ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the early reign of Queen Victoria while her husband Prince Albert was alive. It was an era when a developing news media began to cover royal events more extensively, often with illustrations. The royal couple influenced public taste through the events they took part in and presided over, which also contributed to their image as a devoted and family-centred couple – the antithesis of Victoria’s dissolute and mostly childless uncles. Queen Victoria set the trend for the white wedding dress, and together with Prince Albert, she played a part in the nineteenth-century rage for tartan, with their patronage of Highland games and hosting of Highland dances. They were instrumental in the medieval revival, epitomised by the royal couple taking centre stage at a medieval-themed costume ball in 1842. Prince Albert’s involvement with the successful Great Exhibition of 1851 paved the way for a plethora of world’s fairs, expos and international exhibitions, which eventually spanned the globe. Victoria and Albert popularised the Christmas tree as well as the revival of Christmas itself as an important familial and societal ritual.
