Queen Victoria diaries exhibited

[annie]

Early diaries of the future Queen Victoria are to go on show in an exhibition at Windsor Castle.


Princess Victoria was given her first journal by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, in August 1832 on their journey to Powis Castle in Wales.

The Duchess took her 13-year-old daughter on a series of educational tours around the country for the public to see their future Queen and gave the book to Victoria to record her impressions of the places they would visit together.

The tour also took in the newly industrialised Midlands, an unfamiliar sight for the young princess, who describes what she saw in the first pages of her new diary: "The men woemen (sic), children, country and houses are all black. But I can not by any description give an idea of its strange and extraordinary appearance. The country is very desolate every where; there are coals about, and the grass is quite blasted and black. I just now see an extraordinary building flaming with fire."

But she was charmed by the people she met along the way, writing, "We have just changed horses at Wolverhampton a large and dirty town but we were received with great friendliness and pleasure".

The young princess's timetable of her lessons dated the following year, 1833, reveals that Victoria would spend half an hour at 9 o'clock each morning writing in her journal, before lessons in history, geography, Latin or general knowledge.

The journal marks the beginning of a passion for writing that would last a lifetime. It was Queen Victoria's legacy - more than 43,000 pages within 141 journals, and a vast amount of personal and official correspondence - that in 1914 prompted the creation of a permanent home for all documents relating to the Royal Family and Royal Household.

more:

http://www.sundaypost.com/news-views/uk ... d-1.363227

[maureenho]

They will make an interesting read.  go90

[Misspears]

tha22222  I like reading about history