VICTORIA AND REGINA
(For the Mother of Confederation)
There are more Canadian cities, streets, neighbourhoods, landmarks, and natural features named after Queen Victoria (who reigned from 1837 to 1901) than any other royal personage. Queen Victoria’s birthday, May 24, was celebrated as a holiday in the Province of Canada from 1845 and continued to be a holiday after her death in 1901 to honour her role as the Mother of Confederation.
Victoria never visited Canada herself, but all four of her sons and her daughter Princess Louise (who changed the name of Pile of Bones to Regina to honour her mother) spent time here. In 1843, the Hudson’s Bay Company named a fort on Vancouver Island for the queen. The town of Victoria was founded in 1851–52, becoming the capital of British Columbia in 1868.
Victoria was closely involved in the development of Canada over the course of her sixty-three-year reign. She became queen in 1837, succeeding her uncle, William IV — for whom the Arctic’s King William Island is named. Just months after William’s death, rebellions broke out in Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Amnesties were granted to rebels in honour of Victoria’s coronation the following year.
Victoria met with John A. Macdonald and other Fathers of Confederation in London, and their shared loyalty to the Crown helped to bring the provinces together. The queen also selected Ottawa as Canada’s capital, as it was on the border between English and French Canada and located a safe distance from the American border.
In addition to her political influence, Queen Victoria had a profound cultural impact. White wedding dresses became the norm when she wore one to marry Prince Albert in 1840. She also popularized family Christmas celebrations, seaside vacations, and childbirth anaesthesia (she requested the newly invented chloroform for the births of the two youngest of her nine children).
Author Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote, “When I was a child and young girl the Victoria myth was in full flower. We were brought up to believe that ‘the queen’ … was a model for all girls, brides, wives, mothers, and queens to follow. In those days every home boasted a framed picture of the queen — a luridly coloured photo sent out as a ‘supplement’ by a popular weekly.”
There are at least ten statues of Victoria standing in prominent places throughout Canada, including one at McGill University, that was sculpted by her daughter Louise.