Princess Victoria was born at Kensington Palace on 24 May 1819.
Queen Victoria´s bedroom in Kensington Palace
During her childhood in Kensington Palace, Princess Victoria often played with her collection of over 130 tiny wooden dolls. She named all of her dolls, many of which are on display at Kensington Palace. Princess Victoria was a talented painter. These are some of her colourful paper dolls
She began writing a daily journal in August 1832, aged thirteen. The many volumes of her journal, which cover nearly seventy years of her life, are held by the Royal Archives. Princess Victoria became heir to the throne as her uncles, King George IV and King William IV, had no surviving legitimate children. On 20 June 1837, William IV died and Victoria became Queen at the age of 18.
This picture by Sir George Hayter (1792-1871) depicts the Coronation of Queen Victoria at Westminster Abbey on 28 June 1838, aged 18.
Marble Arch before its relocation as the entrance to the newly rebuilt Buckingham Palace.
Just three weeks into her reign, Queen Victoria moved into Buckingham Palace, despite the building being incomplete and many of the rooms undecorated and unfurnished. The Palace had been empty for seven years following the death of Victoria’s uncle, George IV, who had commissioned at great expense the conversion of Buckingham House into a Palace to the designs of John Nash. The King never occupied the Palace, and his successor, William IV, preferred to live at Clarence House during his short reign. The Queen’s ministers advised her to stay at Kensington Palace, her childhood home, until Buckingham Palace could be brought up to a suitable standard, but Victoria wanted to move immediately and begin her new life.
Queen Victoria first met Prince Albert, her cousin, in 1836, at the suggestion of her uncle King Leopold I of the Belgians, who felt they were suited to each other.
Two days before her wedding, Queen Victoria presented Prince Albert with this spectacular diamond-encrusted garter -It formed part of a set of Order of the Garter insignia, representing England's oldest chivalric order.
The Marriage Ceremony of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took place in the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, on 10 February 1840.
Over the next 17 years, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had nine children. In 1845 it was clear that Buckingham Palace was no longer large enough to accommodate the royal couple’s expanding family. On 10 February that year, Victoria wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, concerning ‘the urgent necessity of doing something to Buckingham Palace’ and ‘the total want of accommodation for our growing little family’. On 13 August 1846, Parliament granted Victoria £20,000 for the completion and extension of Buckingham Palace. Additional funds were raised from the sale of George IV’s seaside retreat, the Royal Pavilion, to Brighton Corporation for £50,000.
Queen Victoria (1819-1901) by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-73) in Royal Collection Trust.
Queen Victoria introduced a new era of bridal standards
( Britain´s Royal Weddings)
( Britain´s Royal Weddings)
During their time together at Buckingham Palace, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert held three magnificent ‘themed’ costume balls. These occasions were both celebrations of British history and a showcase for the country’s textile industry. Guests were encouraged to commission elaborate costumes to give work to the Spitalfield silk weavers, whose business was in sharp decline.
The ball of 1842 was the first of three costume balls held by the royal couple. The second, on 6 June 1845 was in early Georgian dress, while the third, on 13 June 1851 was in the style of the Restoration.
Queen Victoria's costume for the Stuart Ball
The Stuart Ball of 13 July 1851 had as its theme the Restoration period, with guests dressed in the style of Charles II’s court.
Eugène- Louis Lami (1800- 1890)
The Grand Staircase at Buckingham Palace, State Ball, 5 July 1848
This watercolour by Louis Haghe (1806-85) shows the second ball to be held in the Ballroom at Buckingham Palace, on 17 June 1856. The ballroom was decorated with copies of Raphael’s ‘Hours of the Day’ and illuminated by gaslights on the ceiling and in the windows, as well as a number of gilded bronze candelabra.
Through the window behind Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, the Princess Royal and their dogs, we glimpse a view of the East Terrace at Windsor Castle...and the Queen’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, enjoying a circuit of the garden in a bath chair...
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had nine children: Victoria, Princess Royal (born 1840); Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (born 1841); Alice (born 1843); Alfred (born 1844); Helena (born 1846); Louise (born 1848); Arthur (born 1850); Leopold (born 1853) and Beatrice (born 1857).
Osborne c. 1850-60 by Thomas Allom
"It is impossible to imagine a prettier spot" said Queen Victoria of Osborne House, her palatial holiday home on the Isle of Wight.
This painting by William Corden the Younger shows Queen Victoria’s Christmas tree at Windsor Castle in 1850.
Christmas was a special time for Queen Victoria and her family, and their celebrations included traditions familiar to us now, including decorated Christmas trees (a custom introduced by George III’s wife Queen Charlotte), the sending of Christmas cards, the exchange of Christmas presents, a lavish meal and gifts to the poor.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert spent many Christmases at Windsor, enjoying the winter season. Prince Albert was an accomplished skater and Queen Victoria enjoyed watching him playing ice hockey on the frozen lake at Frogmore House, which was about a mile from Windsor Castle.
Queen Victoria took instruction in skating from a tutor from Eton, but she preferred to be pushed in a sleigh adapted for the ice by Prince Albert.
Sir Edwin Landseer (1803-73). Eos
Eos was Prince Albert’s beloved greyhound, who had accompanied her master to Britain in 1840 at the time of his marriage. Queen Victoria commissioned the painting, a Christmas gift for her husband in 1841.
James Digman Wingfield (1800-72) A Summer Afternoon at Hampton Court, 1844. This painting was purchased by Prince Albert in 1845.
Prince Albert died at Windsor Castle on December 14,1861 at the age of 42. His premature death was attributed to typhoid fever. Queen Victoria was overwhelmed by grief at the loss of her beloved husband and retreated from public view until the late 1860s. She remained in mourning, wearing only black, for the rest of her life.
Princess Victoria Eugenie was the daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's youngest child, Princess Beatrice, and her husband, Prince Henry of Battenberg. Queen Victoria described the event in her journal: 'The sweet Baby looked beautiful in the old Christening Robe, in which all our children & so many grandchildren […] have been christened'.
This photograph was taken by Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s son, in March 1862. The image depicts the Queen and her daughter, Princess Alice, in mourning clothes, with a marble bust of Prince Albert.
In 1876, Ishwari Prasad Narayan Singh, Maharaja of Benares sent Queen Victoria a Hindi translation of her Scottish and Irish holiday journals. Queen Victoria recorded it in her diary: ‘My book, translated into Hindustani, beautifully illuminated, containing a painting of me… receiving the present from the Maharajah of Benares… it is very curious and really beautiful.’
Almost every day from 1888 onwards Abdul Karim, one of her Indian servants, gave Queen Victoria Urdu lessons.
The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 20 June 1887, 50 years after her accession to the throne in 1837.This picture depicts Queen Victoria's family shown together
This portrait, taken by the photographer Gustav Mullins, depicts Queen Victoria as she appeared on the day of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations on 22 June 1897. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch to mark the 50th (Golden) and 60th (Diamond) anniversaries of her accession to the throne with public celebrations.
The reign of Queen Victoria is associated with the expansion of the British Empire, and by the time of her death in 1901 her empire amounted to more that one-fifth of the land surface of the Earth and almost a quarter of the world’s population. Extending from Asia to Canada and Africa to Australia, the British Empire was popularly called the "Empire on which the sun never sets". The Victoria era was a time of rapid change and development in all areas of British life. New inventions and advances in scientific and technological knowledge revolutionised industry, communications, transport, medicine and popular culture. In January 1878, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his new invention, the telephone, to Queen Victoria at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
Much of the population of the towns and cities of Victorian Britain lived in poverty, forced to inhabit overcrowded and squalid buildings. In these slums, disease was common and life expectancy was low.
The Diamond Jubilee became the theme for many songs, poems and odes to Queen Victoria during the year 1897, such as this piece of music, ‘The Longest Reign’, composed by Ezra Read.
This photograph, taken at Osborne House in 1899 two years after her Diamond Jubilee, shows Queen Victoria with the three generations of her family who would succeed her as Sovereign.
The Prince of Wales, who is standing to the left of his mother, would become King Edward VII following her death in January 1901. His son, the Duke of York acceded, to the throne as King George V in 1910, and the young Prince Edward, shown here aged 5 years old, would become King Edward VIII in 1936.
References:
Royal Archives
© HM Queen Elizabeth II 2012
Queen Victoria-Diamond Jubilee Scrapbook
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