Overall: 30cm (12in) x 32cm (11.5in)
Printed by James Whiting and Robert Branston in black and blue inks showing the King seated on throne with classical maidens, laurels, and coat of arms, (this being a fine and early example of the bicoloured security printing developed by Sir William Congreve) all within a blind stamped border by the firm of Dobbs & Kidd, additionally embossed in base with the Earl Marshal’s of Bernard, 12th Duke of Norfolk seal. Signed to the lower right by the Deputy Earl Marshal of England at the Coronation, Lord Howard of Effingham (1767–1845), and inscribed lower left ‘Earl Marshal’s Box / South Door’. Autograph signed verso ‘The bearer to the …. to pass / by Poet’s Corner / Howard of Effingham’. Ticket: 23cm (9in) x 25cm (10in). Framed and glazed.
Kenneth Alexander Howard, 11th Baron Howard of Effingham, served as a regimental officer with The Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards in the Flanders Campaign of 1793. He later he became a Divisional Commander under Wellington in the Peninsular War. He was made a Knight of the Bath and, in 1816, was appointed Colonel of the 70th Regiment by the Prince Regent.
George IV’s Coronation of 19 July 1821 was intended to outshine Napoleon’s of 1803.
It was funded with a £100,000 from the Government which was able to draw on the vasty war reparations which had been forced on France by the Treaty of Paris in 1815. Preparation and furnishing Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall cost £16,819, £111,810 was spent on jewels and plate, £44,939 on uniforms, robes and costumes, and £25,184 on the banquet. The total cost of the coronation was £238,000, the most expensive ever and more than twenty times the cost of the previous event in 1761.