The Victorian Era

When Did Queen Victoria Become Queen?

Article · History & Overview · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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Queen Victoria became queen on 20 June 1837. On that morning, shortly after two o’clock, the Lord President of the Council and the Archbishop of Canterbury, supported by the Great Officers of State, set out from Kensington Palace in a state coach, accompanied by a guard of soldiers, to make their way to the Archbishop’s London residence. The young princess, who had gone to bed as heir presumptive the previous night, was awakened in her room at Kensington Palace and informed that her uncle, King William IV, had died in the small hours of the morning at Windsor Castle. Within hours, the princess had become Queen Victoria, and the Victorian era had begun. Victoria reigned for sixty-three years, seven months, and two days, longer than any British monarch until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II overtook her in September 2015.

The accession of Victoria is one of the most carefully documented events of the nineteenth century, because the new queen herself kept a diary in which she recorded what she was told, what she did, and what she felt. Her account of the morning, written up later that day, gives a vivid picture of an eighteen-year-old girl suddenly confronted with the responsibilities of monarchy. The constitutional crisis that the new queen inherited, including the hostility between the Whigs and the Tories, the Chartist agitation, the problem of the Corn Laws, and the difficult relationship with her mother and her mother’s adviser, Sir John Conroy, all had to be managed. The political and social setting of the accession is examined in the Reign of Queen Victoria.

The Death of William IV

William IV was sixty-eight years old when he died, and his health had been failing for several months. The king had no legitimate children, and his heir was his niece, Victoria, who was the daughter of his younger brother, the Duke of Kent, who had died in 1820. Victoria was the only legitimate grandchild of George III who was still in direct line to the throne, and she had been brought up in the strict and unhappy atmosphere of the Kensington System, the elaborate set of rules designed to keep the young princess close to her mother and away from the influence of the king’s brothers.

When William IV died, the new king would have been Edward, Duke of Cumberland, if Victoria were set aside. Cumberland was a controversial figure, with poor eyesight, an unpleasant reputation, and a strong Tory following. The fact that he became King of Hanover in 1837, before Hanover passed to a different line under the Salic law, added a further complication. The death of William IV, in other words, was not just a moment of constitutional change. It was a moment of political danger, and the smooth accession of Victoria was, in its way, a relief to the British political class.

The First Council and the Declaration

The new queen was required to hold her first Privy Council on the day of her accession, and this was held at Kensington Palace in the evening of 20 June 1837. The council was attended by the Great Officers of State, the members of the late king’s Privy Council, and the principal politicians of the day, including the Duke of Wellington, Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, and Sir Robert Peel. The young queen, who was not yet nineteen, was described by those present as composed, dignified, and impressive. She read her declaration from a written paper, and she signed the necessary documents. She took the regnal name of Victoria, dropping the Alexandrina by which she had been christened. The decision to take a single name was in part an act of distancing from her mother’s regency plans, and in part a statement of a new beginning.

The principal constitutional adviser to the new queen was Lord Melbourne, the Whig prime minister, who became her political mentor and her close friend. Melbourne had been prime minister since 1834, and he would continue as prime minister for the first four years of Victoria’s reign. The relationship between the two was close, and Melbourne’s influence on the young queen was substantial. The political context of the accession is examined in Victorian Political History.

The Bedchamber Crisis

The first constitutional crisis of the new reign came almost at once, in what is known as the Bedchamber Crisis of 1839. The Conservative leader, Sir Robert Peel, became prime minister in 1839, and he requested that the queen dismiss the Whig ladies of her bedchamber and replace them with the wives of Conservative politicians. Victoria refused, on the advice of Melbourne, and Peel resigned. The Whigs returned to office, and the new queen was established in her constitutional position as a monarch who took the advice of her ministers on matters of patronage, but who retained the right to be consulted on matters of personal appointment.

The Bedchamber Crisis is significant in the history of the British constitution because it established the convention that the queen’s household, including the ladies of the bedchamber, was a matter for the queen, not the prime minister. The crisis is also significant in the history of the Victorian era because it shows how the new queen, supported by Melbourne, set the tone for her reign. Victoria was a constitutional monarch, but she was also a person with definite opinions and definite preferences, and the Bedchamber Crisis is one of the clearest examples of her willingness to defend her own position.

The Coronation

The coronation of Queen Victoria took place on 28 June 1838 at Westminster Abbey. The ceremony, which lasted nearly five hours, was the most elaborate public event of the era so far. The young queen entered the abbey in a long procession, was crowned with the Imperial State Crown, and took the coronation oath. The coronation was attended by foreign royals, by British peers, by the diplomatic corps, and by a vast crowd that lined the streets of London. The ceremony was followed by a long procession back to Buckingham Palace, where the queen appeared on the balcony with the prince who would become her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who had arrived in England the previous year.

The coronation was important in establishing the public image of the new reign. The new queen was young, she was married to a handsome German prince, she was photographed by the new medium of photography, and she was seen by the public as the mother of a new family. The coronation was, in effect, the founding ceremony of the Victorian era, and it set the tone for the next sixty-four years. The coronation is described in the Reign of Queen Victoria page.

The Significance of the Date

The date of 20 June 1837, when Victoria became queen, is the dividing line between the reign of William IV and the reign of Victoria, and historians take it as the conventional beginning of the Victorian era. In practice, the Victorian era began earlier in some respects, because the social and economic transformations of the period had been under way for some decades. The date of 20 June 1837 is also the dividing line between the early Victorian period and the long Victorian afternoon that would follow. The very long reign of the new queen, sixty-three years, would mean that an entire generation would be born and would grow old under her rule. For the political questions that the new queen would have to address, see Victorian Political History. For the broader historical context, see The Victorian Era: A Complete Historical Overview.