Commemorative Teacup and Saucer

An English bone china teacup-and-saucer pair (Object 84) in the Martindale Hall Smoking Room commemorates this sequence of extraordinary events, capturing the transition from one king to another. The cup and saucer are each decorated on one side with a coloured portrait of Edward VIII under a crown and framed by a Union Jack flag and the Royal Standard of the United Kingdom. The text beneath reads ‘Coronation, Edward VIII, May 12th 1937’. Underneath this, a line has been added in a different font, reading ‘Abdicated December 11th 1936’. On the opposite side, a second coloured decal depicts King George VI and his wife, with the year 1937 and a scroll bearing the words ‘Coronation, long may they reign’.

The teacup is 35 mm wide at the base and has a diameter at the top of 84 mm; it is 72 mm high and rests on a saucer with a diameter of 138 mm. Both teacup and saucer are made of white bone china and are stamped on the base with a crown and fabrication details (‘Delphine China’ and ‘Made in England’), along with the inscription ‘To commemorate the coronation of King George VI & Queen Elizabeth’ and the mark of J. H. Middleton & Co. The cup was manufactured by Hudson & Middleton, who operated out of the Sutherland Works in Longton, England.² Thousands of commemorative cups and mugs had already been produced and purchased by December 1936.³ Given the obvious difference in font and style of the abdication date, it is obvious that unsold memorabilia were hastily altered to reflect the abdication of Edward VIII and the ascension of George VI. This particular cup and saucer can only have been reissued between December 1936 and May 1937 and were therefore likely bought in Australia, since no members of the Mortlock family are known to have been overseas at that time.

The Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House views commemorative cups such as this as representative of the ‘constitutional role that the monarchy plays in Australia’s democracy’, as well as the status and celebrity that royal figures held in the past and continue to hold today.⁴

The cup represents the link between loyalty to the Crown and the various forms of Australian nationalism that appeared after the First World War and symbolises the growing popular accessibility of the monarchy that had been carefully cultivated by Edward and George’s father, George V.⁵ The increasingly public face of the monarchy was designed to signal modernity, allying the royal family with ordinary, informal experience rather than a remote and mythic Crown.⁶ Sixteen years prior to the cup’s manufacture, the future Edward VIII—then Prince of Wales—visited Adelaide as part of a larger imperial tour,⁷ and newspaper reports at the time convey an impression of excitement that suggests the monarchy was particularly popular in South Australia.⁸ Newspapers report, with particular affection, a message from Edward to the ‘Country People’ thanking them for their hospitality.⁹

The abdication/coronation cup would have been displayed alongside Martindale Hall’s large collection of other collectibles and tourist souvenirs. The vastness of the collection, accrued by William Tennant and John Andrew Tennant Mortlock during their travels, suggests a possible focus on quantity over quality, and this cup and saucer are no exception. Far from belonging to a class of elite objects, such souvenir china was a popular expression of royal support shared by ordinary subjects across the British Empire’s dominions.

Beverly Gordon observes that the role of souvenirs is to turn ‘what was otherwise only an intangible state’—a set of emotions and experiences—into something tangible.¹⁰ Perhaps some of the objects in the room were collected to make visible a connection to Britain that the family identified with and continued to maintain. The Powerhouse Museum notes the tendency of Australians to follow royal events closely and purchase souvenirs as a way of participating remotely to negate the distance between Australia and England.¹¹ While many souvenir items were manufactured to commemorate the coronation of Edward VIII, those altered to reflect the abdication are significantly rarer.¹² As an item created to commemorate a coronation that never took place, it certainly has curiosity value, but as an item altered to commemorate an event as rare as the abdication of a British monarch, it has historical significance.

The coronation/abdication teacup represents a unique political occasion—both a scandal and a constitutional crisis—and sits in an unusual collection of Australian colonial memorabilia.¹³ Although it is not unique, the alteration that changes it from a coronation to an abdication teacup gives it rarity value. Placed in context with the Empire Games banner, it is part of a demonstration of a continuation of British values and reverence for the monarchy. The Martindale Hall Smoking Room collection is a significant assemblage of artefacts from around the world, and this teacup and saucer represent a decidedly British contribution to the otherwise international ensemble.