Victoria was born at Kensington Palace, London, on 24 May 1819.

She was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, one of George III’s sons. Her birth came at a fragile point for the Hanoverian succession. Two years earlier, Princess Charlotte had died after childbirth. Charlotte had been the only legitimate child of the Prince Regent and had seemed to secure the next generation of the royal line.

Her death changed the pressure inside the royal family. George III had many children, but the surviving legitimate heirs were few. Several of his sons had no legitimate children who could inherit the throne. Victoria’s birth helped fill that gap, but it did not make her future certain on the day she was born.

That is what gives the date its interest. Victoria is easy to see through hindsight: queen in 1837, ruler through a long reign and a name later attached to an age. In 1819, she was a royal baby born into an unsettled line of succession.

Her father died the following year, and the deaths of the uncles ahead of her brought her closer to the throne. When William IV died in 1837, Victoria became queen.

The birth at Kensington Palace is therefore best read as a moment of succession. One of Britain’s longest reigns began inside a royal family still trying to repair its future.