A Lasting Legacy

A major new digitisation project reveals Prince Albert was an early benefactor of photography. Amy Davies heads to Windsor Castle to discover more

- Amy Davies

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Prince Albert’s birth. For the 21 years of his marriage to Queen Victoria, he was instrumental in bringing in a number of reforms and arguably laid the foundations for the public’s relationship with the royal family as we know it today.

He famously worked tirelessly until his untimely death at the age of just 42 – a testament to his workaholic nature. Perhaps his crowning achievement was the Great Exhibition of 1851 which brought together more than 13,000 exhibits. This huge undertaking, co-organised with Henry Cole, attracted more than six million visitors – a third of the population of Britain at the time. What has been a little less known was his early interest and patronage of photography.

A project by Royal Collection Trust has undertaken the epic task of digitizing and archiving Prince Albert’s extensive collection of photographs, private letters, official papers, and prints. To date, more than 17,500 have been published on a new website, Prince Albert: His Life and Legacy. The collection sheds fresh light on Albert’s contribution as Queen Victoria’s unofficial Private Secretary, as well as acting as a guide and mentor to some of the greatest national projects of the day.

The substantial profit (thought to be more than £18 million in today’s currency) generated by the Great Exhibition was dedicated to the purchase of land in South Kensington, with the Royal Commission aiding the establishment of institutions such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Royal Albert Hall. Collectively known as ‘Albertopolis’, all of these institutions continue to exist and thrive even now.