Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926–2022) was the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York, who subsequently became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Born on 21 April 1926 in London, she grew up there and at Windsor and was ten years old when the abdication of her uncle, Edward VIII, and her father’s accession to the throne made her heir presumptive. Educated at home, the Princess was a Girl Guide and a Sea Ranger and began taking on public engagements at age sixteen. During the Second World War, when the Royal Family were looked to as champions of stoicism and resilience, she made her first broadcast on the BBC: a morale-boosting message to the many children evacuated from London during the Blitz. She was photographed tending to her vegetable garden at Windsor as part of the 'Dig For Victory' campaign; and in 1945 she joined the Auxiliary Territory Service, the women's branch of the British Army, rising to the equivalent rank of captain. In 1947, aged 21, she married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten – the son of Prince Andrew of Greece and a great-great grandson of Queen Victoria – who was created HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. She and her husband set out for Australia and New Zealand in 1952; on the way, in Kenya, Elizabeth received news of her father's death. She returned to England and was 27 on her coronation at Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953, which was broadcast on the BBC to more than 20 million people around the world.
During her reign Her Majesty was the Head of State of the United Kingdom and fifteen other Commonwealth countries. She was the first reigning British monarch to visit Australia, making sixteen visits here between her first in 1954 – when she and Prince Philip took in 57 cities and towns between Hobart and Cairns in 58 days – and her last, in 2011. She held weekly audiences with fourteen different British Prime Ministers (from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson), spent time with all but one of the last fourteen sitting US Presidents (from Harry Truman to Joe Biden), and held meetings with seven different Popes. She was patron of more than 600 charities and organisations across the UK, attended hundreds of public engagements each year and undertook many historic overseas visits. A constant and enduring figure, she was widely respected for her unceasing commitment to her role – which, along with her popularity, has been cited as a major contributing factor to the success of the No vote in the 1999 referendum on whether Australia should become a republic. In September 2015 she surpassed the record set by her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria to become Britain’s longest reigning monarch; and on the 70th anniversary of her accession in 2022 she became the first British monarch to mark a Platinum Jubilee.
Throughout her 70-year reign, Her Majesty represented graciousness, humanity and stability during times of enormous social change. One of history's greatest women and one of the most significant and influential figures of the twentieth century, her death at the age of 96 on 8 September 2022 prompted mourning around the world, along with unanimous expressions of gratitude and respect for her decades of devotion to duty and public service.
