On This Day: Britain mourns as King George V dies after 26-year reign through troubled times

JAN 20, 1936: King George V died at age 70 on this day in 1936 – ending a 26-year reign through many troubled times, including the First World War and Great Depression.

The popular monarch, who the public viewed a father figure despite his own children fearing him, was recorded as succumbing to bronchitis after years of ill health.

But it later emerged that his personal physician Lord Dawson hastened the king’s death by giving him a lethal overdose of cocaine and morphine.

Dawson’s diary – published in 1986 – revealed that he let George die at 11.55pm so it could be announced in The Times and not the “less appropriate evening journals”.

A British Pathé newsreel, which showed his home at Sandringham where he died, described his passing as a “staggering blow to the peoples of the British Empire”.

It also showed footage of his reign – including his 1910 coronation, visiting troops in the trenches and his near death seven years earlier – that endeared him to the public.

Indeed, so grief-stricken were Britons that a million silently filed past his coffin in Westminster Hall.

At one point it was guarded by his son, King Edward VIII, whose abdication within a year made the monarchy deeply unpopular and threatened its very existence.

George’s final interment at Windsor Castle was delayed by an hour because the huge crowds lining the funeral procession route made passing very slow.

His popularity came as a big surprise to many – and particularly to George himself since he had never courted publicity and he was often the opposite of affectionate.

But Britons saw in him as not only a man who had stoutly defended the monarchy but had also ensured the survival of the country during a time of turbulence.

[On This Day: King George VI has operation for fatal lung cancer]

The grandson of Queen Victoria inherited the throne from his father Edward VII a year after the radical People’s Budget had been blocked by Conservative peers.

The Liberal government were forced to twice hold general elections before the Tories would allow the introduction of social welfare programmes and tax the wealthy.

After this, George V – fearing he would be painted as on the side of the Conservatives – created a raft of new Liberal peers.

The elected MPs in the Commons and their colleagues in the House of Lords then passed the 1911 Parliament Act, which drastically limited the power of peers.

The King was also at the centre of the fight for women’s votes when Suffragette Emily Davidson threw herself under his horse at the 1913 Derby.

The following year, he brokered talks between the Liberals and Tories that persuaded the latter to allow Home Rule in Ireland.

But the law would come too late to stop the 1916 Easter Rising, 1919 Irish War of Independence and subsequent partition that has plagued the island ever since.

Its enactment was immediately postponed by the First World War, which would prove the greatest challenge of George’s life.

Publicly, he had to show support for Britain’s gung-ho generals – but privately he felt to be ‘horrible and unnecessary’.

In response to anti-German sentiment, though, George changed his family name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the simpler, more English-sounding Windsor.

The war also took its toll on his health: he seriously injured himself after falling from a horse during a troop review in France and became an even heavier smoker.

But he fared better than his cousins: Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated after Germany’s defeat and Tsar Nicholas II was killed following the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.

But almost a million Britons had died and the country was a changed place – with the threat of communism and revolt now constantly hanging in the air.

[On This Day: Britain's last Prince George dies in wartime plane crash]

Nevertheless, despite challenges to the old order such as the 1926 General Strike, the monarchy became increasingly popular.

The king’s near death from a sudden attack of pleurisy in 1928 – and months of recovery – inspired a surge of support for the ailing monarch and his throne.

Huge celebrations of his Silver Jubilee, which had been promoted by his government not himself, touched him and his wife Queen Mary deeply.

It also astounded his three sons who never felt at ease with him – not surprising given George’s admission that he intended to be feared the way he had his father.

Yet his public image was that of the wise and caring father of the nation – and this was how Britons would largely remember him.