XPost: alt.talk.royalty, soc.culture.british, alt.society.monarchy
From: doctor@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca
In article ,
Louis Epstein wrote:
>The Queen turns 93 today.
>
>Two days ago Prince Philip became the longest-lived of all
>descendants of Queen Victoria.
>
>The midpoint of the current reign has now moved within two days
>of the first birthday of the Duke of Sussex,whose mother reached
>her teens at the current end of the first third of the reign
>(only about the last nine months of her life remain in the final
>third).
>
>The reference date in the ever-updated file below has now moved
>back before the 10th birthday of Winston Churchill.
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>Consider,if you would,the United Kingdom and Empire
>as they were on November 28th 1884.
>
>Queen Victoria,over 5 months from 66,was on the throne;
>her Golden Jubilee would be in the third year following,her
>Diamond Jubilee ten years after that.The future Edward VII was under
>3 weeks past 43 (the current Prince of Wales is over 5 months past 70),
>the future George V was over 6 months from 20(the Duke of Cambridge is
>only 2 months from 37--George V was Prince of Wales at his age),not yet
>Duke of York,and not yet heir apparent to his father;nor was his elder
>brother (who had over seven years to live) yet 21.
>The future Archbishops of Canterbury who would crown these Kings were
>Bishop of Exeter and Dean of Windsor respectively.The oldest
>British royal was George III's daughter-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge
>(Augusta of Hesse-Cassel),born 1797.
>
>The Church of England dioceses of Birmingham,Coventry,Chelmsford,Derby,
>Guildford,Portsmouth,St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich,Sheffield,and Southwark
>did not yet exist...nor did those of Bradford and Wakefield (now
>abolished).That of Southwell was more than 2 months short of a year old.
>
>Macdonald,Baldwin,and Chamberlain were teenagers,Churchill was nine,
>Attlee was not yet two years old,and no later Prime Minister had yet been
>born (nor had any person in the world alive after 1999).
>Keir Hardie,who years later would found the original Scottish
>Labour Party,then the Independent Labour Party,and then the Labour
>Party proper,was still in his twenties and had never been an MP.
>
>William Gladstone (born 1809) was the only living person who had been
>Prime Minister (years younger than his predecessors).His government
>had passed (but not yet received Royal Assent for) the Representation of
>the People Act 1884(which would for the first time enable most men to
>vote) and was pursuing passage of the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885
>(which would establish the norm of single-member constituencies) but
>these had yet to actually come into effect with the following election.
>Women would not vote in a General Election for over thirty-three years.
>Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot(born 1803),Father of the House of Commons,
>had been a member since 1830...before any of the Reform Bills.(Charles
>James Mahon,born 1800,had been a member discontinuously since then).
>Lord Coleridge (born 1820) was Lord Chief Justice,and had been
>the last Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (a position abolished
>by the Judicature Act of 1873).The 1st Lord Esher(born 1815 or 1817,
>sources disagree) was Master of the Rolls.
>
>Many of the Colonies had yet to be colonized,Hong Kong was over a
>decade from adding the New Territories.
>
>Battleships that would be scrapped as obsolete years before World War I
>had yet to be laid down,nor had HMS Victoria,which would sink in an
>1893 collision with the ironclad HMS Camperdown(at this point not yet
>launched).Ships built with sailing rigs were still in the active fleet,
>some with wooden hulls were still performing reserve and training functions,
>and it was years before HMS Temeraire would make port under sail alone
>for the final time.
>
>The Admirals of the Fleet included Sir George Sartorius(born
>1790,a commander in 1812 and post-captain in 1814),and
>Sir Provo Wallis (born 1791,a lieutenant 1808,and commander 1813);
>Sartorius had been a midshipman on HMS Tonnant at Trafalgar in 1805
>nearly 9 years before Francis Scott Key's visit to that ship led to
>"The Star-Spangled Banner" being written,witnessed the surrender of
>Napoleon,commanded a fleet in the Portugese Civil War of the 1830s,
>and risen through the admiral ranks starting in 1849;Wallis had
>taken temporary command of HMS Shannon when it captured USS
>Chesapeake in 1813.
>The 1st Baron Strathnairn(born 1801) and Sir Patrick Grant(born 1804)
>were Field Marshals,while Sir Richard Dacres(born 1799) and the 3rd
>Earl of Lucan(born 1800,a lieutenant colonel 1826),who had ordered the
>Charge of the Light Brigade,had yet to receive promotion to that rank.
>
>The eldest Dukes included the 6th of Northumberland(b. 1810,
>great-great-great-grandfather of the 11th and the current 12th Duke)
>the 7th of Devonshire(b. 1808,great-great-great-grandfather of the
>present 12th duke born 1944,he had first become an MP in 1829 and
>a peer in 1834),the 12th of Somerset(b. 1804,second cousin of the
>great-great-great-grandfather of the current 19th Duke),and the 4th
>(and last) of Cleveland (born 1803).
>The 1st Duke of Abercorn,so created in 1868,had succeeded to the
>Marquessate thereof in 1818 and been a Knight of the Garter since 1844.
>The 4th Marquess of Donegall (born 1799) was alive and had succeeded
>his elder brother less than a year and a half before(the present
>peer is the great-great-great-grandson of his first cousin).
>The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury(born 1801,an MP from 1826,great-
>great-great-grandfather of the present peer and his predecessor) and
>3rd Earl Grey (born 1802,elder brother of the great-great-grandfather
>of the septuagenarian present peer and of his predecessor) were among
>the Knights of the Garter.
>The 1st Earl of Lovelace (born 1805) was still alive,a Lord-Lieutenant
>since 1840.
>The 3rd and 4th Earl of Mansfield and Mansfield(born 1806)
>had been a Knight of the Thistle since 1843,and had been an MP
>from 1830 to 1840,with a spell in Government 1834-5.
>Also among the Earls were the 6th Earl of Essex(born 1803),
>and the 6th of Albemarle,born 1799,a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo.
>The eldest of Earls were the 6th Earl of Buckinghamshire,
>born 1793,and the 2nd of Stradbroke,born 1794,
>commissioned in the Army in 1810,a Lieutenant 1814,
>who missed Waterloo on account of a wound.
>The 9th Viscount of Arbuthnott(born 1806) was alive,the
>current peer is the 17th.
>The 1st Viscount Portman (born 1799,first elected MP in 1823) was
>alive,the present peer is the 10th.
>The oldest Viscount,however,was the 1st and last of Eversley,born in 1794
>and Speaker of the House of Commons 1839-57.
>The senior Viscount was the 2nd Frankfort de Montmorency,
[continued in next message]
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