Queen Victoria (r. 1819-1901) Collection

Born at Kensington Palace, London, on 24 May 1819, Victoria was the only daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. Her father died shortly after her birth and she became heir to the throne because the three uncles who were ahead of her in the succession - George IV, Frederick Duke of York, and William IV - had no legitimate children who survived. Queen Victoria is associated with Britain's great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and, especially, empire. She married Prince Albert and produced nine children and most married into other Royal families of Europe. It was during Victoria's reign that the modern idea of the constitutional monarch, whose role was to remain above political parties, began to evolve. In her later years, she became the symbol of the British Empire. Both the Golden (1887) and the Diamond (1897) Jubilees, held to celebrate the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the Queen's accession, were marked with great displays and public ceremonies. Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, on 22 January 1901 after a reign which lasted almost 64 years, then the longest in British history. At her death, it was said, Britain had a worldwide empire on which the sun never set.