Royal Visit Ahead of Abdication, 1936

Filmed in October 1936 this film shows the then Duchess of York at the Royal Bucks Hospital in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, opening a new outpatients department. It was just two months before the then Duchess was to become Queen. Her husband, Prince Albert, acceded to the throne as King George Vl in December after the abdication of his brother King Edward Vlll. The Duchess would have been forgiven if her mind was not entirely on the job in hand as the Royal Family struggled with the issue of the relationship of Albert's brother, King Edward Vlll, with the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. The Royal Bucks Hospital, built in 1860 to a design by Florence Nightingale, was Britain’s first purpose-built civilian hospital.