Crowns, crowns and more crowns.

[Bill A]

A fellow collector and a serving member of the reserves dropped by last week. We had a little chat about new insignia, and in the conversation he indicated that should Prince Charles be crowned king, there would be no need to change the crown on the cap badges. A couple of points come from this statement. First, there is the possibility of a new crown being designed and taken into wear by an heir to the throne. But the gist of his comment was based on the fact that the St. Edwards crown is the coronation crown and this is the "official" crown of the monarch. Thus, should an heir select a new crown, it would not affect the coronation crown which was used on badges and insignia.
Is this correct?

[Bill A]

Posted, very quickly, on anther fora.
HD 4947, the 667th Report of the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals.

"The Queen has seen HD 4946 [previous report of the committee] on the subject of the Royal Cypher and the designs of the representation of the crown. Her Majesty's wishes with regard to the design of representations of the crown where used with the Royal Cypher or otherwise, are as follows.
The Queen wishes the St Edward's Crown to take the place of the Tudor Crown in all future designs embodying a representation of the crown.
Existing designs should not be changed unless or until it is necessary to do so. (Wherever, however, a design embodying the crown has for any reason to be changed, the St Edward's should be substituted for the Tudor Crown.)
No unnecessary expense should be incurred in making the change and where alterations in existing designs would involve such expense it should be deferred.
Her Majesty has no objection to two different designs of the crown (i.e. the existing design and the new design) being in use concurrently during the transitional period."
This, with some minor variations, was issued by the War Office on 27th October 1952 as 54/GEN A/444(Ord.17), and by the Admiralty on 20th February 1953, as Admiralty Fleet Order 522/53, reference NL/NS 9601/52. [National Archives (PRO) ADM 201/104]
“The concept of King's and Queen's Crowns (KC, QC) is a misconception which is very prevalent among military badge collectors. Even the most authoritative books on badges make this mistake. It is just a coincidence that four male monarchs have been represented by the "KC" followed by a female with the "QC". Who actually wears what real crown is somewhat unrelated to the representation of the Crown as state symbol.” Source http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/gb_croed.html “

I also have a copy of the above in RCAF orders from the early 1950s, emphasizing that that St Edwards Crown will be used in all future representations. I will try and get a photo of this early document.

There is some speculation that the change was due to the name of the Tudor Crown, also called the Imperial Crown in period documents. In 1953, the British Empire was transitioning into the Commonwealth and The Queen was no longer Empress of India. The earlier crown may have been too linked to the imperial past, so a change was made. This is only speculation however.

[Michael Dorosh]

The monarchy is much more cost conscious now than in 1952 (though I see that even then there was reference to expense - wasn't the UK still rationing certain items even then?). It would be hard to imagine any desire to change the crown and incur a lot of expenses with this new mindset in place - but of course, never say never.