Queen Victoria 1819 – 1901
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria) 1819 – 1901 was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and the first Empress of India of the British Raj.
Victoria was related to most of the crowned heads of Europe and many aristocrats, including Tsar Alexander I (her godfather), Alfred Duke of Edinburgh, Augusta Duchess of Cambridge, Edward VII, Ernest Augustus I, George V, George VI, Leopold I Belgium,
Victoria married Prince Albert, who came from a family tradition of homeopathy, and when he came to England to marry Queen Victoria, he renewed the Royal patronage of homeopathy.
Victoria was a patient of James Manby Gully, and her own household physician John Forbes was a student of homeopath Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Fleischman, and a friend of William Henderson, Florence Nightingale, John Ozanne, Robert Peel, David Wilson.
Victoria also employed Andrew Combe as her physician extraordinary in Scotland, as was Joseph Bell, and Thomas Spencer Wells (who got into a great deal of trouble for being a ’secret’ patient of homeopath James Manby Gully),
Victoria was also a patient of James Clark, Charles Locock 1st Baronet, and James Young Simpson,
Victoria’s favourite Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli was a patient of Joseph Kidd due to the recommendation of Victoria herself, after Prince Albert had convinced her of the efficacy of homeopathy. Victoria’s Prime Minister Henry Palmerston was a supporter of homeopathy, and he is listed in The British and Foreign Homeopathic Medical Directory and Record in 1853. Lord Palmerston’s wife was also a homeopathic patient.
Victoria’s Lady of the Bedchamber, Charlotte, Countess Canning was a patient of Paul Francois Curie, her aid de camp was William Coutts Keppel Viscount Bury 7th Earl of Albemarle,
Victoria and Prince Albert were also advocates of phrenology,
In 1901, Hugh Frederick Vaughan Campbell 4th Earl Cawdor obtained permission to open a school of homeopathy with the blessing of Queen Victoria.
Victoria also knew Christian Karl Josias Bunsen, Alfred Edward Chalon, Edwin Henry Landseer, Philippe Musard, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke of Wellington,
Victoria’s reign as the Queen lasted 63 years and 7 months, longer than that of any other British monarch before or since, and her reign is the longest of any female monarch in history. The time of her reign is known as the Victorian period, a time of industrial, political, scientific and military progress within the United Kingdom.Though Victoria ascended the throne at a time when the United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy in which the king or queen held few political powers and exercised influence by the prime minister’s advice, she still served as a very important symbolic figure of her time.
Victoria’s reign was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire; during this period it reached its zenith, becoming the foremost global power of the time.
Of mostly German descent, Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Princess Victoria of Saxe Coburg-Saalfeld, and granddaughter of George III and the niece of her predecessor William IV.
She arranged marriages for her nine children and forty two grandchildren across the continent, tying Europe together and earning her the nickname “the grandmother of Europe”. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover; her son Edward VII belonged to the House of Saxe Coburg and Gotha.
Sue :: Oct.03.2009 :: British History :: No Comments »