“We are asking people not to leave marmalade sandwiches”: The contested heritage of public mourning

At 6:30 pm on 8th September 2022, the death of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom was publicly announced. Within two hours, spontaneous shrines had been created across the country, with members of the public laying commemorative deposits at sites associated with the Queen, such as Buckingham Palace and Sandringham Estate. Most of the deposits were flowers, but many mourners chose to leave different types of objects, often in connection with (public perceptions of) the Queen's likes, from handbags and pictures of corgis to Paddington Bear toys and marmalade sandwiches. Over the next few weeks, debates emerged around ‘appropriate' and ‘inappropriate' deposits - the flowers could stay, but not the marmalade sandwiches - and around which spaces were accessible to the mourning public. The public response to Queen Elizabeth II’s passing reveals much about the contested heritage of mourning. Alongside examples of spontaneous shrines created in the aftermath of tragic events, the death of celebrities and the demise of fictional characters, this case will be used as a springboard into the broader questions of who has the right to dictate how the public mourns and who has the right to be publicly mourned.