1897 Thomas Middlebrook Edinburgh Castle Pub Museum Admission Ticket Token

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Seller: dealerschoice73 ✉️ (220) 100%, Location: Dorset, GB, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 116018577104 1897 Thomas Middlebrook Edinburgh Castle Pub Museum Admission Ticket Token.

1897 Diamond Jubilee Thomas Middlebrook Museum Admission Token

Between 1879 and 1907, Thomas Middlebrook, an avid amateur collector of historical curios and  ephemera, was the proprietor of the Edinburgh Castle pub (now called the Edinboro Castle) in Mornington Road (now Mornington Terrace), Camden Town near Regents Park in London, and here he opened a museum to display his eclectic collection (and no doubt to help publicise his pub business. His exhibits ranged from Great Auk eggs and the alleged bugle on which William Brittain sounded the charge of the Light Brigade, to the ensign from the Chesapeake, which midshipman Gundy allegedly rescued after its defeat by the English frigate Shannon. This seems to have been the final token of a series of 4 or 5 such copper tokens issued over several years. Clearly this one celebrates the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria. The design and manufacture of the tokens were undertaken by Theophilus Pinches, a member of the iconic medallist family firm and his initials can be seen on the truncation. Tokens of this type were only produced in small numbers in the first place, and there seem to be very few surviving examples, perhaps fewer than a dozen or so are known of this one, so it is excessively rare. As an enthusiast's piece, it is presented in uncleaned EF condition, as it came to me, with some abrasion to the Queen's cheek. The edge clip looks as though it was made on purpose, possibly as a contemporary indication that the token had been used for admission (like a bus ticket is clipped). It is struck in copper.  Diameter:   32.5mm   Weight:   13.8g Edge:  Plain I'm offering free UK Special Delivery and half price tracked overseas shipping.


In numismatics, token coins or trade tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of token coins is part of exonumia and token coins are token money. Their denomination is shown or implied by size, color or shape. They are often made of cheaper metals like copper, pewter, aluminium, brass and tin, or non-metals like bakelite, leather and porcelain.

A legal tender coin is issued by a governmental authority and is freely exchangeable for goods. A token coin has a narrower utility and is issued by a private entity. In many instances, token coins have become obsolete due to the use of cash, payment cards, stored value cards or other electronic transactions.

Coin-like objects from the Roman Empire called spintriae have been interpreted as an early form of token. Their functions are not documented, but they appear to have been brothel tokens or possibly gaming tokens.

Medieval English monasteries issued tokens to pay for services from outsiders. These tokens circulated in nearby villages, where they were called "Abbot's money". Also, counters called jetons were used as small change without official blessing.

From the 17th to the early 19th century in the British Isles (and also elsewhere in the British Empire) and North America, tokens were commonly issued by merchants in times of acute shortage of coins of the state. These tokens were in effect a pledge redeemable in goods, but not necessarily for currency. These tokens never received official sanction from government but were accepted and circulated quite widely.

In England, the production of copper farthings was permitted by royal licence in the first few decades of the 17th century, but production ceased during the English Civil War and a great shortage of small change resulted. This shortage was felt more keenly because of the rapid growth of trade in the towns and cities, and this in turn prompted both local authorities and merchants to issue tokens.

These tokens were most commonly made of copper or brass, but pewter, lead and occasionally leather tokens are also found. Most were not given a specific denomination and were intended to substitute for farthings, but there are also a large number of halfpenny and sometimes penny tokens. Halfpenny and penny tokens usually, but not always, bear the denomination on their face.

Most such tokens show the issuer's full name or initials. Where initials were shown, it was common practice to show three initials: the first names of husband and wife and their surname. Tokens would also normally indicate the merchant establishment, either by name or by picture. Most were round, but they are also found in square, heart or octagonal shapes.

Thousands of towns and merchants issued these tokens from 1648 until 1672, when official production of farthings resumed, and private production was suppressed.

There were again coin shortages in the late 18th century, when the British Royal Mint almost ceased production. Merchants once again produced tokens, but they were now machine made and typically larger than their 17th century predecessors, with values of a halfpenny or more. While many were used in trade, they were also produced for advertising and political purposes, and some series were produced for the primary purpose of sale to collectors. These tokens are usually known as Conder tokens, after the writer of the first reference book on them.

These were issued by merchants in payment for goods with the agreement that they would be redeemed in goods to an equivalent value at the merchants' own outlets. The tokens play a role of convenience, allowing the seller to receive his goods at a rate and time convenient to himself, and the merchant to tie the holder of the token coin to his shop.

In North America, tokens were originally issued by merchants from the 18th century in regions where national or local colonial governments did not issue enough small denomination coins for circulation. In the United States, Hard times tokens issued from 1832 to 1844 and Civil War tokens issued in the 1860s made up for shortages of official money.

Tokens were also used as company scrip to pay labor for use only in company stores owned by the employers.

The collecting of trade tokens is part of the field of exonumia, and includes other types of tokens, including transit tokens, encased cents, and many others. In a narrow sense, trade tokens are "good for" tokens, issued by merchants. Generally, they have a merchant's name or initials, sometimes a town and state, and a value legend (such as "good for 5¢" or other denomination) somewhere on the token. Merchants that issued tokens included general stores, grocers, department stores, dairies, meat markets, drug stores, saloons, bars, taverns, barbers, coal mines, lumber mills and many other businesses. The era of 1870 through 1920 marked the highest use of "trade tokens" in the United States, spurred by the proliferation of small stores in rural areas. There were thousands of small general and merchandise stores all over the United States, and many of them used trade tokens to promote trade and extend credit to customers. Aluminum tokens almost always date after 1890, when low-cost production began. Wooden nickels, another type of token, were usually issued by a merchant or bank as a promotion, sometimes redeemable for a specific item.

Metal token coins are used in lieu of cash in some coin-operated arcade games and casino slot machines. Money is exchanged for the token coins or chips in a casino where they may be interchangeable with money.

In many jurisdictions, casinos are not permitted to use currency in slot machines, necessitating tokens for smaller denominations. After the increase in the value of silver ended the use of silver coins in the United States around 1964, casinos rushed to find a substitute, as most slot machines at that time used that particular coin. The Nevada State Gaming Control Board consulted with the U.S. Treasury, and casinos were soon allowed to start using their own tokens to operate their slot machines. The Franklin Mint was the main minter of casino tokens at that time.

In 1971, many casinos adopted the Eisenhower Dollar for use in machines and on tables. When that coin was replaced with the Susan B. Anthony dollar in 1979, most casinos reinstituted tokens, fearing confusion with quarters and not wishing to extensively retool their slot machines. Casinos which still use tokens in slot machines still use Eisenhower-sized ones.

Tokens are being phased out by many casinos in favor of coinless machines which accept banknotes and print receipts for payout. These receipts, abbreviated "TITOs" for ticket-in, ticket-out, can also be inserted into the machines. In video arcades, they are also being phased out in favor of magnetic cards, which can also count how many tickets one has, allowing arcades to also do away with paper tickets.

Car washes: their use has decreased in favor of cash or credit cards.

Communion tokens were given to church members passing a religious test required for entry prior to the day of communion. While mostly in Scotland, some U.S. churches used communion tokens. Generally, these were pewter, often cast by the minister in church-owned molds.

Military "pogs": Cardboard or plastic military tokens ("pogs") were used as a substitute for coins for United States military overseas. Pogs are lighter and less expensive to ship. The Army and Air Force Exchange Service officials made pogs in denominations of 5, 10, and 25 cents and they feature images of troops, aircraft, comic book characters, etc.

Parking garages

Pay toilets

Philadelphia Transportation Company transit tokens (1940–68)

Railways and public transport agencies used fare tokens for years, to sell rides in advance at a discount, or to allow patrons to use turnstiles geared only to take tokens (as opposed to coins, currency, or fare cards). Some transport organizations still offer their own tokens for bus and subway services, although the use of computer-readable tickets, credit cards or fare cards has replaced these in most areas.

Shopping cart rental

Telephone tokens were used in public telephone booths in countries with unstable currency so that the price could be easily adjusted. This system was in effect in Brazil until 1997 when magnetic cards were introduced. The practice was also discontinued in Israel, leading to a trend of wearing the devalued tokens as necklaces.

Tolls for toll bridges, toll tunnels, and toll roads: largely phased out due to electronic toll collection.

Video arcades

Australian ALDI cart token, sold in-store for A$0.99, and sized the same as a $2 coin which can also be used to unlock a trolley

See also

               Numismatics portal

American Vecturist Association

Civil War token

Coins of Lundy

Gettone

Glossary of numismatics

Feuchtwanger Cent

Hard times token

Jeton

Medal game

National Transport Tokens (UK)

Pub token

Sales tax token

Telephone token

Token economy

Token sucking

Token money, or token, is a form of money that has a lesser intrinsic value compared to its face value. Token money is anything that is accepted as money, not due to its intrinsic value but instead because of custom or legal enactment. Token money costs less to produce than its face value. A banknote, e.g. a five-pound note, is token money because despite its value being 5 pounds it only costs significantly less to produce. A gold coin is not considered token money. The Token money system has been adopted in many businesses around the world as an effective way to exchange value between companies and customers. Token money as a system is predominantly used in mobile games, but is also used in the realm of e-commerce. Token money is similar to fiat money which also has little intrinsic value, however they differ in that token money is a limited legal tender. The adoption of token money has improved transaction efficiency, as the practicalty of transacting with sums of gold poses a larger security risk. In a commodity economy, money is a measure of the value of goods and services (prices) within a sovereign country or the same economy, as well as a particular commodity to pay off debts. The token is also used as a medium of exchange, as a store of value, and as a unit of account. Digital currencies using decentralized blockchain technology are also a form of token money.

In Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, copper coins were used for small transactions and were issued a monetary value greater than the value of the metal itself. This established the principle of token money, which is the nature of coinage in contemporary society. Plato distinguished between tokens and commodities. In Medieval Indian History, Mohammad Bin Tughlaq (c.1290-1351) issued copper currency called Tanka as token money whose value was legally set equal to silver coin, and is considered the world’s first truly token currency.

In the early nineteenth century, David Ricardo suggested issuing token money as long as it did not affect commodity standard.

Token money has less intrinsic value compared to its face value. If the token money is metallic it is commonly made out of cheaper metals such as copper and nickel.

Token money is also money whose face value exceeds its cost of production, i.e. the intrinsic value is lower than the extrinsic value. This means that the actual worth of a note or coin is much less than what we use it for. The cost of production of token money is less than its actual value, for example with convertible currency, collector notes, souvenirs, coupons, some retired US banknotes and per 1986 banknotes printed in regulation size and only on one side with authorization are actually worth more dollars than when issued.

With token money, exchanges are not considered fully complete because the exchange of value is not equivalent. Value is hoped to be rendered at some future time. Examples of this include bills of exchange or negotiable instrument and certificates.

Exonumia are numismatic items (such as tokens, medals, or scrip) other than coins and paper money. This includes "Good For" tokens, badges, counterstamped coins, elongated coins, encased coins, souvenir medallions, tags, wooden nickels and other similar items. It is an aspect of numismatics and many coin collectors are also exonumists.

Besides the above strict definition, others extend it to include non-coins which may or may not be legal tenders such as cheques, credit cards and similar paper. These can also be considered notaphily or scripophily.

The noun exonumia is derived from two classical roots: exo, meaning "out-of" in Greek, and nummus, meaning "coin" in Latin (from Greek νοῦμμος – noummos, "coin"); thus, "out[side]-of-[the category]coins". The equivalent British term, paranumismatica, may also be used.

The words exonumist and exonumia were coined in July 1960 by Russell Rulau, a recognized authority and author on the subject, and accepted by Webster's dictionary in 1965.

Many tokens were produced and used as currency in the United States and elsewhere when there was a shortage of government-issued money. Tokens have been used for both to advertise and to facilitate commerce and may or may not have a value.

Token authority Russell Rulau offers a broad definition for exonumia in his 1040 page tome, UNITED STATES TOKENS: 1700–1900  but lines between categories can be fuzzy. For example, an advertising token may also be considered a medal. Good For tokens may also advertise. Counter-stamped coins have been called "little billboards."

One way of parsing tokens is into these three general categories:

Has a "value," facilitating commerce, such as Good for (something).

Commemoration, remembrance, dedication, or the like, for some person, place, idea or event.

Of a personal nature.

Typically, catalogs of tokens are organized by location, time period, and/or type of item. Historically, the need for tokens grew out of the need for currency. In America, some tokens legally circulated alongside or instead of currency. Hard Times Tokens and Civil War Tokens each were the size of the contemporary cent. Afterwards, value based items, such as Good for (amount of money), Good for One Quart of Milk, Good for One Beer, Good for One Ride… and others were specifically linked to commerce of the store or place of issue.

Medals are coin-like artistic objects, typically with a commemorative purpose. They may be awarded for recognition of achievement or created for sale to commemorate individuals or events. They may be souvenirs, devotional, or purely artistic. Medals are generally not used as currency or for exchange.

Exonumia collectors, like coin collectors, are attentive to condition and rarity, as well as to history, form and type. Exonumists may collect items by region, topic, type, shape or material and this affects the ways tokens are documented.

The following categories are typical. This is not all-inclusive but is a sampling of the wide variety of exonumia.

Love Token: A coin with hand engraving, generally on one side, or deliberately bent.

Carved Potty coins: usually United States Seated Liberty coinage carved to show lady Liberty sitting on a chamber pot.

Hobo nickels: Initially, hand-engraved Buffalo nickels mostly in the era 1913–38. Now, applied more generally to hand-engraved coins of different denominations.

Counterstamped/countermarked or chopped coins (done by merchants or governments)

Cut Coins: artistically carved creations made from genuine coins, both new and old, often for jewelry.

Elongated coins: Rolled out with advertising, commemorative, or souvenir designs on one side

Encased Coin: Generally in a ring with advertising

Colored or painted circulation or bullion issues

Short snorter: paper money signed by people sharing a common experience

Play money

Fantasy issue or novelty money (e.g. Promotional fake United States currency, Prop money)

Mardi Gras Doubloons

Counterfeit coins

Money art

Government Services & Non-National tools to Facilitate Commerce

Jetons: Used as counters when verifying totals or weights of coins for commerce and exchange

Telephone tokens/Gettoni

Evasion tokens: 18th century semi-counterfeit were made to look like kind of but not exactly like actual currency

Local currency, e.g. Ithaca Hours

Sales tax tokens: Issued by states and merchants

Dog license tags

Post office tags

Food stamps

Slave tags: see Slave codes

Transportation Tokens

Ferries and watercraft

Buses

Subway

Trains

Trams/Trolleys

Closed Community / Membership

Communion tokens: given to congregation members to permit them to participate in Holy Communion)

Company scrip

Ingle Credit System script

Lumber

Mining

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

College Currency

Challenge coins

Fraternal

Masonic

Elks

Moose

Woodmen of the World

Geocoins used in geocaching

Leper colony money

Military Store and Entertainment

Plantation

Picker tokens for crops

Prison and Correctional/Asylums

Sobriety coin

Wooden nickels

Cardboard or paper

Hard rubber or ebonite

Bullion, e.g. non-legal tender silver rounds

Movements and ideals

Temperance

Anti-slavery

Religious (including temple tokens)

Political tokens, e.g. Bryan Money

World's Fair or other expositions

Locations

City or state anniversary

Of a Personal nature – Personals

Key tags (e.g. In case lost return to …)

Badges

Company

Occupation

Hand-engraved or uniquely counterstamped coins, as pocket pieces

Watch fobs

Arcade/Amusement tokens

Apothecary tokens

Bakery token

Beer

Pub/bar/saloon

Billiards/pool

Brothel tokens

Car wash tokens

Casino/Slot tokens/Casino chips

Cigar/smoke shops

Coat check

Disney Dollars

Fisherman tokens

Milk/dairy

Parking tokens: for meters or gates

Pay toilet tokens

Peep show

Railway cheque tokens

Medals

George Washington medals

Presidents, governors, other politicians

Inventors and other important persons

So-called dollars: medals and souvenirs similar in size to a silver dollar commemorating American historical events such as world's fairs, anniversary celebrations, dedications, battles, public works projects, etc.

Modern items under the exonumia umbrella include:

Credit cards

Gift cards: Gift cards have been replacing the giving of cash for events

Telephone cards

Music cards

By Region

China

There are many types of Chinese exonumia, including alternative currencies:

Bamboo tally

Token

and numismatic charms:

Buddhist coin charm

Burial money

Confucian coin charm

Horse coin

Hell money

Lei Ting curse charm

Marriage coin charm

Open-work charm

Vault protector coin

Taoist coin charm

Zhengde Tongbao

Germany

Notgeld, primarily in the form of paper banknotes, was issued in Germany and Austria during World War I and the interwar period by towns, banks and other institutions due to a shortage of money.

Latin America

Latin American coffee or plantation tokens were an important part of commerce.[4] Many plantation owners had their own commissaries and workers used plantation tokens to pay for provisions. Many tokens were made in the United States or Europe. Plantation tokens had an array of denominations and names. The name can be the owner, their relatives or the name of the farm (or finca). Tokens had allegorical symbols to identify the owner. Tokens were used as currency when there was not enough official currency available. Workers could convert the tokens to official currency on Saturdays.[citation needed]

Tokens were made in all types of base metals and alloys plus plastic, celluloid and bakelite. Unique to Costa Rica were tokens made of paper (paper chits). The word "boleto" is used in Costa Rica for the word token whereas "ficha" is used in the rest of Latin America.

United Kingdom

Conder tokens were privately minted tokens from the later part of the 18th century and the early part of the 19th century in England, Anglesey and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.

Rulau  breaks down American tokens into these general time periods:

Early American

Hard times tokens were made during the "hard times" after President Andrew Jackson shut down the Second Bank of the United States. These tokens were issued privately to circulate in the local economy as a one cent coin. They had a wide variety of subject matter, including advertising and political/satirical themes (anti-slavery, anti-Jackson).

Civil War tokens were made between 1861 and 1864 due to the scarcity of government-issued cents during the American Civil War. Encased postage stamps were also used for this purpose.

Merchant (including modern gas tokens, ex: Shell tokens)

Trade tokens

Gay 90s


Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than any previous British monarch. 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. 

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constitutional monarch, attempted privately to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe" and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond jubilees were times of public celebration. She died on the Isle of Wight in 1901. The last British monarch of the House of Hanover, she was succeeded by her son Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Victoria's father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of the reigning King of the United Kingdom, George III. Until 1817, Edward's niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a succession crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent and his unmarried brothers to marry and have children. In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl (1804–1856) and Feodora (1807–1872)—by her first marriage to Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen. Her brother Leopold was Princess Charlotte's widower and later the first king of Belgium. The Duke and Duchess of Kent's only child, Victoria, was born at 4:15 a.m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. 

Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace.[a] She was baptised Alexandrina after one of her godparents, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of Kent's eldest brother George, Prince Regent. 

At birth, Victoria was fifth in the line of succession after the four eldest sons of George III: the Prince Regent (later George IV); Frederick, Duke of York; William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victoria's father, Edward, Duke of Kent. The Prince Regent had no surviving children, and the Duke of York had no children; further, both were estranged from their wives, who were both past child-bearing age, so the two eldest brothers were unlikely to have any further legitimate children. William and Edward married on the same day in 1818, but both of William's legitimate daughters died as infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born and died on 27 March 1819, two months before Victoria was born. Victoria's father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old. A week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George IV. Victoria was then third in line to the throne after Frederick and William. William's second daughter, Princess Elizabeth of Clarence, lived for twelve weeks from 10 December 1820 to 4 March 1821, and for that period Victoria was fourth in line. 

The Duke of York died in 1827, followed by George IV in 1830; the throne passed to their next surviving brother, William, and Victoria became heir presumptive. The Regency Act 1830 made special provision for Victoria's mother to act as regent in case William died while Victoria was still a minor. King William distrusted the Duchess's capacity to be regent, and in 1836 he declared in her presence that he wanted to live until Victoria's 18th birthday, so that a regency could be avoided. 

Victoria later described her childhood as "rather melancholy". Her mother was extremely protective, and Victoria was raised largely isolated from other children under the so-called "Kensington System", an elaborate set of rules and protocols devised by the Duchess and her ambitious and domineering comptroller, Sir John Conroy, who was rumoured to be the Duchess's lover. The system prevented the princess from meeting people whom her mother and Conroy deemed undesirable (including most of her father's family), and was designed to render her weak and dependent upon them. The Duchess avoided the court because she was scandalised by the presence of King William's illegitimate children. Victoria shared a bedroom with her mother every night, studied with private tutors to a regular timetable, and spent her play-hours with her dolls and her King Charles Spaniel, Dash. Her lessons included French, German, Italian, and Latin, but she spoke only English at home. 

In 1830, the Duchess of Kent and Conroy took Victoria across the centre of England to visit the Malvern Hills, stopping at towns and great country houses along the way. Similar journeys to other parts of England and Wales were taken in 1832, 1833, 1834 and 1835. To the King's annoyance, Victoria was enthusiastically welcomed in each of the stops. William compared the journeys to royal progresses and was concerned that they portrayed Victoria as his rival rather than his heir presumptive. Victoria disliked the trips; the constant round of public appearances made her tired and ill, and there was little time for her to rest. She objected on the grounds of the King's disapproval, but her mother dismissed his complaints as motivated by jealousy and forced Victoria to continue the tours. At Ramsgate in October 1835, Victoria contracted a severe fever, which Conroy initially dismissed as a childish pretence. While Victoria was ill, Conroy and the Duchess unsuccessfully badgered her to make Conroy her private secretary. As a teenager, Victoria resisted persistent attempts by her mother and Conroy to appoint him to her staff. Once queen, she banned him from her presence, but he remained in her mother's household. 

By 1836, Victoria's maternal uncle Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831, hoped to marry her to Prince Albert, the son of his brother Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Leopold arranged for Victoria's mother to invite her Coburg relatives to visit her in May 1836, with the purpose of introducing Victoria to Albert. William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favoured the suit of Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, second son of the Prince of Orange. Victoria was aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes. According to her diary, she enjoyed Albert's company from the beginning. After the visit she wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful." Alexander, on the other hand, she described as "very plain". 

Victoria wrote to King Leopold, whom she considered her "best and kindest adviser", to thank him "for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me, in the person of dear Albert ... He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy. He is so sensible, so kind, and so good, and so amiable too. He has besides the most pleasing and delightful exterior and appearance you can possibly see." However at 17, Victoria, though interested in Albert, was not yet ready to marry. The parties did not undertake a formal engagement, but assumed that the match would take place in due time. 

Victoria turned 18 on 24 May 1837, and a regency was avoided. Less than a month later, on 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom. In her diary she wrote, "I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma, who told me the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen." Official documents prepared on the first day of her reign described her as Alexandrina Victoria, but the first name was withdrawn at her own wish and not used again. 

Since 1714, Britain had shared a monarch with Hanover in Germany, but under Salic law, women were excluded from the Hanoverian succession. While Victoria inherited the British throne, her father's unpopular younger brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, became King of Hanover. He was Victoria's heir presumptive until she had a child. 

At the time of Victoria's accession, the government was led by the Whig prime minister Lord Melbourne. He at once became a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced monarch, who relied on him for advice. Charles Greville supposed that the widowed and childless Melbourne was "passionately fond of her as he might be of his daughter if he had one", and Victoria probably saw him as a father figure. Her coronation took place on 28 June 1838 at Westminster Abbey. Over 400,000 visitors came to London for the celebrations. She became the first sovereign to take up residence at Buckingham Palace and inherited the revenues of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall as well as being granted a civil list allowance of £385,000 per year. Financially prudent, she paid off her father's debts.

At the start of her reign Victoria was popular, but her reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings, developed an abdominal growth that was widely rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy. Victoria believed the rumours. She hated Conroy, and despised "that odious Lady Flora", because she had conspired with Conroy and the Duchess of Kent in the Kensington System. At first, Lady Flora refused to submit to an intimate medical examination, until in mid-February she eventually acquiesced, and was found to be a virgin. Conroy, the Hastings family, and the opposition Tories organised a press campaign implicating the Queen in the spreading of false rumours about Lady Flora. When Lady Flora died in July, the post-mortem revealed a large tumour on her liver that had distended her abdomen. At public appearances, Victoria was hissed and jeered as "Mrs. Melbourne". 

In 1839, Melbourne resigned after Radicals and Tories (both of whom Victoria detested) voted against a bill to suspend the constitution of Jamaica. The bill removed political power from plantation owners who were resisting measures associated with the abolition of slavery. The Queen commissioned a Tory, Robert Peel, to form a new ministry. At the time, it was customary for the prime minister to appoint members of the Royal Household, who were usually his political allies and their spouses. Many of the Queen's ladies of the bedchamber were wives of Whigs, and Peel expected to replace them with wives of Tories. In what became known as the "bedchamber crisis", Victoria, advised by Melbourne, objected to their removal. Peel refused to govern under the restrictions imposed by the Queen, and consequently resigned his commission, allowing Melbourne to return to office. 

Though Victoria was now queen, as an unmarried young woman she was required by social convention to live with her mother, despite their differences over the Kensington System and her mother's continued reliance on Conroy. Her mother was consigned to a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Victoria often refused to see her. When Victoria complained to Melbourne that her mother's proximity promised "torment for many years", Melbourne sympathised but said it could be avoided by marriage, which Victoria called a "schocking [sic] alternative". Victoria showed interest in Albert's education for the future role he would have to play as her husband, but she resisted attempts to rush her into wedlock. 

Victoria continued to praise Albert following his second visit in October 1839. Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on 15 October 1839, just five days after he had arrived at Windsor. They were married on 10 February 1840, in the Chapel Royal of St James's Palace, London. Victoria was love-struck. She spent the evening after their wedding lying down with a headache, but wrote ecstatically in her diary: 

"I NEVER, NEVER spent such an evening!!! MY DEAREST DEAREST DEAR Albert ... his excessive love & affection gave me feelings of heavenly love & happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms, & we kissed each other again & again! His beauty, his sweetness & gentleness – really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a Husband! ... to be called by names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before – was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!" 

Albert became an important political adviser as well as the Queen's companion, replacing Melbourne as the dominant influential figure in the first half of her life. Victoria's mother was evicted from the palace, to Ingestre House in Belgrave Square. After the death of Victoria's aunt, Princess Augusta, in 1840, Victoria's mother was given both Clarence and Frogmore Houses. Through Albert's mediation, relations between mother and daughter slowly improved. 

During Victoria's first pregnancy in 1840, in the first few months of the marriage, 18-year-old Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate her while she was riding in a carriage with Prince Albert on her way to visit her mother. Oxford fired twice, but either both bullets missed or, as he later claimed, the guns had no shot. He was tried for high treason, found not guilty by reason of insanity, committed to an insane asylum indefinitely, and later sent to live in Australia. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Victoria's popularity soared, mitigating residual discontent over the Hastings affair and the bedchamber crisis. Her daughter, also named Victoria, was born on 21 November 1840. The Queen hated being pregnant, viewed breast-feeding with disgust, and thought newborn babies were ugly. Nevertheless, over the following seventeen years, she and Albert had a further eight children: Albert Edward (b. 1841), Alice (b. 1843), Alfred (b. 1844), Helena (b. 1846), Louise (b. 1848), Arthur (b. 1850), Leopold (b. 1853) and Beatrice (b. 1857). 

The household was largely run by Victoria's childhood governess, Baroness Louise Lehzen from Hanover. Lehzen had been a formative influence on Victoria and had supported her against the Kensington System. Albert, however, thought that Lehzen was incompetent and that her mismanagement threatened his daughter's health. After a furious row between Victoria and Albert over the issue, Lehzen was pensioned off in 1842, and Victoria's close relationship with her ended. 

On 29 May 1842, Victoria was riding in a carriage along The Mall, London, when John Francis aimed a pistol at her, but the gun did not fire. The assailant escaped; the following day, Victoria drove the same route, though faster and with a greater escort, in a deliberate attempt to bait Francis into taking a second aim and catch him in the act. As expected, Francis shot at her, but he was seized by plainclothes policemen, and convicted of high treason. On 3 July, two days after Francis's death sentence was commuted to transportation for life, John William Bean also tried to fire a pistol at the Queen, but it was loaded only with paper and tobacco and had too little charge. Edward Oxford felt that the attempts were encouraged by his acquittal in 1840. Bean was sentenced to 18 months in jail. In a similar attack in 1849, unemployed Irishman William Hamilton fired a powder-filled pistol at Victoria's carriage as it passed along Constitution Hill, London. In 1850, the Queen did sustain injury when she was assaulted by a possibly insane ex-army officer, Robert Pate. As Victoria was riding in a carriage, Pate struck her with his cane, crushing her bonnet and bruising her forehead. Both Hamilton and Pate were sentenced to seven years' transportation. 

Melbourne's support in the House of Commons weakened through the early years of Victoria's reign, and in the 1841 general election the Whigs were defeated. Peel became prime minister, and the ladies of the bedchamber most associated with the Whigs were replaced. 

In 1845, Ireland was hit by a potato blight. In the next four years, over a million Irish people died and another million emigrated in what became known as the Great Famine. In Ireland, Victoria was labelled "The Famine Queen". In January 1847 she personally donated £2,000 (equivalent to between £178,000 and £6.5 million in 2016) to the British Relief Association, more than any other individual famine relief donor, and also supported the Maynooth Grant to a Roman Catholic seminary in Ireland, despite Protestant opposition. The story that she donated only £5 in aid to the Irish, and on the same day gave the same amount to Battersea Dogs Home, was a myth generated towards the end of the 19th century. 

By 1846, Peel's ministry faced a crisis involving the repeal of the Corn Laws. Many Tories—by then known also as Conservatives—were opposed to the repeal, but Peel, some Tories (the free-trade oriented liberal conservative "Peelites"), most Whigs and Victoria supported it. Peel resigned in 1846, after the repeal narrowly passed, and was replaced by Lord John Russell. 

Internationally, Victoria took a keen interest in the improvement of relations between France and Britain. She made and hosted several visits between the British royal family and the House of Orleans, who were related by marriage through the Coburgs. In 1843 and 1845, she and Albert stayed with King Louis Philippe I at Château d'Eu in Normandy; she was the first British or English monarch to visit a French monarch since the meeting of Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. When Louis Philippe made a reciprocal trip in 1844, he became the first French king to visit a British sovereign. Louis Philippe was deposed in the revolutions of 1848, and fled to exile in England. At the height of a revolutionary scare in the United Kingdom in April 1848, Victoria and her family left London for the greater safety of Osborne House, a private estate on the Isle of Wight that they had purchased in 1845 and redeveloped. Demonstrations by Chartists and Irish nationalists failed to attract widespread support, and the scare died down without any major disturbances. Victoria's first visit to Ireland in 1849 was a public relations success, but it had no lasting impact or effect on the growth of Irish nationalism. 

Russell's ministry, though Whig, was not favoured by the Queen.[92] She found particularly offensive the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, who often acted without consulting the Cabinet, the Prime Minister, or the Queen. Victoria complained to Russell that Palmerston sent official dispatches to foreign leaders without her knowledge, but Palmerston was retained in office and continued to act on his own initiative, despite her repeated remonstrances. It was only in 1851 that Palmerston was removed after he announced the British government's approval of President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's coup in France without consulting the Prime Minister. The following year, President Bonaparte was declared Emperor Napoleon III, by which time Russell's administration had been replaced by a short-lived minority government led by Lord Derby. 

In 1853, Victoria gave birth to her eighth child, Leopold, with the aid of the new anaesthetic, chloroform. She was so impressed by the relief it gave from the pain of childbirth that she used it again in 1857 at the birth of her ninth and final child, Beatrice, despite opposition from members of the clergy, who considered it against biblical teaching, and members of the medical profession, who thought it dangerous. Victoria may have had postnatal depression after many of her pregnancies. Letters from Albert to Victoria intermittently complain of her loss of self-control. For example, about a month after Leopold's birth Albert complained in a letter to Victoria about her "continuance of hysterics" over a "miserable trifle". 

In early 1855, the government of Lord Aberdeen, who had replaced Derby, fell amidst recriminations over the poor management of British troops in the Crimean War. Victoria approached both Derby and Russell to form a ministry, but neither had sufficient support, and Victoria was forced to appoint Palmerston as prime minister. 

Napoleon III, Britain's closest ally as a result of the Crimean War, visited London in April 1855, and from 17 to 28 August the same year Victoria and Albert returned the visit. Napoleon III met the couple at Boulogne and accompanied them to Paris. They visited the Exposition Universelle (a successor to Albert's 1851 brainchild the Great Exhibition) and Napoleon I's tomb at Les Invalides (to which his remains had only been returned in 1840), and were guests of honour at a 1,200-guest ball at the Palace of Versailles. 

On 14 January 1858, an Italian refugee from Britain called Felice Orsini attempted to assassinate Napoleon III with a bomb made in England. The ensuing diplomatic crisis destabilised the government, and Palmerston resigned. Derby was reinstated as prime minister. Victoria and Albert attended the opening of a new basin at the French military port of Cherbourg on 5 August 1858, in an attempt by Napoleon III to reassure Britain that his military preparations were directed elsewhere. On her return Victoria wrote to Derby reprimanding him for the poor state of the Royal Navy in comparison to the French Navy. Derby's ministry did not last long, and in June 1859 Victoria recalled Palmerston to office. 

Eleven days after Orsini's assassination attempt in France, Victoria's eldest daughter married Prince Frederick William of Prussia in London. They had been betrothed since September 1855, when Princess Victoria was 14 years old; the marriage was delayed by the Queen and her husband Albert until the bride was 17. The Queen and Albert hoped that their daughter and son-in-law would be a liberalising influence in the enlarging Prussian state. The Queen felt "sick at heart" to see her daughter leave England for Germany; "It really makes me shudder", she wrote to Princess Victoria in one of her frequent letters, "when I look round to all your sweet, happy, unconscious sisters, and think I must give them up too – one by one." Almost exactly a year later, the Princess gave birth to the Queen's first grandchild, Wilhelm, who would become the last German Emperor. 

In March 1861, Victoria's mother died, with Victoria at her side. Through reading her mother's papers, Victoria discovered that her mother had loved her deeply; she was heart-broken, and blamed Conroy and Lehzen for "wickedly" estranging her from her mother. To relieve his wife during her intense and deep grief, Albert took on most of her duties, despite being ill himself with chronic stomach trouble. In August, Victoria and Albert visited their son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, who was attending army manoeuvres near Dublin, and spent a few days holidaying in Killarney. In November, Albert was made aware of gossip that his son had slept with an actress in Ireland. Appalled, he travelled to Cambridge, where his son was studying, to confront him. By the beginning of December, Albert was very unwell. He was diagnosed with typhoid fever by William Jenner, and died on 14 December 1861. Victoria was devastated. She blamed her husband's death on worry over the Prince of Wales's philandering. He had been "killed by that dreadful business", she said. She entered a state of mourning and wore black for the remainder of her life. She avoided public appearances and rarely set foot in London in the following years. Her seclusion earned her the nickname "widow of Windsor". Her weight increased through comfort eating, which reinforced her aversion to public appearances. 

Victoria's self-imposed isolation from the public diminished the popularity of the monarchy, and encouraged the growth of the republican movement. She did undertake her official government duties, yet chose to remain secluded in her royal residences—Windsor Castle, Osborne House, and the private estate in Scotland that she and Albert had acquired in 1847, Balmoral Castle. In March 1864 a protester stuck a notice on the railings of Buckingham Palace that announced "these commanding premises to be let or sold in consequence of the late occupant's declining business". Her uncle Leopold wrote to her advising her to appear in public. She agreed to visit the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at Kensington and take a drive through London in an open carriage. 

Through the 1860s, Victoria relied increasingly on a manservant from Scotland, John Brown. Rumours of a romantic connection and even a secret marriage appeared in print, and some referred to the Queen as "Mrs. Brown". The story of their relationship was the subject of the 1997 movie Mrs. Brown. A painting by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer depicting the Queen with Brown was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and Victoria published a book, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, which featured Brown prominently and in which the Queen praised him highly. 

Palmerston died in 1865, and after a brief ministry led by Russell, Derby returned to power. In 1866, Victoria attended the State Opening of Parliament for the first time since Albert's death. The following year she supported the passing of the Reform Act 1867 which doubled the electorate by extending the franchise to many urban working men, though she was not in favour of votes for women. Derby resigned in 1868, to be replaced by Benjamin Disraeli, who charmed Victoria. "Everyone likes flattery," he said, "and when you come to royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." With the phrase "we authors, Ma'am", he complimented her. Disraeli's ministry only lasted a matter of months, and at the end of the year his Liberal rival, William Ewart Gladstone, was appointed prime minister. Victoria found Gladstone's demeanour far less appealing; he spoke to her, she is thought to have complained, as though she were "a public meeting rather than a woman". 

In 1870 republican sentiment in Britain, fed by the Queen's seclusion, was boosted after the establishment of the Third French Republic. A republican rally in Trafalgar Square demanded Victoria's removal, and Radical MPs spoke against her. In August and September 1871, she was seriously ill with an abscess in her arm, which Joseph Lister successfully lanced and treated with his new antiseptic carbolic acid spray. In late November 1871, at the height of the republican movement, the Prince of Wales contracted typhoid fever, the disease that was believed to have killed his father, and Victoria was fearful her son would die. As the tenth anniversary of her husband's death approached, her son's condition grew no better, and Victoria's distress continued. To general rejoicing, he recovered. Mother and son attended a public parade through London and a grand service of thanksgiving in St Paul's Cathedral on 27 February 1872, and republican feeling subsided. 

On the last day of February 1872, two days after the thanksgiving service, 17-year-old Arthur O'Connor, a great-nephew of Irish MP Feargus O'Connor, waved an unloaded pistol at Victoria's open carriage just after she had arrived at Buckingham Palace. Brown, who was attending the Queen, grabbed him and O'Connor was later sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment, and a birching. As a result of the incident, Victoria's popularity recovered further. 

After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British East India Company, which had ruled much of India, was dissolved, and Britain's possessions and protectorates on the Indian subcontinent were formally incorporated into the British Empire. The Queen had a relatively balanced view of the conflict, and condemned atrocities on both sides. She wrote of "her feelings of horror and regret at the result of this bloody civil war", and insisted, urged on by Albert, that an official proclamation announcing the transfer of power from the company to the state "should breathe feelings of generosity, benevolence and religious toleration". At her behest, a reference threatening the "undermining of native religions and customs" was replaced by a passage guaranteeing religious freedom. 

In the 1874 general election, Disraeli was returned to power. He passed the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874, which removed Catholic rituals from the Anglican liturgy and which Victoria strongly supported. She preferred short, simple services, and personally considered herself more aligned with the presbyterian Church of Scotland than the episcopal Church of England. Disraeli also pushed the Royal Titles Act 1876 through Parliament, so that Victoria took the title "Empress of India" from 1 May 1876. The new title was proclaimed at the Delhi Durbar of 1 January 1877.

 On 14 December 1878, the anniversary of Albert's death, Victoria's second daughter Alice, who had married Louis of Hesse, died of diphtheria in Darmstadt. Victoria noted the coincidence of the dates as "almost incredible and most mysterious". In May 1879, she became a great-grandmother (on the birth of Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen) and passed her "poor old 60th birthday". She felt "aged" by "the loss of my beloved child".

 Between April 1877 and February 1878, she threatened five times to abdicate while pressuring Disraeli to act against Russia during the Russo-Turkish War, but her threats had no impact on the events or their conclusion with the Congress of Berlin. Disraeli's expansionist foreign policy, which Victoria endorsed, led to conflicts such as the Anglo-Zulu War and the Second Anglo-Afghan War. "If we are to maintain our position as a first-rate Power", she wrote, "we must ... be Prepared for attacks and wars, somewhere or other, CONTINUALLY." Victoria saw the expansion of the British Empire as civilising and benign, protecting native peoples from more aggressive powers or cruel rulers: "It is not in our custom to annexe countries", she said, "unless we are obliged & forced to do so." To Victoria's dismay, Disraeli lost the 1880 general election, and Gladstone returned as prime minister. When Disraeli died the following year, she was blinded by "fast falling tears", and erected a memorial tablet "placed by his grateful Sovereign and Friend, Victoria R.I." 

On 2 March 1882, Roderick Maclean, a disgruntled poet apparently offended by Victoria's refusal to accept one of his poems, shot at the Queen as her carriage left Windsor railway station. Two schoolboys from Eton College struck him with their umbrellas, until he was hustled away by a policeman. Victoria was outraged when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, but was so pleased by the many expressions of loyalty after the attack that she said it was "worth being shot at—to see how much one is loved". 

On 17 March 1883, Victoria fell down some stairs at Windsor, which left her lame until July; she never fully recovered and was plagued with rheumatism thereafter. John Brown died 10 days after her accident, and to the consternation of her private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, Victoria began work on a eulogistic biography of Brown. Ponsonby and Randall Davidson, Dean of Windsor, who had both seen early drafts, advised Victoria against publication, on the grounds that it would stoke the rumours of a love affair. The manuscript was destroyed. In early 1884, Victoria did publish More Leaves from a Journal of a Life in the Highlands, a sequel to her earlier book, which she dedicated to her "devoted personal attendant and faithful friend John Brown". On the day after the first anniversary of Brown's death, Victoria was informed by telegram that her youngest son, Leopold, had died in Cannes. He was "the dearest of my dear sons", she lamented. The following month, Victoria's youngest child, Beatrice, met and fell in love with Prince Henry of Battenberg at the wedding of Victoria's granddaughter Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine to Henry's brother Prince Louis of Battenberg. Beatrice and Henry planned to marry, but Victoria opposed the match at first, wishing to keep Beatrice at home to act as her companion. After a year, she was won around to the marriage by their promise to remain living with and attending her.

Victoria was pleased when Gladstone resigned in 1885 after his budget was defeated. She thought his government was "the worst I have ever had", and blamed him for the death of General Gordon at Khartoum. Gladstone was replaced by Lord Salisbury. Salisbury's government only lasted a few months, however, and Victoria was forced to recall Gladstone, whom she referred to as a "half crazy & really in many ways ridiculous old man". Gladstone attempted to pass a bill granting Ireland home rule, but to Victoria's glee it was defeated. In the ensuing election, Gladstone's party lost to Salisbury's and the government switched hands again. 

In 1887, the British Empire celebrated the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. She marked the fiftieth anniversary of her accession on 20 June with a banquet to which 50 kings and princes were invited. The following day, she participated in a procession and attended a thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey. By this time, Victoria was once again extremely popular. Two days later on 23 June, she engaged two Indian Muslims as waiters, one of whom was Abdul Karim. He was soon promoted to "Munshi": teaching her Urdu and acting as a clerk. Her family and retainers were appalled, and accused Abdul Karim of spying for the Muslim Patriotic League, and biasing the Queen against the Hindus. Equerry Frederick Ponsonby (the son of Sir Henry) discovered that the Munshi had lied about his parentage, and reported to Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India, "the Munshi occupies very much the same position as John Brown used to do." Victoria dismissed their complaints as racial prejudice] Abdul Karim remained in her service until he returned to India with a pension, on her death. 

Victoria's eldest daughter became empress consort of Germany in 1888, but she was widowed a little over three months later, and Victoria's eldest grandchild became German Emperor as Wilhelm II. Victoria and Albert's hopes of a liberal Germany would go unfulfilled, as Wilhelm was a firm believer in autocracy. Victoria thought he had "little heart or Zartgefühl [tact] – and ... his conscience & intelligence have been completely wharped [sic]". 

Gladstone returned to power after the 1892 general election; he was 82 years old. Victoria objected when Gladstone proposed appointing the Radical MP Henry Labouchère to the Cabinet, so Gladstone agreed not to appoint him. In 1894, Gladstone retired and, without consulting the outgoing prime minister, Victoria appointed Lord Rosebery as prime minister. His government was weak, and the following year Lord Salisbury replaced him. Salisbury remained prime minister for the remainder of Victoria's reign. 

On 23 September 1896, Victoria surpassed her grandfather George III as the longest-reigning monarch in British history. The Queen requested that any special celebrations be delayed until 1897, to coincide with her Diamond Jubilee, which was made a festival of the British Empire at the suggestion of the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain. The prime ministers of all the self-governing Dominions were invited to London for the festivities. One reason for including the prime ministers of the Dominions and excluding foreign heads of state was to avoid having to invite Victoria's grandson, Wilhelm II of Germany, who, it was feared, might cause trouble at the event.

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee procession on 22 June 1897 followed a route six miles long through London and included troops from all over the empire. The procession paused for an open-air service of thanksgiving held outside St Paul's Cathedral, throughout which Victoria sat in her open carriage, to avoid her having to climb the steps to enter the building. The celebration was marked by vast crowds of spectators and great outpourings of affection for the 78-year-old Queen. 

Victoria visited mainland Europe regularly for holidays. In 1889, during a stay in Biarritz, she became the first reigning monarch from Britain to set foot in Spain when she crossed the border for a brief visit. By April 1900, the Boer War was so unpopular in mainland Europe that her annual trip to France seemed inadvisable. Instead, the Queen went to Ireland for the first time since 1861, in part to acknowledge the contribution of Irish regiments to the South African war. 

In July 1900, Victoria's second son, Alfred ("Affie"), died. "Oh, God! My poor darling Affie gone too", she wrote in her journal. "It is a horrible year, nothing but sadness & horrors of one kind & another." 

Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Rheumatism in her legs had rendered her disabled, and her eyesight was clouded by cataracts. Through early January, she felt "weak and unwell", and by mid-January she was "drowsy ... dazed, [and] confused". She died on 22 January 1901, at half past six in the evening, at the age of 81. Her son and successor, King Edward VII, and her eldest grandson, Emperor Wilhelm II, were at her deathbed. Her favourite pet Pomeranian, Turi, was laid upon her deathbed as a last request. 

In 1897, Victoria had written instructions for her funeral, which was to be military as befitting a soldier's daughter and the head of the army, and white instead of black. On 25 January, Edward, Wilhelm, and her third son, Arthur, helped lift her body into the coffin. She was dressed in a white dress and her wedding veil. An array of mementos commemorating her extended family, friends and servants were laid in the coffin with her, at her request, by her doctor and dressers. One of Albert's dressing gowns was placed by her side, with a plaster cast of his hand, while a lock of John Brown's hair, along with a picture of him, was placed in her left hand concealed from the view of the family by a carefully positioned bunch of flowers. Items of jewellery placed on Victoria included the wedding ring of John Brown's mother, given to her by Brown in 1883. Her funeral was held on Saturday 2 February, in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, and after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in the Royal Mausoleum, Frogmore, at Windsor Great Park. 

With a reign of 63 years, seven months, and two days, Victoria was the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning queen regnant in world history, until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II surpassed her on 9 September 2015. She was the last monarch of Britain from the House of Hanover; her son and successor, Edward VII, belonged to her husband's House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. 

According to one of her biographers, Giles St Aubyn, Victoria wrote an average of 2,500 words a day during her adult life. From July 1832 until just before her death, she kept a detailed journal, which eventually encompassed 122 volumes. After Victoria's death, her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, was appointed her literary executor. Beatrice transcribed and edited the diaries covering Victoria's accession onwards, and burned the originals in the process. Despite this destruction, much of the diaries still exist. In addition to Beatrice's edited copy, Lord Esher transcribed the volumes from 1832 to 1861 before Beatrice destroyed them. Part of Victoria's extensive correspondence has been published in volumes edited by A. C. Benson, Hector Bolitho, George Earle Buckle, Lord Esher, Roger Fulford, and Richard Hough among others. 

Victoria was physically unprepossessing—she was stout, dowdy and only about five feet (1.5 metres) tall—but she succeeded in projecting a grand image. She experienced unpopularity during the first years of her widowhood, but was well liked during the 1880s and 1890s, when she embodied the empire as a benevolent matriarchal figure. Only after the release of her diary and letters did the extent of her political influence become known to the wider public. Biographies of Victoria written before much of the primary material became available, such as Lytton Strachey's Queen Victoria of 1921, are now considered out of date. The biographies written by Elizabeth Longford and Cecil Woodham-Smith, in 1964 and 1972 respectively, are still widely admired. They, and others, conclude that as a person Victoria was emotional, obstinate, honest, and straight-talking. Contrary to popular belief, her staff and family recorded that Victoria "was immensely amused and roared with laughter" on many occasions. 

Through Victoria's reign, the gradual establishment of a modern constitutional monarchy in Britain continued. Reforms of the voting system increased the power of the House of Commons at the expense of the House of Lords and the monarch. In 1867, Walter Bagehot wrote that the monarch only retained "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn". As Victoria's monarchy became more symbolic than political, it placed a strong emphasis on morality and family values, in contrast to the sexual, financial and personal scandals that had been associated with previous members of the House of Hanover and which had discredited the monarchy. The concept of the "family monarchy", with which the burgeoning middle classes could identify, was solidified. 

Victoria's links with Europe's royal families earned her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". Of the 42 grandchildren of Victoria and Albert, 34 survived to adulthood. Their living descendants include Elizabeth II; Harald V of Norway; Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden; Margrethe II of Denmark; and Felipe VI of Spain. 

Victoria's youngest son, Leopold, was affected by the blood-clotting disease haemophilia B and at least two of her five daughters, Alice and Beatrice, were carriers. Royal haemophiliacs descended from Victoria included her great-grandsons, Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia; Alfonso, Prince of Asturias; and Infante Gonzalo of Spain. The presence of the disease in Victoria's descendants, but not in her ancestors, led to modern speculation that her true father was not the Duke of Kent, but a haemophiliac. There is no documentary evidence of a haemophiliac in connection with Victoria's mother, and as male carriers always had the disease, even if such a man had existed he would have been seriously ill. It is more likely that the mutation arose spontaneously because Victoria's father was over 50 at the time of her conception and haemophilia arises more frequently in the children of older fathers. Spontaneous mutations account for about a third of cases. 

Around the world, places and memorials are dedicated to her, especially in the Commonwealth nations. Places named after her include Africa's largest lake, Victoria Falls, the capitals of British Columbia (Victoria) and Saskatchewan (Regina), two Australian states (Victoria and Queensland), and the capital of the island nation of Seychelles. 

The Victoria Cross was introduced in 1856 to reward acts of valour during the Crimean War, and it remains the highest British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand award for bravery. Victoria Day is a Canadian statutory holiday and a local public holiday in parts of Scotland celebrated on the last Monday before or on 24 May (Queen Victoria's birthday). 

Titles and styles:

 24 May 1819 – 20 June 1837: Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent

 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901: Her Majesty The Queen

At the end of her reign, the Queen's full style was: "Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India" 

 

British honours:

Royal Family Order of King George IV, 1826[233] 

Founder and Sovereign of the Order of the Star of India, 25 June 1861 

Founder and Sovereign of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, 10 February 1862 

Founder and Sovereign of the Order of the Crown of India, 1 January 1878 

Founder and Sovereign of the Order of the Indian Empire, 1 January 1878 

Founder and Sovereign of the Royal Red Cross, 27 April 1883 

Founder and Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order, 6 November 1886 

Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts, 1887 

Founder and Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order, 23 April 1896 

 

Foreign honours:

Spain:

Dame of the Order of Queen Maria Luisa, 21 December 1833 

Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III

Portugal: 

Dame of the Order of Queen Saint Isabel, 23 February 1836 

Grand Cross of Our Lady of Conception 

Russia: Grand Cross of St. Catherine, 26 June 1837 

France: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, 5 September 1843

Mexico: Grand Cross of the National Order of Guadalupe, 1854 

Prussia: Dame of the Order of Louise, 1st Division, 11 June 1857 

Brazil: Grand Cross of the Order of Pedro I, 3 December 1872 

Persia: Order of the Sun, 1st Class in Diamonds, 20 June 1873

Order of the August Portrait, 20 June 1873

Siam: Grand Cross of the White Elephant, 1880, Dame of the Order of the Royal House of Chakri, 1887

Hawaii: Grand Cross of the Order of Kamehameha I, with Collar, July 1881 

Serbia: Grand Cross of the Cross of Takovo, 1882

Grand Cross of the White Eagle, 1883

Grand Cross of St. Sava, 1897

Hesse and by Rhine: Dame of the Golden Lion, 25 April 1885

Bulgaria: Order of the Bulgarian Red Cross, August 1887

Ethiopia: Grand Cross of the Seal of Solomon, 22 June 1897 – Diamond Jubilee gift

Montenegro: Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Danilo I, 1897

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha: Silver Wedding Medal of Duke Alfred and Duchess Marie, 23 January 1899

 

Arms: As Sovereign, Victoria used the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. Before her accession, she received no grant of arms. As she could not succeed to the throne of Hanover, her arms did not carry the Hanoverian symbols that were used by her immediate predecessors. Her arms have been borne by all of her successors on the throne.

Outside Scotland, the blazon for the shield—also used on the Royal Standard—is: Quarterly: I and IV, Gules, three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II, Or, a lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III, Azure, a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland). In Scotland, the first and fourth quarters are occupied by the Scottish lion, and the second by the English lions. The crests, mottoes, and supporters also differ in and outside Scotland.

See also: Descendants of Queen Victoria and Royal descendants of Queen Victoria and of King Christian IX

Name    Birth      Death    Spouse and children[232][263]

Victoria,

the Princess Royal           1840

Nov. 21 1901

August 5              Married 1858, Frederick, later German Emperor and King of Prussia (1831–1888);

4 sons (including Wilhelm II, German Emperor), 4 daughters (including Queen Sophia of Greece)

Edward VII          1841

Nov. 9   1910

May 6    Married 1863, Princess Alexandra of Denmark (1844–1925);

3 sons (including King George V of the United Kingdom), 3 daughters (including Queen Maud of Norway)

Princess Alice     1843

April 25 1878

Dec. 14 Married 1862, Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine (1837–1892);

2 sons, 5 daughters (including Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia)

Alfred,

Duke of Saxe-Coburg

and Gotha           1844

August 6              1900

July 31   Married 1874, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (1853–1920);

2 sons (1 stillborn), 4 daughters (including Queen Marie of Romania)

Princess Helena 1846

May 25 1923

June 9   Married 1866, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (1831–1917);

4 sons (1 stillborn), 2 daughters

Princess Louise  1848

March 18             1939

Dec.3     Married 1871, John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, later 9th Duke of Argyll (1845–1914);

no issue

Prince Arthur,

Duke of Connaught

and Strathearn   1850

May 1    1942

Jan. 16  Married 1879, Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia (1860–1917);

1 son, 2 daughters (including Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden)

Prince Leopold,

Duke of Albany  1853

April 7   1884

March 28             Married 1882, Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont (1861–1922);

1 son, 1 daughter

Princess Beatrice              1857

April 14 1944

Oct. 26  Married 1885, Prince Henry of Battenberg (1858–1896);

3 sons, 1 daughter (Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain

As monarch, Victoria was Supreme Governor of the Church of England. She was also aligned with the Church of Scotland.

  Her godparents were Tsar Alexander I of Russia (represented by her uncle Frederick, Duke of York), her uncle George, Prince Regent, her aunt Queen Charlotte of Württemberg (represented by Victoria's aunt Princess Augusta) and Victoria's maternal grandmother the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (represented by Victoria's aunt Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh).

  Under section 2 of the Regency Act 1830, the Accession Council's proclamation declared Victoria as the King's successor "saving the rights of any issue of His late Majesty King William the Fourth which may be borne of his late Majesty's Consort". "No. 19509", The London Gazette, 20 June 1837, p. 1581

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  Hibbert, p. 19; Marshall, p. 25

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  Hibbert, p. 102; Marshall, p. 60; Waller, p. 363; Weintraub, p. 51; Woodham-Smith, p. 122

  Waller, pp. 363–364; Weintraub, pp. 53, 58, 64, and 65

  St Aubyn, pp. 55–57; Woodham-Smith, p. 138

  Woodham-Smith, p. 140

  Packard, pp. 14–15

  Hibbert, pp. 66–69; St Aubyn, p. 76; Woodham-Smith, pp. 143–147

  Greville quoted in Hibbert, p. 67; Longford, p. 70 and Woodham-Smith, pp. 143–144

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  Marshall, p. 42; St Aubyn, pp. 63, 96

  Marshall, p. 47; Waller, p. 356; Woodham-Smith, pp. 164–166

  Hibbert, pp. 77–78; Longford, p. 97; St Aubyn, p. 97; Waller, p. 357; Woodham-Smith, p. 164

  Victoria's journal, 25 April 1838, quoted in Woodham-Smith, p. 162

  St Aubyn, p. 96; Woodham-Smith, pp. 162, 165

  Hibbert, p. 79; Longford, p. 98; St Aubyn, p. 99; Woodham-Smith, p. 167

  Hibbert, pp. 80–81; Longford, pp. 102–103; St Aubyn, pp. 101–102

  Longford, p. 122; Marshall, p. 57; St Aubyn, p. 104; Woodham-Smith, p. 180

  Hibbert, p. 83; Longford, pp. 120–121; Marshall, p. 57; St Aubyn, p. 105; Waller, p. 358

  St Aubyn, p. 107; Woodham-Smith, p. 169

  Hibbert, pp. 94–96; Marshall, pp. 53–57; St Aubyn, pp. 109–112; Waller, pp. 359–361; Woodham-Smith, pp. 170–174

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  Hibbert, p. 123; Longford, p. 143; Woodham-Smith, p. 205

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  Louda, Jiří; Maclagan, Michael (1999), Lines of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe, London: Little, Brown, p. 34, ISBN 978-1-85605-469-0

Charles, Barrie (2012), Kill the Queen! The Eight Assassination Attempts on Queen Victoria, Stroud: Amberley Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4456-0457-2

Hibbert, Christopher (2000), Queen Victoria: A Personal History, London: HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-638843-4

Longford, Elizabeth (1964), Victoria R.I., London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-17001-5

Marshall, Dorothy (1972), The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (1992 reprint ed.), London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0-297-83166-6

Packard, Jerrold M. (1998), Victoria's Daughters, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-24496-7

Potts, D. M.; Potts, W. T. W. (1995), Queen Victoria's Gene: Haemophilia and the Royal Family, Stroud: Alan Sutton, ISBN 0-7509-1199-9

St. Aubyn, Giles (1991), Queen Victoria: A Portrait, London: Sinclair-Stevenson, ISBN 1-85619-086-2

Strachey, Lytton (1921), Queen Victoria, London: Chatto and Windus

Waller, Maureen (2006), Sovereign Ladies: The Six Reigning Queens of England, London: John Murray, ISBN 0-7195-6628-2

Weintraub, Stanley (1997), Albert: Uncrowned King, London: John Murray, ISBN 0-7195-5756-9

Woodham-Smith, Cecil (1972), Queen Victoria: Her Life and Times 1819–1861, London: Hamish Hamilton, ISBN 0-241-02200-2

Worsley, Lucy (2018), Queen Victoria – Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow, London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, ISBN 978-1-4736-5138-8

Benson, A. C.; Esher, Viscount, eds. (1907), The Letters of Queen Victoria: A Selection of Her Majesty's Correspondence Between the Years 1837 and 1861, London: John Murray

Bolitho, Hector, ed. (1938), Letters of Queen Victoria from the Archives of the House of Brandenburg-Prussia, London: Thornton Butterworth

Buckle, George Earle, ed. (1926), The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2nd Series 1862–1885, London: John Murray

Buckle, George Earle, ed. (1930), The Letters of Queen Victoria, 3rd Series 1886–1901, London: John Murray

Connell, Brian (1962), Regina v. Palmerston: The Correspondence between Queen Victoria and her Foreign and Prime Minister, 1837–1865, London: Evans Brothers

Duff, David, ed. (1968), Victoria in the Highlands: The Personal Journal of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, London: Muller

Dyson, Hope; Tennyson, Charles, eds. (1969), Dear and Honoured Lady: The Correspondence between Queen Victoria and Alfred Tennyson, London: Macmillan

Esher, Viscount, ed. (1912), The Girlhood of Queen Victoria: A Selection from Her Majesty's Diaries Between the Years 1832 and 1840, London: John Murray

Fulford, Roger, ed. (1964), Dearest Child: Letters Between Queen Victoria and the Princess Royal, 1858–1861, London: Evans Brothers

Fulford, Roger, ed. (1968), Dearest Mama: Letters Between Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia, 1861–1864, London: Evans Brothers

Fulford, Roger, ed. (1971), Beloved Mama: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the German Crown Princess, 1878–1885, London: Evans Brothers

Fulford, Roger, ed. (1971), Your Dear Letter: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia, 1863–1871, London: Evans Brothers

Fulford, Roger, ed. (1976), Darling Child: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the German Crown Princess of Prussia, 1871–1878, London: Evans Brothers

Hibbert, Christopher, ed. (1984), Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals, London: John Murray, ISBN 0-7195-4107-7

Hough, Richard, ed. (1975), Advice to a Grand-daughter: Letters from Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse, London: Heinemann, ISBN 0-434-34861-9

Jagow, Kurt, ed. (1938), Letters of the Prince Consort 1831–1861, London: John Murray

Mortimer, Raymond, ed. (1961), Queen Victoria: Leaves from a Journal, New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy

Ponsonby, Frederick, ed. (1930), Letters of the Empress Frederick, London: Macmillan

Ramm, Agatha, ed. (1990), Beloved and Darling Child: Last Letters between Queen Victoria and Her Eldest Daughter, 1886–1901, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, ISBN 978-0-86299-880-6

Victoria, Queen (1868), Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands from 1848 to 1861, London: Smith, Elder

Victoria, Queen (1884), More Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands from 1862 to 1882, London: Smith, Elder

Arnstein, Walter L. (2003), Queen Victoria, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-333-63806-4

Baird, Julia (2016), Victoria The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire, New York: Random House, ISBN 978-1-4000-6988-0

Cadbury, Deborah (2017), Queen Victoria's Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages That Shaped Europe, Bloomsbury

Carter, Sarah; Nugent, Maria Nugent, eds. (2016), Mistress of everything: Queen Victoria in Indigenous worlds, Manchester University Press

Eyck, Frank (1959), The Prince Consort: a political biography, Chatto

Gardiner, Juliet (1997), Queen Victoria, London: Collins and Brown, ISBN 978-1-85585-469-7

Homans, Margaret; Munich, Adrienne, eds. (1997), Remaking Queen Victoria, Cambridge University Press

Homans, Margaret (1997), Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British Culture, 1837–1876

Hough, Richard (1996), Victoria and Albert, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 978-0-312-30385-3

James, Robert Rhodes (1983), Albert, Prince Consort: A Biography, Hamish Hamilton, ISBN 9780394407630

Kingsley Kent, Susan (2015), Queen Victoria: Gender and Empire

Lyden, Anne M. (2014), A Royal Passion: Queen Victoria and Photography, Los Angeles: Getty Publications, ISBN 978-1-60606-155-8

Ridley, Jane (2015), Victoria: Queen, Matriarch, Empress, Penguin

Taylor, Miles (2020), "The Bicentenary of Queen Victoria", Journal of British Studies, 59: 121–135, doi:10.1017/jbr.2019.245, S2CID 213433777

Weintraub, Stanley (1987), Victoria: Biography of a Queen, London: HarperCollins, ISBN 978-0-04-923084-2

Wilson, A. N. (2014), Victoria: A Life, London: Atlantic Books, ISBN 978-1-84887-956-0

Would make an excellent lucky charm or collectable keepsake souvenir for a WW2 collection. It is 16.3mm in diameter and weighs 1.4g.

The British threepence piece, usually simply known as a threepence, thruppence, or thruppenny bit, was a denomination of sterling coinage worth 1⁄80 of one pound or 1⁄4 of one shilling. It was used in the United Kingdom, and earlier in Great Britain and England. Similar denominations were later used throughout the British Empire and Commonwealth countries, notably in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The sum of three pence was pronounced variously THRUUP-ənss THREP-ənss or THRUP-ənss, reflecting different pronunciations in the various regions of the United Kingdom. The coin was often referred to in conversation as a THRUUP-nee, THREP-nee or THRUP-nee bit. Before Decimal Day in 1971, sterling used the Carolingian monetary system, under which the largest unit was a pound divided into 20 shillings, each of 12 pence. The threepence coin was withdrawn in 1971 due to decimalisation and replaced by the decimal new penny, with 2.4d being worth 1p.

The three pence coin – expressed in writing as "3d" – first appeared in England during the fine silver coinage of King Edward VI (1547–53), when it formed part of a set of new denominations. Although it was an easy denomination to work with in the context of the old sterling coinage system, being a quarter of a shilling, initially it was not popular with the public who preferred the groat (four pence). Hence the coin was not minted in the following two reigns – if one controversially counts Jane or incorrectly treats coins in the sole name of Mary as being a separate "reign" from those which also show and name her husband Philip.

Edward VI threepences were struck at the London and York mints. The obverse shows a front-facing bust of the king, with a rose to the left and the value numeral III to the right, surrounded by the legend EDWARD VI D G ANG FRA Z HIB REX. The reverse shows a long cross over the royal shield, surrounded by the legend (London mint) POSUI DEUM ADIUTOREM MEUM (I have made God my helper), or (York mint) CIVITAS EBORACI (City of York).

Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) produced threepences during her third coinage (1561–1577). Most 1561 issues are 21 mm in diameter, while later ones are 19 mm in diameter. These coins are identifiable from other denominations by the rose behind the queen's head on the obverse, and the date on the reverse. The obverse shows a left-facing crowned bust of the queen with a rose behind her, surrounded by the legend ELIZABETH D G ANG FR ET HIB REGINA, while the reverse shows shield over a long cross, dated 1561, surrounded by the legend POSUI DEU ADIUTOREM MEU. Dates used for the smaller coins were 1561–77. Threepences of the fourth coinage (1578–1582) are identical except for having a slightly lower silver content. There was also a fairly rare milled coinage threepence, produced between 1561 and 1564 with similar designs and inscriptions to the hammered coinage threepences.

The threepence denomination fell out of use again during the reign of King James I, while during King Charles I's reign (1625–49) it was not produced at the London Tower mint, but was produced (sometimes in some quantity) at various provincial mints. The denomination is identified by the numeral III appearing behind the king's head.

By far the most common Charles I threepences were produced at the Aberystwyth mint between 1638 and 1642. They feature a left-facing crowned bust of the king with plumes in front of his face and the numeral III behind him, with the legend CAROLUS DG MA B FR ET H REX (or a combination of M(A) B F(R) ET H(I)(B) depending on the engraver), with the reverse showing the royal arms on a large oval shield with plumes above the shield, and the legend CHRISTO AUSPICE REGNO – I reign under the auspices of Christ. Plumes were the identifying symbol of the Aberystwyth mint, but the Bristol and Oxford mints often used dies from the Aberystwyth mint so plumes often appear on their output too. Milled coins were produced at the York mint between 1638 and 1649, which look similar to the Aberystwyth product but without the plumes – the obverse features a left-facing crowned bust of the king with the numeral III behind him, with the legend CAROLUS D G MAG BR FR ET HI REX, with the reverse showing the royal arms on a shield over a cross, with EBOR over the shield and the legend CHRISTO AUSPICE REGNO.

Coins were produced at the Oxford mint between 1644 and 1646, using the Aberystwyth dies for the obverse, while the reverse of the 1644 coin shows the Declaration of Oxford in three lines: RELI PRO LEG ANG LIB PAR. 1644 OX – The religion of the Protestants, the laws of England, the liberty of Parliament. 1644 Oxford, while around the outside of the coin is the legend EXURGAT DEUS DISSIPENTUR INIMICI – Let God arise and His enemies be scattered. This coin also appears dated 1646. A further type produced at Oxford had on the obverse the king's bust with the denomination behind him, and the letter "R" (for Rawlins, the maker of the die) below the king's shoulder and the legend CAROLUS D G M BR F ET H REX and the Aberystwyth reverse.

The mint at Bristol produced rare threepences in 1644 and 1645. In 1644 the Aberystwyth obverse was used to produce a coin with the reverse showing the Declaration of Oxford: REL PRO LEG AN LIB PA 1644 – The religion of the Protestants, the laws of England, the liberty of Parliament 1644, while around the outside of the coin is the legend EXURGAT DEUS DISSIPENTUR INIMICI – Let God arise and His enemies be scattered. This was repeated in 1645, but with a plumelet instead of a plume in front of the king's face.

In 1644 the Exeter mint produced a fairly scarce threepence. It features a left-facing crowned bust of the king with the numeral III behind him, with the legend CAROLUS D G MA BR F ET H RE, with the reverse showing the royal arms on a shield with the date 1644 above the shield, and the legend CHRISTO AUSPICE REGNO.

No threepences were produced by the Commonwealth of England.

A quantity of (370,000) silver threepences were struck dated 1945, although these were all melted with the metal used in other mint products. However, it is believed a handful escaped, with one example selling for £62,000 at auction in 2020.

The final hammered coinage threepences were produced at the start of the reign of King Charles II. In style they are very reminiscent of his father's issues, the obverse featuring the bust of the king, with the numeral III and the legend CAROLUS II D G MAG BRI F ET H REX, with the reverse showing the royal arms on a shield over a cross, and the legend CHRISTO AUSPICE REGNO.

The milled silver threepences of Charles II form two types. There is the undated issue which looks very like the earlier hammered coinage, with a crowned left-facing bust of the king with the denomination indicated by III behind his head, and the inscription CAROLVS II D G M B F & H REX, with the reverse showing a shield encircling the arms of England, Scotland, Ireland and France with the legend CHRISTO AUSPICE REGNO. This was followed by the dated issue, issued each year from 1670 to 1684, where the obverse features a right-facing uncrowned bust of the king and the inscription CAROLVS II DEI GRATIA, with the reverse showing three crowned interlinked "C"s (indicating the value) and the inscription MAG BR FRA ET HIB REX date. All milled silver threepences were 17 millimetres in diameter and weighed 1.5 grams – dimensions which were unchanged until near the end of the reign of George III.

A similar threepence was produced for King James II, dated 1685 to 1688, the obverse showing a left-facing bust of the king and the inscription IACOBVS II DEI GRATIA, with the reverse showing three crowned "I"s (indicating the value) and the inscription MAG BR FRA ET HIB REX date.

For the joint reign of King William III and Queen Mary II, threepences were produced in all years from 1689 to 1694. For the first two years a somewhat caricatured portrait of the monarchs was used, replaced by a rather more staid portrait in 1691, with the inscription GVLIELMVS ET MARIA D G, while the reverse shows a crowned Arabic number "3" and the inscription MAG BR FR ET HIB REX ET REGINA date. For the sole reign of William III, the design remained very similar, with the inscriptions changed to GVLIELMVS III DEI GRA and MAG BR FR ET HIB REX date.

In the reign of Queen Anne (1702–1714), the same basic design was used, with threepences produced in 1703–10 and 1713. The obverse shows a left-facing bust of the Queen, with the inscription ANNA DEI GRATIA while the reverse shows the crowned "3" and MAG BR FR ET HIB REG date (1703–05, 1707), MAG BR FRA ET HIB REG (1706), or MAG BRI FR ET HIB REG (1708–13).

The design continued in the reign of King George I, when threepences were produced in 1717, 1721, 1723, and 1727. The obverse shows a right-facing bust of the King, with the inscription GEORGIVS DEI GRATIA while the reverse shows the crowned "3" and MAG BRI FR ET HIB REX date.

Unusually, the same young portrait of King George II was used on the threepence throughout his reign (1727–60), despite an older portrait being used on other denominations from 1743. Threepences were produced in 1729, 1731, 1732, 1735, 1737, 1739, 1740, 1743, 1746, and 1760. The obverse shows a left-facing bust of the King, with the inscription GEORGIVS II DEI GRATIA while the reverse shows the crowned "3" and MAG BRI FR ET HIB REX date.

While the silver threepence was minted as a currency coin until nearly the middle of the 20th century, it is clear that the purpose of the coin changed during the reign of King George III (1760–1820). In the first two years of minting, 1762 and 1763, the coin was obviously produced for general circulation as examples are generally found well worn; on the other hand, coins from the late issue (1817–20) are usually found in very fine condition, indicating that they were probably issued as Maundy money. Over the length of the reign there were several different designs of obverse and reverse in use. Threepences were issued in 1762–63, 1765–66, 1770, 1772, 1780, 1784, 1786, 1792, 1795, 1800, 1817, 1818, and 1820. From 1817 the dimensions of the coin were reduced to a weight of 1.4 grams (defined as1⁄22 troy ounce) and diameter of 16 millimetres, following the Great Recoinage of 1816. The inscription on the obverse reads GEORGIVS III DEI GRATIA up to 1800, and GEORGIUS III DEI GRATIA date from 1817. The reverse inscription reads MAG BRI FR ET HIB REX date up to 1800 and BRITANNIARUM REX FID DEF date from 1817.

By the start of the reign of King George IV (1820–30) the coin was being struck primarily as a Maundy coin, although some coins were produced for use in the colonies. See Maundy money for full details of these issues. Threepences were struck in all years from 1822 to 1830, though the king's head is smaller on the 1822 issue, apparently because the correct punch broke and the one from the twopence was used instead. The obverse inscription reads GEORGIUS IIII D G BRITANNIAR REX F D, while the reverse shows a new-style crowned "3" and date, all within a wreath.

In King William IV's reign (1830–37), maundy coins were produced in 1831–37, and identical circulation coins were produced for the colonies, identifiable only through not having a prooflike surface. The obverse inscription reads GULIELMUS IIII D G BRITANNIAR REX F D, while the reverse shows the new-style crowned "3" and date, all within a wreath.

During the reign of Queen Victoria, threepences were produced both for Maundy use and for normal circulation in all years between 1838 and 1901 except 1847, 1848, and 1852 (perhaps because of the proposal for a decimal currency at the time (see florin); the 3d at 1⁄80 pound would not have fitted within a decimal system). Currency silver threepences from 1838 to 1926 were of identical design and cannot usually be distinguished except in the best conditions when the higher striking standard of the Maundy coins stands out; when the currency was decimalised in 1971, all silver threepences from 1870 onwards were revalued at three new pence, not just the Maundy coins. Threepences were produced both with the "young head" (1838–87) and with the "Jubilee head" (1887–93), inscribed VICTORIA D G BRITANNIAR REGINA F D, while those produced with the "old head" (1893–1901) are inscribed VICTORIA DEI GRA BRITT REGINA FID DEF IND IMP.

The currency threepence was issued for each of the nine years of the reign of King Edward VII from 1902. The reverse design remained the same, while the obverse showed the right-facing effigy of the king, with the inscription EDWARDVS VII D G BRITT OMN REX F D IND IMP.

The reign of King George V (1910–1936) features several changes to the threepence denomination. As with all British silver coins, the silver content was reduced from sterling (0.925) silver to 50% silver, 40% copper, 10% nickel in 1920, 50% silver, 50% copper in 1922, and 50% silver, 40% copper, 5% nickel, 5% zinc in 1927, while the design of the reverse of the circulating threepence (but not the maundy threepence) was completely changed in 1927 to three oak sprigs with three acorns and a "G" in the centre, and the inscription THREE PENCE date. The inscription on the obverse throughout the reign was GEORGIVS V D G BRITT OMN REX F D IND IMP.

The threepences of King Edward VIII were all patterns awaiting royal approval at the time of the abdication in December 1936. The silver threepence had another completely new reverse – three interlinked rings of Saint Edmund, with the inscription FID DEF IND IMP 1937 THREE PENCE, while the obverse shows a left-facing effigy of the king with the inscription EDWARDVS VIII D G BR OMN REX and a very small silver engravement.

By the end of George V's reign the threepence had become unpopular in England because of its small size (George Orwell comments on this in Keep the Aspidistra Flying), but it remained popular in Scotland. It was consequently decided to introduce a more substantial threepenny coin which would have a more convenient weight/value ratio than the silver coinage. The silver threepence continued to be minted, as there may have been some uncertainty about how well the new coin would be accepted. The reign of Edward VIII saw the planned introduction of a new, larger, nickel-brass (79% copper, 20% zinc, 1% nickel) twelve-sided threepence coin. This coin weighed 6.6 grams (0.23 oz) and the diameter was 21 millimetres (0.83 in) across the sides and 22 millimetres (0.87 in) across the corners. The obverse shows a left-facing effigy of the king (not right as would have been the convention to alternate the direction) with the inscription EDWARDVS VIII D G BR OMN REX F D IND IMP, and the reverse shows a three-headed thrift plant with the inscription THREE PENCE 1937. A total of just 12 of these coins were struck for experimental purposes and sent to a slot machine manufacturing company for testing. The whereabouts of six of those 12 are known. However, the other six are still out there somewhere and, as such, they are extremely rare today. An example was put up for auction in 2013, expecting £30,000. There are two types of Edward VIII brass threepences. The first type has the date broken by a thrift plant design and the second has the date below.

During the reign of King George VI, circulation silver threepences were produced only in 1937–45 (and almost all the 1945 examples were subsequently melted down). The obverse shows a left-facing effigy of the king with the inscription GEORGIVS VI D G BR OMN REX, while the reverse has an elegant design of a shield of St George lying on a Tudor rose, dividing the date, with the inscription FID DEF IND IMP THREE PENCE. The nickel-brass threepence took over the bulk of the production of the denomination, being produced in all years between 1937 and 1952 except 1947. Apart from the king's head and name, and the weight being increased to 6.8 grams (0.24 oz), the coin was identical to that prepared for Edward VIII. Coins dated 1946 and 1949 were minted in far fewer numbers than the rest, and as nickel-brass wears very quickly; higher grade specimens of these coins are expensive to buy now (both over £500 for uncirculated examples). The scarce dates are 1948, 1950 and 1951 and these are now selling for £60–£80 in mint state.

The physical dimensions of the brass threepence remained the same in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The effigy of the queen produced by Mary Gillick was used, with the inscription ELIZABETH II DEI GRA BRITT OMN REGINA F D used in 1953, and ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA F D used in all other years. The reverse shows a Tudor portcullis with chains and a coronet, with the inscription THREE PENCE date. This coin was produced in all years from 1953 to 1967, and in 1970 (in proof sets only).

Following decimalisation, the brass threepence ceased to be legal tender after 31 August 1971.

A three pence coin was also used in the pre-decimalisation currencies of Commonwealth of Nations countries such as Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand. It was called a tickey in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia.

No. 1 Croydon was known for many years as the "threepenny bit building" for its resemblance to a stack of threepenny coins. After the coins were phased out (beginning in 1970) the building eventually gained a new nickname, the "50p building".

The silver threepenny bit became known as a 'joey'. However, the original 'joey' was the groat (or fourpence). The groat was re-introduced in 1836 during the reign of William IV at the suggestion of Joseph Hume (1777-1855).Popularly known as the 'joey', named after Hume's christian name, it was introduced to ease transactions on the London buses, the fare being four pence or one groat. As the last groats were struck in 1888 the nickname passed to the silver threepences struck after that date until 1941 (the last year of production for British use). The silver threepence continued to be struck for three further years from 1942 to 1944 inclusive although for colonial use only as the 12-sided brass threepences were being struck in large numbers.

In March 2014, the Royal Mint announced that a new design of one pound coin would be introduced in 2017, reprising the twelve-sided shape. The new coin was designed to be more difficult to counterfeit.

In October 2019, it was announced that 120,000 silver threepences dated to 1935 and earlier were to be sold to the general public, as part of a move to encourage people to pick up coin collecting and numismatics. The London Mint Office oversaw the sale of the coins, which all date from George V's reign and were valued at a total of approximately £1m, although a more realistic valuation would be in the region of £60,000.

Coins of England

Sterling coinage

Decimal

1/2p 1p 2p 5p 10p 20p 50p £1 £2

Pre-decimal       

Quarter farthing (1/16d.) (Ceylon)Third farthing (1/12d.) (Malta) Half farthing (1/8d.) Farthing (1/4d.) Halfpenny (1/2d.) Penny (1d.) Three halfpence (1+1/2d.) (British Ceylon & British West Indies) Twopence (2d.) Threepence (3d.) Fourpence (4d.) Sixpence (6d.) Shilling (1/–) Fifteen pence (1/3d.) (Australia) Eighteen Pence (1/6d.) (British Ireland) Florin (2/–) Half crown (2/6d.) Thirty Pence (2/6d.) (British Ireland) Double florin (4/–) Crown (5/–) Six Shillings (6/-) (British Ireland) Quarter guinea (5/3d.) Third guinea (7/–) Half sovereign (10/–) Half guinea (10/6d.) Sovereign (£1) Guinea (£1/1/–) Double sovereign (£2) Two guineas (£2/2/) Five pounds (£5) Five guineas (£5/5/–)

Commemorative              

3p (Tristan da Cunha) 6p 25p 60p (Isle of Man) 70p (Ascension Island) £5 £10 £20 £25 £50 £100 £200 £500 £1000 Maundy money

Bullion  

Britannia Quarter sovereign Half sovereign Sovereign Double sovereign Quintuple sovereign Lunar The Queen's Beasts Landmarks of Britain

See also              

Sterling (currency) Sterling banknotes List of British banknotes and coins List of British currencies Jubilee coinage Old Head coinage Scottish coinage Coins of Ireland List of people on coins of the United Kingdom

Categories: History of British coinage Pre-decimalisation coins of the United Kingdom Coins of Great Britain

  • Condition: Some scratches on Queen's cheek and a bit grubby in places, otherwise EF
  • Type: British
  • Time Period: 19th Century
  • Period: 19th Century
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United Kingdom
  • Country/Region: England

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