Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household

408 Pages·2013·3.54 MB·English

by  Kate Hubbard

Dedication
For my parents
Contents
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1: ‘A queen is a very happy woman’
1: Windsor 1838
2: A Scandal and a Crisis
3: ‘Love rules the court’
4: Sarah Lyttelton: Superintendent of the Nursery
5: Charlotte Canning: Lady of the Bedchamber
6: ‘Gone afloat’
7: Osborne
8: In the Highlands
9: ‘The object of Education’
10: Departures
11: Mary Ponsonby: Maid-of-Honour
12: Glimpses of Abroad
13: Three Deaths
Part 2: ‘My heart is utterly and completely broken’
14: ‘Someone to lean on’
15: Henry Ponsonby: Private Secretary
16: Balmorality
17: Eastern Questions and Domestic Affairs
18: James Reid: Resident Medical Attendant
19: Randall Davidson: Dean of Windsor
20: Spring Holidays
21: Household Bothers
22: The Year of the Munshi
23: Accommodating Bipps
24: ‘A last look’
Postscript: After Victoria
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Photo Section
About the Author
Also by Kate Hubbard
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Illustrations
Illustrations in the text:
All illustrations in the text come from the Reid family archive, unless otherwise
stated.
Menu for household dinner, Windsor
Osborne House (Getty Images)
The ladies’ drawing room, Osborne (Bridgeman)
Balmoral Castle (Getty Images)
Queen’s note to James Reid, Balmoral, 1881
Timetable for Her Majesty’s train, travelling from Windsor to Ballater
Arrangement of carriages for Her Majesty’s Train
The household cycling brigade, December 1895
Menu for household dinner, Osborne
Picture section 1:
All pictures in this section come from The Royal Collection © 2012 Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II, unless otherwise stated.
Victoria and Albert, 1854
Sarah Lyttelton, 1860
A young Queen Victoria with her ladies; Mary Bulteel and Jane Ely
Charlotte Canning and Mary Bulteel, both taken at Osborne, August 1853
Watercolour by Charlotte Canning of the Queen’s arrival at the Chateau d’Eu in
Normandy
Sir James Clark, physician-in-ordinary (Reid family archive); Miss Marianne
Skerrett, Queen’s dresser; Lily Wellesley; Eleanor Stanley, maid-of-honour
Colonel Henry Ponsonby, equerry to Prince Albert, and Mary Bulteel, maid-of-
honour (Ponsonby family archive)
Charlotte Canning at court, maid-of-honour, 1855; Charlotte Canning in
Calcutta, 1861 (© British Library)
Picture section 2:
All pictures in this section come from the Reid family archive, unless otherwise
stated.
The household in 1885 at Balmoral and in 1888 at Osborne
Sir Thomas Biddulph, master of the household then keeper of the privy purse
(The Royal Collection © 2012 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II); Augusta
Stanley and Lady Jane Churchill, both ladies of the bedchamber; Sir Charles
Phipps, private secretary to Prince Albert (The Royal Collection © 2012 Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)
The Munshi with Queen Victoria, October 1897; John Brown with the Queen’s
dogs, 1860s (NPG Images)
James Reid, physician-in-ordinary and Susan Baring, maid-of-honour, newly
engaged
Randall Davidson, Dean of Westminster (© Lambeth Palace Library)
The Queen of Sheba, a tableau vivant performed on Twelfth Night, 1888; a
household mime from 1885
Queen Victoria at Osborne with her family, 1898 (Getty Images); Royal dressers
and servants
Queen Victoria and Princess Beatrice, 1882
Acknowledgements
This book could not have been written without the help and generosity of a
number of people who made private archives available to me. I owe a great debt
of gratitude to Sir Alexander and Lady Reid, not just for letting me pore over the
many albums containing James Reid’s letters, diaries and photographs, but for
all their kindness and hospitality on several occasions. Michaela Reid’s own
book on Sir James has been an invaluable resource.
Similarly, I am extremely grateful to Laura Ponsonby and Catherine and Ian
Russell, for allowing me access to the Ponsonby papers at Shulbrede Priory and
for their interest and support throughout. I would also like to thank Lord
Cobham, for allowing me to read and quote from Sarah Lyttelton’s letters at
Hagley Hall, and the Earl and Countess of Harewood, for letting me quote from
Charlotte Canning’s letters and journals at Harewood House. Material from the
Royal Archives at Windsor and extracts from letters from Queen Victoria are
quoted by gracious permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Many thanks
to Pam Clark and her staff at the Royal Archives for all their time and patience,
to Sophie Gordon, Curator of Photographs at Windsor, to Lisa Heighway, who
showed me many wonderful photographs from the Royal Collection, to Kate
Heard, Curator of Prints and Drawings, and to Daniel Bell. Also thanks to the
staff at the British Library, the London Library, Lambeth Palace Library and
Leeds City Library.
For permission to reproduce photographs and other illustrations I am very
grateful to those individuals and institutions credited in the list of illustrations. I
would like to thank Michael Hunter, Curator at Osborne House, for answering
questions about Osborne and showing me around the Household Wing, Sir Hugh
Roberts, for helping me with queries about Windsor Castle and pointing me
towards the Windsor inventory, and A. N. Wilson for suggesting the novels of
Charlotte M. Yonge as a way of understanding what it meant to be High Church
in nineteenth-century England. For help in various ways, thanks to Randal
Dunluce, Margaret and Pat Lloyd, Paul Quarrie, Anna Robinson, Desmond
Shawe-Taylor and Giles Waterfield. Claudia FitzHerbert read an early draft and
Victoria Millar a later one (whilst jiggling her new baby); their comments and
suggested revisions have made this a better book. My thanks to them and to all
the friends and family who have offered advice, encouragement and good cheer
along the way, including Lucy Baring, David and Emma Craigie, Phil Eade,
Alexa de Ferranti, Jason Goodwin, Ed and Nicole Hubbard, John and Caryl
Hubbard, Flora McDonnell, Rebecca Nicolson, Adam Nicolson, Kate
O’Sullivan, John Paul Rathbone, Ben and Harriet Rogers, Sarah Raven,
Sweetpea Slight, Denise Stephenson and David and Janie Worthington. Finally,
many thanks to my agent Georgia Garrett and to all at Chatto & Windus, most
particularly my editors, Jenny Uglow, who provided bolstering at crucial
moments and much wise advice, and Juliet Brooke, who guided the book
through its final stages so expertly.