New exhibition shows how they did coronations in the 1820s

Two hundred years and seven monarchs separate King Charles III from George IV, not to mention a rather different approach to spending public money on ceremonial occasions.

George’s coronation in Westminster Abbey in 1821 reflected his status as arguably the most powerful monarch in Europe, and his vanity. He wanted his ceremony to outshine those of Napoleon and the French Bourbon kings.

A new exhibition at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton brings to life what organisers say was “the most outrageous and scandalous crowning ceremony in British history”.

The event cost almost £240,000 (more than £20 million today). George’s robes (pictured right) alone cost over £24,000. No other monarch before or after has dared to display such extravagance and the ceremonial banquet in Westminster Hall was never repeated.

On the ground floor of the Royal Pavilion, the exhibition contains pictures, costumes, documents and objects from this spectacular coronation.

Heroes or cut-throats, asks maritime museum?

A new exhibition at the National Maritime Museum at Falmouth, Cornwall investigates how the image of pirates as symbols of freedom and adventure was created. PIRATES invites audiences to discover how robbers became unlikely folk heroes. From the 17th century through the 1820s to today, it highlights the likes of Captain Hook and the Pirates of Penzance, and the dark world of the real pirates of the Caribbean. PIRATES (UNTIL DECEMBER) includes costumes, weapons, film posters, books, real ‘pieces of eight’ and an immersive experience.

Notes From Now

Observations about the news from 1823

Birkbeck, the London college celebrating its bicentenary this year, was one of the pioneers in women’s education, admitting female students in 1830, nearly 40 years before the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Seven years before Birkbeck took women, the Royal Academy of Music welcomed its first students (aged 10-14) in March 1823.

The first 20 were joined by 16 more two weeks later. Unusually, by the standards of the day, there were equal numbers of girls and boys. The intake included someone from a very famous family of the future. Fanny Dickens was the older sister of Charles Dickens, who would publish his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, in just 13 years time.

Visitors can find out about the people involved, including George and his estranged wife, Caroline, who was refused admission to the Abbey.

There are unusual figures too, like the herb-strewer women who played a key role in the procession.

UNTIL 10 SEPTEMBER

The Guardian ’s slavery links

The Scott Trust, which owns The Guardian, the liberal Manchester newspaper first published in 1821, has apologised for the links its founders had to transatlantic slavery and announced a decade-long programme of restorative justice. They have also published Legacies of Enslavement, an academic review of the founding of the paper by John Edward Taylor and his financial backers.

Their parents had fallen on hard times. Despite living in a tiny flat they somehow found the money and space for a piano so Fanny could practise, and then enter the Royal Academy in 1823. The next year, brother Charles went to the Academy to watch Fanny perform - and win a prize from the King’s sister.

The story of Fanny Dickens and the ‘Women of the Academy’ is told in a podcast, produced for the Royal Academy’s bicentenary celebrations in 2022 and 2023.

Foreshadowing a modern debate, Radical MP Joseph Hume complained in March 1823 that it was disgraceful that his family was charged eight shillings [о 40p] to enter Westminster Abbey as tourists. He wanted free entry, or at least the “few pence” charged at St Paul’s Cathedral.