Helena of the United Kingdom
1846 – 1923 · Generation XXXIV · House of Windsor
Helena of the United Kingdom (1846–1923). The third daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert — “Lenchen” to the family — she was a lively, outspoken child whose teenage attachment to her father’s former librarian, Carl Ruland, ended with his dismissal in 1863. The queen then chose a husband willing to live close by: Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, fifteen years older, whose family’s claim to the contested duchies set the Danish-born Princess of Wales bitterly against the match. They married at Windsor in 1866, settled at Cumberland Lodge and had six children, two of whom died in infancy. With her sister Beatrice she acted as the queen’s unofficial secretary. Her true cause was nursing: a founding member of the British Red Cross, she organised relief in the Franco-Prussian War, presided over the Royal British Nurses’ Association and pressed for nurse registration against Florence Nightingale’s opposition. She was the first president of the Royal School of Needlework.
Place in the family
- Helena of the United Kingdom was a daughter of Queen Victoria.
- Helena of the United Kingdom was the fifth of 9 children of Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Queen Victoria recorded in this archive.
One of 53 people of House of Windsor (from 1917) in this archive. The present house — it renamed itself Windsor in 1917, setting aside the German title Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Line of descent: Owen Tudor → Edmund Tudor → King Henry VII → Margaret Tudor → King James V of Scotland → Mary Queen of Scots → King James I → Elizabeth Stuart → Sophia of Hanover → King George I → King George II → Frederick Prince of Wales → King George III → Edward Duke of Kent → Queen Victoria → Helena of the United Kingdom.
Parents
- Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819 – 1861)
- Queen Victoria (1819 – 1901)
Siblings
- Victoria Princess Royal (1840 – 1901)
- King Edward VII (1841 – 1910)
- Alice of the United Kingdom (1843 – 1878)
- Alfred Duke of Edinburgh (1844 – 1900)
- Louise Duchess of Argyll (1848 – 1939)
- Arthur Duke of Connaught (1850 – 1942)
- Leopold Duke of Albany (1853 – 1884)
- Beatrice of the United Kingdom (1857 – 1944)