The man who would become King George V was not born to be king. When he came into the world on June 3, 1865, he was the second son of the Prince of Wales, destined for a military career rather than the throne. As a young royal, George followed the traditional path for a spare heir and joined the Navy. He spent three years on a world naval tour alongside his older brother, Prince Albert Victor.
When Albert Victor was sent to Cambridge to continue his studies, George remained in the service under the command of his uncle. The death of his older brother changed everything. A year after Albert Victor passed away, George, now the new heir to the throne, proposed to his deceased brother’s former fiancée, Mary of Teck. The couple married and had six children together: five sons and one daughter.
Among them were the future King Edward VIII and King George VI, meaning George V would become the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II. George ascended the throne in 1911. Just three years later, the outbreak of World War I would test his reign in ways no one anticipated. During the war, the king made more than 450 visits to troops, earning a reputation for dedication and morale-boosting presence.
But one of his most significant wartime decisions came on the home front. In response to widespread anti-German sentiment across Britain, he changed the royal family’s surname from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor. After the war, George largely stayed on British soil. His only official trips abroad were tours of the World War I battlefields in Belgium and France, along with a short visit to Italy in 1923.
In 1932, the king delivered the first annual royal Christmas speech over the radio, a tradition that continues to this day. In the final years of his life, George’s health steadily declined. On January 20, 1936, with the king near death, the royal physician, Lord Dawson, administered a fatal dose of morphine and cocaine to hasten the end.
The full circumstances of those final moments would only become a matter of public discussion many years later, sparking enduring questions about the role of the monarchy’s doctor in the death of a king.