Have anecdotes turned into fact regarding Queen Victoria's early life?

[Graye]

I am researching whether Queen Victoria (or Princess Victoria in the first instance) ever visited Whitby in North Yorkshire. I know she had a penchant for Whitby jet jewellery but at the moment I can find no genuine evidence of her visiting.

The local Museum said she visited in 1834/35 with her mother and climbed the newly erected West Pier lighthouse. If the dates are right she would have travelled by coach as the railway did not arrive until 1836. The nearest I can see her in Yorkshire during that period was at Harewood House, at least 70 miles further south. They appear to have no evidence of this visit and it is made as a small comment alongside a displayed cotton nightdress embroidered with VR (by the size of it from a much later period anyway, assuming it was genuinely hers)

The second visit was said to be to Mulgrave Castle (just outside Whitby at Sandsend and the home of the Marquis of Normanby) at the time the house was rented by the Government for the exiled Sikh Maharajah, Duleep Singh. He lived there in the 1850s. Again I can see no evidence, although I know they met in London and the Isle of Wight and he became her protegé.

Is there some sort of Court Circular equivalent for that time? How would I access that?

 

[Queen Claude]

Was the future Queen Victoria referred to as Princess Victoria when she was a child? She was named Alexandrina Victoria at birth and was nicknamed Drina.

 

[Curryong]

She would have been Princess Victoria of Kent I guess, as her father was the Duke of Kent and all the other legitimate grandchildren of King George III, such as the Cambridges, were Princes/Princesses.

As for the mini tours of England that were insisted on by Victoria’s mother in the early 1830s, I have read of a very well-publicised one to the Black Country near Stoke on Trent, but not one specifically to Whitby in Yorkshire. I guess myths and legends grow out of nothing in nearly 200 years. With the nightgown it’s akin to all the hats and shoes and other bits and pieces supposedly belonging to long dead famous people.

 

[Alison H]

She was known as Drina within the family, when she was a child, but her mother also called her Vickelchen.

Whitby jet jewellery - which is very nice, I have a pair of earrings which I bought there! - became fashionable because black jewellery could be worn whilst in mourning. As Queen Victoria always wore black after being widowed, she unintentionally gave the Whitby jewellery industry a major boost. So I suppose the museum's keen to promote a link between Victoria and the town, but I'm not sure whether she actually went there. It's not the easiest of places to get to, even now!

 

[MARG]

I believe she was baptised Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent, and her mother and close family called her "Drina" (poor thing). One of the first things she did while still in her nightdress and wrap was to inform her mother that she would meet the envoys alone and the second, on that very first day of her reign, was to have the official documents amended to reflect her preference to be known as Queen "Victoria" henceforth.

To quote her personal diary:
"I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma, who told me the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen."[32] Official documents prepared on the first day of her reign described her as Alexandrina Victoria, but the first name was withdrawn at her own wish and not used again.

To quote her diary: