Her reign of 63 years and days is known as the Victorian era and was longer than any of her predecessors. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.
In , the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in , she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller , John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constitutional monarch , attempted privately to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.
Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe ". After Albert's death in , Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered.
Her Golden and Diamond jubilees were times of public celebration. Victoria died in at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight , at the age of Charlotte's death in precipitated a succession crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent and his unmarried brothers to marry and have children.
Her brother Leopold was Princess Charlotte's widower and later the first king of Belgium. The Duke and Duchess of Kent's only child, Victoria was born at a. Additional names proposed by her parentsβGeorgina or Georgiana , Charlotte, and Augustaβwere dropped on the instructions of Kent's eldest brother, the Prince Regent.
