Royal Representations by Margaret Homans

Author:Margaret Homans [Homans, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe, Great Britain
ISBN: 9780226351155
Google: f08VBwAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2015-03-10T01:42:05+00:00

4

QUEEN VICTORIA’S MEMORIAL ARTS

Albert Memorials

In the morning of the day in May 1867 when John Stuart Mill, MP for Westminster, moved that the word “person” be substituted for “man” in the language of the Reform Bill, so as to enfranchise single women, Queen Victoria made one of her rare public appearances of the 1860s to lay the foundation stone for the Royal Albert Hall. Although I have been emphasizing the scarcity of her appearances during this period and her effort to substitute for them written self-representations, Victoria did make exceptions for one kind of public ceremonial: unveiling or dedicating statues and other memorials of Albert.1 Her books were also intended as memorials, a purpose that, as we have seen, reviewers tended to downplay, finding greater interest in the books’ representations of the Queen herself. “While she tried to raise a monument to the Prince Consort, [she] added a stalwart buttress to her own throne,” writes Charles Kingsley in his review of Leaves (Fraser’s 77 [February 1868]:154). Just so, public appearances intended to memorialize Albert were of interest to the public instead as opportunities to see her. Her speech at the building site of the Royal Albert Hall—where 7,000 elite ticket holders had packed into the tent to see her—captures this tension:

It has been with a struggle that I nerved myself to a compliance with the wish that I should take part in this day’s ceremony; but I have been sustained by the thought that I should assist by my presence in promoting the accomplishment of his great designs to whose memory the gratitude and affection of the country is now rearing a noble monument. (Times, 21 May 1867)

The speech (made “in so low a tone of voice as to be scarcely audible”), as much about herself as about Albert, ends with a performative: “It is my wish that this hall should bear his name to whom it will have owed its existence, and be called The Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences.’” Acting out her love for Albert, she also and perhaps more saliently displays her unique powers and status as Queen, whose “presence” and whispered words can cause a building to rise and acquire a name. In addition to laying the foundation stone for the Royal Albert Hall, the Queen was “present at” the unveiling of a statue in Aberdeen in October 1863, “inaugurat[ed]” a statue in Wolverhampton in November 1866, “inspect[ed]” on 9 June 1863 a statue inaugurated the day before by the Prince of Wales, was “present at” the unveiling of a statue at Perth in August 1864 (a “trying and overpowering” event according to her journal), and traveled to Coburg in August 1865 to unveil a statue (a copy of which was sent to Sydney).2 In the virtually empty calendar of her public appearances during these years, these loom large.

On 20 May 1867, while others were seeking the parliamentary representation of women (which she consistently opposed as “mad and utterly demoralising”),3 she represented herself by representing Albert.

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