A Love Story from Kensington Palace

Kensington Palace (© Historic Royal Palaces)

This is a guest blog post from Sutherland Forsyth from Kensington Palace. We regularly work with staff from the palace on events for adults and children in our libraries.

To celebrate Valentine’s Day Sutherland tells us about one of the greatest love stories in history.

‘My dearest Albert put on my stockings for me. I went in and saw him shave; a great delight for me.’

Queen Victoria, 13 February 1840

Oooh-er – that’s a bit racy! A gentleman running his hand up a lady’s leg, her sneaking in to watch him as he gets ready….can this really be the prim, proper, grand old Queen Victoria – dressed in black with a scowl on her face – with whom we are all so familiar?

The answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

Statue of Queen Victoria outside Kensington Palace, sculpted by her daughter Princess Louise (© Historic Royal Palaces)

Queen Victoria was always a woman of passion: strong-willed and spirited as a girl, confident in her role as monarch, and loving as a wife to her husband Albert. The relationship between Victoria and Albert was one of history’s great love stories, and it started on the Stone Staircase at Kensington Palace on 18 May, 1836 when her cousin Albert arrived to visit her and her mother. She felt an instant attraction to him, and over the next few years they corresponded regularly.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s portraits on display at Kensington Palace (© Historic Royal Palaces)

After marrying in 1840, Victoria and Albert went on to have nine children, 39 grandchildren and over 1,000 other descendants. There was deep affection as well as mutual respect between this royal couple, and when Albert died at the age of 42 from typhoid fever in 1861, it left Victoria devastated, plunging her into a state of mourning which would last until her dying day, over four decades later.

Victoria’s mourning clothes on display in ‘Victoria Revealed’ at Kensington Palace (© Historic Royal Palaces)

People remain fascinated by Victoria and Albert’s love affair. When I speak to community groups, run projects with them or take them to Kensington Palace as part of my job as an Outreach & Community Involvement Officer at Historic Royal Palaces (the charity which looks after the public side of the palace), it is striking how some of the small details of their story really strike a chord. There may be well over a hundred years separating us from them, but the emotion of their story still resonates today.

Sutherland Forsyth

Sutherland Forsyth is the Outreach & Community Involvement Officer for Adults at Historic Royal Palaces, the independent charity which cares for the State Apartments at Kensington Palace

Find out more…

• Discover this royal love story in a question series of beautiful animated films by Chiara Ambrosio on the Historic Royal Palace’s website.
• If you want to find out more about Victoria’s life you can visit Kensington Palace and see her story told in her own words and through objects which once belonged to her – from her wedding dress to her stockings, her paint set to her jewellery in the Victoria Revealed exhibition. 
• Take a look inside Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee scrapbook, created by the Royal Archives as an online resource.
• Kensington Central Library’s biography collection has books about Victoria, Albert and other members of the royal family.

Valentine’s Day – as reported by the Illustrated London News

The Illustrated London News – masthead

I’m sure it couldn’t have escaped anyone’s notice that it’s Valentine’s Day this week. One of our Triborough Reference Librarians, Debby Wale, has been looking at how this day has been covered in the past.

Looking at the month of February, traditionally  associated with Valentine’s Day on 14th February, I looked through Kensington Central Reference Library’s holdings of the The Illustrated London News.

The  library has copies of the  The Illustrated London News from 1842 to 2000.  This publication is probably best described by the Encyclopedia Britannica.

A magazine of news and the arts, published in London, a forerunner in the use of various graphic arts. It was founded as a weekly in 1842 by Herbert Ingram, and it became a monthly in 1971. It was London’s first illustrated periodical, the first periodical to make extensive use of woodcuts and engravings and the first to use photographs.

As well as serious news, The Illustrated London News had lighter articles and poems. Today, folk often complain that Valentine’s Day has become over commercialised. Looking back to 1877, we see that there were indeed a large choice of Valentine cards.

This pretty child who seems to be taking counsel from her doll – which shall I choose?

Image from The Illustrated London News, 1877

As always, there are Great Expectations from the postman on Valentine’s Day….

Image from The Illustrated London News, 11 February 1882

The customary sending and receiving of pretty love-tokens becomes the occasion of a little playful excitement among the children, especially the girls below their ‘teens’

In 1868, another rush to the door, to see what the postman brings.

‘Valentine’s Day’ drawn by G.H.Thomas, 1868

And from The Illustrated London News 11 February 1899.

Image from The Illustrated London News, 11 February 1899

The ancient festival of St Valentine, of which poor Ophelia sang, has, in recent years, fallen into neglect; but although outward observance of the day may be slight, our Artist seems to be persuaded that, as the old verse has it, “Cupid still calls at a pretty girl’s door”

From the same issue February 1899 – Mardi Gras in Paris, 14 February.

On Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) in Paris the Carnival is at it’s height. Holiday-makers pelt each other with confetti until the street are ankle deep in the paper snow. The  police insist that every handful shall be freshly thrown and of one colour, and that no confetti to be picked up.

Paris, of course, being the city for lovers.

Image from The Illustrated London News, 11 February 1899

The course of  true love doesn’t always run smooth, as illustrated in a cartoon from February 13 1886 by S T Dodd.

Cartoon by S.T. Dodd from The Illustrated London News, 13 February 1886

As the text is too small for you to read, I’ve copied out some of it for you.

Young Smithers invests in an expensive valentine to send to his adored, Miss Jones.

 He directs the same, putting his initials in the corner that she may know it’s from him.

 Her Maiden Aunt, another Miss Jones, at the same address, takes unto herself the Valentine with rapture.

 The day afer, Smithers calls, his adored is cold and distant, her Aunt effusive…

You can guess the rest, but on hearing of her mistake, the Aunt swoons!Smithers explains the situation to his Adored, and the “affair terminates in the usual manner” Miss Matilda Jones becomes Mrs William Smithers.

In an edition from 1900 two take A Spin on Valentine’s Day.

A spin on Valentine’s Day, 10 February 1990

But of course, ultimately, diamonds really are a girl’s best friend. Just in time for Valentines day in February 1905 – The Discovery of the World’s Biggest Diamond, 29 Times Bigger Than the Koh-I-Noor. Discovered at the Premier Mine Johannesburg, weighing 3032 carats, the new diamond is compared with other famous gems.

The world’s biggest diamond!

Speaking of jewels, come along to Kensington Central Reference Library and see The Illustrated London News for yourself – just one of our many treasures!

Debby Wale

Debby Wale, Triborough Reference Librarian

Chelsea Reference Library

Further information

• Kensington Central Reference Library has almost the complete holdings of The Illustrated London News in their store.
• The Encyclopedia Britannica can be accessed via our reference and information web page. You’ll need a Kensington and Chelsea library card to access this.
• Westminster City Libraries has electronic access to The Illustrated London News via Westminster City Libraries website. You’ll need at Westminster Libraries card to access this.