Queen Victoria | Britroyals Born: May 24, 1819 at Kensington Palace Parents: Edward, Duke of Kent (son of George III) and Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld Relation to Elizabeth II: great-great-grandmother House of: Hanover Ascended to the throne: June 20, 1837 aged 18 years Crowned: June 28, 1838 at Westminster Abbey Married: Albert, son of Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Children: Four sons including Edward VII, and five daughters Died: January 22, 1901 at Osborne, Isle of Wight, aged 81 years, 7 months, and 29 days Buried at: Frogmore Reigned for: 63 years, 7 months, and 2 days Succeeded by: her son Edward VII Named Alexandrina Victoria but known as Victoria, she was the only child of Edward Duke of Kent and Victoria Saxe-Coburg. Her father died when she was 1 year old and her domineering mother kept her away from her �wicked� uncles Kings George and William.

She had a sheltered upbringing, and came to the throne shortly after her 18th birthday in 1837 on the death of her uncle William IV who had no surviving legitimate children. She was at the time unmarried and not crowned until June 28, 1838. In February 1840 she married her cousin and love of her life Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The British Empire was at the height of its power and she ruled over 450 million people, one quarter of the world�s population and approximately one quarter of the work�s landmass. It stretched so far around the globe from Canada to the Caribbean, Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand that it was said that the sun never set on the British Empire. India was Jewel in the Crown and in 1876 she was given the title Empress of India. The Victorian era was a time of immense industrial, political, trade, scientific and military progress for Great Britain. In her early years she was dependent on her Prime Minister Lord Melbourne and her uncle King Leopold of Belgium for advice, but increasingly her husband Albert became her main advisor.

He was involved in organising the Great Exhibition in 1851, and persuaded her to take a more constitutional role in leaving the rule of the nation and Empire to Parliament. She was strong willed and her relations with her prime ministers ranged from the affectionate (Melbourne and Disraeli) to the stormy (Peel, Palmerston, and Gladstone). Victoria and Albert had four sons, five daughters and 42 grandchildren who were married to royalty across Europe making her the �grandmother of Europe�. Her daughter Victoria was mother of the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II, and her grand-daughter Alexandria was the wife of Nicholas II Emperor and last Tzar of Russia. The death of Albert from typhoid in 1861 plunged Victoria into mourning and she withdrew almost completely from public life spending her time at Balmoral Castle in Scotland and Osborne house on the Isle of Wight where she spent time with her favourite Scottish servant John Brown. This encouraged republican sentiments and she was the target of several assassination attempts. However she kept control of affairs, refusing her son Edward, Prince of Wales (who became Edward VII) any active role.

Her golden jubilee in 1887 and diamond jubilee in 1897 regained her popular support and matriarchal role as Queen of the nation and Empire. She died at Osborne House on 22 January 1901, and was buried at Windsor. Her reign lasted 63 years and 7 months which is the second longest of any British monarch.

Queen Victoria's Signature Quotes: �Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves� - Queen Victoria �Being pregnant is an occupational hazard of being a wife� - Queen Victoria� (she had 9 children) �The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write or join in checking this mad, wicked folly of �Woman�s Rights� with all its attendant horrors on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety� � Queen Victoria (she was against women�s rights despite being matriarch to nearly a quarter of the world�s population) �The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.� - Queen Victoria Timeline for Queen Victoria BBC - History - Overview: Victorian Britain, 1837 - 1901 Print this page Naval supremacy 'When Britain really ruled the waves, in good Queen Bess's time' was the assessment of the late Victorian age's leading satirist, WS Gilbert.

(He put these words into the mouth of a spoof peer of the realm in the comic opera 'Iolanthe', which he wrote with Arthur Sullivan in 1882.) Gilbert's Lord Mountararat got it wrong. Naval exploits in the age of Elizabeth I are regularly romanticised and their significance exaggerated. Late 16th century England, though growing in importance under an able, crafty and ruthless monarch, remained a bit-part player on the European stage. Britain's naval might was not openly challenged on the high seas between the battles of Trafalgar and Jutland. Britain 'really ruled the waves' throughout Gilbert's own lifetime. He lived from 1836 to 1911, during the reigns of Victoria and her successor, Edward VII. Britain's naval might was not openly challenged on the high seas between Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson's famous victory at Trafalgar in 1805 and the World War One Battle of Jutland with the German navy in 1916. During the Victorian age, Britain was the world's most powerful nation. Though not always effortlessly, it was able to maintain a world order which rarely threatened Britain's wider strategic interests.

The single European conflict fought during Victoria's reign - the Crimean War of 1854 - 1856 - contrasted markedly with the 18th century, during which the British were involved in at least five major wars, none of which lasted less than seven years. The Victorians believed that peace was a necessary pre-condition of long-term prosperity. Victoria's empire Portrait photograph of Victoria © In 1882 Britain was in the later stages of acquiring the largest empire the world had ever seen. By the end of Victoria's reign, the British empire extended over about one-fifth of the earth's surface and almost a quarter of the world's population at least theoretically owed allegiance to the 'queen empress'. These acquisitions were not uncontested. A number of colonial wars were fought and insurgencies put down as bloodily as the colonisers considered necessary. Many colonial administrators took on their duties with a fierce determination to do good. It would be a gross exaggeration to claim, as many contemporaries did, that those living in a British colony felt privileged to be ruled by a people anxious to spread the virtues of an ordered, advanced and politically sophisticated Christian nation to those 'lesser breeds' previously 'without the law'.

That said, there is no gainsaying the fact that both many colonial administrators and Christian missionaries took on their colonial duties with a fierce determination to do good. Britain's status as the financial capital of the world also secured investment inflows which preserved its immense prosperity. One has only to walk along Liverpool's waterfront and view the exceptional 'Three Graces', (the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, Royal Liver and Cunard buildings) planned and erected in the decade or so after Victoria's death, to understand the centrality of commerce and overseas trade in making Britain the world's greatest power during the 19th century. Liverpool's status as a World Heritage City is fitting testament to a period when Britain did indeed 'rule the waves'. Top Industrial Revolution Victoria came to the throne during the early, frenetic phase of the world's first industrial revolution. Industrialisation brought with it new markets, a consumer boom and greater prosperity for most of the propertied classes. It also brought rapid, and sometimes chaotic change as towns and cities expanded at a pace which precluded orderly growth. Life expectancy at birth - in the high 30s in 1837 - had crept up to 48 by 1901.

Desperately poor housing conditions, long working hours, the ravages of infectious disease and premature death were the inevitable consequence. The Victorians wrestled with this schizoid legacy of industrialism. The Victorian town symbolised Britain's progress and world pre-eminence, but it also witnessed some of the most deprived people, and depraved habits, in the civilised world. Taming, and then improving, Britain's teeming cities presented a huge challenge. Mortality data revealed that, in the poorer quarters of Britain's larger cities, almost one child in five born alive in the 1830s and 1840s had died by the age of five. Polluted water and damp housing were the main causes. Death rates in Britain as a whole remained obstinately above 20 per thousand until the 1880s and only dropped to 17 by the end of Victoria's reign. Life expectancy at birth, in the high 30s in 1837, had crept up to 48 by 1901.

One of the great scourges of the age - tuberculosis - remained unconquered, claiming between 60,000 and 70,000 lives in each decade of Victoria's reign. Civic engagement Despite substantial medical advances and well-informed campaigns, progress in public health was desperately slow in Victoria's reign. This had much to do with healthy scepticism about the opinions of experts, particularly when those experts advocated greater centralised state interference in what they considered to be the proper sphere of local authorities and agencies. Furthermore, state involvement meant higher taxes and higher taxes were said to hamper both business and job creation. Localism undoubtedly stymied many public health initiatives at least until the last two decades of the reign. Christian gentlemen considered it a duty to make legacies to worthy causes. The Victorian era saw considerable expenditure on monuments to civic pride. The competitive ethic which drove so much business enterprise was channelled by local worthies into spending on opulent town halls and other civic buildings. By no means all of these were intended for the use of a propertied elite. Libraries, wash-houses and swimming baths were all funded as part of a determination to provide working people with the means to improve themselves.

Civic identity and civic engagement were more powerful forces in Victorian than in early 20th-century Britain. Nor were the Victorian middle and upper classes parsimonious over charitable giving. The 1860s alone saw the formation of the Society for the Relief of Distress, the Peabody Trust, Barnardo's Homes and the Charity Organisation Society. These national organisations were multiplied several-fold by local charities. Christian gentlemen considered it a duty to make legacies to worthy causes. True, much of this giving came with strings. Most Victorian charities were aimed at those sections of the working classes disposed towards helping themselves. Its overall impact, however, should not be underestimated. Ireland Distress caused by the famine at Kilrush, Ireland, in 1849 © The United Kingdom's population at Victoria's accession in 1837 was about 25.5 million, eight million of whom lived in Ireland. At her death in 1901, it had risen to 41 million. These figures, however, mask an enormous contrast.

While the population of England and Wales increased by some 116% (15 million to 32.5 million), that of Ireland almost halved (eight million to 4.5 million), its population declining in every decade of the reign. Ireland lost more than one million people to the famine in the 1840s. This stark contrast is explained by two linked factors. Ireland, the Protestant north east around Belfast excepted, did not experience an industrial revolution in the Victorian age. It also endured a devastating famine from 1845 - 1847, the result of a failed potato crop among a peasant population dangerously dependent on one food source for sheer existence. Ireland lost more than one million people to the ravages of famine in the 1840s. It lost far more over the next half century to the steady drip of emigration to Britain, the Americas and Australia. This ticking demographic timebomb had far-reaching consequences. Large numbers of Irish Catholics - both those who stayed and those who left - blamed the British government for the famine and saw in it the ultimate proof that the Act of Union had been a ruse from which Britain benefited and for which Ireland continued to suffer.

The famine extinguished any realistic hope that the Irish, like the Scots a century earlier, might come to realise the economic, commercial and cultural benefits of political union with a larger and more prosperous national partner. Inevitably, 'home rule' campaigns grew in both numbers and violence in the second half of Victoria's reign. These also impacted massively on British politics. 'The Irish Question' dominated the last phase of the career of William Gladstone, probably Victoria's ablest - and certainly her most driven - prime minister. His Liberal party's split on home rule for Ireland in 1886 began the long process of marginalisation of the political party which dominated much of the queen's reign. Ireland would not get home rule in Victoria's lifetime, but it set the political agenda unlike any other issue. Top Politics What, finally, of the Victorian political structure? It is easy to see that it was far from democratic. At the beginning of Victoria's reign, about a fifth of adult males were entitled to vote. That proportion increased, through parliamentary reform acts passed in 1867 and 1884, to one-third and two-thirds respectively.

No women could legally vote in parliamentary elections until almost 18 years after Victoria's death - and the queen herself was no suffragist. Women did, however, play an increasingly influential role both in locally-elected school and poor law boards and in local government from the 1870s onwards. During the Victorian era, the United Kingdom could plausibly be considered the world's superpower. If not democratic, the political system was becoming increasingly representative. By 1901, few argued - as had frequently been asserted against the Chartists in the 1830s and 1840s - that to allow working men to vote would be to cede power to an ignorant, insensate and unworthy majority. Victorian politicians increasingly learned how to 'trust the people'. They also noted how many among 'lower orders' could help themselves economically while improving themselves educationally. The working-class Victorian autodidact was an increasingly significant figure. His modest successes enabled his 'betters' to claim that Britain was a specially advanced, perhaps even a divinely favoured, nation. Britain managed to modernize its political system without succumbing to the political revolutions that afflicted virtually all of its European competitors.

The quality of political debate in Victorian Britain, in newspapers and in both houses of parliament, was also very high. The struggle for political supremacy between William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli in the late 1860s and 1870s represents perhaps the most sophisticated political duel in the nation's history. During the Victorian era, then, the United Kingdom could plausibly be considered as the world's superpower. However, Germany and the United States had already begun to surpass its industrial capacity and Germany's naval build-up would shortly present a powerful challenge to long-held British supremacy. On the home front, the nation was only beginning to get to grips with widespread poverty while considerably more than half the adult population remained without a vote. Victorian supremacy by 1901 was only skin deep.

Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction by Christopher Harvie (Oxford Paperbacks, 2000) A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain edited by Chris Williams (Blackwell Publishers, 2004) The Victorians: An Age in Retrospect by John Gardiner (Hambledon Continuum, 2002) The Forging of the Modern State: Early Industrial Britain, 1783 - 1870 by Eric J Evans (Longman, 2001) Britain's Century, 1815 - 1905 by WD Rubinstein (Hodder Arnold, 1998) The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846 - 1886 by K Theodore Hoppen (Oxford University Press, 1998) A New England: Peace and War, 1886 - 1918 by GR Searle (Oxford University Press, 2004) The Victorian Underworld by Donald Thomas (John Murray, 1998) Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire by David Cannadine (Penguin Books

, 2002) Top About the author Eric Evans is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at Lancaster University.

He has written on British history from the age of Walpole to that of Margaret Thatcher and is the author of several books on 19th and 20th-century British history. Recent publications include a 2nd edition of Thatcher and Thatcherism (Routledge, 2004), The Forging of the Modern State: Early Industrial Britain, 1783-1870 (Longman, 2001), The Great Reform Act of 1832 (Routledge, 1994), The Birth of Modern Britain, 1780-1914 (Longman, 1997) and Parliamentary Reform, 1770-1918 (Longman, 1999). 1000+ images about Queen victorian era 1837.

-1901 on Pinterest | Princess beatrice, Pictures of queen victoria and Victorian era dresses Forward Queen Victoria and family at Coburg on 21 April 1894, assembled for the wedding of Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1876-1936) and Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse (1868-1937), both grandchildren of Queen Victoria. The wedding took place on 19 April 1894. The group includes members of the Prussian and Russian royal families. From the Royal Archives. (Thanks to Veronica Viersen for finding the information to accompany this image). See More The Victorian Era: Queen Victoria (1837 - 1901) - Cameron Freeman Home » Principia Discordia » Contemporary Archaeology » Victorian Revival » The Victorian Era: Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901) The Victorian Era: Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901) In Her own Words: Queen Victoria said... My name is Victoria and I have been Queen of England for over sixty-three years.

I became queen in 1837 at eighteen years of age upon the death of my uncle, William IV, King of England. Because I have seen much during my long reign, I would like to take you on a short personal tour of my time as Queen. After my coronation in 1837, many people in England were not happy. Many people say that I have a rather strict and formal personality., a sharp temper, and a very stubborn attitude for getting done what I want done. To all of this I say. "Really"? These very qualities they dislike are absolutely necessary for a ruler to possess. The first ten years or so of my reign were largely uneventful with the exception of a rebellion by individuals known as the Chartists (1842) who claimed to want election reforms to give common people the vote. It is unfortunate that these poor, uneducated people would do this. Quite obviously, they really don't know what is in their best interest. In 1852, we had some trouble in Burma with the native peoples who didn't want to be part of our empire. This, I cannot understand.

It is not plain to these foreign subjects that the British Empire is the best thing that could have happened to them. We bring them civilization, modern medicine, Christianity and trade, and all we ask for in return is that they allow us to rule them and do what is best for them. Why they revolt against such a benign policy I cannot understand.. The next major trouble was in the Crimea in 1854. The Russians were trying to expand their empire at the expense of the Turks; we and the French had to step in and help the rather weak Turks against the Russians. We also didn't want the Russians getting too strong, so this action served us well in two ways. The most ghastly event occurred in India in 1857, the Sepoy revolt or Indian Mutiny. During this time thousands of Indian troops in the English army revolted, attacked their white officers and any other English troops or white Europeans who were in India. The slaughter was horrible; these Sepoys butchered, with swords, thousands of innocent English women and children, not to mention the soldiers and men they killed.

We sent troops in and crushed the revolt, killing most of the leaders, some of whom were hanged publicly and allowed to rot as a message to others who might consider another rebellion. There have also been revolts and wars in Africa against the Ashanti (in 1873 and 1895) on the west coast of Africa and with the Zulus (1879) in South Africa. In both cases, we were attempting to bring order to our colonies there. In 1899, we entered a war against the Boers (Afrikaners) in South Africa that really upset me. These Dutch settlers wanted to form their won country in South Africa and refused to be a part of the English colony there. There wanted full rights to the mineral rich Transvaal. What made this war so upsetting was the ruthless guerilla war tactics used by the Boers, who after all, were white men, not savages. The last major problem I have had was in China (1900) where a group of individuals wanted to expel and kill all Europeans there.

These Boxers, as they were called, were supported by the Empress Dowager, and were finally defeated by a force of allied European nations from Germany, Italy, France, England, Russia and the United States. We were glad when it was over. Not only have there been political events in our colonies but we also have attempted to help our people at home. We enacted the Mines Act of 1842 that forbade the employment of women and children in coal mines. We shortened the workday to ten hours, for six days a week and we established a Public Health Act in 1875 to improve sewers, water, and housing for the poor. We provided for increased public education through the Education Act of 1870. All of this was done to improve the position of the average Englishman. Since I am now eight-one years, I will finish our tour because I have become tired; but I feel that I have done an excellent job as queen. The empire doubled in size during my reign and the people of the world are much better off because of it. As History remembers Queen Victoria Queen Victoria was born on May 24, 1819.

She was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, minor son of the reigning King George III, and Victoire of Saxe-Coburg, a German princess. Both her father and grandfather died in 1820, the year her uncle succeeded as King George IV. When George died without issue in 1830, Victoria stood to inherit the throne after the daughter of her second royal uncle, King William IV, died in infancy. William himself died in 1837, and the eighteen-year-old princess became Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland on June twenty that year. Victoria was a virgin queen until February 10, 1840, when day she married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. Victoria bore nine children within the next seventeen years, among them the future King Edward VII. Albert was an avid patron of the arts, sciences, and burgeoning industries, and he helped organize the famous Great Exhibitionof 1851 at the "Crystal Palace." Victoria doted on her husband, who influenced her greatly and became her most trusted adviser in matters of state.

The other major influence early in her reign was her first Prime Minister William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne, of the liberal Whig party. These early years of Victorian rule saw major reforms in British education, with the Grammar Schools Act of 1840 and the founding of Queen's College for women in London in 1848. When Prince Albert died in 1861, the queen was devastated and went into deep mourning. She rarely appeared in public until the end of the 1860s, and during this time Great Britain saw a major movement in favor of republican government and for the abolition of monarchic powers. However, with the help of the Conservative party's Benjamin Disraeli, prime minister in 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880, the queen eventually reassumed a more public and influential role in the government. Throughout the middle years of her reign, Victoria presided over Britain's involvement in the Crimean War (1854-56), non-intervention in the Prussia-Austria-Denmark war of 1864-1866, and the aversion of a Franco- German war in 1875.

She also presided over major domestic reforms in the British government, including the Second Reform Act of 1867 and the Representation of Peoples Act of 1884, both of which greatly expanded the population of her subjects permitted to vote in parliamentary elections. Victorian England also saw great advances in commerce and industry, aided by the spread of railroad lines throughout Great Britain and the laying of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable in 1866. During Victoria's reign, the British overseas Empire achieved its greatest size and power. The queen added the title Empress of India to her crown in 1876. She was a strong supporter of empire, which often pitted her against the Liberal party's William Gladstone, prime minister from 1869-1874, 1880-1885, and again from 1886-1894. She had better relations with her last prime minister, the Marquess of Salisbury, also a strong supporter of empire and opponent of Irish Home Rule, which was one of the most contentious issues of the day.

Victoria lived to celebrate both her Golden Jubilee in 1887 and her Diamond Jubileein 1897. These events were celebrated as great public affairs, and by this time the queen had achieved great popularity in Britain and she had come to be seen as the great symbol of the British Empire. The last years of her reign were preoccupied with the Boer War in southern Africa (1899-1902). After sixty-three years as queen - the longest reign of any English monarch - Victoria died on January 22, 1901. She was eighty-one years old. Queen Victoria 1837-1901 AD Victoria wearing her small diamond crown Photograph by Alexander Bassano, 1882. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Victoria, born May 24, 1819, was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Edward died when Victoria was but eight months old, upon which her mother enacted a strict regimen that, shunned the courts of Victoria's uncles, George IV and William IV.

She married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840; the union produced four sons and five daughters. She died at eighty-one years of age on January 22, 1901, after a reign of sixty-three years. She ascended the throne upon the death of William IV. Barely eighteen, she refused any further influence from her domineering mother and ruled in her own stead. Popular respect for the Crown was at low point at her coronation, but the modest and straightforward young Queen won the hearts of her subjects. She wished to be informed of political matters, although she had no direct input in policy decisions. The Reform Act of 1832 had set the standard of legislative authority residing in the House of Lords, with executive authority resting within a cabinet formed of members of the House of Commons; the monarch was essentially removed from the loop. She respected and worked well with Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister in the early years of her reign, and England grew both socially and economically. Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840, who replaced Melbourne as the dominant male influence in Victoria's life. She was thoroughly devoted to him and completely submitted to his will.

The public, however, was not enamored with the German prince; he was excluded from holding any official political position, was never granted a title of peerage and was named Prince Consort only after 17 years of marriage. Victoria did nothing without her husband's approval. His interests in art, science and industry spurred him to organize the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851, a highly profitable industrial convention. He used the proceeds, some £186,000, to purchase lands in Kensington for the establishment of several cultural and industrial museums. His death from typhoid in 1861 deeply affected Victoria's psyche - she went into seclusion for more than 25 years, not emerging until the Golden Jubilee of 1887, the celebration of her fiftieth year on the throne. An entire generation was raised without ever having seen the face of their Queen. The reform of government allowed England to avoid the politically tumultuous conditions sweeping across Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. The continent experienced the growing pains of conservatism, liberalism and socialism, and the nationalistic struggle for political unification.

England focused on developing industry and trade and expanding its imperial reach; during the reign of Victoria, the empire doubled in size, encompassing Canada, Australia, India and various locales in Africa and the South Pacific. Her reign was almost free of war, with an Irish uprising (1848), the Boer Wars in South Africa (1881, 1899-1902) and an Indian rebellion (1857) being the only exceptions. Victoria was named Empress of India in 1878. England avoided continental conflict from 1815 through 1914, the lone exception being the Crimean War (1853-56). The success in avoiding European entanglements was, in large part, due to the marriage of Victoria's children: either directly or by marriage, she was related to the royal houses of Germany, Russia, Greece, Rumania, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Belgium. Nicholas II of Russia was married to Victoria's granddaughter Alexandra, earning him the nickname "dear Nicky", and the dreaded Emperor of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was her grandson "Willy".

During her seclusion, she ruled her family with the iron hand that was denied her by the English constitutional arrangement. The old political parties of England, the Whigs and the Tories transformed during the reign of Victoria. John Peel's support of the Corn Law Repeal splintered the Tories into two camps. Peel's supporters joined with Whigs to create the Liberal Party and the anti-Peel Tories became the Conservative Party. Unlike most of Europe, English politicians agreed on the larger issues of governmental structure and political ideology, but differed on the smaller issues of policy practicality and implementation. Liberals represented traders and manufacturers, with Conservatives representing the landed gentry. Victoria's role after this political realignment was one of mediation between departing and arriving Prime Ministers (the Prime Minister was chosen by the party in control of the House of Commons). She was particularly fond of Conservative Benjamin Disraeli, who, by linking Victoria to the expansion of the empire, garnered respect for the monarchy that had been lacking since Victoria's seclusion. She despised the other prominent Prime Minister of the day, the Liberal William Gladstone, whose party dominated Parliament from 1846-1874.

Even in the throes of grief during her seclusion, Victoria gave close attention to daily business and administration, at a time when England was evolving politically and socially. Legislation passed in the era included the Mines Act (1842), The Education Act (1870), The Public Health and Artisan's Dwelling Acts (1875), Trade Union Acts (1871 and 1876) and Reform Acts in 1867 and 1884 which broadened suffrage. The national pride connected with the name of Victoria - the term Victorian England, for example, stemmed from the Queen's ethics and personal tastes, which generally reflected those of the middle class. The Golden Jubilee brought her out of her shell, and she again embraced public life. She toured English possessions and even visited France (the first English monarch to do so since the coronation of Henry VI in 1431). When she died of old age, an entire era died with her. Victoria's long reign witnessed an evolution in English politics and the expansion of the British Empire, as well as political and social reforms on the continent.

France had known two dynasties and embraced Republicanism, Spain had seen three monarchs and both Italy and Germany had united their separate principalities into national coalitions. Even in her dotage, she maintained a youthful energy and optimism that infected the English population as a whole. Lytton Strachey chronicled her last days with the sentimentality that had developed by the end of her reign, in the biography, Queen Victoria: " By the end of the year the last remains of her ebbing strength had almost deserted her; and through the early days of the opening century it was clear that her dwindling forces were kept together only by an effort of will. On January 14, she had at Osbourne an hour's interview with Lord Roberts, who had returned victorious from South Africa a few days before. She inquired with acute anxiety into all the details of the war; she appeared to sustain the exertion successfully; but, when the audience was over, there was a collapse. On the following day her medical attendants recognised that her state was hopeless; and yet, for two days more, the indomitable spirit fought on; for two days more she discharged the duties of a Queen of England.

But after that there was an end of working; and then, and not till then, did the last optimism of those about her break down. The brain was failing and life was gently slipping away. Her family gathered round her; for a little more she lingered, speechless and apparently insensible; and, on January 22, 1901, she died." Victoria's was the longest reign in English history. Copyright ©2011 Britannia.com, LLC Questions? Comments! page 916 Queen Victoria reigned 1837 1901 The Queen of - AP WORLD H - 1 View Full Document page 916: Queen Victoria (reigned 1837-1901): The Queen of England. Significance: She was the secretary of state for India. page 920: Leopold II of Belgium (reigned 1865-1909): The Belgian king that established the Congo Free State. Significance: He was responsible for the death of 4-8 milliion Africans.

page 921: Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815): The British takeover of the Cape. significance: It encouraged further Afrikaner expansion into the interior of south Africa. page 921: South African War (1899-1902): War between British authorities and Afrikaners. Significance: The British won and put the four former colonies into the Union of South Africa, an autonomous British dominion. page 922: The Berlin Conference (1884-1885): A conference that devised the rules for colonization of Africa. Significance: Each colonial power had to notify others of its claims. page 924: Frederick d. Lugard (1858-1945): A British colonial administrator. Significance: He was the driving force behind the doctrine of indirect rule. Chapter 33 Terms: page 926: Maori King Movement: A movement promoting Maori unity and sovereignty. Significance: The British surpassed it and pushed Maori into poor rural communities. This preview has intentionally blurred sections. Sign up to view the full version.

View Full Document page 928: James Monroe: An American president. Significance: He issued a proclamation that warned Europeans not to imperialize in the western hemisphere. page 928: William McKinley: An American president. Significance: He agreed to acquire the Hawaiian islands as U.S possessions in 1898. page 928: The Spanish-Cuban-American War: The United States declared war on Spain, and Cubans and Puerto Ricans became anticolonial. Significance: The United States won against Spain and took the Philippines under American control. page 929: Lili’uokalani: A Hawaiian queen. Significance: She was the last monarch of Hawaii before being overthrown. page 929: Theodore Roosevelt: An American president that encouraged imperial expansion. Significance: He supported a rebellion in Colombia and it granted the United states the right to built the Panama Canal. page 929: The Roosevelt Corollary: President Theodore Roosevelt added a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Significance: It gave the right of the U.S to intervene in domestic affairs to protect U.S investments.

page 930: The Sino-Japanese War: A conflict between China and Japan over Korea. Significance: Japan won and Korea became a dependency of Japan. Japan put unequal treaty rights on China. page 930: The Russo-Japanese War: Conflicts that arose when both Russia and Japan wanted the Liaodong peninsula, Korea, and Manchuria. Significance: The Japanese won and it transformed Japan into a major imperial power. page 935: Charles Darwin: An English biologist. Significance: He wrote The Origin of Species and his slogan was “survival of the fittest”. His works was the basis for a group known as Social Darwinists who applied his arguments to humankind. This is the end of the preview. Sign up to access the rest of the document. TERM Interregional travelers: Xuangzang, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta Valhalla High School AP WORLD H 1 - Fall 2013 Interregional Travelers 600ce - 1400ce Xuangzang, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta Define: Xua Interregional travelers: Xuangzang, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta

Question: Who was Queen of England between 1837 and 1901?
Answer: Victoria