It was on our stamps and coins. It was paid for by the girls of Great Britain and Ireland. So kudos to Kate and Camilla for wearing THAT tiara – a true tribute to Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Camilla honored her late mother-in-law last week by wearing one of Elizabeth II’s favorite pieces of jewelry, which was most closely associated with her.

Affectionately known as ‘Granny’s Tiara’, it will be familiar to many of us as this was the tiara we often saw Queen Elizabeth wearing when her image appeared on Great Britain and Commonwealth coins and stamps.

It is therefore all the more significant that Camilla had worn it to the coronation dinner at London’s Mansion House.

And perhaps it is all the more surprising that such a well-known and important piece of jewelry was financed through a popular subscription.

The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara was a wedding gift for Charles’ great-grandmother, Princess Mary of Teck, who married the future George V on July 6, 1893.

Mary’s lifelong friend, Lady Eva Greville, formed a committee and asked girls from all over Britain and Ireland to send contributions of any amount from 1d to £5 from themselves or their friends.

£5,000 was raised and £1,600 of that was used to purchase a diamond, gold and silver tiara in a pendulum and scroll design from Garrard & Co, the crown jeweller.

The tiara was still ‘in production’ when the royal wedding gifts were displayed at the Imperial Institute, so the public only saw a paper replica.

The surplus money, together with other monetary gifts on the occasion of the wedding, was donated by the bride and groom to the Victoria Fund for the widows and orphans of the 358 sailors who died in a recent maritime disaster.

The Duchess of York was delighted with the new tiara and wrote in a thank you note to Lady Eva: ‘How can I find enough words to thank you and all the young ladies of England [sic] for the truly wonderful gift I received? I hardly need to assure you that the tiara will one day be one of my most prized wedding gifts.”

One of the advantages of the gift was its adaptability, as it could be worn as a tiara, a necklace or a crown.

It was the latter that Mary wore in July 1897 at the Devonshire House Ball when she appeared at this fancy dress event as a lady of the court of Queen Marguerite of Valois, a diplomatic character choice as her mother-in-law Alexandra. , Princess of Wales herself appeared as Queen Marguerite.

Queen Mary was passionate about her jewelry collection and regularly changed the designs of the pieces.

In 1914, she asked Garrard to exchange the jewels of two of her wedding tiaras and also to make a third: ‘Lover’s Knot Tiara’.

Garrard charged her £34 to take ’13 brilliants from the Tiara of the County of Surrey and 26 smaller brilliants to form the tops of the Girls of Great Britain Tiara instead of pearls.’

These large oriental pearls that had sat on diamond spikes on the ‘Girls Tiara’ were placed with others in the Lover’s Knot headpiece that Queen Mary often wore. In 1953, she bequeathed it, along with many other jewels, to Elizabeth II in her will.

It was often worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, but returned to the royal collection after her death.

It is now a favorite of Catherine, Princess of Wales, who first wore it to a diplomatic reception at Buckingham Palace in 2015.

Sometime around the time of the First World War, Mary had the bandeau, consisting of two rows of diamonds separated by diamond-shaped diamonds and brilliants, removed from the Girls of Britain tiara.

For the next twenty years, she wore the tiara and bandeau as two separate pieces.

She gave both items to Princess Elizabeth as a wedding gift in 1947 when they were displayed on velvet bow-shaped cushions for the public to see at St James’s Palace.

Elizabeth clearly loved the piece she called “Granny’s Tiara.” One reason was that it was lighter than many of the other tiaras she had in her collection, but at the same time it was an impressive and suitably royal piece.

She wore it during the first photo session of her new reign, just twenty days after her accession to the throne, when she was still in black mourning for her father George VI. During the session, 59 photographs were taken by society photographer Dorothy Wilding, the first female photographer to receive a royal warrant.

The purpose of the session was to create portraits that could serve as the basis for Elizabeth’s image on new coins, stamps and banknotes.

In 1969, Queen Elizabeth, who like her grandmother loved to experiment with her jewelry collection, reunited the bandeau with the tiara to create a substantial piece.

She continued to wear it at galas, state banquets and in portraits for the rest of her life.

Appropriately, it is believed that the tiara most associated with her was last seen in public at a diplomatic reception she hosted at Buckingham Palace in December 2018 for ambassadors accredited to this country from around the world.

• Ian Lloyd is author of The Queen: 70 Chapters in the Life of Elisabeth II