Queen Victoria (1819 - 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 until her death, and from 1876 also Empress of India. [1] Her reign of sixty-three years, the longest of any British monarch until Elizabeth II, spanned rapid industrial, scientific and imperial expansion and lent its name to the Victorian era. [2] Though the political power of the Crown declined during her lifetime, she remained a dominant symbolic presence in British public life. [3]
Early life and accession
Alexandrina Victoria was born on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace, London, the only child of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. [1] Her father died when she was an infant, and she was raised under the strict supervisory regime devised by her mother and the comptroller Sir John Conroy, later known as the Kensington System.
The deaths of her uncles without surviving legitimate heirs placed her next in line, and she became queen on 20 June 1837 at the age of eighteen. Her accession ended the personal union with Hanover, where Salic law barred a female ruler. [2] In her early years on the throne she relied heavily on the guidance of the prime minister Lord Melbourne.
Marriage and family
In 1840 she married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The marriage was close and politically consequential: Albert took an active role in public affairs, promoted industry, science and the arts, and was the principal organiser of the Great Exhibition of 1851. [3] The couple had nine children, whose marriages linked the British royal house to most of the reigning dynasties of Europe.
Albert's death from illness in December 1861 devastated the queen. She withdrew from public ceremony for many years, wore mourning for the rest of her life, and drew criticism for her seclusion, which briefly strengthened republican sentiment in Britain. [1]
Reign and empire
Victoria's reign saw the Reform Acts extend the franchise, the growth of railways and industrial cities, and the consolidation of party politics under figures such as Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone, with whom her relations differed sharply. [2] After the Indian Rebellion of 1857 the East India Company's territories passed to the Crown, and in 1876 Parliament conferred on her the title Empress of India. [1]
Britain fought the Crimean War, colonial campaigns across Africa and Asia, and the Second Boer War during her reign, and the empire reached its greatest extent in the decades around her jubilees. Her constitutional role narrowed over time to advising, encouraging and warning her ministers, though she used correspondence and influence energetically behind the scenes. [3]
Later years and legacy
Her Golden Jubilee in 1887 and Diamond Jubilee in 1897 were celebrated across the empire and marked a restoration of her popularity. [2] She was an accomplished amateur painter and a lifelong diarist, leaving a large body of journals and letters. She died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight on 22 January 1901 and was succeeded by her eldest son as Edward VII.
Victoria held the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Thistle, the Order of the Star of India, the Order of Merit and many foreign decorations. [1] Her name attaches to an era, to cities, lakes and states across the former empire, and to the Victoria Cross, the highest British award for gallantry, which she instituted in 1856. [3]
