Mary Wakefield looks back at our issue of 24 April 1926, and finds The Spectator reflecting on Mussolini, the brewing General Strike — and the off-side rule
It was press day at The Spectator when Queen Elizabeth II was born. The printers had set the lines of type for the edition of 24 April 1926, and were waiting for the extra paragraph about the new royal baby. Did their hearts swell with pride when it arrived? The Spectator gave them the benefit of the doubt: ‘Universal pleasure has been caused by the birth of a daughter, on Wednesday, to the Duke and Duchess of York,’ it said. ‘The new Princess is third in the line of succession to the Throne, coming after the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York…. It will be very agreeable to the nation,’ added The Spectator, ‘if the child is given a characteristically English name.’ The page cast and set, news of Elizabeth’s arrival was printed, surrounded by 30 pages describing and analysing the country she was later to inherit.
Most of the news in late April 1926 was bleak. The general strike was brewing, Sir Herbert Samuel’s Commission into the problems of the mining industry had just been published — ‘withdraw subsidies and reduce wages!’ said Sir Herbert — and the miners were not best pleased.
‘They’re puzzling their heads over the meaning of the Report,’ said The Spectator’s News of the Week, ‘inclining to the belief that they could not possibly put up with any reduction of wages or lengthening of hours, suspecting that an attack upon the National Agreement had been planned by the owners.’
Unions were cruising for confrontation, city streets teeming with angry workers, but the Queen’s birthday edition didn’t give in to despair. It peered at the situation from both sides, advised compromise and reconciliation.
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