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.
Sir Thomas Lawrence was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at the Bear Hotel in the Market Square. At age ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his pastel portraits. At 18, he went to London and soon established his reputation as a portrait painter in oils, receiving his first royal commission, a portrait of Queen Charlotte, in 1789. He stayed at the top of his profession until his death, aged 60, in 1830.
Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales was the only child of George, Prince of Wales, and Caroline of Brunswick. She was expected to ascend the British throne after the deaths of her grandfather, George III, and her father, but died in childbirth at the age of 21, predeceasing them both.
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn was the fourth son and fifth child of King George III and Queen Charlotte. His only child, Victoria, became Queen of the United Kingdom 17 years after his death.
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Queen of Hanover from 26 June 1830 to 20 June 1837 as the wife of King William IV. Adelaide was the daughter of George I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and Luise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia, is named after her.
Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, later known as the Duchess of Teck, was a member of the British royal family. She was one of the first royals to patronise a wide range of charities and was a first cousin of Queen Victoria.
Princess Helen of Waldeck and Pyrmont, later Duchess of Albany, was a member of the British royal family by marriage. She was the fifth daughter and child of George Victor, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, and his first wife, Princess Helena of Nassau.
Frogmore is an estate within the Home Park, adjoining Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. It comprises 33 acres (130,000 m2), of primarily private gardens managed by the Crown Estate. It is the location of Frogmore House, a royal retreat, and Frogmore Cottage. The name derives from the preponderance of frogs which have always lived in this low-lying and marshy area near the River Thames. This area is part of the local flood plain. Its large landscaped gardens are Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, later Princess of Leiningen and subsequently Duchess of Kent and Strathearn, was a German princess and the mother of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. As the widow of Charles, Prince of Leiningen, from 1814, she served as regent of the Principality during the minority of her son from her first marriage, Karl, until her second wedding in 1818 to Prince Edward, fourth son of George III.
Johanna Clara Louise Lehzen, also known as Baroness Louise Lehzen, was the governess and later companion to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
Sir William Beechey was a British portraitist during the golden age of British painting.
Franz Xaver Winterhalter was a German painter and lithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855) and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1865).
The parentage of Queen Victoria has been the subject of speculation. It has been suggested that her biological father was not Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. This suggestion has largely centred on the familial incidence of hereditary diseases and circumstantial evidence, and is not widely believed.
Frogmore House is a 17th-century English country house owned by the Crown Estate. It is a historic Grade I listed building. The house is located on the Frogmore estate, which is situated within the grounds of the Home Park in Windsor, Berkshire. Half a mile south of Windsor Castle, Frogmore was let to a number of tenants until the late 18th century, when it was used intermittently as a residence for several members of the British royal family.
George Dawe was an English portraitist who painted 329 portraits of Russian generals active during Napoleon's invasion of Russia for the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace. He relocated to Saint Petersburg in 1819, where he won acclaim for his work from the artistic establishment and complimentary verses by Pushkin. He was the son of Philip Dawe, a successful mezzotint engraver who also produced political cartoons relating to the events of the Boston Tea Party. One of his brothers was Henry Edward Dawe, also a portraitist. He died on 15 October 1829 in Kentish Town, United Kingdom.
Sir John Ponsonby Conroy, 1st Baronet, KCH was a British Army officer who served as comptroller to the Duchess of Kent and her young daughter, Princess Victoria, the future Queen of the United Kingdom.
Queen Victoria, the British monarch from 1837 to 1901, and Prince Albert had 9 children, 42 grandchildren, and 87 great-grandchildren. Victoria was called the "grandmother of Europe".
St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in England is a castle chapel built in the late-medieval Perpendicular Gothic style. It is a Royal Peculiar, and the Chapel of the Order of the Garter. St George's Chapel was founded in the 14th century by King Edward III and extensively enlarged in the late 15th century. It is located in the Lower Ward of the castle.
Since William the Conqueror claimed the English throne, succession has been determined by bequest, battle, primogeniture, and parliament.
The wedding of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha took place on 10 February 1840 at Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace, in London.
