Malta celebrated the coronations of four British sovereigns since the introduction of photography to the islands in the 1840s. The monarch’s formal assumption of constitutional powers not only activated the British genius for unbridled pageantry but turned those moments into occasions pregnant with historical, political, cultural and, overall, symbolic meanings.

Postcard of Floriana issued in 1911 on the occasion of the coronation of George V.

Photos and postcards of Edward VII’s visits to Malta abound but I have been unable to trace one single image of the lavish events organised in the islands to mark his coronation. This absence remains wholly unexplainable.

View of Floriana on a 1911 coronation postcard.

The grand ceremony was to be held in London on June 26, 1902, and invitations had already been issued to all monarchs and heads of friendly states. But the festivities had to be cancelled at the last moment as the new king suddenly needed urgent abdominal surgery.

A Malta postcard published to commemorate the 1911 coronation.

Palazzo Ferreria (Francia), in Strada Reale, Valletta illuminated for the 1911 coronation.

Queen Mary in a 1911 Malta coronation postcard.

Malta eventually celebrated that coronation on August 9, with solemn thanksgivings at St John’s, gala receptions in the palace, garden fetes, artillery fireworks, regattas in Grand Harbour and displays by decorated bicycles.

Main Guard Square during the festivities for George V’s coronation.

Contemporary photographs and postcards abound of the festive activities organised in Malta to solemnise the next London coronation – that of George V on June 22, 1911.

View of Floriana decked for the 1911 coronation. Photograph by Richard Ellis

Queen Square, Valletta, in a 1911 coronation postcard.

After Edward VII’s death, his successor, George V delayed his coronation by over a year to clear his name in an unprecedented libel action against the journalist Edward Mylius who claimed that George had previously, in Malta, entered into a clandestine marriage with Mary Elizabeth, a daughter of Admiral Culme-Seymour.

Strada Reale, Valletta en fete during the 1911 coronation activities.

The islands celebrated George’s formal ascent to the throne with an endless parade through Strada Reale in which over 20 bands took part, with fireworks and illuminations in Grand Harbour and a tea-party for thousands of British and Maltese schoolchildren at Selmun Palace.

Illumination of the British Mediterranean fleet in Grand Harbour to celebrate the coronation.

All images from the author’s collections