Question for Royal Historians.

[Lockdownbear]

At the moment the RF has 8 senior working Royals, plus a few cousins who do stuff. Keeping in mind the cousins are aging and 4 or the 8 are beyond retirement age.

How many were there when the Queen was crowned?
And how many when her Father was crowned?

I'm just trying to figure out what the RF looked like a generation or two ago?

Is it feasible for the RF to operate with just two couples in 10-15 years time, between the Charles & Anne aging and Williams kids being ready to step up?

Interesting question!

I'm not sure how many were deemed working Royals - and of course the role was quite different then (the military being totally different and the charitable sector being much smaller)

This gives you an idea of who was around and adult when the Queen ascended to the throne, and their ages. Plus you can add on the dowagers (Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and perhaps Princess Marina)

lineofsuccession.co.uk/1952-02-06

You can search other dates on that site, but it only tells you those in the direct line of succession, not dowagers nor how much spouses were doing.

Around the time the Queen was crowned there were around working royals

Queen, Prince Philip, QEQM, Princess Margaret

Her uncles/Aunts - Duke & Duchess of Gloucester, Princess Mary and Princess Marina

That cut the bulk of my post 😭

I’ll type it out again in a bit.

I count 8 full time and a couple of part timers when the Queen was crowned is the short answer.

When the Queen was crowned - Queen, PP, QEQM, Princess Margaret, Princess Mary, Duke & Duchess of Gloucester and Princess Marina

In the late 70s the number had bumped up - Queen, PP, Charles, Anne, QEQM, Princess Margaret, Duke & Duchess of Gloucester, Princess Alice (Dowager Duchess), Duke & Duchess of Kent and Princess Alexandra. 12 full timers.

In 10 years of the full time royals from 2019 the Queen, Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra will presumably no longer be around or working. Charles, Anne and the Duke & Duchess of Gloucester will be in their 80s.

That will leave William, Kate, Edward & Sophie as full timers, with the Cambridge children too young to work. The loss of Andrew, Harry and Meghan (a minimum of 900 engagements a year) will be hard to cover.

There won't be as many to go round and that's a shame for charities who find that having, say, Princess Alexandra as a figurehead helps with sponsorships and charitable giving and general morale when she comes to visit their hospice or whatever. People on MN are a bit scornful about 'minor' royals and keen to slim down, but the truth is it's hard to get even local press interested in a new fundraising venture if there isn't a photo opportunity with someone famous or notable. I suppose sports stars and film stars could help here.

I think it's an interesting question whether the RF can operate on reduced numbers - I think the answer is yes but as others have said it would have to do less. In 1952 The Queen didn't feel as though she had enough people, so they eventually brought on the Duke and Duchess of Kent and Princess Alexandra as working royals, but it was a very different environment. I appreciate they've done a lot of work but I do wonder whether the public would notice if the Gloucesters/Kents just stopped work, and if they wouldn't, whether they are really needed...

The 4 cousins did over 500 engagements in 2019, so there’s a lot to be spread around.

The royals average around 3500 engagements a year. So if they’re splitting that between only a few there’s no way they’ll not be able to cut down.

Some will fit in naturally. For example Princess Alexandra is patron of Mind. That will slot into William and Kate’s portfolio easily; especially as I think that zoom meetings or group meetings where they can meet 3/4/5 groups all at once mean it’s no hardship to meet an extra group.

I think some of the more personal ones will likely be picked up by the children of the Dukes of Kent and Gloucester. The Duke of Kent’s children already do a bit of charity work, lady Helen for example is patron of Clic Sargent. So that’ll take some and they’ll just be non-royal patronages.

I think it’s a certainty that George, Charlotte and Louis won’t have the luxury of not being full time until their 30s like their father. They’re going to have to get involved young.

I do think a lot of people also don’t see why the Queen is so loyal to the Kents and Gloucesters.

The lives of all of her generation were changed completely by the abdication

The Duke of Gloucester was Governor General in Australia and his family would have grown up there. Then the early death of the Duke of Kent and George VI chucked the current duke of Kent into the role of needed working royal.

They’ve all been passing on their main patronages like Wimbledon and the WWF over the recent years so I assume many they still have will simply fade away in time and not have a royal patron.

So when HMQ was crowned, she had Philip, HMQM, PMargaret, PMary & PMarina (I'm assuming Mary & Marina were old) So 4 youngish and 2 old?

She felt too thinly spread hence asking here cousins Kent & Gloucesters to help?

How much has the work of RF changed in the last 70 years?

I always assumed it was the Kents who were Patron of Wimbledon, it was actually HMQ herself, passed on to Kate.

But yes I imagine many charities will end up without a Patron or they'll end up merging with other Organisation.

I think some of the 'minor' Royals (ie the other grandchildren) might take on a few more charity patronages that had been done by working Royals before. Because they might still enough of a 'draw' but need not have the full portfolio. So just one example, Zara could take on sports related ones and perhaps anything to do with the Olympics (though we might relinquish that completely)

I just don't see Zara and Peter coming onboard - it would look so strange to give them an official role over Beatrice/Eugenie (HRH and using it) or Louise/James (HRH and not using it) given they are below them in the line of succession/precedence etc. They would also need to give up their careers given the Queen has said no half-in/half-out arrangements for Harry and Meghan.

I picked Zara as an example because she is herself an Olympian, Workd Champion, SPOTY winner and is moving into sport and event management, so wouid be a reasonable candidate for those sorts of roles even if they were 'civilianised'

I was looking at achievent, and degree of kin, not place in succession or HRH style. The York princesses are already involved with a few charities. We tend not to hear much about it, as they just quietly get on with it.

What I was thinking of is just a small extension of what is happening anyhow.

Sure, but they all self fund their charity work as private individuals. So I guess the question might be whether it really matters if charity patrons are talented private individuals or representatives of the Crown? In practice maybe not, a charity would arguably get more publicity via Zara then the Duke of Kent, but I think once people start performing a quasi-royal role as private individuals, it will raise the question of why we fund the RF to raise awareness if the job can be done perfectly well by individuals out of their own pocket. I think for that reason alone Charles won't want to go down that road.

A few of the papers were running headlines over the last few days, of William looking to Zara and Mike to step up, becoming more active as working royals. Hard to tell these days if there’s anything behind it.

So when HMQ was crowned, she had Philip, HMQM, PMargaret, PMary & PMarina (I'm assuming Mary & Marina were old) So 4 youngish and 2 old?

Mary and Marina weren’t old. They were both full time royals for over 10 years after the coronation and died in their 60s.

There was also the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester (the current dukes parents).

So there were 8 full time members, none particularly old.

The current/younger Kents and Gloucesters came into play when the Duke of Gloucester, Princess Mary and Princess Marina needed replacing, but the Queen’s children were still too young.

The Kents were a generation younger because their father had died during the war.