Queen Victoria - Quick facts

 

 

 

Victoria was the first royal to travel by train, on 13 June 1842, between London and Windsor (for the Castle).

Queen Victoria and Albert are credited with having invented the tartan in about 1850. It was intended that the tartan should be personal to the Sovereign's family and so it was not possible to purchase it for public use

Victoria proposed to Albert five days after their second meeting! As Queen, Victoria could not receive a proposal from a man.

Until she was Queen, Victoria was forbidden from going up or down stairs without holding someone’s hand – in case she hurt herself.

Queen Victoria publicly praised and used the fashionable 19th century cocaine-based drink Vin Mariani that later inspired Coca-Cola.

The Kinks’ song Victoria, which appeared on their 1969 album Arthur (Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire), was named after Queen Victoria.

There were seven attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria during her reign, between 1840 and 1882

She is the name sake of Britain’s most famous fictional pub, The Queen Vic in Eastenders. 55 other UK pubs are named after her.

She was the first monarch to have electric lights and a telephone.

She was the first British monarch to own the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

Victoria was the first monarch to use Buckingham Palace as the main Royal residence.

Victoria has links throughout Europe's royal families, nicknaming her "the grandmother of Europe"

Victoria’s face appeared on the world’s first stamp, the Penny Black.

Victoria was the last monarch in the House of Hanover.

Albert bought Balmoral Castle for Queen Victoria in 1846.

Victoria took on the title Empress of India in 1876, officially becoming the first British Monarch to rule India.

Until she came of age at 18 she always slept in her mother's room.

She was the first British monarch to be photographed.

Victoria is associated with Britain's great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and, especially, the empire.

Her first act after coming to the throne was to remove her bed from her mother's room.

She was the first Queen of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia was confederated on 1 January 1901, only 21 days before her death.

She produced nine children, forty-two grandchildren and thirty-seven great grandchildren.

She was one of the first users of chloroform as an anaesthetic in childbirth.

She died in the arms of her first grandchild, the German Emperor William II.

Basic State Education became free for every child under the age of 10 under her rule.

She outlived eleven of her 42 grandchildren.