https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/the-house-and-family-of-windsor-9nfkslmmp

July 18, 1917

The house and family of Windsor

The step formally taken yesterday by the King in Council will give unqualified satisfaction throughout the British Dominions. He has abolished all German titles and dignities in the Royal Family and assumed the family name of Windsor. This is a more democratic step than is apparent on the surface. It means that the male descendants of the Sovereign will be commoners in the third generation, with a courtesy title as the sons of Dukes, and plain Mr Windsor in the fourth generation. The assumption of a family name is a necessary corollary of the recent abolition of princely titles for the younger generations in descent from the Sovereign, and no better choice could have been made than that of Windsor. It connects the old with the new. The fame of Windsor goes back to Saxon times, and the Castle has been closely associated with the successive Royal Houses of England. Plantagenets were born there; Tudors and Stuarts were buried there; Hanoverians died there; Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, and King George’s brother, who would have been King had he lived, are buried there. Windsor is a loadstar for the descendants of those who have gone forth from these islands and made the British Empire. Visitors who “come home” from the Dominions want to see Windsor, and make their pilgrimage there.
Cynics may regard the change as a matter of no importance, but they are mistaken. It is not wisdom, but folly, to ignore the influence of sentiment in the populace. It binds the Empire together, and the war has demonstrated the strength of the bond by proofs which no man can gainsay or belittle. The King has known well how to gratify the patriotic sentiment of all the British peoples which centres in the Crown, in this as in other things. During the earlier part of Queen Victoria’s reign, after her marriage, the German element at Court was a standing cause of irritation among the mass of the people in this country. Later the feeling, once acute, abated, and during King Edward’s reign it died down. It was not a personal feeling against members of the Royal Family, who were, and are, popular, but due to an instinctive dislike of Teutonism; and who shall say now that it was not justified? By this act King George has expunged the memory of it, and has done wisely.