Located at the north-west corner between the West and Centre Blocks of Parliament Hill, the statue of the country's first monarch was sculpted by Louis-Philippe Hébert in 1900, and dedicated by Prince George, Duke of Cornwall and York, in 1901.
Statue:
Standing on a massive granite pedestal, the top of which has been elegantly carved, Queen Victoria’s bronze statue, approximately 1.5 times life size, strikes a distinctly regal pose. Upon her head is a crown bearing the coats of arms of the provinces. She has a veil over her hair and a sash coming over her left shoulder draped over her gown. She is holding a sceptre in her right hand and a document with seal in her left hand. There is a bronze statue of a woman in a windswept gown standing on the upper tier of the pedestal. Her right hand is pointing in the direction of a crown of laurels above the carving. On her left is a royal shield and to her extreme left, an exquisitely carved statue of a lion with one of his back leg on the base and one of his front leg higher up on the pedestal. The figure of the lion was included by the sculptor, Louis-Philippe Hébert, as a symbol of strength, guarding Canada, the flag and our national honour. The bronze statue of Queen Victoria measures approximately 10 feet high while the whole monument stands at approximately 25 feet.
Queen Victoria:
"Victoria was born in London on 24 May 1819, the only child of Edward, Duke of Kent, and Victoria Maria Louisa of Saxe-Coburg. She succeeded her uncle, William IV, in 1837, at the age of 18, and her reign spanned the rest of the century. In 1840, she married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. For the next 20 years they lived in close harmony and had a family of nine children, many of whom eventually married into the European monarchy.
On her accession, Victoria adopted the Whig prime minister Lord Melbourne as her political mentor. In 1840, his influence was replaced by that of Prince Albert. The German prince never really won the favour of the British public, and only after 17 years was he given official recognition, with the title of 'prince consort'. Victoria nonetheless relied heavily on Albert and it was during his lifetime that she was most active as a ruler. Britain was evolving into a constitutional monarchy in which the monarch had few powers and was expected to remain above party politics, although Victoria did sometimes express her views very forcefully in private.
Victoria never fully recovered from Albert's death in 1861 and she remained in mourning for the rest of her life. Her subsequent withdrawal from public life made her unpopular, but during the late 1870s and 1880s she gradually returned to public view and, with increasingly pro-imperial sentiment, she was restored to favour with the British public. After the Indian Mutiny in 1857, the government of India was transferred from the East India Company to the Crown. In 1877, Victoria became empress of India. Her empire also included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and large parts of Africa. During this period, Britain was largely uninvolved in European affairs, apart from the Crimean War from 1853 - 1856.
Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887 and her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 were celebrated with great enthusiasm. Having witnessed a revolution in British government, huge industrial expansion and the growth of a worldwide empire, Victoria died on 22 January 1901 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight."
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