Tiara Wednesday: Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara

With the end of the Diamond Jubilee, we may as well have a diamond tiara.This would have to be my favourite diamond tiara, need to explain? Let’s get into the diamond tiara magic!

This is one of the many wedding present to the future Queen Mary that she received in 1893. The tiara was given to Mary by a committee that was chaired by Lady Eve Greville. The committee raised over £5,000 and bought the tiara from Garrard, after they donated the rest of the money to charities.

The tiara is designed by festoons and scrolls set on a bandeau of round and lozenge-shaped diamonds. It was topped with nine large pearl finals (left), originally. In 1914, Mary took them off, she replaced them with simpler diamond collets, she also removed the bandeau.

1947, Mary gave this tiara to her granddaughter as a wedding present. Elizabeth is said to call this tiara “Granny’s tiara”. As mentioned in Diana’s Jewels. Right after the wedding, with any given tiara occasion, she wore it. The tiara became a frequent worn piece by the Princess.

It is said that Elizabeth didn’t know there was a bandeau to the tiara until after Mary’s death in 1953. Elizabeth added the Bandeau to the originally tiara in 1969. 

Tiara Tuesday: Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara

Diamond Jubilee Week has started here! And we kick the weeks off with Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara:

Queen Mary’s fringe tiara is also referred to as the King George III Fringe Tiara, or the Hanoverian Fringe Tiara.This tiara was commissioned in 1830 using diamonds that had belonged to George III. She goes on further to state that Queen Victoria left the piece to the Crown, Queen Mary inherited it in 1910, and that Mary gave it to Queen Elizabeth (the future Queen Mother) in 1937.

The Royal Collection tells a different story, and since they are the authorities, I'm buying their version of the tale. They state that Queen Mary had the piece made in 1919 from a necklace she received from Queen Victoria as a wedding present. They also dispel the Hanoverian myth by specifying that Victoria bought the necklace from Collingwood & Co. jewelers in 1893.

According to the Royal Collection, it was given to Queen Elizabeth in 1936.

Elizabeth lent it to her namesake daughter for its history-making appearance atop the bridal veil. There was also a story about the wedding tiara. Before the wedding ceremony, the hair snapped, yes, snapped. Luckily Buckingham Palace had an replacement.

And then she lent it out again to her granddaughter, Princess Anne, for another bridal appearance.

Apart from these weddings, this piece remained out of the public eye for decades as the Queen Mother seemed to prefer two of her other tiaras for her own use in her later years. But then, in a thoroughly uncharacteristic move, Queen Elizabeth brought it out after the Queen Mother's death.

This also, was my choice of wedding tiara of Zara Phillips who married Mike Tindall on July 30, 2011 but, went for the Meander Tiara.

My Top 15 Tiaras: #1: Cambridge Lover’s Knot

Was designed and executed in 1913 by E. Wolff & Co. for the royal jewelers Garrards, who were commissioned by Queen Mary, the Queen consort of King George V, to create a tiara based on the design of one owned by her  maternal grandmother Princess Augusta of Hesse, the Duchess of Cambridge, wife of Prince Adolphus, the Duke of Cambridge.

The Original Design and some detailing on the new Lover’s Knot.

The predominant neo-Gothic or Gothic-revival features in the Cambridge Lovers Knot Tiara are the 19 arches and the incorporation of 19 pearl spikes and 19 diamond spikes rising above the surface of the tiara. The shape of the drop-shaped emeralds, somewhat resembling the Vesica Piscis, a symbol of Christian art in the Medieval period, may also be considered as a Gothic-revival feature in the tiara.

(Princess Augusta of Hesse, the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen Mary with upright pearls, Queen Mary without upright pearls)

When Princess Augusta, the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, married Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Stretlitz in 1843, the Duchess of Cambridge, gave the original Cambridge Lovers Knot Tiara as a gift to her daughter.

Princess Mary Adelaide, the second daughter of Prince Adolphus and Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, married Francis, the Duke of Teck in 1866, and this marriage produced four children, a daughter who was the eldest followed by three sons. The daughter who was born in 1867, was Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, who married Prince George, the Duke of York, and second in line to the British Throne in 1893, a marriage that received the blessings of Queen Victoria, who was her godmother.

In 1913, Queen Mary commissioned the Crown Jewelers Messrs. Garrard & Co. to construct a tiara based on the design of the  Cambridge Lovers Knot Tiara, that was once owned by her maternal grandmother Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel, the Duchess of Cambridge.

Queen Mary died in 1953 at the age of 85 years, just one year after the death of her son, King George V. In her will, she left the Cambridge Lovers Knot Tiara to her granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Elizabeth II later gave the Cambridge Lovers Knot Tiara as a wedding gift to Princess Diana, at the time she married Prince Charles, the Price of Wales. The first official function for which Princess Diana wore the Cambridge Lover's Knot Tiara was the opening of the British Parliament in November 1981. However, after her divorce from the Prince of Wales the tiara was returned to Her Majesty the Queen.