Welcoming the future Queen

STEVE ROBERTS looks back at an eventful and tragic first holiday in Devon for the future Queen Victoria.

- STEVE ROBERTS

Bells were ringing and bands playing. It was a big thing, after all, when royalty came to stay. Sidmouth was all a flutter in December 1819 when the Duke and Duchess of Kent arrived with their entourage, which included their little daughter Victoria, who was sixth in line when she was born yet destined to be Queen. They actually arrived on Christmas Eve in the midst of a snowstorm. Edward, Duke of Kent (1767-1820), his wife, Victoria (or Victoire) of Saxe-Coburg, and the chubby little tot, settled down at Woolbrook Cottage, which is today the Royal Glen Hotel. It had once been incongruously King’s Cottage, named from a Mr King who had gentrified it back in the 1770s. Apparently, it was hard to keep warm.

Having been born in May 1819, little Alexandrina Victoria was only seven months old when she arrived in Devon: Victoria’s first holiday. There was a nurse, of course, who took her out to ‘take the air’. There was a groom too, to make ‘arrangements’. Overseeing everything was Capt John Conroy, the Duke’s chief administrator, a former Army officer.