British monarch, he was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. During his reign, the British Empire expanded to its greatest effective extent. In 1917, George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, which he renamed from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a result of anti-German public sentiment.
George V’s reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the Indian independence movement, all of which radically changed the political landscape of the British Empire. The Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords. As a result of the First World War (1914–1918), the empires of his first cousins Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany fell, while the British Empire expanded to its greatest effective extent.
In 1924 he appointed the first Labour ministry and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognised the dominions of the Empire as separate, independent states within the British Commonwealth of Nations.
He was the second son of King Edward VII and Princess Alexandra and heir to the throne when his brother, the demented Prince Albert Victor, died in 1892. He was trained for the Navy and became Vice-Admiral in 1903. Succeeding his father in 1910, he gained immediate and lasting popularity for his courage and national devotion during World War II.
He married Princess Mary of Teck in 1893. They had six children, five sons and a daughter.
He had smoking-related health problems throughout much of his later reign. The story endures that when he suffered from terminal illness at age 70, his doctors gave him a merciful overdose of morphine with the agreement of his family, on 20 January 1936 at 11:55 PM at Sandringham House. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII.
Link to Wikipedia biography