page_title: Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother
section_title: Duchess of York (1923–1936)
hierarchical_section_title: Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother / Duchess of York (1923–1936)
caption_attribution_description: English: In 1927 the Duke and Duchess of York (later to become King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) visited Australia and were in Brisbane for several days. This photograph was taken by Henry Mobsby, then Queensland Government photographer. Source: Mobsby Collection, Fryer Library, Brisbane, Australia.
context_page_description: Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the wife of King George VI, and the mother of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. She was queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from her husband's accession in 1936 until his death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter. She was the last empress of India.
  Born into a family of British nobility, she came to prominence in 1923 when she married the Duke of York, the second son of King George V and Queen Mary. The couple and their daughters embodied traditional ideas of family and public service. She undertook a variety of public engagements and became known for her consistently cheerful countenance.
  In 1936, her husband unexpectedly became king when his older brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in order to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. Elizabeth then became queen. She accompanied her husband on diplomatic tours to France and North America before the start of the Second World War. During the war, her seemingly indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public.
context_section_description: After a successful visit to Northern Ireland in July 1924, the Labour government agreed that Albert and Elizabeth could tour East Africa from December 1924 to April 1925. The Labour government was defeated by the Conservatives in a general election in November (which Elizabeth described as "marvellous" to her mother) and the Governor-General of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Sir Lee Stack, was assassinated three weeks later. Despite this, the tour went ahead, and they visited Aden, Kenya, Uganda, and Sudan, but Egypt was avoided because of political tensions.
  Albert had a stammer, which affected his ability to deliver speeches, and after October 1925, Elizabeth assisted in helping him through the therapy devised by Lionel Logue, an episode portrayed in the 2010 film The King's Speech. In 1926, the couple had their first child, Princess Elizabeth—"Lilibet" to the family—who would later become Queen Elizabeth II. Albert and Elizabeth, without their child, travelled to Australia to open Parliament House in Canberra in 1927. She was, in her own words, "very miserable at leaving the baby". Their journey by sea took them via Jamaica, the Panama Canal and the Pacific; Elizabeth fretted constantly over her baby back in Britain, but their journey was a public relations success. She charmed the public in Fiji when, shaking hands with a long line of official guests, a stray dog walked in on the ceremony and she shook its paw as well. In New Zealand she fell ill with a cold and missed some engagements, but enjoyed the local fishing in the Bay of Islands accompanied by Australian sports fisherman Harry Andreas. On the return journey, via Mauritius, the Suez Canal, Malta and Gibraltar, their transport, HMS Renown, caught fire and they prepared to abandon ship before the fire was brought under control.
  Her second daughter, Princess Margaret Rose, was born at Glamis in 1930.
caption: The Duchess of York in Queensland, 1927
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