Birthday tables

The practice of setting out a birthday table for gifts, decorated with flowers, is one that dates back to Victoria’s childhood. For her first two birthdays at Osborne, the birthday table was in the Horn Room. By the 1850s, a spare bedroom in the main wing of the house had been established as the ‘present room’. 

The birthday tables were an art form in themselves. They were even recorded in a series of watercolours – Victoria engaged two artists, Joseph Nash and later James Roberts, to paint her birthday table room at Osborne each year. These images are so detailed that it’s possible to identify each birthday gift. In later years photographs were taken too.

‘We all went into the room, where my present table had been arranged. Again such beautiful gifts!’ (Queen Victoria’s Journal, 24 May 1851)

Birthday traditions

Victoria and Albert’s birthdays at Osborne followed quite a regular pattern. As for Victoria’s 29th birthday, the day usually began with the Royal Marines band playing below Victoria and Albert’s bedroom windows. Often the tune was one of the hymns composed by Albert himself. After dressing, the children gave them bunches of flowers. Then the entire family would make their way to view the gifts displayed on the birthday table. Breakfast followed in the dining room, sometimes with the band still playing on the terrace. 

After breakfast the children performed music and recited poetry they had written themselves in the drawing room. In 1853, for example, one of the highlights was Prince Alfred (Affie) performing on his violin, as Victoria recorded in her journal later that day:

we went into the Drawing Room, where the children performed several musical pieces extremely well … Affie a small piece on the piano & 3 on his little violin, ending with ‘God Save the Queen’, Mrs Anderson accompanying him. He did it so nicely, for it is very difficult, & he only began the violin at the beginning of March, it being entirely his own idea. 

Whatever the weather the family then went for a walk in the grounds, often to the Swiss Cottage.

In the afternoon they went into the grounds for a drive, and often a group photograph was taken on the terrace. The day was rounded off with a celebratory dinner, followed by further entertainment in which the children usually took part. 

Victoria’s Last Birthday at Osborne

On 24 May 1861, Victoria celebrated her last birthday at Osborne. 

‘The day opened … [with] … the tender love & affection of that dear Husband, who is my all in all, whom God will I am sure bless for years to come, & never let me survive! … I received beautiful presents, amongst which from Albert, a picture of beloved Mama, & a splendid Belgian picture, of the Konig See. The dear children worked, drew, & painted such pretty things for me …’ (Queen Victoria’s Journal, 24 May 1861)

Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, had died on 16 March that year, and the picture of her that Victoria mentions was a copy of a larger painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, painted just before the duchess’s death. 

Only seven months later, on 14 December 1861, Albert also died, at the age of only 42. Overwhelmed by grief, the widowed queen immediately retreated to Osborne. But afterwards she would never again spend her birthday at Osborne, preferring to be at Balmoral instead.