1947
19 November – King George VI ennobles Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten as His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, Knight of the Garter. Princess Elizabeth and Philip are married next day in Westminster Abbey.
1948
5 July – National Health Service is launched by Clement Attlee’s Labour Government.
14 November – Prince Charles is born.
1949
Autumn – Philip leaves for Malta as first lieutenant of the destroyer HMS Chequers.
1950
16 July – Philip is promoted to lieutenant commander and given command of the frigate HMS Magpie.
15 August – Princess Anne is born.
1951
July – Philip ends his naval career and returns from Malta.
23 September – King George VI’s lung is removed in an operation inside Buckingham Palace.
26 October – The Conservatives defeat Labour in the General Election. Clement Attlee resigns. Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister.
December – King George VI spends his last Christmas with his family at Sandringham.
1952
31 January – Princess Elizabeth and Philip stand in for her father and leave on their Commonwealth Tour, starting in Kenya.
6 February – King George VI dies in his sleep at Sandringham. The new Queen Elizabeth II hears the news of her father’s death at the Sagana Lodge in Kenya and flies back to London.
15 February – Funeral of King George VI.
April – The Coronation Commission meets for the first time, with the Duke of Edinburgh as Chairman.
Summer – Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother sees and decides to purchase and restore the Castle of Mey in northern Scotland.
5–9December – The “Great Smog” brings London to a standstill. Several thousand die.
1953
February – The end of British sweet rationing, first imposed in July 1942.
24 March – Queen Mary dies, aged 85.
2 June – The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. British television ownership rises from 400,000 in 1950 to 1,100,000 in 1953.
7 June – A report of romance between Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend is published in the New York Journal American.
10 June – Anthony Eden has abdominal surgery in Boston, Massachusetts.
23 June – Winston Churchill suffers a stroke at Downing Street.
3 July – London newspapers report the romance between Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend.
15 July – Peter Townsend leaves for Brussels to begin his new position as Air Attaché to the British Embassy.
31 July – Anthony Eden returns to London following his surgery in America.
Summer – Sir Alan “Tommy” Lascelles retires as Private Secretary to Elizabeth II. Michael Adeane succeeds him.
12 August – Soviet Union explodes the hydrogen bomb at the Semipalatinsk test site, Kazakhstan.
24 November – Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh set off on their round-the-world tour of the Commonwealth, starting in Bermuda.
1954
15 May – Queen Elizabeth II and her husband return, having travelled more than 40,000 miles and visited Bermuda, Jamaica, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, Cocos Islands, Ceylon, Aden, Uganda, Malta and Gibraltar.
4 July – British food rationing ends when restrictions on the purchase of meat and bacon are lifted.
17 July – Queen Elizabeth II’s horse Aureole wins the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot.
August – Graham Sutherland begins painting his portrait of Winston Churchill.
30 November – Parliament presents Winston Churchill with Sutherland’s portrait in Westminster Hall on his 80th birthday.
1955
February – Anthony Eden returns to London after meeting with Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser in Cairo, Egypt.
4 April – Winston Churchill entertains Elizabeth II for a farewell dinner in Downing Street.
5 April – Winston Churchill resigns and Anthony Eden becomes prime minister.
10 October – Peter Townsend returns to London from Brussels.
21 October – Elizabeth II unveils the statue of King George VI in the Mall.
31 October – A statement by Princess Margaret announces that she will not pursue her plans to marry Peter Townsend.
4 November – Townsend returns to Brussels to resume his position as Air Attaché to the British Embassy.
November – Cecil Beaton photographs Elizabeth II in her Garter robes in front of a painted back-drop of Windsor Castle.