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.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

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...

Read More

Foundation stone for Royal Commonwealth Society

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

Read More

Meard Street

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

Read More

Monarchs - board in Wine Office Court

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

Read More

Monarchs - board on Fleet Street

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

Read More

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, ...

Read More

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...

Read More

HMS Crystal Palace

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

Read More

Islington war memorial arch - foundation stone at the right

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

Read More

Other Subjects

Edward, Duke of Kent (1735)

Edward, Duke of Kent (1735)

Edward Augustus was the 4th son of George III and the father of Queen Victoria. In 1818 the only legitimate grandchild of George III died, leaving the succession shaky. The three unmarried sons of...

Person, Royalty

1 memorial
Whitehall Palace

Whitehall Palace

The palace covered the area approximately bounded by (clockwise) Northumberland Avenue, Victoria Embankment, Derby Gate, Downing Street, Horse Guards Road, The Mall.  The area was already a centre ...

Building, Property, Royalty

1 memorial
King Albert 1st of Belgium

King Albert 1st of Belgium

Monarch. Born Albert Léopold Clément Marie Meinrad in Brussels. He succeeded to the Belgian throne in December 1909, following the death of his uncle, Leopold II. Died in a mountaineering accident ...

Person, Royalty, Belgium

1 memorial
Prince of Wales's typhoid recovery

Prince of Wales's typhoid recovery

In 1871 the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) suffered an attack of typhoid fever (the illness of which his father had died 10 years earlier) while at his home, Sandringham in Norfolk. To everyon...

Event, Medicine, Royalty

1 memorial
Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II

Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II

The fiftieth anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II.  The Golden Jubilee Weekend took place between 1 and 4 June 2002 in London.

Event, Royalty

11 memorials

Previously viewed

Sir Thomas Neill

Sir Thomas Neill

Irish-born insurance executive and pioneer of National Health Insurance. In 1894 he became general manager of the London, Edinburgh and Glasgow Insurance Company and joined the board of directors ...

Person, Politics & Administration, Ireland

1 memorial