Queen Victoria was in good spirits on New Year's Day, 1901. By January 19th, however, a notice in the Court Circular declared that she was not in her usual health, and was unable to take her daily outings at Osborne or attend to any business of State.
According to her biographer, E.F. Benson, "For three days more she lingered, faintly conscious at intervals, but her long day's work was done and without a sigh she slipped from her the splendid burden of Empire which she had borne for so long, and the wearisome shackles of mortality." It was 100 years ago today, January 22nd, 1901.
Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Kent, had been born at Kensington Palace in 1819. She succeeded her uncle, William IV, in 1837 and occupied the throne for more than 60 years.
But was the queen at all amused by meteorology? Well, there are frequent references to weather in her most celebrated work, Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands. On September 28th, 1861, for example, she "looked out very anxiously," and saw "a doubtful morning, but gleams of sunshine later came bursting through the mist."
Sometimes it was even better, if not a little much too much. At Balmoral in 1876, for instance, "the heat was overpowering and the sun burning." And her description of Edinburgh in the mist and rain, while not suggestive of unbearable excitement, has at least about it something of the ring of truth:
"We arrived in the city early yesterday at eight o'clock. Unfortunately the weather was misty, and even a little rain fell and no distance could be seen. At eleven o'clock, we went out and sat till half-past twelve, under an umbrella and with screens, on the side of the Abbey facing Arthur's Seat."
More convincing evidence of a royal interest in meteorology is contained in a letter from Balmoral to Alexander Buchan, secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society, in May 1879: "Her Majesty has information from someone in America that atmospheric and other meteorological observations suggest that a short period of darkness, to be succeeded by intense heat, is imminent. She wishes to have information from meteorological observers in this country if they have heard anything of this."
But perhaps Queen Victoria's most lasting legacy to meteorology was to anoint the British Meteorological Society. By her gracious permission in 1883, the organisation was accorded the designation "royal", and has been known as the Royal Meteorological Society ever since.