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Queen Alexandra - my family #51

...daughter, Victoria, then her youngest daughter Maud with her husband, Charles Haakon, the King of Norway (King Haakon VII) on the right. Charles was not only her son-in-law but also her nephew as it was not uncommon for first cousins to marry in those days. Although Charles was originally a Danish prince, after the 1905 dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway he was offered the Norwegian crown and ruled until 1957.   The Diplomats This photo is taken on board the 'Victoria and Albert' ship whilst Alexandra and her family were sailing around Norway and Denmark off Christiania, which is now known as Oslo. The gentleman on the left is Count Alexan...

Home fit for a King #53

...of Queen Victoria in 1837. The back of Buckingham Palace where the Queen had her garden parties   In the Middle Ages the site of the future palace formed part of the Manor of Ebury. The marshy ground was watered by the river Tyburn, which still flows below the courtyard and south wing of the palace. Where the river was fordable (at Cow Ford), the village of Eye Cross grew – it seems incredible now that there was a village right in the heart of London! Ownership of the site changed hands many times; owners included Edward the Confessor in late Saxon times, and, after the Norman conquest, William the Conqueror. The site was eventually bequeathed to the...

Victorian Courtship - fans #91

...For the next few months I will be doing a series on Victorian courtship starting in February, the month of love, as we have just celebrated Valentine’s Day on the 14th.  The Victorians used various items for flirting with, namely fans, gloves, parasols and handkerchiefs!  I imagine the Meynell family at Hoar Cross Hall held lots of dinner parties and Balls back in the Victorian days where most of the young ladies would have had their fans at the ready to signal to a secret beau.  But what were these signals and why were they used? The belief that the fan was used in society to express feelings or commands dates back to at least the early 18th century.  I...

Victorian Courtship - gloves #92

...This is the second blog in the series on Victorian courtship and is all about the use of gloves. During the Victorian era, gloves were deeply connected to the notion of the “perfect hand” which were to be “shapely, finely made, white with blue vein, taper fingers, rosy nails and slightly arched”.  They were seen as social markers and accordingly, ladies wore gloves which were too small for them in order to shrink their hands. Following an old French practice, glove length was traditionally measured in buttons based on the distance between the base of the thumb and the top edge of the glove.  Until Queen Victoria’s reign gloves were quite short.  F...

Queen Alexandra - my family #52

...daughter Victoria (middle) is seen here with Miss Knollys and Lord Knollys at Cowes. Lord Knollys was the private secretary to Edward VII from 1901 – 1913 and accompanied him on all his trips. The annual Cowes Week festivities were during the month of August on the Isle of Wight and the King (when Prince of Wales) would sail his yacht, Britannia very competitively against his nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II. This went on for many years until the Kaiser won in 1896 and Edward never entered the competition again. In 1909 the Russian Emperor and his family came over for Cowes week causing a security nightmare with two monarchs in one place!   The King of Denmark...

Victorian Fashions #95

...The Victorian era was roughly from 1830 – 1900 and saw many changes in fashion styles.  This was the era of technological advancement and the mass production of sewing machines in the 1850s and the advent of synthetic dyes introduced major changes in fashion.  This, coupled with the printing of fashion magazines, allowed the masses to become more fashion conscious – the middle classes were rising up thanks to the Industrial Revolution! Clothes were an expression of your place in society, therefore upper-class women, who didn’t need to work, could wear more elaborate dresses over layers of petticoats with tightly laced corsets.  Men would wear long froc...