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| TIME LINE 1837 - 1901 | VICTORIA - Reigned 1837 - 1901 |
Born 1819 - Married - Albert son of Ernest I. duke of Saxe Co- bourg and Gotha. Four sons and five daughters are the issue of this marriage.
PRINCIPAL EVENTS.
Outbreak of wars in China and India,
1839. Invention of the Electric Telegraph. Failure of the potato crop, and great distress throughout Ireland, 1847.
Continental revolutions, 1848. Discovery of gold in California, 1847. War with the Kaffirs, 1849. Discovery of
gold in Australia, 1851. The Great Industrial Exhibition, promoted by Prince Albert, opened by the Queen, 1851.
England and France declare war against Russia, 1854. Capture and destruction of Sebastopol, 1855. Peace concluded
with Russia, 1856. Wars with Persia and with China, 1857. Mutiny in India, 1857, - finally suppressed, 1859. Formation
of Rifle Volunteer Corps throughout England, 1860. Death of the Prince Consort, 1861. Second Great Exhibition,
1862. Marriage of Prince of Wales and princess Alexandra of Denmark, 1863. The Abyssinian war, 1867 Great war between
Germany and France, 1870. Ashantee war, 1873-4. Marriage of Duke of Edinburgh and Grarnde Duchesse Marie Alexandrovna
of Russia, 1874.
Victoria I. (Alexandrina), Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, only child of Edward, duke of Kent, and of his wife Princess Victoria Mary Louisa, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, widow of the Prince of Leiningen, and sister of King Leopold of Belgium, was born at Kensington Palace May 24, 1819.
Her father died January 28, 1820, and she became heiress-presumptive to the crown on the accession of William IV. in 1830. The latter dying without issue (June 20, 1837), she ascended the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, that of Hanover falling by the Salic law to her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland.
She was crowned in West. Minster Abbey, June 28, 1838, and on Feb. 10th,1840, married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
By this union she had issue:
Victoria, Princess Royal, born 2l st November, 1840, married 25th Jan., 1858, Frederick, crown prince of Prussia, afterwards emperor of Germany; Albert Edward, prince of Wales, born 9th Nov., 1841, married 10th March, 1863, Alexandra, daughter of the King of Denmark ; Alice Maud Mary, born 25th April, 1843, married l st. July, 1862, the Grand Duke of Hesse, died 14th December, 1878 ; Alfred Ernest, duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe - Coburg, born 6th August, 1844, married 23rd January, 1874, Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, died 30th July, 1900; Helena Augusta. Victoria, born 25th May, 1846, married 5th July, 1866, Prince Frederick Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; Louise Caroline Alberta, born 18th March 1848, married 21st March, 1871, John, marquis of Lorne, now Duke of Argyll; Arthur, duke of Connaught, born 1st May, 1850, married 13th March, 1879, Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia; Leopold, duke of Albany, born 7th April, 1853, married 27th April, 1882, Princess Helen of Waldeck, died 28th March, 1884; Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodora, born 14th April, 1857, married 23rd July, 1885, Prince Henry Maurice of Battenberg.
Her husband, Prince Albert, died on 14th December, 1861, a blow which so affected the queen that she made but few appearances in public for years. In 1876 she assumed the title of Empress of India. The jubilee of her reign was celebrated in 1887 and the 'diamond jubilee' in 1897.
She wrote Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (1868), and More Leaves (1884).
She died at Osborne House Isle of Wight on 22nd January, 1901, and was succeeded by her eldest son Edward VII. Her remains were placed beside those of Prince Albert in the mausoleum at Frogmore .
The Victorian period witnessed a profound transformation of English society. It saw the decisive shift from agriculture to industry and trade as the bases of the national livelihood, the growth of a predominantly urban society of a sort, and on a scale, new in the experience of mankind, while in the political sphere it saw the engrafting first of middle-class and then of large popular elements on to a predominantly aristocratic constitution that had just recently, in the Napoleonic Wars, given the world a singular demon-stration of its stability and strength.
From the wider than national point of view it may not without reason be regarded as the epoch of Britain's greatest influence in the world. For a brief while, before America had developed the full strength of her continental frame, and while Europe was still beset with political division and economic backwardness, Britain's pioneer industrial tour and her political stability enabled her to play the part of the leading power of the world. Her commerce and her naval might penetrated its utter-most seas; her example was felt wherever men's minds turned to newer ways of life; British business and political methods were equated with progress wherever progress was discussed, except perhaps in America.
Even after the period of unquestioned leadership had passed, the character and temper of the renovated English society remained a matter of world interest and importance. For it had provided the prototype of the industrial civilization that was gradually to spread over the world. Problems that had been Britain's alone became those also of other nations and continents. Britain's attitudes towards them - still more, perhaps, the somewhat summary interpretations of those attitudes that gained currency - had a considerable influence on the world's behaviour in face of them. Thus the central theme of Victorian history, which can be described as that of the response of the institutions and traditions of an old, vigorous, and highly integrated society to the twin impacts of industrialism and democracy, has more than a national, even something of an ecumenical significance.
