Queen Victoria was proclaimed 'Alexandrina Victoria' in 1837

Queen Victoria came to the throne on 20 June 1837, aged 18, when her uncle William IV died at Windsor Castle, and that morning the Privy Council ordered her proclaimed not as Victoria but as ‘Queen Alexandrina Victoria I’. She was not crowned until 28 June 1838, more than a year later, at Westminster Abbey.

The first name was the product of a family row. At her christening in 1819 the Prince Regent, later George IV, rejected the string of names her parents had chosen and refused her any of the names traditionally given to British princesses. He allowed Alexandrina, after her godfather the Tsar of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Called ‘Drina’ as a small child, she preferred Victoria and quickly dropped the first name from official use.

How the accession unfolded:

• 24 May 1837: Victoria turns 18, so she can rule in her own right with no regency.
• 20 June, 2.12 a.m.: William IV dies at Windsor after a long illness.
• About 6 a.m.: Woken at Kensington Palace by her mother, she meets the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain in her dressing gown.
• Later that morning: The Privy Council meets at Kensington Palace and orders her proclaimed; the Duke of Wellington, present, reports that she handled her first council well.
• 28 June 1838: Crowned at Westminster Abbey, aged 19.

She wrote it all down in her journal that day:

“Lord Conyngham (the Lord Chamberlain) then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning and consequently that I am Queen.” — Queen Victoria, 20 June 1837

Her reign lasted 63 years and 216 days, ending with her death at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight on 22 January 1901. It stood as the longest in British history until Elizabeth II, crowned on television in 1953, overtook it in September 2015.