A Powerful Symbol of Sovereignty: Queen Elizabeth II’s Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara
In 1947, when Queen Elizabeth II was still a princess, she inherited a jewel from her grandmother, Queen Mary. The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara would go on to become an iconic symbol of the new Elizabethan age that began immediately after the death of Elizabeth II’s father, King George VI, on 6th February 1952.
Created by Garrard in 1893, Queen Elizabeth II wore the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara on numerous occasions. From its first outing in 1948 on a trip to Paris to one of its final appearances at a diplomatic reception at Buckingham Palace in December 2018, during Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara became known the world over as a powerful symbol of sovereignty.
One of Elizabeth II’s earliest obligations as Queen was to pose for her first official royal portraits, taken by the photographer Dorothy Wilding in February 1952. The iconic images of her wearing the elegant Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara, rather than a heavier and more formal crown, came to denote the beginning of her reign.
More photographs of the Queen wearing the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara followed, including a birthday portrait taken in the 1950s, with some appearing on stamps, coins and banknotes in the UK and around the Commonwealth. One such image, created by the designer Roger Withington in 1990 for a new series of £5 banknotes, went on to be used on the front of all Bank of England notes until her passing in September 2022.
The Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara as we know it is not the same as the one created for Queen Mary in our workshop more than 130 years ago. In an entry in Garrard’s Royal Ledger dated 26 June 1893, the tiara commission is noted as “A diamond band and scroll pattern tiara surmounted by fine drop pearls”. A wedding gift from the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland, the tiara was designed to be transformable, converting into both a necklace and coronet.
Mary wore the complete tiara to attend the coronation of her father-in-law, King Edward VII, in 1902 and for an official portrait in 1912, shortly after her own coronation. Two years later, in 1914, she returned the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara to Garrard for alterations, requesting that the baroque pearls be replaced with diamonds and the bandeau separated from the base, allowing it to be worn as a headband.
“Originally gifted to Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth II really made the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara her own.”
Claire Scott, Design and Development Director
Queen Elizabeth II wore just the bandeau—as seen in her 1952 portrait—often, but in 1969 requested that Garrard reunite both parts of the jewel. The distinctive pattern of round and lozenge-shaped diamonds decorating the base continues to be a major influence on the designers at Garrard today, inspiring the Garrard Windsor motif. The motif is the focal point of the Albemarle collection, where the round and geometric diamonds are presented in elegant rows and deconstructed and rearranged in abstract, asymmetric compositions for a contemporary twist on this timeless design.
“Originally gifted to Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth II really made the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara her own,” says Claire Scott, Design and Development Director at Garrard. “Instantly recognisable from her official portraits, the fleur-de-lis is a classic motif that features prominently in the British Crown Jewels.”
Since Queen Elizabeth’s II’s passing in 2022, the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara has been worn twice by Her Majesty Queen Camilla—in October 2023 at a reception and dinner in London and, two months later, at the annual Buckingham Palace reception for the Diplomatic Corps. One of Queen Elizabeth II’s most recognisable jewels, guests who are invited for a Garrard Afternoon Tea at our flagship in London are given the chance to try on an archive model of the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara, so that they, too, can feel like a Queen for the day.
Read more about Garrard’s most important creations for the British monarchy in Jewellery of the Royal Family: A Garrard History
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