QUEEN VICTORIA A Personal History

A note on money:

According to figures recently compiled by the Bank of England, £41.03 would have been required in March 1999 for a person to have the same purchasing power as £1 in the middle of Queen Victoria's reign. That is to say, for instance, today's equivalent of the £45 10s a year paid to a maidservant at Windsor Castle in 1867 would be about £2,000 a year. The Lord Chamberlain received the equivalent of nearly £90,000 a year; and the President of Russia would now require over £1,000,000 to match the cost of the presents and gratuities given to the staff of the Royal Household by Tsar Nicholas I on his departure from the castle in 1844.