. When H. G. Wells wrote about Britain's "alien and uninspiring court", George famously replied: "I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien."

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On 17 July 1917, George appeased British nationalist feelings by issuing a royal proclamation that changed the name of the British royal house from the German-sounding House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor. He and all his British relatives relinquished their German titles and styles, and adopted British-sounding surnames.

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Before the First World War, most of Europe was ruled by monarchs related to George, but during and after the war, the monarchies of Austria, Germany, Greece, and Spain, like Russia, fell to revolution and war. In March 1919, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Lisle Strutt was dispatched on the personal authority of the King to escort the former Emperor Charles I of Austria and his family to safety in Switzerland. In 1922, a Royal Navy ship was sent to Greece to rescue his cousins, Prince and Princess Andrew. Prince Andrew was a nephew of Queen Alexandra through her brother King George I of Greece, and Princess Andrew was a daughter of Prince Louis of Battenberg, one of the German princes granted a British peerage in 1917. Their children included Prince Philip, who would later marry George's granddaughter, Elizabeth II. The Greek monarchy was restored again shortly before George's death.

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Political turmoil in Ireland continued as the Nationalists fought for independence; George expressed his horror at government-sanctioned killings and reprisals to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. At the opening session of the Parliament of Northern Ireland on 22 June 1921, the King appealed for conciliation in a speech part drafted by General Jan Smuts and approved by Lloyd George. A few weeks later, a truce was agreed. Negotiations between Britain and the Irish secessionists led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. By the end of 1922, Ireland was partitioned, the Irish Free State was established, and Lloyd George was out of office.

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The years between 1922 and 1929 saw frequent changes in government. In 1924, George appointed the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, in the absence of a clear majority for any one of the three major parties. George's tactful and understanding reception of the first Labour government (which lasted less than a year) allayed the suspicions of the party's sympathisers. During the General Strike of 1926 the King advised the government of Conservative Stanley Baldwin against taking inflammatory action, and took exception to suggestions that the strikers were "revolutionaries" saying, "Try living on their wages before you judge them."

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In 1926, George hosted an Imperial Conference in London at which the Balfour Declaration accepted the growth of the British Dominions into self-governing "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another". In 1931, the Statute of Westminster formalised George's position as "the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations". The Statute established "that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles" would require the assent of the Parliaments of the Dominions as well as the Parliament at Westminster, which could not legislate for the Dominions, except by consent.

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In the wake of a world financial crisis, the King encouraged the formation of a National Government in 1931 led by MacDonald and Baldwin, and volunteered to reduce the civil list to help balance the budget. He was concerned by the rise to power in Germany of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. In 1934, the King bluntly told the German ambassador Leopold von Hoesch that Germany was now the peril of the world, and that there was bound to be a war within ten years if she went on at the present rate; he warned the British ambassador in Berlin Eric Phipps to be suspicious of the Nazis.

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In 1932, George agreed to deliver a Royal Christmas speech on the radio, an event that became annual thereafter. He was not in favour of the innovation originally but was persuaded by the argument that it was what his people wanted.[89] By the silver jubilee of his reign in 1935, he had become a well-loved king, saying in response to the crowd's adulation, "I cannot understand it, after all I am only a very ordinary sort of fellow."

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The First World War took a toll on George'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, on the instruction of his doctors, he was reluctantly sent on a recuperative

George V as a boy in 1870

Prince George in 1893

George V in his coronation robes in 1911

"A good riddance" A 1917 Punch cartoon depicts King George sweeping away his German titles.

Opening of the Parliament of Australia on 9 May 1901

Photo: Internet Archive Book/Flickr • Believed to be in the Public Domain (No known copyright restrictions )

King George V with Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig

during the First World War.

Daniel Marcus William Beak is presented with the Victoria Cross by King George V at Valenciennes.

King George V making the first Christmas Broadcast| to the nation in 1934

Photo: Library of Congress - Bain Collection/Wikimedia

Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age - Copyright expired)

Photo: Library of Congress - Bain Collection/Wikimedia

Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age - Copyright expired)

Photo: Royal Collection/Wikimedia • Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age - Copyright expired)

Photo: Royal Collection/Wikimedia • Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age - Copyright expired)

Photo: Unknown/Wikimedia • Believed to be in the Public Domain (Age - Copyright expired)

Photo: IWM/Wikimedia/UK Government • Believed to be in the Public Domain (Crown Copyright expired)