John St Helier Lander (1869 - 1944), George V (detail), Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection. View full image
Reigned 6 May 1910 to 20 January 1936
George V’s (1865-1936) reign coincided with a time of national and international upheaval, as war and revolution reshaped empires.1 Creating a new, more contemporary style of royal court, he ‘smoothed the process of political change ... In an epoch when many of the older European monarchies were abolished, this was an achievement of substance’.2
George was born in London in 1865, the second son of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later Edward VII and Queen Alexandra).3 He trained for the Royal Navy; however, the death of his older brother brought George into the direct line of succession, and he left active service to begin ‘the political round’.4 In 1893, he married Princess Mary of Teck5 and they had six children. These included future monarchs Edward VIII and George VI, and future Governor-General of Australia Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. George and Mary travelled widely, including to Australia for the opening of the first Commonwealth Parliament in 1901. George ascended to the throne on the death of his father and was crowned in Westminster Abbey in 1911.6
George’s reign began amid a political and constitutional crisis, as the House of Lords’ refusal to pass the Parliament Bill was only resolved when he threatened to create new peers.7 Also pressing was the issue of Irish Home Rule, with the 1916 Easter Rebellion and subsequent civil war leading to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 (later the Republic of Ireland).8 During World War I George was active, visiting hospitals and factories as well as the Western Front twice, bestowing some 50,000 gallantry awards.9 This, plus his own son’s active service, forged strong bonds between Crown and people. In 1917, George changed his family name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor, in response to the prevailing anti-German sentiment, and controversially denied political asylum to his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II.
After the war, when the first Labour Government was elected, George ‘ensur[ed] a smooth transition, observing punctiliously the constitutional properties, and emerging as a truly national leader, neutral in politics’.10 Britain’s relationship with its ‘Dominions beyond the Sea’ was also changing, as the 1926 Balfour Declaration (embodied in the 1931 Statute of Westminster) declared the UK and its dominions ‘autonomous communities within the British empire ... freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of nations’.11George continued to modernise the monarchy, establishing the tradition of annual Royal Christmas broadcasts from 1932. His first message (written by Rudyard Kipling) was addressed ‘to men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them’.12George celebrated his Silver Jubilee in 1935 and died the year after. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward.13
John St Helier Lander
British portraitist John St Helier Lander (1869-1944) was born in Jersey, Channel Islands. Apprenticed to a watchmaker at age 15, Lander preferred to spend his days drawing. After studying art in London and Paris, he returned to Jersey to establish himself as a portrait painter. There he met the Lieutenant-Governor of Jersey, Major-General Henry Abadie, who prompted Lander to return to London. There, Abadie introduced Lander to society clientele and leading British generals before the onset of the World War I. The demand for war-time portraits provided Lander steady work while increasing his profile. He was active in the Modern Society of Portrait Painters and the Institute of Oil Painters. In 1923, Lander received a silver medal at the Paris Salon and was commissioned to paint his first Royal portrait of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII. Among his various portraits of the British Royal Family, Lander was particularly proud that his later portrait of King George V was unveiled by the Prince of Wales. In 1937, he painted the portrait of King George VI in collaboration with Jersey artist Edmund Blampied. His work is represented in major regional UK public collections.
14
George V
by John St Helier Lander
1934
Oil on canvas
237.5 x 147.5 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collection
References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from: HCG Matthew, ‘George V (1865–1936), king of Great Britain, Ireland, and the British dominions beyond the seas, and emperor of India’,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; H Nicholson,
King George the Fifth: His Life and Reign, Constable & Co Ltd, London, 1952; C Cunneen,
King’s Men: Australia’s Governors-General from Hopetoun to Isaacs, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1983.
2. Matthew, op. cit.
3. ‘George V (r. 1910–1936)’, Royal Family, accessed 2 September 2021.
4. Matthew, op. cit.
5. F Prochaska, ‘Mary [Princess Mary of Teck] (1867–1953), queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and the British dominions beyond the seas, and empress of India, consort of George V’,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 2 November 2021.
6. Matthew, op. cit.
7. Nicholson, op. cit., pp. 148–57.
8. ‘The Cabinet Papers: Irish independence’, The National Archives, accessed 3 September 2021.
9. Nicholson, op. cit., p. 325; Matthew, op. cit.
10. Ibid.
11. ‘Balfour Declaration 1926 (Imperial Conference)’ and ‘Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 (Cth)’, Museum of Australian Democracy; S Bennett, ‘Australia’s Constitutional Milestones’, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2004. Websites accessed 3 September 2021.
12. Quoted in ‘George V’, Westminster Abbey, accessed 3 September 2021; T Pinney, ‘Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard (1865–1936)’,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
13
. H Matthew, ‘Edward VIII [afterwards Prince Edward, duke of Windsor] (1894–1972), king of Great Britain, Ireland, and the British dominions beyond the seas, and emperor of India’,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 2 November 2021.
14. Information in this biography has been taken from: Modern Portrait Painters’,
The Scotsman, 1 February 1924, p. 7; ‘The death of Mr John St. Helier Lander’,
Somerset Guardian and Radstock Observer, 18 February 1944, p. 8; ‘‘Painter of Kings: death of a leading portrait artist’,
Birmingham Mail, 15 February 1944, p. 3