Talk:Royal Navy State Funeral Gun Carriage

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 22:02, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

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Carriage at the funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965

• ... that the coffin carriage used at funerals of British monarchs (pictured) has been pulled by sailors since an incident at Queen Victoria's funeral in 1901? Source: "Which ever account you believe the upshot was that the Royal Navy gained the honour of drawing the Funeral Gun Carriage at the funeral of Queen Victoria and of all subsequent Monarchs and those accorded the honour of a state funeral." from: "The State Funeral Gun Carriage - Page 2". Naval Historical Society of Australia. 19 March 1981.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Epistola consolatoria ad pergentes in bellum

5x expanded by Dumelow (talk) and Msrasnw (talk). Nominated by Dumelow (talk) at 14:55, 13 September 2022 (UTC).

• Can I request this runs on the date of Elizabeth II's funeral - 19 September? - Dumelow (talk) 14:56, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Article checks out. Picture doesn't perfectly show the carriage, but what's partly blocking the view is the sailors, and these are also part of the hook. So, imo fine. The date makes perfect sense, and I'm glad I noticed this urgently needed a review. –LordPeterII (talk) 14:55, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Theleekycauldron: Could you maybe move this to the special holding area for 19 September? That's already the next Prep that will open, after the current Prep 7 (or actually Prep 7 even, dunno which slot would be better). –LordPeterII (talk) 15:00, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
  • @LordPeterII: done! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:18, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
  • @Dumelow: I'm a little concerned that the hook says it's used for monarchs, and then shows the carriage at Churchill's funeral – is there a way we can avoid giving the impression that Churchill was a monarch? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:40, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
    • Hi theleekycauldron. I had used monarch rather than "state funeral" as I know it wasn't used at Philip's last year, but on checking that wasn't a state funeral (Churchill's was), so I can propose ALT1 below. I've also changed to "a coffin carriage" in case others might have been used at other parts of the funeral - Dumelow (talk) 21:57, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
• ... that a coffin carriage used in British state funerals (pictured) has been pulled by sailors since an incident at Queen Victoria's funeral in 1901?

How is it pulled?

How do the sailors pull the carriage? Do they grasp the rope directly or are there grips of some sort? It would be an informative addition to the article, if anyone has sourced information to contribute. PamD 12:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

There are handles on the ropes, haven't seen it written down in any RS though - Dumelow (talk) 13:30, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

FYI BBC 'The State Gun Carriage and coffin' Axxter99 (talk) 16:42, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

References

You can see the handles which are spliced into the ropes in this video (at about 1:50). I haven't found a written source though. Alansplodge (talk) 12:35, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

London Gun and Windsor Gun

During the run-up to the funeral, I recall seeing a TV news item (in the UK) which said that there were originally two field gun carriages at Victoria's funeral, one used in London, the "London Gun", and another for use at Windsor, the "Windsor Gun". At the end of the ceremonies, the Royal Navy appropriated (i.e. stole) the Windsor Gun from the Royal Artillery, and it is the Windsor Gun which has been used since. However, when I looked for a source for our article, I drew a complete blank. Any ideas anyone? Alansplodge (talk) 12:25, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Royal Artillery Museum information

The article suggests there is a single State Funeral Gun Carriage, held by the Royal Navy. A visit to the (temporary collection of) the Royal Artillery Museum in 2023 suggests to me that there may be multiple carriages, at least one in the possession of the Army. I have not researched this topic further, however thought it may be helpful to share this text from an information board accompanying a modified QF 18-pounder Field Gun Mark I carriage held in the Museum’s temporary storage location:

“The Royal Artillery’s principle field gun during the First World War. This specific example carried the mortal remains of King Edward VII and King George V.”

The RA Museum catalogue number is “GUN 28/102”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RogueAdventurer (talk • contribs) 18:01, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

This image shows the coffin of George V being drawn from King's Cross to his lying in state at Westminster Hall. It is drawn by Royal Artillery horses and escorted by guardsmen so I suspect this is an army carriage. The one used for his funeral procession, as described in this article, was the Royal Navy carriage escorted by sailors. This image looks to show the same for Edward VII who was moved from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall on 17 May; his funeral was three days later where the carriage used was the navy one - Dumelow (talk) 18:36, 12 July 2025 (UTC)