Queen Victoria Voice

Thought to be Queen Victoria recorded on wax cylinder in 1888. A few words can be made out.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Queen
• Victoria
• Voice
• recording
• early
• sound

[bluetruckredstate]

Um, so you say this is Queen Victoria. Where did you find this recording? When and where was it supposedly made? What makes you think it's the Queen? Why should anyone believe you without knowing the provenance of this artifact?

[Timothycan]

@bluetruckredstate Actually I say it is *thought* to be Queen Victoria. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 over a year ago now.  To be fair, there is considerable doubt that it IS the Queen, But it *could* be, and if so is the only recording of her that exists. There is quite a bit of background info about this available on the Internet, if you go searching.

[VictorLepanto]

She died in 1901, surely there are better recordings of her.

[Timothycan]

@VictorLepanto Apparently there are not, which I think is very surprising since by then sound recording had been around for nearly 25 years and was common place. I can only suppose she would not allow recordings to be made, and it would probably not have been possible to record her voice without her knowledge, (if anyone was willing to risk it).

[lehtorja]

@Timothycan Did she actually address the public that much?

[Timothycan]

@lehtorja I honestly don't know, I'm not a historian. I gather she remained in a state of mourning after the death of Albert, As a result it may be that she did less public speaking than she would have done otherwise, but I suppose there would have been several ship-launches etc. that would have required speeches.

[TheMutt85]

Sounds like she had T Mobile......

[charlieiscool1000]

@CUDDLES55 Queen Victoria did Not speak German first as an English Queen she would have spoken English first and then German second she may have been from Germanic roots like her husband but dosent mean she spoke it first.

[lehtorja]

@Timothycan There seems to be very few recordings of Nicholas II, for instance, who ruled Russia 1894-1917 - I've noticed two in the YouTube, and looking at seemingly informed Russian comments, they may be the only ones. I wonder if there was a general hesitation towards new technologies among the royalty those days? Perhaps a feeling they would loose some of the charisma and mystery around them. An interesting topic.

[Uberdude25]

All I can hear is something about leaving me a big pile of money. :)

[jaqqqqqqattack]

I'm not surprised there aren't more recordings of her - after her husband died, way before the invention of sound recording, she became very reclusive and wasn't one for PR - she didn't give many speeches, let alone have anything recorded.