Consort to Queen Victoria. First cousin of the queen and prince of Saxe‐Coburg‐Gotha, he revitalized the British court in the first twenty years of his wife’s reign. He was one of the driving forces behind the Great Exhibition of 1851; its profits allowed the construction of the Royal Albert Hall (1871) and of museum buildings in South Kensington. In 1861, just before his premature death from typhoid fever, his moderating influence was crucial in keeping Britain out of the American Civil War.