Franz Albrecht August Karl Emmanuel (Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1819 - 1861)

Born 26 Aug 1819 in Schloss Rosenau, Coburg, Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld, Deutscher Bund

Ancestors

Husband of Alexandrina Victoria Hanover — married 10 Feb 1840 in St James's Palace, Westminster, Middlesex, England

Descendants

Died 14 Dec 1861 at age 42 in Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom

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Biography

Albert (Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) Saxe-Coburg-Gotha is Notable.

Albert (Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was a part of the Abolitionist Movement.

Albert (Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) Saxe-Coburg-Gotha is a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Albert Francis Augustus Charles Emmanuel, Prince Consort Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Born 26 August 1819. Schloss Rosenau, Coburg, Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Germany. His future wife was born in England, but they were both delivered by the same midwife, Charlotte von Siebold. He was baptised on 19 September 1819 into the Lutheran Evangelical Church in the Marble Hall at Schloss Rosenau.

Albert was educated at home, later studying in Brussels. Albert read law, political economy, philosophy, and the history of art at Bonn University.

Prince Albert

Albert met Victoria, his first cousin, in 1836. Her diary describes him:

"He is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large & blue & he has a beautiful nose & a very sweet mouth with fine teeth." ^[1]

Rules meant that he could not propose to The Queen, so she proposed to him instead. Albert was naturalised (naming him as 'Serene Highness') ^[2] and later named 'Royal Highness'. He married Queen Victoria on 10 February 1840 at the Chapel Royal, St James's. ^[3] and became Prince Regent in case Victoria died, leaving only a child. The couple had nine children in seventeen years: Victoria 1840, Albert (Bertie) 1841, Alice 1843, Alfred 1844, Helena 1846, Louise 1848, Arthur 1850, Leopold 1853, and Beatrice 1857.

Albert, Victoria, and their nine children

Albert on 1841 census - separate freespace page

Prince Albert in 1848

However, Albert was not 'just a pretty face'. He supported educational reform and the abolition of slavery, becoming the President of the Society for the Extinction of Slavery as well as the President of the Society for the Improvement of the Condition of the Labouring Classes. When Sir Robert Peel was elected as Prime Minister, Albert became chairman of the Royal Commission in charge of redecorating the new Palace of Westminster. He reorganised the royal finances, improved the income of the Duchy of Cornwall, set up a model farm at Windsor, and greatly improved other estates and their farms. He became more involved in matters dealt with by the queen. In 1844, Albert purchased Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, and in 1848, he leased the castle at Balmoral, which provided a high degree of privacy for the royal family.

Crystal Palace from the northeast

Albert was heavily involved in the creation and advertising of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (its full name being the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations). He was president of the Society of Arts (from which the Great Exhibition grew), and became President of the Royal Commission which directed it. Opponents of the Exhibition maintained that it would encourage 'foreign rogues and revolutionists'. However, the Exhibition went ahead, housed in the specifically-built Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton and opened by Queen Victoria. The Exhibition was wildly successful. Six million people visited the Great Exhibition during the May to October that it was open, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, and William Makepeace Thackeray. Outbuildings such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum, and the Natural History Museum were built next to the Crystal Palace on land purchased by an excess of money produced by visitors to the Exhibition and nicknamed 'Albertopolis'.

Albert on 1851 census - separate freespace page

Balmoral Castle

In 1852, Albert purchased the freehold of Balmoral which he had previously leased and now improved. His regime of improvements continued after the death of the Duke of Wellington in September 1852 - this time, he improved and modernised the Army. This included Albert's 'master plan' of 1854 to win the Crimean War, which began in 1853.

Albert continued to encourage the improvement of education and technological progress. He gave speeches as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and (unsuccessfully) recommended Charles Darwin for a knighthood.

Albert was at heart a family man. He was described as being 'kind and patient' with the children - although he caned the young Prince of Wales when he failed at his lessons - and was happy to play games with them.

Albert on 1861 census - separate freespace page

Prince Albert in 1859

In 1859, Albert began having serious stomach cramps. Some biographers have later stated that this may have been the beginning of Crohn's Disease, which may have contributed to his future death. Despite this, when Victoria was distraught at the death of her mother, Albert took over many of her royal duties.

Albert's health worsened, and this was compounded by the stress caused by the Prince of Wales, who had become involved with an actress. On 9 December, Albert was diagnosed with typhoid fever, which had killed two of his cousins only a month previously.

He began having pains in his back and legs after a visit to the Prince of Wales in Cambridge.

"On Saturday night, the 14th instant, at ten minutes before 11 o'clock, his Royal Highness the Prince Consort departed this life, at Windsor Castle, to the inexpressible grief of her Majesty and of all the Royal Family.
The Queen, his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, their Royal Highnesses the Princess Alice and the Prince Helena, and their Serene Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Leiningen, w[h]ere all present when his Royal Highness expired.
The death of this illustrious Prince will be deeply mourned by all her Majesty's faithful and attached subjects as an irreparable loss to her Majesty, the Royal Family, and the nation."
London Gazette, Whitehall, 15th December 1861, quoted in The Western Times ^[4]

Albert's body was kept in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle until it was moved to the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore, Home Park, Windsor, Berkshire. When Queen Victoria died, she was laid there too. Although he had asked for 'no effigies', many statues of him were erected around the country. Biographies were published (one particular one in five volumes)

Queen Victoria never recovered from Albert's death, and wore mourning black for the rest of her life. She had had a plaster cast of his hand made, and when she died in 1901, it was one of the items buried with her in her coffin, as she requested.

Sources

1. ↑ Victoria's Diary, First Impressions
2. ↑ Serene Highness:London Gazette
3. ↑ Marriage: London Gazette
4. ↑ "British Newspaper Archives, Obituaries," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q269-4G5K : 26 October 2019), Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel Duke Of Saxony or Prince Of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, Royal Higness The Prince Cosort, 21 Dec 1861; citing Obituary, Exeter, Devon, England, United Kingdom, page , Records extracted by FindMyPast and images digitized by FamilySearch. The British Library, London; FHL microfilm 102,001,279.

See also:

• Wikipedia: Albert, Prince Consort
• Eilers, Marlene A.. Queen Victoria's Descendants. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987.
• Weir, Alison. Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy. London, U.K.: The Bodley Head, 1999
• Surname DNA Journal Y-DNA of the British Monarchy A review on the occasion of the birth of the Prince of Cambridge
• The Peerage Albert Prinz von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha
• Acta Oeconomica Pragensia Česku Distant patron: Prince Albert and the Development of the Coburg-Gotha Economy (pdf)
• Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on Find A Grave: Memorial #1441 Retrieved 4 sep 2016.
• Wikidata: Item Q152245, en:Wikipedia