Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days—which was longer than those of any of her predecessors—constituted the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.
Emperor or Empress of India was a title used by British monarchs from 1 May 1876 to 22 June 1948 to signify their sovereignty over the Indian Empire as its imperial head of state. The image of the emperor or empress appeared on Indian currency, in government buildings, railway stations, courts, on statues etc. Oaths of allegiance were made to the emperor or empress and the lawful successors by the governors-general, princes, governors, commissioners in India in events such as imperial durbars.
The coat of arms of the United Kingdom, also referred to as the royal arms, are the arms of dominion of the British monarch, currently Charles III. They are used by the Government of the United Kingdom and by other Crown institutions, including courts in the United Kingdom and in some parts of the Commonwealth. Differenced versions of the arms are used by members of the British royal family. The monarch's official flag, the Royal Standard, is the coat of arms in flag form.
Earl of Beaconsfield, of Hughenden in the County of Buckingham, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1876 for Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, a favourite of Queen Victoria. Victoria favoured Disraeli's Tory policies over those of his Liberal rival, William Ewart Gladstone. Disraeli had also promoted the Royal Titles Act 1876 that had given Victoria the title of Empress of India. The subsidiary title of the earldom was Viscount Hughenden, of Hughenden in the County of Buckingham, also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
The Governor-General of India was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom in their capacity as the emperor/empress of India and after Indian independence in 1947, the representative of the monarch of India. The office was created in 1773, with the title of governor-general of the Presidency of Fort William. The officer had direct control only over his presidency but supervised other East India Company officials in India. Complete authority over all of British territory in the Indian subcontinent was granted in 1833, and the official came to be known as the governor-general of India.
St Edward's Crown is the coronation crown of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. Named after Saint Edward the Confessor, versions of it have traditionally been used to crown English and British monarchs at their coronations since the 13th century. It is normally on public display in the Jewel House at the Tower of London.
The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that created a statutory definition of England as including England, Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed.
The Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that authorised the alteration of the British monarch's royal style and titles, and altered the formal name of the British Parliament and hence of the state, in recognition of most of Ireland separating from the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State. It received royal assent on 12 April 1927.
A king-emperor or queen-empress is a sovereign ruler who is simultaneously a king or queen of one territory and emperor or empress of another. This title usually results from a merger of a royal and imperial crown, but recognises the two territories as different politically and culturally as well as in status. It also denotes a king's imperial status through the acquisition of an empire or vice versa.
Imperial and Royal Majesty was the style used by Emperor-Kings and their consorts as heads of imperial dynasties that were simultaneously royal. The style was notably used by the Emperor of Austria and by the German Emperor. The Austrian, German, and Bohemian monarchies were abolished in 1918 while the vacant throne of Hungary continued to exist until the 1940s.
Imperial Majesty is a style used by Emperors and Empresses. It distinguishes the status of an emperor/empress from that of a King/Queen, who are simply styled Majesty. Holders of this style have sometimes been observed to follow religious leaders who are styled "His Holiness" in public ceremonies.
The term "emperor" has sometimes informally been retroactively applied to a few mythical and historical rulers of Great Britain, Ireland or the United Kingdom. It was sometimes used informally to designate either Plantagenet or Tudor caesaropapism. The reliable sources of British history do not use the term "British Emperor," nor did the government. The term "British Empire" is an unofficial designation and does not imply there was a person called "emperor."
In modern heraldry, a royal cypher is a monogram or monogram-like device of a country's reigning sovereign, typically consisting of the initials of the monarch's name and title, sometimes interwoven and often surmounted by a crown. Such a cypher as used by an emperor or empress is called an imperial cypher. In the system used by various Commonwealth realms, the title is abbreviated as 'R' for 'rex' or 'regina'. Previously, 'I' stood for 'imperator' or 'imperatrix' of the Indian Empire.
The Civil List Act 1837 was an act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, signed into law on 23 December 1837.
The Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875 or the Cross Act was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom designed by Richard Cross, Home Secretary during Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's second Conservative Government, which involved allowing local councils to buy up areas of slum dwellings in order to clear and then rebuild them. It formed part of Disraeli's social reform initiative aimed at the "elevation of the people", a policy stated in his 1872 speeches at Manchester and Crystal Palace, and associated with his doctrine of One Nation Conservatism. Also, key individuals, such as the philanthropist Octavia Hill, helped pressurise the government into passing the Act.
Events from the year 1876 in the United Kingdom.
An Appropriation Act is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which, like a Consolidated Fund Act, allows the Treasury to issue funds out of the Consolidated Fund. Unlike a Consolidated Fund Act, an Appropriation Act also "appropriates" the funds, that is allocates the funds issued out of the Consolidated Fund to individual government departments and Crown bodies. Appropriation Acts were formerly passed by the Parliament of Great Britain.
Benjamin Disraeli's tenure as prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland began when Queen Victoria first invited him to form a government in 1864. He was then the Conservative prime minister on two occasions, first in 1868 and then between 1874 and 1880.
The Government of India Act 1833, sometimes called the East India Company Act 1833 or the Charter Act 1833, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, later retitled as the Saint Helena Act 1833. It extended the royal charter granted to the East India Company for an additional twenty years, and restructured the governance of British India.
The Tudor Crown was a state crown created in the early 16th century for either Henry VII or Henry VIII, the first Tudor monarchs of England, and destroyed in 1649 during the English Civil War. It was described by the art historian Sir Roy Strong as 'a masterpiece of early Tudor jeweller's art'.
