Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
c. 1830 Railroads lace the country together. The Industrial Revolution kicks into
high gear.
1837 Eighteen-year-old Victoria becomes queen and presides over an era of
peace and middle-class values. Britain's longest-reigning monarch (and
great-great-grandmother of both Elizabeth II and her husband) reigns for
64 years. “Victorian” comes to describe the prim middle-class morality of
the time.
1840 Victoria marries her German-born first cousin Prince Albert, whose sup-
port of the arts and sciences enriches London.
1840s-1860s Popular novelist Charles Dickens brings literature to the masses, educat-
ing them about Britain's harsh social and economic realities.
Queen Victoria (1819-1901)
Plump, pleasant, and barely five feet tall, Queen Victoria, with her regal demeanor
and 64-year reign, came to symbolize the global dominance of the British Empire
during its greatest era.
Born in Kensington Palace, Victoria was the granddaughter of “Mad” King Ge-
orge III, the tyrant who sparked the American Revolution. Her domineering moth-
er raised her in sheltered seclusion, drilling into her the strict morality that would
come to be known as “Victorian.” At 18, she was crowned queen. Victoria soon
fell madly, deeply in love with Prince Albert, a handsome German nobleman with
mutton-chop sideburns. They married and set up house in Buckingham Palace (the
first monarchs to do so) and at Windsor Castle. Over the next 17 years, she and
Albert had nine children, whom they eventually married off to Europe's crowned
heads. Victoria's royal descendants include Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany (who
started World War I); the current monarchs of Spain, Norway, Sweden, and Den-
mark; and England's Queen Elizabeth II, who is Victoria's great-great-granddaugh-
ter.
Victoria and Albert promoted the arts and sciences, organizing a world's fair in
Hyde Park (1851) that showed off London as the global capital. Just as important,
they were role models for an entire nation; this loving couple influenced several
generations with their wholesome middle-class values and devoted parenting.
Though Victoria is often depicted as dour and stuffy—she supposedly coined the
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