ABSTRACT
A hundred years ago, between June 19th and 24th, 1897, Britain and the British Empire celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne. The Diamond Jubilee celebrations were chiefly staged in order to affirm the achievements of the British people and to glorify the British Empire. Commenting on the Diamond Jubilee, The Times wrote that History may be searched, and searched in vain, to discover so wonderful an exhibition of allegiance and brotherhood among so many myriads of men. Rudyard Kipling had been passed over for the post of Poet Laureate shortly after the formation of Lord Salisbury's Conservative and Unionist government in the summer of 1895. The wheels of Anglo-American co-operation and collaboration were oiled by the surprisingly substantial level of social interaction between leading British and American families. The most obvious example of this lay in the marriages contracted between high-profile British men and American women many of them from wealthy US families.
