Prince Albert

Biography

Albert was born in 1819 at Schloss Rosenau near Coburg, the younger son of Duke Ernest I of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Educated privately and in Brussels, he studied law, political economy, philosophy and art history at the University of Bonn. He married his first cousin Queen Victoria on 10 February 1840, and they had nine children.

At first given no formal power, Albert became the queen's closest adviser, managed the royal household and estates, and encouraged a less partisan monarchy. He championed education, science and the arts: he chaired the royal commission on decorating the rebuilt Palace of Westminster, was elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 1847 and pressed for a broader curriculum, and as president of the Society of Arts and of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition drove the Great Exhibition of 1851 to success. Victoria granted him the title Prince Consort in 1857.

In his final weeks, though already seriously ill, he softened the British government's demands to the United States during the Trent Affair, helping to avert war. He died at Windsor Castle on 14 December 1861, aged 42, of what was then diagnosed as typhoid fever, and Victoria wore mourning for the rest of her life.