Mass Observing the Coronation of Charles III: Monarchy, Spectacle and Experience

Mass Observing the Coronation of Charles IIIexamines the activities and opinions of Mass Observers who experienced the first British coronation in 70 years, as well as the findings of Mass Observation investigators in several locations in the UK (including London) during the May 6th 2023 coronation weekend.

Reports and photographs by mobile observers, as well as MO panelists’ pre-coronation writings and day diaries for May 6th demonstrate the ways in which people think about and engage with contemporary monarchy in practice and concept. Following in the footsteps of the original 1937 Mass-Observation coronation publication, Mass Observing the Coronation of Charles IIIalso charts social and cultural continuity and change over time, including the traditions of the ceremony itself and new events such as the Big Help Out.

Jennifer J. Purcell is Professor of History at Saint Michael’s College in Vermont, USA. Using Mass-Observation diaries and directives, her first book, Domestic Soldiers (2010) sought to understand the day-to-day lives of six women on the home front during the Second World War.

Lucy Curzon is Associate Professor of Contemporary and Modern Art History at the University of Alabama, USA. She is the author of Mass-Observation and Visual Culture: Depicting Everyday Lives in Britain (2017), which was awarded the 2018 Historians of British Art Book Award for Exemplary Scholarship on the Period after 1800.

Fiona Courage is Head of Collections and Academic Services & Curator of the Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex, UK. Her publications include ’Recipes for co-production with children and young people’ in Time, Technology and Documentation in a Digital Age (Bloomsbury, 2018; with Liam Berriman and Kate Howland) and ’Mass Observing Sport’ in Recording Leisure Lives: sports, spectacles and spectators in 20th century Britain (2013; with Jessica Scantlebury).