William's coronation, following that of George IV, his brother and predecessor, on 19 July 1821, was the second of three in the nineteenth century. The next coronation was that of his niece and successor, Queen Victoria, on Thursday, 28 June 1838. According to the historian Roy Strong, William IV had "an inbred dislike of ceremonial" and he wanted to dispense with the coronation altogether. He conceded that there was a constitutional necessity but insisted that there must be no ceremonial or procession associated with Westminster Hall and this outraged the Tories, who called the event the "Half Crown-nation". As Strong says, William's insistence "signalled the end of a whole litany of symbolic acts going back to the middle ages, including the coronation banquet, the ritual of the King's Champion throwing down the gauntlet, and endless petty actions related to land tenure". William and Adelaide travelled to and from the Abbey in the Gold State Coach, or Coronation Coach, made for George III in 1762 and used in all coronations from 1831. This began the provision of public spectacle for the masses. The King wore his admiral's uniform and the Queen wore a white and gold dress. In terms of cost, William IV and the government refused to repeat the extreme of George IV's lavish coronation in 1821, which cost £240,000, but they went to the opposite extreme and spent only £30,000 on a "cut-price" event. Seven years later, Queen Victoria's coronation was budgeted at £70,000 to achieve a compromise between the two extremes.
Public procession and crowds
William IV's coronation established much of what remains today the pageantry of the event, which had previously involved peerage-only ceremonies in Westminster Hall before a procession on foot across the road to the Abbey. The in the Coronation Coach with a cavalry escort. The new monarch travelled in procession by coach to and from the abbey, starting a tradition which has been followed in all subsequent coronations. The budget stressed the procession and there was no coronation banquet. Unlike the Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838, no real consideration was given to the matter of public entertainment and the people had to make do with the two processions between St James's and the Abbey. At 5 am, a gun salute was fired in Hyde Park and at 9 am, the royal family left the palace followed an hour later by the king and queen in the Gold State Coach, the first time that it had been used at a coronation. The coaches, escorted by Life Guards, passed along Pall Mall to Charing Cross and then along Whitehall to the abbey. Along the route, which was lined by foot guards, temporary stands for spectators had been built, those at Charing Cross could up to three thousand. The return procession left the abbey at 3:30 pm in fine weather. That evening, the "New Avenue", now known as The Mall, was illuminated and opened to the public for the first time.
Music
The choice of music played during the ceremony rested mainly with Handel and Thomas Attwood. Zadok the Priest and the Hallelujah Chorus, both by Handel, were among the performances.
