Description
One of the most popular members of the House of Windsor, the Queen Mother was the wife of King George VI and the mother of Queen Elizabeth II.
Born Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, she was born on 4th August 1900 to British nobility descended from the Royal House of Scotland. She married Prince Albert, Duke of York, on 26 April 1923, and became the first British-born Queen consort since Tudor times when Albert was proclaimed King George VI in 1936.
Sadly widowed at the age of 51, after her husband’s death she became known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid any confusion with the new Queen Elizabeth II, her daughter.
Encouraged by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and driven by her strong sense of duty, she immersed herself in her public work after the death of her beloved husband ‘Bertie’, and the nation responded warmly to her caring manner and impromptu ‘walkabouts’ to greet well-wishers.
The ‘Queen Mum’, as she was affectionately known, died on 30th March 2002 at the grand age of 101.
HER 100TH BIRTHDAY
There was a tradition dating back to 1917, where the reigning monarch sent a telegram of congratulations to all British (and some Commonwealth) subjects on their 100th birthday.
There was a lot of speculation about whether the Queen Mother would received one, as it would come from the reigning monarch who was in actual fact her daughter!
By the year 2000 the Queen no longer sent telegrams but sent cards instead. However, The Queen Mother did receive one of these cards congratulating her on reaching her 100th birthday from her own daughter – but instead of being signed ‘Elizabeth R’; it was signed ‘Lilibet’ which was Queen Elizabeth II’s childhood name.
FOUR BRITISH ‘CROWNS’
The Queen Mother was celebrated by four crown-sized British coins: three of them marked her milestone 80th, 90th and 100th birthdays (in 1980, 1990 and 2000 respectively) while the final one was issued as a memorial to her (in 2002). All four of these coins are included in this set.
CROWNS AND CROWN-SIZED FIVE POUND COINS
The crown coin has historically been worth one quarter of a pound, so in the predecimal era this meant it had a face value of five shillings. When Britain changed to decimal currency this meant a new face value of 25 new pence. By 1990, it was felt their large size – by tradition crown coins are 38.6mm diameter – made this face value out of step with the rest of Britain’s circulating coins, many of which were smaller, but of greater face value. So, from 1990 onwards the ‘crown’ had a face value of five pounds which brought it more into scale with a coinage that included a pound coin at 22.5mm and two pounds at 28.4mm. Thus three of the coins in this set are crown-sized £5 coins as they are minted to the same specification as the predecimal and early decimal crowns that preceded them, but they have the more modern £5 face value.
GOLD SOVEREIGN of 1900 the year she was born
This is a sovereign from the era when it was a circulating coin. It features the Veiled Portrait of Queen Victoria, the final portrait of her, on the obverse. Dated 1900, it is the second-last year-date of her reign.
Of course, when the Queen Mother was born in 1900 no-one knew she would go on to become the wife of a king and mother of Queen Elizabeth II, so no commemoratives were minted at that time. Queen Victoria was the Queen Mother’s great-grandmother-in-law. That is, The Queen  Mother was married to King George VI – Queen Victoria’s great-grandson. The coin in this set will be Grade 8 on our ten-grade quality scale.
