There has been a tradition since the foundation of Christ’s Hospital School for the head boy or girl, known as the Senior Grecian, to greet and address the new monarch. With Charles III’s coronation set for next May, there is discussion of this tradition being continued. 

Christ’s Hospital was founded in 1552 by the young King Edward VI, weeks before his death, to house and educate destitute children living on the streets of London. The recently emptied Greyfriars building in the City of London was donated, and the school occupied that same land for 350 years until 1902 with the opening of the Horsham site, where the school remains today.

Since then, the school has sustained a close relationship to the Monarch and the City of London. Following the late Queen and all her predecessors, King Charles III is a patron of the school.

It is traditional for the Senior Grecian (Christ’s Hospital’s Head Boy or Girl) to give a ‘loyal address’, a speech, to the new monarch around the time of their coronation. It is either spoken or handed over as a manuscript. In November 1837, Frederick Gifford Nash greeted Queen Victoria on her first entrance into the City of London; a relief carving on the Temple Bar Memorial on the Strand marks this occasion. Most recently, the address was presented to Elizabeth II as a scroll on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral on June 9th 1953, a week after she was crowned.

This means that there may be a chance for the school’s present Senior Grecian, Maddie Loveless, to continue this custom. “There are so many intricate traditions at CH and it’s an honour to take part in any of them. It would be a great privilege to be involved in this one”, she says.