Victorian Britain - Queen Victoria

1. Queen Victoria was born Kensington Palace in 1819.

2. Her father died when she was eight months old.

3. Victoria described her childhood as a "melancholy one".

4. Victoria became heir to throne as three uncles ahead of her had no legitimate children.

5. She was a warm-hearted and lively girl.

6. She was gifted at drawing and painting, and a great diarist, keeping a diary all her life.

7. She became Queen Victoria in 1837, aged eighteen.

8. Victoria is associated with Britain’s great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and Empire.

9. She was influenced by two men in the early part of reign, Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister and husband Prince Albert.

10. Victoria married Albert in 1840.

11. They had nine children, four boys and five girls, most of whom married into other royal families of Europe.

12. Several attempts were made on her life and the way she responded to these made her very popular.

13. Albert died of typhoid, aged forty-two, and for the rest of her reign Victoria wore black.

14. Following Albert’s death, she rarely appeared in public until the late 1860’s when she resumed her public duties.

15. People were unhappy about her refusal to appear in public and there were calls for her to abdicate.

16. In 1877 Queen Victoria became Empress of India.

17. Victoria favoured measures introduced to improve the lot of the poor during her reign.

18. Victoria was an influential monarch.

19. Her Golden Jubilee was held in 1887, and her Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

20. By the end of Queen Victoria’s reign Britain ruled nearly a quarter of the world.

21. Queen Victoria died at Osbourne House, Isle of Wight, in 1901.

22. She was survived by six children, forty grandchildren and thirty-seven great grandchildren.

23. Queen Victoria’s reign of sixty-four years was the longest in British history.

24. She was buried beside her beloved Prince Albert, at Windsor