Victober: Prime minsters during Queen Victoria’s reign based upon Gimson’s Prime Minsters Part 2

#victober

There were so many prime ministers during Queen Victoria’s regiments I have split the list in two. To make it more confusi ng, several prime ministers had more than one spell as prime minister. All the comings and goings are detailed in Gimson’s book, which I have picked some highlights from in my posts about each pri.e minister, but there is lots more in the book! There is also a similar book about King’s and Queens by Gimson.

 

For part 1 see:

Victober: Prime minsters during Queen Victoria’s reign based upon Gimson’s Prime Minsters Part 1

The next prime ministers:

Gimson Prime Ministers: Robert Peel

Gimson’s Prime ministers: Lord John Russell

Gimson’s Prime Ministers: Earl of Derby

Gimson’s Prime Ministers: Earl of Derby

Gimson’s Prime Ministers: Earl of Abeerden

Gimson Prime Ministers: Lord Palmerston

Gimson’s Prime Minister’: Benjamin Disraeli

Gimson’s Prime Minister’s: William Gladstone

Gimson Prime Ministers: Marquess of Sailsbury

 

Gimson’s Prime Minister’s: William Gladstone

Lived 1809-1898

Prime minister 1868-74, 1880-1885, 1886 and 1892-94

Gladstone had 4 spells as Prime Minister, the last being when he was 82years old. Amongst his reforms, Gladstone introduced universal education up to the age of 13years.

Queen Victoria did not like the way he addressed her as if in a public meeting. She was not happy that her son the future King Edward VIII, was a pall bearers when Gladstone died from cancer, a year after he retired from his final spell as Prime Minister.

Gimson’s Prime Minister’: Benjamin Disraeli

Disraeli was born a Jew and became prime minister in 1868 this is remarkable because until 10 years before he became prime minister (1858), Jews could not become prime ministers under law. Strictly speaking aged 12 he was baptised in the Church of England. On some levels he was proud to be Jewish however, he had dropped the apostrophe from his name D’Israeli putting less emphasis on Israel. Before entering politics Disraeli was a lawyer and then attempted to run his own newspaper but, that folded.

Before, during and after; his time in politics he wrote novels. He became prime minster aged 64, when Derby retired in February 1868, six months later in November 1868, he lost the general election to Gladstone. He had time to write another novel before winning the 1874 election and returning as prime minister. He impressed Queen Victoria by buying a controlling share of Suez Canal and gained her the title of Empress of India. Queen Victoria regularly sent him flowers.

Disraeli lost the election of 1880 to Gladstone. Before his death the following year he was able to complete his final novel.

Victober: Frankenstein (no spoilers)

The novel Frankenstein was first published in 1818 therefore, this year it is 200years was old. It was written by a female author: Mary Shelly; therefore would fit the Victober challenge of a novel written by a female author.

Victober explained

Originally it was published anonymously. It is therefore interesting that exactly 100years later the first women got the vote. Mary Shelley’s was first named as author on the cover in 1823.

Like Dracula 🧛‍♂️ it is an epistolary novel. I have seen a theatre version of Frankenstein. I suspect it could be portrayed better than I saw, so I may watch again but, having not enjoyed Dracula 🧛‍♂️ do not think, I will ever to read. It is a Jekyll and Hyde type novel.

Frankenstein review

Dracula 🧛‍♂️ review

Victober: Dracula 🧛‍♂️ (no spoilers)

I think Dracula 🧛‍♂️ fulfills Katie’s challenges. It was published in 1897 and Dracula 🧛‍♂️ is an individual name.

Victober explained

• Kate: Read a Victorian book with a proper noun in the title
• Katie: Read a book that was published in the first ten years of the Victorian era and/or published in the last ten years of the Victorian era

My first impressions were good; it stayed as diary entries from one character (Jonathon) and created a creepy atmosphere. Unfortunately it did not maintain my interest once it, changed to a mixture of different character’s diaries and letter’s to and fro. For me this all made it tedious and it seemed very convoluted. Even the the plot on wilkpedia seems convulsed and too tedious to read.

I would not say don’t read, I can see some people may enjoy. The language is not too intimidating. If you like vampire 🧛‍♀️ stories it could be interesting because it is first of the genre. It is clever because of way written as a combination of documents like letters and diaries which is known as epistolary novel.

Gimson Prime Ministers: Lord Palmerston

Lived 1784-1865

Prime minister: 1855 – 58 and 1859 – 1865

He was the oldest first time prime minister ever at 70years old. He had been involved in politics since he was 22 years old, handling foreign affairs. Significantly his diplomacy led to the creation of Belgium 🇧🇪 in the 1830s.

He was not well liked by Queen Victoria or his colleagues. He was dismissed from foreign secretary by former prime minister John Russell but, he managed to oust Russell as prime minister. First Lord Derby had short spell as prime minster then Lord Aberdeen and Palmerston became Home Secretary. Lord Aberdeen’s spell as prime minister was cut short when he was ousted due to being held responsible for the Crimean war. With the situation in disarray Queen Victoria reluctantly allowed Palmerston to become prime minister.

Palmerston did resolve the Crimeran war and supported Florence Nightingale who has a place in history for the successes she had in terms of armies medical needs. Palmerston was briefly ousted in 1858 and Lord Derby returned, however Palmerston, swiftly returned a few months later in 1859. His popularity increased, in his 70s he retained remarkable energy cycling and climbing Arthur’s seat in Edinburgh for example. He managed to gain an increase majority in an election he called in 1865. However, within months of this after driving an open top carriage he caught a chill and died in October 1865, two days before his 85th birthday.

Victober: Prime minsters during Queen Victoria’s reign based upon Gimson’s Prime Minsters Part 1

Queen Victoria reigned from 1821 to 1901.    A long reign at a time when Prime Minsters regularly changed, therefore there Several were prime ministers during her reign. These were the first:

Gimson: Lord Liverpool

Gimson: George Canning

Gimson: Lord Goderich

Gimson: Duke of Wellington

Gimson: Earl Grey

Gimson: Lord Melbourne

Victober: Queen Victoria’s likely influence on Eugenie’s wedding

Firstly, Eugenie name relates to Victoria; Eugenie Victoria Helena. Queen Victoria named her oldest daughter, Victoria, in turn that Victoria named her eldest daughter Victoria Eugenie. Helena is the name of another one of Queen Victoria’s daughters.

Queen Victoria

Prince Andrew

When Eugenie marries on Friday she is likely to wear white, which is a tradition started by Queen Victoria, before her wedding brides wore yellow and blue. Queen Victoria insisted her daughter’s wore white.

Blue wedding dresses

Yellow wedding dresses

Eugenie is likely to include myrtle in her bridal bouquet, which represents love and including it was a tradition started by Queen Victoria. It was also included in Meghan’s bouquet.

Victober info

Victober: Alice in Wonderland

Have seen  short performances of Alice a couple of times and about 9 years ago the film though can not remember much about it.. Of course it permeates into general conscious with people talking about Eat me, drink me and mad hatters tea parties. I once went on jeep safari and I did not know t the time, that thew quote the girl opposite me had on her leg was from Alice “Your completely bonkers, but all the best people are’. Therefore, I for a few months I thought I should immerse myself in it more, but thought the book may be too wordy for me. I instead decided to try audio book.

When I did some research in advance of Victober, just after completing the audio book; I found Alice was written in Victorian times.

I’m pleased I did go for the audio book, I think I may have found the book too slow. What I got from the book, was it was basically Alice continually shrinking and growing. The audio book I got was 2 hours long. I chose Sheridian Smith as narrator, to me it sounded like she was using her ‘phone voice’ and I did not engage with the narration as much as I thought I would.

One factor, I felt naive about, in terms of Alice in Wonderland was how Tweedle Di and and Tweedle Dum fitted in. Audibles have e-mailed and apparently the book I listened to is just the first in the Alice series. Having googled I have found Tweedle di and Dum do not come in until later in the series in Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There. 

 Needless to say, I ‘m not in a rush to read or listen to more Alice, but I would watch other performances to Alice which can bring it to life.

Victober

I saw this post about Victober.

http://elainehowlin.com/2018/09/17/victober-tbr/

I’m too old to be that in to YouTube so sorry, not watched videos from founders.

When I was 7, I visited Queen Victoria’s holiday Home Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. It was my party piece that I could recite that, Queen Victoria had 9 children and 40 Grandchildren. Recently looking at royal family, I saw how they descended from Queen Victoria. Appropriately for Victober the royal bride 👰 of the month is Eugenie Victoria whereas one of Queen Victoria’s grandaughter’s was called Victoria Eugenia. Victoria Eugenie was Queen Victoria daughter Beatrice’s daughter. This months royal bride’s sister is Beatrice.

http://wonderwall360.blog/2018/05/07/queen-victoria/

Have you read Victorian literature for example Bronte, Dickens…? Any recommendations?