THE interesting photograph that you reproduced in the Tavistock Times Gazette last week is not, as the caption suggests, a picture of a local poll.
The occasion is the proclamation of the accession of King Edward VIII, following the death of his father George V. The date is January 1936.
Reading the proclamation on the steps of the Guildhall is the chairman of the Urban District Council, Alfred Bray Treloar, then headmaster of the Dolvin Road School who, in the previous year, had presided over local celebrations marking King George's Jubilee. Alongside him stands the county court judge, who had adjourned his sitting inside the Guildhall to take part in the ceremony.
Also featured are members of the council, Herbert Langsford, George Harry Morris, John Backwell and William Barkell.
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On the last occasion when such a ceremony took place, Frank Quant, as council chairman, read the proclamation of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II outside the town hall on February 8 1952.
Gerry Woodcock
2 Courtlands Close, Tavistock