The coronation of Victoria as queen of the United Kingdom took place on Thursday, 28 June 1838, just over a year after she succeeded to the throne of the United Kingdom at the age of 18. The ceremony was held in Westminster Abbey after a public procession through the streets from Buckingham Palace, to which the Queen returned later as part of a second procession.
Planning for the coronation, led by the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, began at Cabinet level in March 1838. In the face of various objections from numerous parties, the Cabinet announced on Saturday, 7 April, that the coronation would be at the end of the parliamentary session in June. It was budgeted at £70,000 (equivalent to £6,700,000 in 2025), which was more than double the cost of the "cut-price" 1831 coronation, but considerably less than the £240,000 (equivalent to £22,800,000 in 2025) spent when George IV was crowned in July 1821. A key element of the plan was presentation of the event to a wider public.
By 1838, the newly built railways were able to deliver huge numbers of people into London and it has been estimated that some 400,000 visitors arrived to swell the crowds who thronged the streets while the two processions took place and filled the parks where catering and entertainment were provided. Hyde Park was the scene of a huge fair, including a balloon ascent. The fair was scheduled to take place over two days, but was in the end extended by popular demand to four days. Green Park featured a firework display the night after the ceremony. The coronation coincided with a period of fine weather and the whole event was generally considered a great success by both the press and the wider public, although those inside the Abbey witnessed a good deal of mishap and confusion, largely due to lack of rehearsal time. In the country at large, there was opposition to the coronation by Radicals, especially in the North of England.
Queen Victoria succeeded her uncle King William IV on 20 June 1837. Her first prime minister was Lord Melbourne, with whom she developed a close personal friendship. Until 1867, the Demise of the Crown automatically triggered the dissolution of parliament: voting in the subsequent general election took place between 24 July and 18 August. The result was a victory for Melbourne, whose Whig Party government was returned to power for another four years. Their majority over the opposition Conservative (formerly Tory) Party was reduced from 112 seats to 30. Melbourne was the leading player in the planning, preparation and implementation of Victoria's coronation.
Melbourne's Cabinet began formal discussions of the subject of the coronation during March 1838. A major factor in the planning was that the coronation was the first to be held since the Reform Act of 1832, when the government radically reshaped the monarchy. In terms of the ceremony itself, the extension of the franchise meant that some 500 members of Parliament would be invited to attend, in addition to the peerage. A greater consideration was the need to somehow involve the general public, and Melbourne championed the centuries-old custom of a public procession taking place through the streets of London. There had been a procession in 1831, but a much longer route was planned for 1838, that included a new startpoint at Buckingham Palace. Earlier processions had run from the Tower of London to the Abbey.
Victoria's procession would be the longest since that of Charles II in April 1661. Scaffolding for spectators would be built all along the route. According to contemporary reports, this was achieved, with one report stating that there was scarcely "...a vacant spot along the whole [route]... ...that was unoccupied with galleries or scaffolding". The diarist Charles Greville commented that the principal object of the government plan was to amuse and interest the ordinary working people. He later concluded that the "great merit" of the coronation was that so much had been done for the people.
In terms of the cost, the government was torn between the extremes of George IV's lavish coronation in 1821 and the "cut-price" event, dubbed the "Half-Crown-ation", that had been held for William IV in 1831. It decided to allow a budget of £70,000, which represented a compromise between two extremes of £240,000 (1821) and £30,000 (1831).
The government's plans for the coronation attracted considerable criticism from its opponents. For different reasons, both the Tories and the Radicals objected to the coronation being turned into a day of popular celebration, to be seen by as wide a public as possible. The Tory objections, mostly made beforehand, were that the government's plans to put much of the spending into the long public procession detracted from the traditional dignity of the ceremonies at Westminster, which would be "shorn of majesty by Benthamite utilitarianism". The Radical left, including the Chartist movement which was largely anti-monarchist, thought the whole occasion far too expensive.
A dubious perception that prevailed was the identification of the new monarch with the Whig party. This would be a problem through the early years of Victoria's reign, leading to the so-called Bedchamber Crisis in 1839 over what were at the time considered to be the political nature of the appointments of her ladies-in-waiting. In addition, the Whig party exploited Victoria's name in its election campaign, suggesting that a monarch from a new generation would inevitably mean the progress of reform. William IV and his wife Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen had strong Tory sympathies, whilst Victoria's mother and namesake was known to favour the Whigs. It was assumed—to some extent correctly—that Victoria herself had been brought up to hold similar views. This was reflected in popular ballads sold on the streets, one of which had Victoria saying:
The government's decision to dispense with certain traditions, including the exclusive banquet at Westminster Hall and medieval rituals such as having a monarchical champion throwing down a gauntlet, was seen by the Tory aristocracy as a snub. In the House of Lords, complaints were made about the procession of a young girl in public (Victoria was nineteen), that would cause her to be "exposed to the gaze of the populace". On a commercial footing, an association of London traders objected to the planned date, stating that they needed more time to order their merchandise. They favoured a date in August.
There were generic objections to the coronation, which were based on an underlying opposition to the monarchy as an institution. The historian Lucy Worsley believes that had it not been for Victoria's popularity as a young woman, in contrast with her uncles, especially the despised George IV, the monarchy would have been "an institution in danger". There was a view that, within an age of reform, the coronation would be a medieval anachronism.
The Tory campaign of protest included several public meetings, and an open letter from the Marquess of Londonderry to the Lord Mayor of London and the aldermen and tradesmen, published in The Times on Saturday, 2 June. The campaign culminated with Londonderry's speech in the House of Lords on a motion, when he asked the Queen to postpone the coronation until 1 August so that it could be carried out with "proper splendour".
The Radical left, whose press complained of the expense during the run-up to the day, concentrated on trying to dampen public enthusiasm. They had some success in the north of England. In Manchester, a campaign organised by trade unions and other groups reduced the attendance at the local procession organised by the city council to a third of the turnout of that for the previous coronation. In several manufacturing towns of northern England, the Chartists co-ordinated anti-monarchist demonstrations.
Prior to 1838, only the peerage had taken part in a coronation. The day's ceremonies would have begun in Westminster Hall, (now attached to the Houses of Parliament), and upon their completion, peers would have walked together across the road to Westminster Abbey, where they witnessed the monarch being crowned. In accordance with Melbourne's new plan, however, the traditional ceremonies in Westminster Hall and the procession to the Abbey were replaced with two much longer processions through London.