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Accession at Kensington Palace

Name: Accession at Kensington Palace
Start: 1837-06-20
Location: Kensington Palace

When: 20 June 1837
Where: Kensington Palace
Part of: Queen Victoria accedes and takes up residence at Buckingham Palace

Victoria was awakened at Kensington Palace on 20 June 1837 to learn of William IV's death and her accession to the throne.

William IV died at Windsor Castle at 2:12 am on 20 June 1837. Victoria, who had turned eighteen in May, was awakened at Kensington Palace to be informed that her uncle had died and that she was now Queen. Lord Conyngham delivered the news, marking the start of her reign.

Sources

Queen Victoria Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-09
William IV Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-19
Kensington Palace Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-22

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.