Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria (r. 1837–1901) was the longest-reigning British monarch until Elizabeth II, and the figurehead of the Victorian era — a period of extraordinary industrial, scientific, cultural, and imperial achievement that made Britain the world's dominant power.

Victoria's reign coincided with the height of British power. The Industrial Revolution made Britain the 'workshop of the world.' The British Empire expanded to cover a quarter of the globe. The Victorian era produced Darwin, Dickens, the Pre-Raphaelites, the Crystal Palace, and the London Underground. Britain's naval dominance maintained a 'Pax Britannica' that kept European peace for most of the century.

But the Victorian era was also a period of deep social problems — urban poverty, child labor, disease, and inequality that reformers slowly addressed through factory acts, public health measures, education reform, and the gradual extension of voting rights. Victoria herself, though politically astute and opinionated, was a constitutional monarch whose real power was limited. Her personal influence lay in setting social standards and representing an ideal of stability and propriety that gave the era its distinctive character.