Person    | Male  Born 23/6/1894  Died 28/5/1972

King Edward VIII

Categories: Royalty, Seriously Famous

Born as Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, at White Lodge in Richmond Park. Known to friends and family as David. 

Reigned 20 January - 10 December 1936 when he abdicated in favour of marriage to the twice divorced Mrs Simpson, to the sound of Londoners singing "Hark the herald angels sing, Mrs Simpson's pinched our king". Also successfully introduced plus-fours to America. After the abdication he was given the title of Duke of Windsor, and his younger brother, Bertie, became King George VI.  Thereafter the Windsors lived abroad and he died in Paris. The Guardian published a much more unusual picture of Edward, as the Prince of Wales in 1920, surfing in Hawaii. 

More seriously, he was aged 42 when he succeeded as King and had already, as Prince of Wales since 1911, spent many years representing his father, King George V, on gruelling tours of the Empire, and unveiling what he described as a never-ending stream of foundation stones. The choice he had was: more of that, or the woman he loved?

2021: The Guardian ('Saturday', 9 October) published a review of 'The Secret Royals' - Aldrich and Cormac, by David Pegg in which he writes: "... nobody emerges from the book in a more unflattering light than Edward VIII. He is grasping, lazy, greedy, dishonest, unreliable, anti-Semitic, self-pitying, treasonous ...".

2023: Reading Patrick Hamilton’s 1935 ‘Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky’, we were interested to see, on page 254, a discussion that takes place in a pub about “His Majesty’s illness”. Bob hopes that he will be “more successful as an Edwardian than as a Georgian” and “The Governor had got it into his head that the Prince of Wales would Never Come to the Throne but that the Duke of York would be Elected instead.” No basis is given for this view but it was remarkably prescient.

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
King Edward VIII

Commemorated ati

Duchy of Cornwall almshouses

This building was erected in 1914 by HRH Edward Prince of Wales to provide ac...

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Foundation stone for Royal Commonwealth Society

Edward Prince of Wales laid this stone in the 26th year of the reign of King ...

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Meard Street

2022: We were contacted by David Bieda who wrote: "Meard Street plaque. I’d l...

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Monarchs - board in Wine Office Court

When they add Charles III we wonder if they will remember to also increment t...

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Monarchs - board on Fleet Street

This board reads as if the pub has been rebuilt in each of the monarchs' reig...

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Show all 6

This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
King Edward VIII

Creations i

Cavalry Memorial

Unveiled in its original location, at Stanhope Gate by the Dorchester Hotel, ...

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E G Anderson Hospital and the Prince of Wales

This hospital was formally opened by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, Patron of Un...

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HMS Crystal Palace

This trophy was originally placed on the old quarter-deck (presumably constru...

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Islington war memorial arch - foundation stone at the right

In 1923 the Prince of Wales was Edward, who later became, briefly, King Edwar...

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Other Subjects

Tyburn Manor House

Tyburn Manor House

Used by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I as a hunting lodge.

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1 memorial
Queen Wilhelmina

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2 memorials
Queen Alexandra

Queen Alexandra

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Prince Leopold George Duncan Albert, Duke of Albany, K.G., K.T.,

Prince Leopold George Duncan Albert, Duke of Albany, K.G., K.T.,

Queen Victoria's youngest son, delivered at Buckingham Palace with the aid of chloroform. A haemophiliac he died aged 30. Married Helena and had two children: daughter Alice and son, Charles Edward...

Person, Royalty, France

1 memorial
King Edmund II, Ironside

King Edmund II, Ironside

King of England, also known as Edmund Ironside. Born c.990. Became king after the deaths of his two elder brothers, although at the same time, the Danish Canute was chosen as king by opposition fac...

Person, Armed Forces, Royalty

1 memorial