Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, June 1887
- Joanne Major
- Jun 20
- 3 min read
On 20 June 1887, Queen Victoria held a garden party on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Fifty years earlier, William IV had died and the eighteen-year-old Princess Victoria took the crown. The garden party was part of the celebrations to mark the Queen's golden jubilee.
Victoria was a far cry from that young princess. The mother of nine children, and widowed for a quarter of a century, the Queen attended the summer party, a rare return to a public outing. ‘The day has come, and I am alone,’ she wrote in her diary. Starting at Windsor, the Queen breakfasted outdoors at Frogmore to be close to Prince Albert who had been buried in the Royal Mausoleum. After that, she went by train to Paddington and on to Buckingham Palace.
Frederick Sargent painted a scene of the day.
People from all over the world were invited as well as British nobility and the royal family. The guests came from Europe, from South America, India, and Hawaii, amongst other places. Military bands played as the Queen was introduced to the dignitaries. She wore her customary black but the rest were dressed to impress. A few got an especial mention in the newspapers. Hersey Alice Hope, the 20-year-old Countess of Hopetoun (later Marchioness of Linlithgow) was one whose appearance drew comment.
[Her] dress resembled a fleecy cloud, lined with soft pink. To descend to technicalities, it was composed of white lace, embroidered in silk and fine wool, and draped over pink bengaline. The bonnet was an airy structure, a sort of day dream in pink tulle, rising small tier upon tier of miniature puffings, and trimmed with roses in shades of cream colour and pink.
Bengaline is a rayon/cotton mix fabric which had become fashionable in the 1880s and which draped well.
Jane, Countess of Lovelace wore a new style of dress called the ‘Marguerite.’ It was blue and yellow foulard, ‘the folds being drawn at the right side through the bands of a pocket and dark velvet.’ The Lady’s World, in 1887, said, ‘skirts now never have two sides alike.’ (Foulard was a cool and lightweight fabric ideal for summer dresses, made from silk or a silk and cotton mix and often with a small printed design.)
Despite Queen Victoria writing that it had been a ‘very fatiguing day, in the Garden at Buckingham Palace, where I used to sit so often in former happy days,’ her journal suggests that she spent little time outside. She welcomed the foreign royal guests in the Picture Gallery, rested for a while, and then lunch was served in the large dining room (which she had not used since 1861). She then met more guests (possibly this took place in the garden), before resting again before dinner was served in the Supper Room. Following that, everyone went into the ballroom. ‘At length,’ Victoria confided to her journal, ‘feeling very tired, I slipped away.’
The next day, a Golden Jubilee service was held at Westminster Abbey and, in the evening, dinner was once again held in Buckingham Palace’s Supper Room. Victoria was seated between Leopold II of Belgium and Christian IX, King of Denmark.
Sources:
The Evening Telegraph, Dundee, 30 June 1887
The Evening Standard, 30 June 1887
The Morning Post, 30 June 1887
Queen Victoria Roses [online], ‘Queen Victoria’s Journal: Garden Party at Buckingham Palace to celebrate her Golden Jubilee, 20th June 1887’, 26 June 2024 https://queenvictoriaroses.co.uk/2024/06/26/queen-victorias-journal-garden-party-at-buckingham-palace-to-celebrate-her-golden-jubilee-20th-june-1887 [accessed 12 March 2025].
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