Princess Victoria of Hesse

A carte-de-visite portrait of Princess Victoria of Hesse (1863-1950).

Princess Victoria was the eldest daughter of Princess Alice (Queen Victoria’s second daughter) and Prince Louis of Hesse (later Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse). Born at Windsor Castle in 1863, on 30 April 1884 she married Prince Louis of Battenberg. Due to anti-German feeling during the First World War, the family changed their name to Mountbatten in 1917 and Prince Louis relinquished his German titles, becoming instead 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, Earl of Medina and Viscount Alderney. From 1912 to 1914 Prince Louis was First Sea Lord. On 4 August 1921 he became Admiral of the Fleet. He died of a heart attack at the Naval and Military Club, Piccadilly, on 11 September 1921. Princess Victoria lived on for nearly thirty years, dying at Kensington Palace on 24 September 1950.

Photographed by Hills and Saunders of Eton and Oxford.