Crown the Queen
Crown the Queen card game invented by Elaine Burton, c.1953.
Crown the Queen card game was invented by Elaine Burton MP.
Born in 1904, Elaine Frances Burton was notable in her early life as a pioneer sportswoman. A member of the National Fitness Council from 1928 to 1929, she later moved into politics, holding the seat of Coventry South as a Labour MP from 1950 to 1959. In 1962 she was created a life peer. Her interest in sport continued throughout her life; she was a member of the Sports Council from 1965 to 1971, as well as numerous other bodies. A founder member of the Social Democratic Party in 1981, she was also well known for her campaigning on behalf of the consumer, which included work on the Airline Users’ Committee. She died in 1991.
The game is fairly simple, with standard quality cards of playing card size printed and published by Waddington’s. See the Rules►


Above: Crown the Queen card game designed by Elaine Burton, printed by Waddington’s, c.1953. 54 cards + rules slip in box.
The pack is comprised of:
7 x Policeman cards
5 x Soldier cards
5 x Sailor cards
5 x Airman cards
5 x Royal Coach cards
5 x Page cards
4 x Archbishop cards
4 x Queen cards
14 'useless' cards (1 each of: Trumpeter, Royal Arms, Buckingham Palace,
Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Marble Arch, Hyde Park, Union Jack,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Ceylon.)

By Matt Probert
Member since March 02, 2012
I have adored playing cards since before I was seven years old, and was brought up on packs of Waddington's No 1. As a child I was fascinated by the pictures of the court cards.
Over the next fifty years I was seduced by the artwork in Piatnik's packs and became a collector of playing cards.
Seeking more information about various unidentified packs I discovered the World of Playing Cards website and became an enthusiastic contributor researching and documenting different packs of cards.
I describe my self as a playing card archaeologist, using detective work to identify and date obscure packs of cards discovered in old houses, flea markets and car boot sales.
Related Articles

Ben 10 playing cards
Characters from the American animated television science fantasy series Ben 10.

Doctor Who Trump Card Game
Game for two players in which Doctor Who and the Legendary Legion join battle with the Alien Hordes....

Disney’s Aladdin playing cards
Characters from the 1992 Disney film Aladdin.

2011 Worshipful Company Pack
Celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens, with characters adapted from drawings b...

Jim Lyngvild playing cards
Photographs of Danish royalty as imagined by fashion designer Jim Lyngvild.

Jockey Club de Buenos Aires
Spanish-suited pack by Chas Goodall & Son Ltd for the Jockey Club, Buenos Aires.

New interest in old games
Games once fashionable are now eclipsed by quicker gratifications.

Polygo™
Cards of irregular, four-sided shape for playing word and colour games as well as more traditional o...

Treasures from the Bodleian Library
Rare books, manuscripts, music scores, portraits, maps, gospels, chronicles and other valuable artef...

Victorian grocer’s scale plate
Large flat plate decorated with highly coloured English cards and royal arms.

Queen of Arts
A wide variety of women artists celebrated on cards with illustrations by Laura Callaghan.

The Glasgow Pack
Issued to celebrate Glasgow’s reign as European City of Culture in 1990, with city views and works o...

Verkeers Kwartet
A helpful quartet game celebrating the 75th anniversary of road safety exams making traffic safer.

Pirritx eta Porrotx
Happy Families card game from the Spanish Basque Country.

Cathedrals, Abbeys & Minsters playing cards
54 pictures of different famous cathedrals, abbeys and minsters in England and Wales.

Christmas Carols
Christmas Carols playing cards illustrated by Stuart Dilks
Most Popular
Our top articles from the past 28 days