Before our late Queen, Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria was Britain’s longest reigning monarch, ruling from 1837 to 1901.
Victoria’s death at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight on January 22, 1901, aged 81, was mourned around the world.
Scroll through the gallery of pictures above for more images of Queen Victoria’s funeral procession though East Cowes…
In 1897, Victoria had written instructions for her funeral, which was to be military as befitting a soldier’s daughter and the head of the army, and white instead of black.
On January 25, her body was lifted into the coffin by her sons, Edward VII and Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, and her grandson, the German Emperor, Wilhelm II.
The crowds await the arrival of Queen Victoria’s funeral procession outside East Cowes Town Hall, Isle of Wight. Photo: Isle of Wight Heritage Service/James Dore.
She was dressed in a white dress and her wedding veil. An array of mementos commemorating her extended family, friends and servants were laid in the coffin with her, at her request.
A dressing gown that had belonged to her husband Albert, who had died 40 years earlier, was placed by her side, along with a plaster cast of his hand, while a lock of servant John Brown’s hair and a picture of him, were also placed in the coffin.
On February 1, 1901, thousands of people lined the route for her funeral procession from Osborne House through East Cowes to Trinity Wharf pier.
Queen Victoria’s coffin was placed on the Royal Yacht Alberta, which carried the coffin across The Solent to Gosport.
A suite of yachts followed Alberta conveying the new king, Edward VII, and other mourners.
Minute guns were fired by the assembled fleet as the yacht passed by.
Victoria’s body remained on board ship overnight before being conveyed by gun carriage to Gosport railway station the following day for the train journey to London.
The royal yacht Alberta at Trinity Wharf, East Cowes, Isle of Wight, where it was waiting for Queen Victoria’s coffin to arrive. Photo: Isle of Wight Archive/Stefan Wells.
Victoria broke convention by having a white-draped coffin. She also requested that there should be no public lying in state.
At Windsor, when the royal coffin was loaded atop the gun carriage for the procession and the horses took the weight, an eyelet hole on the gun carriage failed, breaking the hitch to the hearse. An attendant was ordered to haul the gun carriage with ropes instead, a disruption which subsequently became state funeral tradition.
Victoria’s funeral was held on February 2, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and she was interred beside Prince Albert in the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore at Windsor Great Park.
The County Press of February 2, 1901, reported that memorial services had been held all over the country following her death.
At the Isle of Wight’s royal church — St Mildred’s at Whippingham — the congregation included the new King and Queen Alexandra, as well as many other members of the royal family and the German Emperor.
The service at St Mildred’s included a sermon by the Bishop of Winchester, and there were services in dozens of other Isle of Wight churches, including St Thomas’s Church, Newport; All Saints at Ryde; Holy Trinity and St Mary’s in Cowes; St Catherine’s and Holy Trinity in Ventnor and churches in many other areas.
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