Born: May 24, 1819, Kensington Palace, London, England
Died: January 22, 1901, Osborne,
near Cowes, Isle of Wight
Victoria was the queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1837-1901) and empress of India (1876-1901).
Born Alexandrina Victoria on May 24, 1819, in Kensington Palace, London, Victoria was the daughter of Victoria Mary Louisa, daughter of the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; her father was Edward Augustus, duke of Kent and Strathern, the fourth son of George III and youngest brother of George IV and William IV, kings of Great Britain. Because William IV had no legitimate children, his niece Victoria became heir apparent to the British crown upon his accession in 1830. On June 20, 1837, with the death of William IV, she became queen at the age of 18.
Early in her reign Victoria developed a serious concern with affairs of state, guided by her first prime minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. Melbourne was leader of that wing of the Whig party that later became known as the Liberal party. He exercised a strongly progressive influence on the political thinking of the queen.
In 1840, Victoria was married to her first cousin, Albert, prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whom she had known for about four years. Although this was a marriage of state yet it was a highly romantic and successful one, and Victoria was devoted to her domestic responsibilities. The first of their nine children was Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise, later empress of Germany. Their first son, Albert Edward, prince of Wales and later king of Great Britain as Edward VII, was born in 1841. When the conservative Prince Albert convinced her that Liberal policy jeopardized the future of the Crown, the queen began to lose her enthusiasm for the party. After 1841, when the Melbourne government fell and Sir Robert Peel became prime minister, Victoria was an ardent supporter of the Conservative party. Also under Albert’s influence, she began to question the tradition that restricted the British sovereign to an advisory role. In 1850 she challenged the authority of Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, foreign secretary in the Whig government that had been in power since 1846. Her position was that the sovereign should at least be consulted on foreign policy. Palmerston, independent and self-assertive, ignored the request. Their struggle reached a climax in 1851, when the prime minister, Lord John Russell, who was also displeased with Palmerston’s arbitrary methods, dismissed him from the foreign office. Their altercations with Palmerston, one of the most popular political leaders in the country, caused Victoria and Albert to lose some of the esteem of their subjects. Their popularity dwindled even more in 1854, when they tried to avert the Crimean War. After the war had begun, however, they gave it their wholehearted support. In 1856, shortly before the end of the war, the queen instituted the Victoria Cross, the highest British award for wartime valor.
In 1857, Victoria had the title of prince consort bestowed on Albert. Four years later he died, and she remained in virtual mourning for much of the rest of her life. She avoided public appearances, letting the prince of Wales fulfil most of the royal ceremonial duties. Her detailed personal interest in the affairs of state continued.
Several prime ministers served during the latter part of Victoria’s reign, but only the Conservative party leader Benjamin Disraeli, who held office in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880, gained her confidence. He ingratiated himself with the queen by his cultivated personal approach and his gift for flattery. He also allowed her a free hand in the awarding of church, military, and some political appointments. She fully endorsed his policy of strengthening and extending the British Empire, and in 1876 Disraeli secured for her the title of empress of India. She rarely agreed with the brilliant leader of the Liberal party, William E. Gladstone, who served as prime minister four times between 1868 and 1894. Victoria disapproved of the democratic reforms he enunciated, such as abolishing the purchase of military commissions and legalizing trade unions, and his powerful intellectualized method of argument. She was also strongly opposed to his policy of home rule for Ireland. The Conservative leader Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, who served as prime minister three times between 1885 and 1902, more often found favour with the queen. Like Disraeli, he advocated protecting British interests and increasing British influence abroad.
Victoria’s popularity among all classes in British society reached its height in the last two decades of her reign. Her golden jubilee in 1887 and her diamond jubilee in 1897 were occasions for great public rejoicing. Her subjects were then enjoying an unprecedented period of prosperous complacency, and her enthusiastic execution of the Boer War increased her appeal at home and abroad. Victoria died on January 22, 1901. Her 63-year reign was the longest in the history of England. Her descendants, including 40 grandchildren, married into almost every royal family of Europe.
With her personal example of honesty, patriotism, and devotion to family life, Victoria became a living symbol of the solidity of the British Empire. The many years of her reign, often referred to as the Victorian age, witnessed the rise of the middle class and were marked by a deeply conservative morality and intense nationalism.
Victoria’s correspondence was published in three series, Letters, 1837-61 (3 volumes, 1907), Letters, 1862-85 (3 volumes, 1926-1928), and Letters, 1886-1901 (3 volumes, 1930-32).
