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Edward VII was crowned on 9 August 1902 and the reason was that his mother, Queen Victoria, had died in 1901. Nearly every year, since the death of her husband Prince Albert, Queen Victoria had spent her Christmas at Osborne House, her little home (see picture) on the Isle of Wight. She did so again for Christmas 1900. By now she was 81 years old and very frail She could hardly walk and her eyesight was very poor. During January 1901 she complained of feeling weak and on Tuesday, January 22nd at 6.30pm, she died.
She had been Queen for 63 years, 7 months and 2 days. Her reign was the longest ever by a British monarch until September 9 2015 when Queen Elizabeth II beat it. During Victoria's reign there had been massive changes to people's lives with so many new inventions. For much of her last 40 years as Queen she had led a very private life, away from the eyes of Her public.
Edward was 59 when he became King and he only lived for another 9 years, dying in 1910. However, this brief period of history has become known as the Edwardian era. His coronation had been supposed to happen on 26 June but two days beforehand he was diagnosed with appendicitis. In those days people often died from this but doctors operated on Edward and he was well enough to be crowned only six weeks later.
By the time Victoria died the British Empire, countries which Britain ruled, was the largest the world had ever known and Victoria ruled about a quarter of all the people on earth. However, things were changing. Within the next 10 years Australia, New Zealand and South Africa joined Canada in becoming Dominions of the British Crown. This meant they were still part of the Empire, the British monarch was their Head of State, but they had their own governments.
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