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Title says it all.

My guess is that some of the page boys maybe? or perhaps some members of the choir? Even someone in their early teens at the time would have had to make it through to their mid-eighties to still be alive.

The Queen survived to a ripe old age, and most of those in Westminster Abbey for the coronation were probably already a few years older at the time so are unlikely to have out-lived her.

(interested in actual witnesses, not TV/radio witness. Witnesses who witnessed with their own eyes!)

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    vtc as too basic: there is a Wikipedia page listing participants, and from that it is easy to discover at least one page still alive: James Waldegrave, 13th Earl Waldegrave. The most ironic surviving page is undoubtedly Andrew Parker Bowles, former husband of Queen Consort Camilla.
    – John Dallman
    Sep 11, 2022 at 14:44
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    His Majesty King Charles III, aged 4, was present at his mother's coronation.
    – davidlol
    Sep 11, 2022 at 17:54
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    I've voted to reopen the question because the Wikipedia page in question is 1) incomplete and 2) a haystack.
    – Spencer
    Sep 11, 2022 at 20:01
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    I would be astonished if there were not such people still alive. After all the Coronation was only 69 years ago. I remember it well and exactly what I was doing, and how it was celebrated that day in my Norfolk village. And I am only 77. There must be plenty of people now in their eighties who were at the service.
    – WS2
    Sep 13, 2022 at 15:11
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    I was present in the street outside, in a pram. I was 14 months old.
    – Michael Harvey
    Sep 19, 2022 at 22:02

2 Answers 2

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At the time of her death, were there any surviving witnesses to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II?
...
(interested in actual witnesses, not TV/radio witness. Witnesses who witnessed with their own eyes!)

As first meantioned by @davidlol: His Majesty King Charles III, aged 4, was present at his mother's coronation.

Lady Anne Glenconner, who became 90 on the 16th of July 2022, was one of the maids of honour at the coronation of Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey.

2022-10-11: BBC News - Coronation on 6 May [2023] for King Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort

1953-06-02: Coronation of Elizabeth II The then Prince Charles, at the age of four, was among the guests watching his mother's coronation.

2012-05-31: Prince Charles shares stories of his 'Mama' the Queen in BBC tribute | King Charles III | The Guardian
In it he recalls how, as a four-year-old, he watched his young mother practising with the heavy (2.2kg) St Edward's crown ahead of her coronation. "I remember my Mama coming, you know, up, when we were being bathed as children, wearing the crown. It was quite funny – practising," he says.

2020-10-22: My Life In Seven Charms with Lady Anne Glenconner on Apple Podcasts
Lady Anne Glenconner, who was Princess Margaret’s lady-in-waiting from 1971 until her death in 2002. She is the daughter of Thomas Coke, 5th Earl of Leicester and his wife Lady Elizabeth York.

Speaking on jeweller Annoushka Ducas’ podcast ‘My Life in Seven Charms’, Lady Anne told the tale of the young prince’s immediate fascination with his mother’s glimmering crown, which could so easily have resulted in it being smashed to smithereens.

Lady Anne also revealed that the Queen would wear the crown while she was writing letters, saying: "I think Prince Charles says he remembers going in and seeing her [wearing it]. And asked her why she's wearing it and she said she was practicing."
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"I wouldn't dare touch it. No, no, completely sacred," Lady Anne said. "Prince Charles got his paws on it, however old he was, when we got back to Buckingham Palace. "Because [the Queen] took it off, put it on a table, and Prince Charles made a beeline for it. And we thought he was going to drop it. We thought, 'Oh my goodness, that would be a bad omen'. But luckily, I think my mother, as a lady-in-waiting, seized it from him and took it away."

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You may need to define "witness"; Her coronation was broadcast live in the US and I expect Canada. No doubt many witnesses like me, to the broadcast. Most probably watching on 12, 14 ,or 16" black and white TV with low resolution. I only watched bits because it went on for boring hours. They noted several time during broadcast that it was the first program to be broadcast live , UK to US.

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    The coronation WAS NOT broadcast live in North America. There weren't any communication satellites in 1953. For Canada, it was filmed in London, then the film would be sent by Canadian Air Force jets and developed (remember this is before video) and shown on the CBC and Radio-Canada networks (there weren't any other networks then). I suppose the same kind of arrangement would have been in effect in the USA.
    – MasB
    Sep 13, 2022 at 13:30
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    The first live trans-Atlantic TV signal was via Telstar on 11 July 1962 - more than nine years after the Coronation. It is seldom that I ever down-vote an answer - but clearly there is an error here.
    – WS2
    Sep 13, 2022 at 15:25
  • Carried by trans-atlantic cable. I took a look on the net but found no specific mention of the coronation.
    – blacksmith37
    Sep 14, 2022 at 20:39
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    @blacksmith37 Sources I’m finding are saying that it was not. “Sending pictures directly across the Atlantic was possible, but only by pre-empting all existing underwater cables at the prohibitive cost, a regretful Postmaster General informed the House of Commons, of forty million dollars.” source It was, though, broadcast live on the continent through a microwave link from Dover to Calais.
    – Tom
    Sep 17, 2022 at 19:27
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    Tom's source is an excellent read, and makes it very clear that there was no live broadcast in the US. Besides, OP is asking about "those in Westminster Abbey for the coronation".
    – DevSolar
    Sep 23, 2022 at 8:05

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