The New Queen Queen Victoria was crowned on 28 June 1838. Two years later her marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg provoked the first Royal celebration in the modern style. Despite periods of unpopularity, the Queen remained at the heart of her nation and her Jubilees of 1887 and 1897 were celebrated on a massive scale.

Badge of the Royal Order of Victoria, oval onyx cameo with diamonds, emeralds, rubies mounted in silver; cameos carved by Sautini; by R. and S. Garrard; English; c.1864

The Royal Family
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's domestic life established a new vision of the ideal family that was widely followed at home and abroad. Paintings, photographs, journalism, and a new spirit of informality gave the Royal Family a familiarity and popularity unknown to previous monarchs. Victoria and Albert had nine children and their marriages into other Royal Families helped to extend British influence.

The Royal Family decorated their homes in the opulent French style, reflecting their continued interest in continental fashions.

Royalty and the New Britain
The Queen and Prince Consort were important patrons of art, design, technology and science. Albert's inspirational involvement in the Great Exhibition of 1851 also enhanced his reputation. The Royal Family encouraged the use of the revived Gothic style, for its historical, patriotic and Christian associations, reflecting the values that underpinned their new Britain.

Royal attitudes to travel, communications and leisure influenced social change. The emergent popularity of the seaside, Scotland and the Isle of Wight as holiday destinations was the direct result of Royal enthusiasm.

Commemoration
The Queen's very public mourning for Prince Albert after his early death in 1861 focused attention on the increasing enthusiasm for commemoration, in the form of public monuments. Albert himself would have preferred to have been remembered for his achievements in promoting science and art in Britain.

At every level, the process of mourning became commercialised, as stationery, clothes and jewellery were manufactured and advertised on an industrial scale.