George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; Born: 3 June 1865, Died 20 January 1936) visited India twice, once as Prince of Wales in 1905-1906 and later after being crowned as the King in 1911-12.
In 1905 George V, then Prince of Wales along with Princess Marry, undertook an extensive tour across India, On this tour he visited Bombay, Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. Peshawar, Peshawar, Quetta (all six now in Pakistan), Delhi, Agra, Lucknow, Aligarh, Calcutta (Kolkata), Madras (Chennai), Indore, Udaipur, Jaipur, Bikaner, Jammu, Gwalior, Mysore, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Banaras and also Rangoon & Mandalay (in Myanmar). [places not in order of the route and not all places are important stops].
Similar to his father, he used a special train to travel across the subcontinent (then including Pakistan, which was a part of India). And just like his father King Edward Albert (King Edward VII) he met with numerous Indian royalties and elites on this tour of India. This was a critical time due to rising nationalism and the idea of self-rule that had germinated in India.
Six months after taking the throne in 1910, King Geroge V and Queen Mary travelled to India once again. They travelled to Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, and Nagpur. The most fascinating part of this trip to India was that King George V and Queen Mary were crowned as Emperor and Empress of India in the Delhi Durbar during this 1911 visit. In addition to thousands of other Indian dignitaries, nearly all of India’s reigning kings and noblemen gathered to show respect for the symbolic leaders of British colonial authority. On December 30, the royal couple travelled to Calcutta as part of their tour of British India. The Calcutta Pageant was held in their honor at Calcutta’s Hyde Park on January 7. The Delhi Durbar was the tour’s high point. Two days later, on December 14, the Star of India was invested.
