Isle of Wight coffin delays ­— Queen Victoria's final days

On New Year’s Day, 1901, she wrote in her diary: “Another year begun and I am feeling so weak and unwell that I enter upon it sadly.”

Just three weeks later, at half past six in the evening of Tuesday, January 22, the Queen died in her bed in the arms of her grandson Kaiser Wilhelm, Emperor of Germany ­— who Britain would soon be at war with ­— and her personal physician, Sir James Reid.

Also present was her son Edward, now king, and it fell to him to close her eyes.

Her passing caused some headaches for the staff at Osborne ­— and a surprise for Sir James when he came to prepare her coffin.

The Queen had always been irritated by the intrusions of ministers and affairs of state, and to keep them at bay she had bought Osborne, with her own money, to be her private home where she could do what she liked when she liked.

The same summer evening photographed from Lower St James Street. The Queen can just be made out in her carriage. Our council own a vast collection of historical artifacts currently in a store in Ryde. It includes one of Queen Victoria’s carriages.

She wrote to her Uncle Leopold: "We have purchased Osborne; it is so nice to have a quiet place of one's own, free from the charming departments who are the plague of one's life."

When Albert died, leaving her a widow at 42, Osborne became even more of a bolthole for the Queen.

She was shattered and lonely and withdrew from public life for the next ten years, spending much of it at Osborne and eventually dying there.

The announcement of the Queen’s death was posted at the gates of Osborne House where large crowds had gathered.

My grandfather was twelve at the time and told me how local boys with bicycles had been recruited by the waiting Fleet Street reporters to race down to East Cowes Post Office on their bikes in an effort to win a bonus for the first boy to reach the telegraph counter and commandeer the circuit for their newspaper.

There lay their beloved Queen, with calm and placid face, wearing her widow’s cap, with her hands crossed in perfect repose. © Alan Stroud/County Press

Forty extra staff had been drafted in to work through the night and from East Cowes the news of the Queen’s death was telegraphed to London, and from there to the rest of the world in a matter of minutes.

The next day, the household and servants, from equerry to gardener, paraded through her bedroom to view the Queen on her deathbed, the County Press reporting: “Yesterday, 300 members of staff, with their wives and families, were permitted to pass through the room in which the body is lying.

"There lay their beloved Queen, with calm and placid face, wearing her widow’s cap, with her hands crossed in perfect repose.

For the moment, the Queen would have to remain laying on the bed ­— for her coffin was nowhere to be seen.

The Queen's body was to be placed in a plain oak 'shell' coffin, which would then be placed inside a mahogany, lead-lined, outer coffin, however, the shell had not arrived from Bantings the London undertakers, who held the royal undertaking warrant.

The Queen's coffin is taken through to the landing stage at Trinity Wharf, East Cowes, where the royal yacht Alberta is waiting to take her across the Solent for the last time. © Alan Stroud/County Press

Hasty arrangements were made for shipwrights, Marvins of Cowes, to make the inner coffin using timber from the Osborne estate.

In the meantime, the Queen’s dresser, Mrs Tuck, took Sir James aside and in what must have come as a surprise to him produced a secret note that had been given to her by the Queen three years before.

The Queen's handwritten note detailed ‘very minute instructions’ as to the actions to be taken after her death.

It included a meticulous list of items to be placed in her coffin, ‘some of which, none of her family were to see’.

The faithful Doctor Reid, who had attended the Queen for twenty years, followed her instructions to the letter.

He said: "I put a layer of charcoal on the floor of the coffin and then the Kaiser, King Edward, Mrs Tuck and myself lifted the Queen's body into it.

"I helped Mrs Tuck put a satin dressing gown on the Queen and she arranged her hair and veil and then I packed the sides with bags of charcoal in muslin."

When the doctor was finally alone, he faithfully carried out the Queen's last instructions.

He placed in the coffin Albert’s dressing gown, the Queen’s wedding veil, a sprig of Balmoral heather, a cast of Albert’s hands and numerous photographs and pieces of jewellery.

Finally, he placed a bunch of flowers in the Queen’s hands. They were strategically placed to conceal the fact that in her left hand the Queen was holding a photograph of John Brown.

On Friday, February 1, the Queen left Osborne for the last time.

The funeral procession made its way down York Avenue past the thousands lining the route and then to Trinity Wharf where the royal yacht Alberta was waiting to take her to Gosport and the royal train which would take her to London.

The Alberta cast off at three, the CP reporting: "Many were moved to tears. The sun shone with the warmth of a spring day and as the Alberta passed the lines of battleships, their guns fired a salute.

"At Portsmouth Harbour, the brightness of the day gave way to a fast disappearing red sun penetrating the black clouds, giving a weirdness which harmonised with the mournful character of the event."