The Victorian age shaped modern Britain
and all over the country one man left his mark.
He was the architect of the Victorian era.
He was the man who really created the Victorian world
as we understand it.
He was a visionary and he would imagine things
and then make them happen.
From architecture,
to education,
to living conditions,
Prince Albert was an innovator and an idealist.
He had this great reforming impulse.
I think he had this great civic impulse.
He was, on a human level, sticking up for the poor
in a way that very few public figures were.
Yet, during his lifetime, Albert's ambitions were often thwarted.
He was loathed by the Royal household.
He was hated by the court.
They make sausage jokes, they make bratwurst jokes,
they make pretzel jokes.
They didn't want to trouble-maker.
They wanted Albert simply to be a court flunky.
I'm Saul David, a writer and historian.
I've been given remarkable access to the Royal Archives...
So, that was the template?
Absolutely, yes. I mean, it's astonishing.
..where Albert's personal letters...
It's a sort of cry for help really, isn't it? Yes, absolutely.
..and intimate photographs...
Wow!
..help us understand his struggles and his achievements in more detail
than ever before.
Victoria in a way is the least Victorian of people.
It is Albert who is the true Victorian.
They revealed the genius of the man I believe was King in all but name.
Windsor Castle has been a Royal residence for nearly 1,000 years.
At its heart stands the great round tower,
home to the Royal Archives and photographs collection.
Hello, welcome to the print room. Wow! Yes, isn't it?
This space holds the most complete collection of documents and pictures
relating to Albert's life.
Now, as part of a massive digitisation project,
over 20,000 personal letters, diaries and photographs
will soon become available online to scholars and the general public.
This remarkable photograph looks as if it was taken yesterday.
Curator Catlin Langford begins by showing me a rare object
that sums up Prince Albert's unique vision and what he stood for.
The detail is absolutely extraordinary.
This was taken in 1848, so he time Prince Albert was about
28, 29 - in his prime, effectively.
This is at a time when photography had only just been invented,
black and white, obviously.
There's already colours so how did they manage to do that?
It's created by sort of adding very fine coloured pigments
to the surface of the work.
It sort of combined all of his loves - his love of art,
his love of science, love of technology and it creates
this amazing unique visual product.
And interestingly, of course, at a time when some people
would have been suspicious of this medium,
he embraces it immediately, doesn't he?
It's like, "This is new". Yes, he completely embraces it.
I think the photograph shows Albert how he wished to be viewed,
as, sort of, he's looking ahead, he's looking towards the future.
While Albert would carve out a role as a leader in British society,
he first arrived in England as a teenager
from a minor German principality.
Albert had been promised to Queen Victoria as the husband
when he was a baby. It was all arranged.
Albert's grandmother, the Duchess Augusta, is absolutely thrilled,
because she immediately has this plan that Albert
should marry his little first cousin, the Queen of England,
and this will be his destiny.
It's the biggest career opportunity he will ever
have is to marry Victoria.
Luckily, Victoria was delighted by the prospect of marrying Albert.
He's described somewhere as the most handsome prince in Europe
and you can tell from Victoria's diaries that she takes one look at
him and she's absolutely bowled over by him.
Albert turns up in the hall at Windsor Castle
and Queen Victoria comes to the head of the staircase
and she's absolutely smitten.
She says she sees Albert and, "He is beautiful" - underlined.
There's this wonderful diary entry where she says, you know,
"I arrived with my dearest Albert, he was wearing white cashmere
"pantaloons - nothing underneath!"
The wedding took place in St James's Palace in February 1840.
Their love for each other was clear.
What's less well known is the home sickness that Albert felt
when he came to England.
The manager of the Royal Archives Bill Stockting is showing me one
of Albert's earliest letters, recording the young prince's sadness
at leaving Germany.
Here we have a copy letter
to his aunt, of course, Queen Victoria's mother,
the Duchess of Kent, in December 1839, so is still very early
days, so he's beginning to he's beginning to think
about what this now actually means for him.
Let's see what he actually writes.
"What a mass of emotions of the most diverse kind seize and overwhelm me.
"Hope love for dear Victoria, the pain of leaving home,
"the parting from your dearest kindred."
Albert comes from Coburg, which is a tiny principality
in southern Germany.
It's about the size of Fulham.
Coburg was known as the stud farm of Europe, because so many
of the Saxe-Coburg family were married to
influential princes and members of the sort of European elite.
Albert never had any friends
in his whole life, he didn't have a friend.
He only had family and it was a small family.
He was brought up with his brother
and it broke his heart really when he was separated
from his brother.
Victoria sensed Albert's unhappiness,
she understood how much he missed his homeland,
so she organized a very personal gift for him.
She secretly commissions the photographer Francis Bedford
in June/July of 1857 to go to Coburg to photograph
the sights and sort of scenes and the people associated
with Prince Albert's childhood including his brothers.
There was no expense spared on birthday presents
and I think Queen Victoria thought this was a really significant sort
of present to give Albert, to relieve some of the homesickness
he would have been feeling.
Wow, it's incredible, I mean that could have been taken, I don't know,
a couple of years ago, couldn't it?
This particular photograph that we're looking at now
is where he was born and grew up.
It's quite interesting seeing his childhood home. It's relatively modest, isn't it?
It wasn't massive, but it was what he really
adored and Queen Victoria does right,
if she hadn't been Queen, she would have loved to have lived here.
And it would have brought him a lot of joy, I think, in his in his time
in England to look at this album and revisit through the photographs
the sights and people associated with his childhood home.
Albert was leaving his beloved homeland behind,
although his family life in Coburg was not always happy.
His parents marriage ends spectacularly badly.
Albert loses his mother when he's five.
I mean she doesn't die when he's five,
but his mother runs away with another man.
Albert was determined to reverse that and demonstrate to the world
that he and Queen Victoria were going to have the ideal family,
with nine beautifully behaved, well-read, multilingual children.
Albert threw himself into his new role as husband and father,
pouring his time and energy into raising his children.
This is part of a series called The World children album,
of which five are compiled together by Prince Albert Queen Victoria.
They are remarkable documents.
A private photograph album records some of the most intimate family moments.
This is the first time it has been filmed.
This is a photograph of Prince Arthur, taken in 1857
by the photographer Caldesi,
who was very popular with the royal family.
It's meant to replicate the cherubs at the bottom
of the Sistine Madonna by Raphael.
we know that Prince Albert was a great fan of Raphael.
Now, this, I'm guessing, is an image that the royal family would
have intended to have been kept private?
Yes, they're photographs that were only to be enjoyed by them privately,
not for public consumption.
Here is another photograph of Prince Arthur,
presenting himself as a military drummer.
And he goes on of course to become a Field Marshal,
so it's clear that his fate is sealed so far as...
For grounding in that later life, yeah.
Here we have a portrait of the Prince of Wales
as a young teenager.
Future Edward VII, we all remember him much later in life
as more rotund, with the beard and look at him.
And here he is as a young boy. And then, as we turn the page again,
there's a photograph here of young Princess Alice as a young woman.
One photograph in this album represents an extraordinary Royal
first and reveals Albert's instinctive grasp
of public relations.
There is a photograph here that was sort of intentionally private,
but then did go on to have a public life.
Initially, it was a private commission.
They must have been suitably happy with it that they allowed
for it to then be published as an engraving in newspapers. Wow! Incredible.
And would that have been the first photograph that the public in the UK
would have seen of the royal family?
Yes, it was definitely the first photograph that was ever publicly exhibited of the royal family
and I think it's particularly telling that they agreed to that,
because it sort of shows the royal family as they wished to be seen.
You can sort of see there is a sort of united family front -
Queen Victoria looking very motherly, tenderly
at her newborn baby.
It's interesting, isn't it, so they're using photography
for their own pleasure, of course, and to record their children's
growing up, like we all do, but, actually, there was there was almost
a political or a public image message in all of this.
I think that's true, I think they were very aware of what photography
could do in terms of their public image.
So they presented as a sort of unified, loving family,
but also a very stable family.
I think that's particularly key when you're considering sort
the monarchy and how they wanted to present themselves as a stable monarchy.
There's quite a lot of evidence that Albert's promotion of the Royal
Family as a perfect family on the throne works.
The royal family does come to be seen in that way
and that it does therefore gain a great deal
of acceptance and legitimacy.
Despite creating the perfect family, Albert was frustrated
in his domestic role.
Being a father and husband wasn't enough for him.
When Albert first arrived in England,
the sense of let down must have been terrible.
He had no status at all.
His only status was that as he was the husband of the Queen of England.
Albert's allowance from the civil list is way
less than he expected and this is a deliberate snub.
Albert asks for, I think it's £50,000 a year as an allowance
and Parliament just says no.
You know, "We're not giving this, you know, he's a carpetbagger, he's on the make."
It's a very tricky position to be in and there's a very sad
letter he writes to one of his friends, where he says, you know,
"I'm the husband, but not the master in the house."
The Royal Archives contain a remarkably candid letter
from Albert, revealing the depths of his dissatisfaction.
In a letter we have here to his mentor and advisor
Baron Stockmar, we see that very clearly if we start
down here at the bottom of the page.
"My attention has until now been directed to a host of trifles.
"I mean by these domestic and court arrangements
"and to these I have chiefly applied myself,
"feeling that we shall never be in a position to occupy ourselves
"with higher and graver things, dealing as we have to do
"with these mere nothings."
So that's the sort of cry for help really, isn't it? Yes, absolutely.
Albert was fulfilling his primary duty as Royal Consort,
yet was increasingly determined to carve out a public
role for himself.
A role that would match his ability and his ambition.
Albert does want power, certainly, but he doesn't want power
for power's sake.
He wants power to do good.
The Royal Archives at Windsor Castle hold a remarkable collection
of documents that are helping us build a new portrait
of Prince Albert.
Albert is basically given the education and the training of
somebody who's going to become, effectively, a king.
As a young man, Albert went to university and did
the grand tour of Italy.
He studied history, politics, and architecture, and excelled
in the arts and sciences.
In England, however, he was sneered at for being a German
and an intellectual.
If he spoke out on matters of state, he was ridiculed.
If you look at all the cartoons of him at the time - I mean,
they make sausage jokes, they make breakfast jokes,
they make pretzel jokes.
There's the general suspicion that the British have towards
foreigners of any kind -
wearing funny clothes and speaking with funny accents.
So, here he arrives in England, an extremely able young man who's
bursting with political ideas, and of course, given no
executive or political role at all.
He writes to the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, who is, of course,
very close to Queen Victoria.
And he says to Melbourne, you know,
"What is the precedent for me, as the husband of the Queen?
"What role can I expect to play?"
So, what's the response to his query to Melbourne?
Well, here, from a letter a little over a week later,
we have a copy of the letter from Melbourne back to the prince.
"Your Serene Highness is entering, no doubt, upon a state and situation
"of some difficulty, inasmuch as it is one of a peculiar and
"extraordinary character, and of which there have been
"little experience."
So, he's clearly warning him of the possibility that we've
never had this situation before.
And he's not really holding out much hope or expectation.
I don't think that was what he was wanting to hear.
If you look here again, Your Serene Highness says...
"It will be certainly prudent that Your Serene Highness should not
"take an active part in those political questions which divide
"parties in this country."
I mean, that's quite clear, isn't it? "Stay out of politics."
And it must have come as quite a blow to Albert.
Absolutely, yes. Albert is getting very frustrated.
Disappointed by his rebuff from the Prime Minister,
Albert turned his attention to the royal household,
where he could find an outlet for his leadership ambitions.
One thing he can do is to look at the royal finances.
And he... SHE LAUGHS
He is, you know, he's an outsider.
And he starts looking at some of the practises have gone on,
and he's absolutely gobsmacked.
His first project is basically to try and reform the palaces -
to reform Buckingham Palace and Windsor.
One of the shocking things, to this day, about Britain, for foreigners,
when they come here, is realising how badly everything is run.
But it was particularly badly-run in the royal household.
In Buckingham Palace, there was one person in charge of cleaning
the inside of the windows, and another person in charge of cleaning
the outside of the windows.
And so, it was they didn't co-ordinate.
You could never see through the smutty, smog-ridden windows.
All these palace officers, like the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Steward -
they don't work with each other, and they're all - you know the
famous story about how it's the duty of the Lord Chamberlain to lay
the fire, but he can't light it.
It's the Lord Steward who has to put a match to it.
At Windsor Castle, every single day, they prepared huge sides beef.
And whole cows, pigs, and lambs being conveyed down corridors -
with nobody to eat them, of course.
I mean, the queen and Prince Albert hardly ever went to Windsor
in those days.
The levels of petty corruption and inefficiency
were almost inexhaustible.
By tackling the household accounts,
Albert was beginning to assert himself.
He could prove his worth by saving money.
You can see here that we have a list entitled "Savings"
on the Civil List for 1848.
And here, set out probably by a household clerk, who set out the
salaries of the major officials of the household -
so the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, the Master of the Horse,
and so on - but also, what their allowances were.
And I suppose the question is, does he succeed?
These papers show very clearly that year-on-year savings
were being made.
And by 1848 here, we're looking at a figure of over £34,000
was being made.
So, it's been estimated from 1842 to 1853 that over £55,000
was, in fact, saved.
So, in today's money, that's probably about £4.5 million.
He was loathed by the royal household.
He was hated by the court.
He was hated by all the flunkies - because he was, of course,
he was exposing absolutely useless they were at their jobs.
Albert did more than balance the books.
He wanted to modernise and innovate.
And the Crown properties became his proving ground.
In a corner of the Windsor estate stands an impressive building.
A model dairy that showcases Albert's passion
for form and function.
The whole idea behind the dairy wants to keep it cool.
Milk has to be capped at a low temperature, so every part
of the building was designed for ventilation and to keep
the milk cold.
Prince Albert wanted a functioning building that was ornamental
and beautiful, but was practical.
Curator Carly Collier is showing me an original plan
for the interior of the dairy.
So, this is a design by John Thomas for the Creamery in the Royal Dairy.
One of the walls - as we can see, incredibly detailed.
That was the template for the actual dairy? Absolutely, yes.
And we know that Prince Albert was very much engaged.
He looked at designs as they were progressing.
So, this really is his vision.
I can see the grand plan here of the whole creamery.
How does this section actually fit into the plan?
So, we're looking at this short edge of the building here.
And you can see the fountain there.
And that was producing water to help cool the atmosphere, and the water
was running down, and there was a system by which it ran underneath
the marble tables on which the bowls which contained cream were kept to,
again, contribute to cooling.
I mean, it's one thing, actually drawing this out.
It's quite another thing building it.
I can imagine the person responsible, the architects for
putting this together, must have thought, "Really?
"That amount of detail?" THEY CHUCKLE
Albert had a very strong view that good design should be matched with
an industrial manufacturing and that the two should be welded together.
He always stressed the idea that functionality should come first,
and that this place worked as a working dairy.
Growing in confidence, and with substantial savings from the
household accounts, Albert now set his sights on an even more
ambitious architectural project.
So, is this Osborne, Carly? Absolutely.
And this was the private residence for the Queen and for the family.
And at a stage during building operations, in the main wing over
to the left-hand side there...
..at an advanced stage of construction, but I'm not quite sure
if what we can see is the remnants of some scaffolding.
Yeah, it's definitely poking up above the...
There's definitely something poking up.
This was painted by the queen's own watercolour tutor, a Scottish artist
called William Leighton Leitch.
So, he would have been at Osborne to teach the Queen, and he was clearly
interested in this incredibly important building project
that was going on around him.
It strikes me, looking at this very beautiful, small but detailed
painting, that you can see in it the growing influence of Albert
in the royal family, in relation to buildings.
Certainly his building projects were ambitious
and incredibly impressive.
And we have this wonderful record of it.
Osborne became a place where Albert could test his ideas
about architecture, design, and engineering.
He's able to indulge all his great passions.
There's a special tower built, from which he stands,
looking down at where the trees are planted - there's a man in the field
with a flag by whether a tree is to be planted or not.
And he's a great tree planter, Albert.
It's very, very Albertian, in the sense that when you go inside,
there are - his corridors and rooms laid out as if it were some kind of
seaside place on the Mediterranean.
But at the same time, it's all very practical.
For example, all the sewage in the house comes down
and irrigates the garden.
And there are all sorts of details like that, which make one realise
this is Albert's house.
It's a, sort of, a fantasy of what an Italian villa might look like.
And it's an incredibly influential, cos there are lots of copies of
the Osborne-type building all over the world.
The house that Albert built was a beautiful home
for his wife and family.
He also wanted to share the treasures of the Royal Collection
with the wider public.
His most ambitious artistic project used the new medium of photography
to create a definitive survey of the works of the great
Renaissance artist, Raphael.
CARLY: So, here we have...
..a very large photograph.
The Sistine Chapel tapestry cartoons. Wow.
Of course, this is early days of photography.
We're talking about the 1850s, I think, is the earliest example.
Absolutely, this is very much a early and innovative use of
photography to reproduce artworks.
I mean, I am flabbergasted that in the 1850s, you're able to produce
something of that quality in photography.
It is really rather magnificent.
They were really, really, very well-received.
So far, Albert's influence was confined to life inside the palaces.
He had the capability to do so much more.
His chance to make a difference to Britain would come as royal
dynasties across Europe were coming under violent attack.
By the late 1840s, Prince Albert was reforming the royal household
and building a lavish new home at Osborne.
And then, in April 1848, he was brought alarming news
of social unrest.
1848 is a year of
complete turmoil all over Europe.
I mean, you know, you've got
the French king, Louis Philippe, has been deposed.
There's revolution in Austria.
Albert understood the potential consequences.
The British monarchy might be the next target.
Albert was very afraid
in 1847, coming into 1848,
that there would be a revolution in Britain.
Historian Onyeka Nubia has come to Kennington Common,
site of one of the largest citizen protests of the 19th century.
Over 100 years ago, in 1848, here in Kennington Common,
thousands of working men gathered. They gathered because they wanted
the right to vote.
Very frightening, very dangerous to the establishment.
They were part of the Chartist movement, a working class campaign
for political reform that swept the country
in the late 1830s and '40s.
Now, we often think of the right to vote as a principle cornerstone
of Western democracy.
We think of it as something that is a fundamental human right
that everybody should have,
but in 1848 that wasn't the case.
But the people that gathered here wanted it to be.
Artisans, skilled labourers,
unskilled labourers, the unemployed -
they all gathered here because they wanted one thing,
which was a say in the future and the destiny of their country.
There's a real moment when it seems as if this is going to erupt
into a revolution, as on the Continent,
and Albert and the Queen are sent off to be safe at Osborne.
The Chartist mass meeting at Kennington was reported
across Britain and made a major impression on Prince Albert.
The Photographs Collection holds a unique artefact that's evidence
of Albert's growing social awareness.
So, this is the Chartist meeting on Kennington Common,
taken on 10th April 1848.
You really get a sense of the atmosphere.
There's, sort of, an energy to the photograph.
You do get a sense of the movement of people, the crowds.
Specifically, the details of the flags and also
the details of the buildings in the background.
It's absolutely fascinating, isn't it?
And how long after the photograph was actually taken
did Prince Albert acquire it?
So, we believe that he acquired this in May of that year,
so only a few weeks after the actual event.
Prince Albert was particularly
understanding of the fact that the social and working
conditions of the poor weren't great at that time.
And I think, by purchasing this work, it shows his sympathies
towards that. He often said those with station, wealth
and education should use that to be able to assist people
and make sure that their conditions were better.
Albert was torn in his mind.
On the one hand, he had a horror of revolutionaries.
A horror of socialism.
On the other hand, he could see that there was justice
in the Chartists' cause.
He buys the photograph, I think,
because he is fascinated in popular movements and he feels
very deeply about the plight of these people.
He understands that the world is changing and I think
there is a huge, kind of, moment
for him and he sees that, you know, it's not enough
for the ruling class to rule because that's their job.
He wanted the political class to realise that the grievances
of the Chartists, of the labouring classes, were legitimate grievances.
Their living conditions were appalling.
Their health, non-existent.
Their education, non-existent.
Only weeks after the Chartist protest, Albert gave voice
to his concerns.
He spoke out at a public meeting.
He makes this incredible speech, where he says, "We, the ruling
"class, cannot exercise power without responsibility.
"We must put something back."
We have here, in the archives,
the actual draft of that speech that he made and I'll just read out
a few extracts to give you a sense of what he was trying to get across.
He writes of, "My feelings of sympathy and interest for that class
"of our community, which has most of the toil and least
"of the enjoyments of this world."
And, "To show the way how man can help
"man is more particularly the duty of those who, by the favour
"of Providence, enjoy station, wealth and education."
He wasn't a socialist in any sense of the word,
but he was, on a human level, sticking up for the poor...
..in a way that very few public figures were.
The following day, every newspaper published the Prince's speech.
Albert's campaign for change was up and running.
Prince Albert believed education, formal education through schools
and colleges and universities, was an absolute necessity
for the life of a nation.
Very, very few people in Britain had ever believed that,
certainly never expressed the belief.
Once again, Albert would test out his ideas close to home.
When he realised the children of the Osborne estate workers
didn't have a school of their own, he had a new one built
specially for them.
This document is evidence of Albert's systematic approach
to a lot of things in life,
but, in this case, education. It's headed, "Children, list
"of on estate." And then there were a series of headings -
the name, the age, whether they're at school or not, their state
of education, whether they can read or write.
"Ready only. Neither.
"Imperfectly or otherwise."
We've got Charles Bull, who's 17,
and you might have hoped he could read or write.
He can do neither. And what you see here, and what is particularly
significant, is that younger children in the list generally
have higher educational attainment.
James Hunt. He's nine.
He is at school and, yes, he can read and write.
He believed passionately that, for people of the labouring
classes to get on in life, and therefore for Britain to prosper
as a country, it was necessary for them to have education.
This is evidence that, even in a small way, on the Isle of Wight,
it could work.
And if you translate this right across the United Kingdom,
you really would have a revolution in the education
of the working classes.
Albert's ideas were starting to be taken seriously.
His next project was the inner cities, encouraging wealthy
benefactors to fund housing for the urban poor.
If you were a working class family
in one of these newly-built hellhole cities...
..in the Black Country, in the north, or in London itself,
life wasn't much fun.
And your children were going to die of rickets, and cholera, and typhus,
and all these horrible diseases. You were piled on top of one another,
so crowded that you had to... I mean, half the family had to take
it in turns to go to sleep and the other half
had to be wandering the streets.
Albert threw himself into the problem, commissioning a team
of experts to come up with new solutions to the housing crisis.
This...
..is a publication
of the designs for model houses that were built under
the aegis of Prince Albert.
He financed these houses and then this publication was produced
in order to literally provide a blueprint for these residences
for future builders - how to build them, the sorts of costs
that would have been involved -
and that is married with a series of plans.
I mean, it strikes me, looking at all the detail in this...
There's extraordinary detail in this, Carly,
that's just quintessential Albert.
It's got the design, it's got the costing.
I mean, nothing really is left out, is it?
This is the blueprint for an early form of social housing
and I suppose the question is - was it actually used?
Did this change housing in Britain?
It was certainly very influential
and this publication was instrumental in changing attitudes
towards the housing of the working poor.
The model cottage designed by Albert's team still stands
at the very place where the Chartists once gathered,
demanding change,
Kennington in South London.
And, although it's one building, it actually comprises four apartments
for four families, and it's got some really innovative features
for the time.
Katy Layton-Jones is a social historian, specialising in housing.
It's got a very large parents' bedroom, which was spacious and gave
them some privacy, which was unusual for the working classes.
It's got two children's rooms, which were separate from the living room,
which gave them, really, a sense of that middle class parlour
that the other classes enjoyed.
Albert really believed
that, if you could tackle the living standards of the working classes,
really improve their quality of life, that you could also tackle
social problems and social conflict in society.
Another of Albert's ambitious housing projects was an innovative
five-storey apartment building, replacing a block of decaying
working class slums in Central London.
Every flat in Parnell House had running water, a lavatory,
and a minimum of three bedrooms.
I think the main impact of buildings like Parnell House
was that they really raised expectations for how the labouring
classes could live, and they themselves then had improved
aspirations - what they wanted from their lives
and what they expected from society.
This image was produced when the building was brand-new
and it had its first residents.
And, you can see, it's astonishing how little has changed.
The residents of that time still had pot plants.
You've got the same wrought iron railings and even
the same light fittings.
And, right in the centre, in this open space that was so important
in the model dwellings, you've got people enjoying the outdoors
with their little child and their family
because, after all, this building was built for families.
Parnell House was used as a model for generations of social housing
and Albert was earning respect across Britain
as a leader striving to build a fairer society.
By his own industry, he really invents the idea
of the hardworking royal -
the royal who justifies their existence by doing good.
And, you know, Victoria,
you know, never worked as hard as he did.
Albert was no longer confining his energies to charity
and social reform.
An extraordinary collection of documents in the Royal Archives
reveals his ambition for a more powerful role
in British public life.
You can see the level of detail in this book, you know, written
in his own hands.
But it's also a very telling indication of the role
he was beginning to play.
It's a record of his political dealings.
He is absolutely immersing himself in the business of Government.
He's recording all these conversations, this correspondence
that's coming in from ministers and also with significant figures
in the Empire.
On this page, a report of a conversation with Sir Robert Peel.
Now, Peel, of course, is Prime Minister at this time,
so this is a hugely important political conversation
and it absolutely underpins that
he is determined that he will play his part in the political life
of this country, whatever the establishment wishes or wants.
Albert has become totally indispensable to Victoria.
He basically runs the show and she is well aware of it.
It is Albert who has taken all the decisions,
Albert who has had the new projects,
Albert who has controlled her relationships
with the politicians.
And her role is basically reduced to copying out letters that Albert
has already drafted before she gets up in the morning,
and saying what Albert tells her to say.
Albert was winning over the politicians and the people.
His next big idea would cement his place in history -
a world-class event that few believed was possible.
It would test Albert's resilience to the limit.
In 1851, Albert would embark on his greatest gamble.
A daring project to unite his many passions
and bring together people from the four corners of the globe.
Albert believed that trade and invention and technology
would unite the human race, and there would be universal peace.
And that was really the extraordinarily idealistic
thought behind the Great Exhibition.
A vast palace, the largest man-made glass structure on Earth,
would house the world's first trade fair.
Where they were 100,000 exhibits.
We look back on it, at the pinnacle of the 19th century,
but at the time everyone thought it was going to be a disaster.
In parliament, they said the exhibition would fail.
London would be overwhelmed with crowds,
spreading disease and hiking up prices.
Once again, Albert faced prejudice and mistrust.
They thought Albert was a spy, foreign spy, and they thought
wanting all the people of the world to come and exhibit,
Indians, Persians, Chinese people were invited to exhibit their wares.
I mean, there must be something wrong with that.
They're trying to infiltrate.
They thought that a hailstorm would make the glass roof break.
The American president wouldn't come, because he was worried
about being decapitated by the glass.
You know, there were all these, kind of, ludicrous, sort of, rumours
and so forth that were going about.
As the days ticked down to the grand opening,
Albert was under enormous personal pressure.
The stress and public criticism were relentless.
This is a wonderful letter, written by Prince Albert just weeks
before the Great Exhibition actually takes place.
And he writes,
"Dear, Mama, I am at present more dead than alive from overwork.
"The opponents of the exhibition work with might and mean to throw
"all the women into panic to drive myself crazy.
"The strangers they give out are certain to commence a thorough
"revolution here, to murder Victoria and myself and to proclaim
"a Red Republic in England.
"The plague is certain to ensue
"from the confluence of such vast multitudes
"and to swallow up those whom the increased price of everything
"has not already swept away.
"For all this, I am to be responsible."
There's irony in this, there's humour.
But there's also a sense of the toll the whole business of putting
on the exhibition is taking on Albert.
Albert was a brilliant, natural bureaucrat.
I mean, civil servant, creator.
He could see projects through in a way that is, I think, very rare.
He was a visionary and he would imagine things
and then make them happen.
That's an extraordinary thing that's very,
in a way, that's quite un-English.
Finally, on May 1st 1851, Queen Victoria, with Albert by her side,
declared the Great Exhibition, her husband's brainchild, open.
Queen Victoria realised this was Albert's great day
it was Britain's great day and they went in and, as she describes
it in the Journal of drawers, it was an absolute triumph.
It was, it was amazing.
I mean, hallelujah chorus was never more appropriately sung.
In the five months the Great Exhibition was opened to the public,
an astonishing six million visitors passed through its doors.
Albert's visionary idea became one of the greatest achievements
of the Victorian age.
In 1857, Victoria creates Albert Prince Consort,
and, of course, that's the name that we've come to know Albert by,
as THE Prince Consort.
And the fact that Victoria is able to do this for her husband
and feels this need to do this, is just an indication
of how far he's come.
A remarkable letter in the royal archives reveals Albert's feelings
at finally receiving the acceptance and recognition
he has fought so hard for.
This is a very moving letter, about a great moment in Albert's life.
Because 17 years after he first arrived in this country,
he is able to tell his stepmother about a change of title
and he writes,
"Dear, Mama, I have not said a word to you about my change of title
"and I now present myself before you as an entire stranger,
"as Prince Consort.
"I was certain to appear to them..." And by them, he means
the British people. "..in the long run, like a stranger in the land.
"As my sons alone were English princes
and I merely a Coburg prince.
"But now I have a legal status in the English hierarchy."
Albert was finally being accepted by the British establishment.
Yet the energy he invested in making Britain a better place
was taking its toll.
If you look at photographs of Albert after the age of 30,
he does get prematurely old.
He's not fit, his shoulders are sloping.
He's not a well man.
For whatever reason, he was a dying man.
I think from his mid '30s you can see he was a dying man.
He basically killed himself, I think, through overwork.
Nobody quite knows what he dies of.
You know, people think it may have been typhus
or stomach cancer or Crohn's disease, God knows.
In the winter of 1861,
while staying at Windsor Castle, Albert felt desperately ill.
As he lay on his sickbed, Queen Victoria read to him.
Well, this really is, I think, a very sad object.
It's an edition of Walter Scott's Peveril of the Peak.
A very popular author at the time, and you can see here
that this marker has been tipped into the volume
and a clue as to what that signifies is in this inscription at the front,
which is in Queen Victoria's own hand.
"This book was read up to the mark in Page 81 to my beloved husband,
"during his fatal illness and within three days
"of its terrible termination."
On December 14th 1861,
Albert died with Victoria at his side.
He was 42-years-old.
It's extraordinary, isn't it?
This clearly was the last thing she was reading to him
and she wants to mark that.
You know, obviously it's very precious to her.
She's put a mark in it and here it is, kept forever more
as a, as a, sort of, memorial to their last few days together.
Absolutely, Queen Victoria kept many memorials
and this is this is yet another one.
It's unbelievably sad that somebody with all that talent...
..um, and so much to offer, both on a private and public level,
should have died so young.
The Observer newspaper captured the nation's grief.
England's will not soon look upon his like again.
From the point of view of the monarchy, Victoria has lost the man
who's effectively ruled Britain for the past 20 years.
People say that Queen Victoria went over the top, she didn't.
The mourning was absolutely justified.
She was right to regard it as one of the great appalling tragedies
of the 19th century.
Britain had lost a dynamic young leader, with so much to contribute.
Yet, Albert would leave a remarkable legacy.
This is a wonderful document and really part of our cultural
history, because it shows the plot of land...
..that Albert bought with the £200,000 profit
from the Great Exhibition.
You can see here in this section here, this blue section,
and the intention is to create a cultural quarter, a lasting legacy
from the exhibition.
And that plot of land was London's South Kensington.
Profit from that exhibition in 1851,
ultimately financed what we call the "Albertopolis".
The V&A Imperial College.
What eventually became the Royal Albert Hall.
The Natural History Museum, The Science Museum,
The Royal College Organist, The Royal College of Music,
all these things.
This was an element of our culture, our cultural heritage,
that was created by Albert.
Albert's idea for the Great Exhibition,
and then, ultimately, to have a lasting legacy
for that exhibition.
At the heart of South Kensington stands the museum
that bears Albert's name, the V&A.
Famously, Victoria thought it should just be called
"The Albert Museum".
And she had to be convinced that it should be called
The Victoria and Albert Museum.
When we think about the V&A today, and we think about Albert's role
in its creation, we think of two words,
which are ingenuity and imagination.
The purpose of this place as Albert envisaged it,
was to showcase the greatest works of human ingenuity.
It was there to inspire artists and architects and engineers
and designers.
To spark the imagination of the next generation.
I don't think people do him justice,
because....they don't really understand what he did for us.
He was one of the great kings we never had.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media