{"id":277773,"date":"2025-07-20T16:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T16:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/277773\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T16:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T16:19:09","slug":"why-the-people-of-warrington-fell-out-with-the-royal-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/277773\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the people of Warrington fell out with the Royal family"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  First Warrington ended up with the Golden Gates because <a href=\"https:\/\/www.warringtonguardian.co.uk\/news\/16960064.why-the-queen-was-so-angered-by-the-golden-gates-that-they-ended-up-in-warrington\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Queen Victoria was so annoyed that the same ironmonger had made a statue of the arch-Republican Oliver Cromwell<\/a> that she no longer wanted them.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  And it is rumoured she was none too impressed that Warrington took both and proudly put them on display.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  But it was Warrington people who were left angry by the royals in the early 20th century.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  And the story was relayed during the Great British Railways BBC2 programme when Michael Portillo was filming in Warrington back in 2019.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   title=\"Warrington Guardian: \" alt=\"Warrington Guardian: \" class=\"editor-image\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 2400 \/ 1594;\"\/>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <strong>Michael Portillo with Janice Hayes<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Janice Heyes, historian, explained how the town had two visits from two different kings within four years.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  She said: \u201cThe date July 6, 1909, was supposed to be a red letter day for Warrington as the town eagerly awaited a royal visit by Edward VII, Queen Alexandra and their daughter Princess Victoria.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cThe town council had voted a special grant of more than \u00a31,000 (the equivalent of \u00a3140,000 in today\u2019s money) to decorate the route with colourful flowers and Sankey Street was a colourful scene of red, white and blue with excited crowds in their Sunday best clothes.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cAlas the air of expectation captured here was dashed as the royal party sped along the route in a closed car; paused for less than five minutes at the Town Hall and drove swiftly off with a loyal address and a diamond necklace for the royal princess.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  This was because not only had Warrington paid for the decorations, the council also put the necklace for Princess Victoria.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  But the royal party stopped only to open the car door, take the necklace and drive off.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  So it was that the new king, George V, was soon back on his way up north.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He came to Warrington in July 1913 to open the bridge over the Mersey, now known as Bridge Foot.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Janice explained: \u201cOn July 7, 1913 George V officially opened the first half of the bridge.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cTo atone for the hasty visit of Edward VII in 1909, his son\u2019s visit to Warrington was a carefully-managed affair.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  And it was far more successful too.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  With thousands lining the route of the royal party, including along Bridge Street, above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First Warrington ended up with the Golden Gates because Queen Victoria was so annoyed that the same ironmonger&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[5105,7710,519,448],"class_list":{"0":"post-277773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-royal","9":"tag-royal-families","10":"tag-royal-family","11":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114886473313782190","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}