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A number of geographical features, roads, and institutions are named after George VI. These include King George Hospital in London; King George VI Reservoir in Surrey, United Kingdom; King George VI Highway and King George Boulevard in Surrey, British Columbia; Kingsway in Edmonton; George VI Sound in Antarctica; and the King George VI Chase, a horse race in the United Kingdom. The fourth future Dreadnought-class submarine will be named as HMS King George VI.

George VI had undergone a lung operation in September 1951 from which he never fully recovered. He died in his sleep at Sandringham House, Norfolk on 6 February 1952 at the age of 56. He was discovered by his valet at 7.30 am and the news was conveyed to Buckingham Palace by telephone, using the code "Hyde Park Corner" to avoid alerting switchboard operators to the news. The news was not broken to the wider world until 11.15 am when BBC newsreader John Snagge read the words "It is with the great

The body of George VI was placed in a coffin made from oak grown on the Sandringham estate. The coffin was laid in St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham where the king had worshipped while on the estate. On 11 February the coffin, draped in the Royal Standard on top of which his wife Queen Elizabeth had laid a wreath of flowers, was carried from the church. The coffin was placed onto a gun carriage of the Kings' Troop Royal Horse Artillery for its journey to the nearby Wolferton railway station.

Before arrival in London the Imperial State Crown was placed, on a cushion, on top of the coffin. The coffin was carried from the train by eight Grenadier Guards and placed onto a green-painted gun carriage, the same as had been used for the funeral procession of George V. Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret followed the coffin on foot to the outside of the station and then boarded a car to travel to meet Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace. The King's coffin was drawn in procession

The funeral of George VI took place on 15 February. Mourners, including representatives of foreign governments, were assembled outside Westminster Hall by 8.15 am. The American representative was Secretary of State Dean Acheson. The Belgian King Baudouin refused to attend, believed to be on the advice of his father, Leopold III, who held a grudge against the British prime minister Winston Churchill. Churchill had criticised Leopold for remaining in Nazi-occupied Belgium during the Second World W

From 1909, Al­bert at­tended the Royal Naval Col­lege, Os­borne, as a naval cadet. In 1911 he came bot­tom of the class in the final ex­am­i­na­tion, but de­spite this he pro­gressed to the Royal Naval Col­lege, Dart­mouth.When his grand­fa­ther, Ed­ward VII, died in 1910, Al­bert's fa­ther be­came King George V. Ed­ward be­came Prince of Wales, with Al­bert sec­ond in line to the throne. Al­bert spent the first six months of 1913 on the train­ing ship HMS Cum­ber­land in the West In­dies and on the east coast of Canada. He was rated as a mid­ship­man aboard HMS Colling­wood on 15 Sep­tem­ber 1913, He spent three months in the Mediter­ranean, but never over­came his seasickness. Three weeks after the out­break of World War I he was med­ically evac­u­ated from the ship to Ab­erdeen where his ap­pen­dix was re­moved by Sir John Marnoch. He was men­tioned in despatches for his ac­tion as a tur­ret of­fi­cer aboard Colling­wood in the Bat­tle of Jut­land (31 May – 1 June 1916), the grea...

In a time when roy­alty were ex­pected to marry fel­low roy­alty, it was un­usual that Al­bert had a great deal of free­dom in choos­ing a prospec­tive wife. An in­fat­u­a­tion with the al­ready-mar­ried Aus­tralian so­cialite Sheila, Lady Lough­bor­ough, came to an end in April 1920 when the King, with the promise of the duke­dom of York, per­suaded Al­bert to stop see­ing her. That year, he met for the first time since child­hood Lady Eliz­a­beth Bowes-Lyon, the youngest daugh­ter of the Earl and Count­ess of Strath­more and King­horne. He be­came de­ter­mined to marry her. She re­jected his pro­posal twice, in 1921 and 1922, re­port­edly be­cause she was re­luc­tant to make the sac­ri­fices nec­es­sary to be­come a mem­ber of the royal family.In the words of Lady Eliz­a­beth's mother, Al­bert would be "made or marred" by his choice of wife. After a pro­tracted courtship, Eliz­a­beth agreed to marry him. They were mar­ried on 26 April 1923 in West­min­ster Abbey. Al­bert's mar­ria...

King George V had se­vere reser­va­tions about Prince Ed­ward, say­ing "After I am dead, the boy will ruin him­self in twelve months" and "I pray God that my el­dest son will never marry and that noth­ing will come be­tween Bertie and Lili­bet and the throne." On 20 Jan­u­ary 1936, George V died and Ed­ward as­cended the throne as King Ed­ward VIII. In the Vigil of the Princes, Prince Al­bert and his three broth­ers took a shift stand­ing guard over their fa­ther's body as it lay in state, in a closed cas­ket, in West­min­ster Hall. As Ed­ward was un­mar­ried and had no chil­dren, Al­bert was the heir pre­sump­tive to the throne. Less than a year later, on 11 De­cem­ber 1936, Ed­ward ab­di­cated in order to marry his mis­tress, Wal­lis Simp­son, who was di­vorced from her first hus­band and di­vorc­ing her sec­ond. Ed­ward had been ad­vised by British prime min­is­ter Stan­ley Bald­win that he could not re­main king and marry a di­vorced woman with two liv­ing ex-hus­bands. Ed­ward...

Al­bert as­sumed the reg­nal name "George VI" to em­pha­sise con­ti­nu­ity with his fa­ther and re­store con­fi­dence in the monarchy. The be­gin­ning of George VI's reign was taken up by ques­tions sur­round­ing his pre­de­ces­sor and brother, whose ti­tles, style and po­si­tion were un­cer­tain. He had been in­tro­duced as "His Royal High­ness Prince Ed­ward" for the ab­di­ca­tion broadcast, but George VI felt that by ab­di­cat­ing and re­nounc­ing the suc­ces­sion, Ed­ward had lost the right to bear royal ti­tles, in­clud­ing "Royal Highness". In set­tling the issue, George's first act as king was to con­fer upon his brother the title "Duke of Wind­sor" with the style "Royal High­ness", but the let­ters patent cre­at­ing the duke­dom pre­vented any wife or chil­dren from bear­ing royal styles. George VI was forced to buy from Ed­ward the royal res­i­dences of Bal­moral Cas­tle and San­dring­ham House, as these were pri­vate prop­er­ties and did not pass to George VI automatically...

In Sep­tem­ber 1939, the United King­dom and the self-gov­ern­ing Do­min­ions other than Ire­land de­clared war on Nazi Ger­many. George VI and his wife re­solved to stay in Lon­don, de­spite Ger­man bomb­ing raids. They of­fi­cially stayed in Buck­ing­ham Palace through­out the war, al­though they usu­ally spent nights at Wind­sor Cas­tle. The first night of the Blitz on Lon­don, on 7 Sep­tem­ber 1940, killed about one thou­sand civil­ians, mostly in the East End. On 13 Sep­tem­ber, the King and Queen nar­rowly avoided death when two Ger­man bombs ex­ploded in a court­yard at Buck­ing­ham Palace while they were there. In de­fi­ance, the Queen de­clared: "I am glad we have been bombed. It makes me feel we can look the East End in the face." The royal fam­ily were por­trayed as shar­ing the same dan­gers and de­pri­va­tions as the rest of the coun­try. They were sub­ject to ra­tioning re­stric­tions, and U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roo­sevelt re­marked on the ra­tioned food served and th...

George VI's reign saw the ac­cel­er­a­tion of the dis­so­lu­tion of the British Em­pire. The Statute of West­min­ster 1931 had al­ready ac­knowl­edged the evo­lu­tion of the Do­min­ions into sep­a­rate sov­er­eign states. The process of trans­for­ma­tion from an em­pire to a vol­un­tary as­so­ci­a­tion of in­de­pen­dent states, known as the Com­mon­wealth, gath­ered pace after the Sec­ond World War. Dur­ing the min­istry of Clement At­tlee, British India be­came the two in­de­pen­dent Do­min­ions of India and Pak­istan in 1947. George re­lin­quished the title of Em­peror of India, and be­came King of India and King of Pak­istan in­stead. In 1950 he ceased to be King of India when it be­came a re­pub­lic within the Com­mon­wealth of Na­tions and recog­nised his new title of Head of the Com­mon­wealth; he re­mained King of Pak­istan until his death. Other coun­tries left the Com­mon­wealth, such as Burma in Jan­u­ary 1948, Pales­tine (di­vided be­tween Is­raeland the Arab states) in M...

The stress of the war had taken its toll on the King's health, made worse by his heavy smok­ing and sub­se­quent de­vel­op­ment of lung can­cer among other ail­ments, in­clud­ing ar­te­rioscle­ro­sis and Buerger's dis­ease. A planned tour of Aus­tralia and New Zealand was post­poned after the King suf­fered an ar­te­r­ial block­age in his right leg, which threat­ened the loss of the leg and was treated with a right lum­bar sym­pa­thec­tomyin March 1949. His elder daugh­ter Eliz­a­beth, the heir pre­sump­tive, took on more royal du­ties as her fa­ther's health de­te­ri­o­rated. The de­layed tour was re-or­gan­ised, with Eliz­a­beth and her hus­band, Prince Philip, Duke of Ed­in­burgh, tak­ing the place of the King and Queen. The King was well enough to open the Fes­ti­val of Britain in May 1951, but on 23 Sep­tem­ber 1951, his left lung was re­moved by Clement Price Thomas after a ma­lig­nant tu­mour was found. In Oc­to­ber 1951, Eliz­a­beth and Philip went on a month-long tour of Ca...

In the words of Labour Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment George Hardie, the ab­di­ca­tion cri­sis of 1936 did "more for re­pub­li­can­ism than fifty years of propaganda". George VI wrote to his brother Ed­ward that in the af­ter­math of the ab­di­ca­tion he had re­luc­tantly as­sumed "a rock­ing throne" and tried "to make it steady again".He be­came king at a point when pub­lic faith in the monar­chy was at a low ebb. Dur­ing his reign his peo­ple en­dured the hard­ships of war, and im­pe­r­ial power was eroded. How­ever, as a du­ti­ful fam­ily man and by show­ing per­sonal courage, he suc­ceeded in restor­ing the pop­u­lar­ity of the monarchy. The George Cross and the George Medal were founded at the King's sug­ges­tion dur­ing the Sec­ond World War to recog­nise acts of ex­cep­tional civil­ian bravery. He be­stowed the George Cross on the en­tire "is­land fortress of Malta" in 1943. He was posthu­mously awarded the Ordre de la Libéra­tionby the French gov­ern­ment in 1960, one of only two p...

Titles and styles

1. 14 December 1895 – 28 May 1898: His Highness Prince Albert of York 2. 28 May 1898 – 22 January 1901: His Royal Highness Prince Albert of York 3. 22 January 1901 – 9 November 1901: His Royal Highness Prince Albert of Cornwall and York 4. 9 November 1901 – 6 May 1910: His Royal Highness Prince Albert of Wales 5. 6 May 1910 – 4 June 1920: His Royal Highness The Prince Albert 6. 4 June 1920 – 11 December 1936: His Royal Highness The Duke of York 7. 11 December 1936 – 6 February 1952: His Majes...

Arms

As Duke of York, George bore the royal arms of the United King­dom dif­fer­enced with a label of three points ar­gent, the cen­tre point bear­ing an an­chor azure – a dif­fer­ence ear­lier awarded to his fa­ther, George V, when he was Duke of York, and then later awarded to his grand­son Prince An­drew, Duke of York. As king, he bore the royal arms undifferenced.

The time of the 1962 race was incorrectly given on the day of the race as 2 min. 32.02 and corrected to 2 min. 37.02 in October 1962.