The Royal Wave: Royal Interaction with the Public

Abstract

In the modern mass media age, images of waving members of the royal family have become one of the most iconic and often reproduced pictures of royalty. This article presents the first detailed study of this aspect of the royal image. The waving of British royalty is particularly iconic and seems to have played a prominent role in the establishment of this gesture. This study traces the origins of their waving from its historical roots in the nineteenth century to its first appearance in modern times in 1922: in the post-war context, this was a time when royalty generally opened up to and interacted more with the people. By way of introduction, the article also looks at the “royal bow”—the earlier established form of greeting. The article furthermore describes the particular forms with which royal individuals have waved, up to the present day. This reveals some intriguing gender and status differences that were apparent in the earlier years, and the closer look at the practicalities invites us to think about the meaning and “function” of the royal wave, which may stimulate further research on how royal waving was perceived, and to what effect. Overall, the discussion of this popular royal gesture contributes to various strands of ongoing research on royalty’s interaction with the public. Editorial Note: A corrected version of this article was posted on 20 January 2022. The editorial team would like to apologize to Dr Range and to the readers for the errata in the version which was originally published.

Keywords

• waving
• bowing
• public
• balcony
• royal wedding
• coronation
• recording