British Royal Eras

By Deane Barker • • tags: uk, royalty •

Several time periods in British history are named for the first names of reigning monarchs of those times:

Other eras are named for family names:

The “family eras” seem to be less well-known.

One of the reasons this naming style took place is that the eras corresponding to slow-moving changes in society. For example, the Victorian era is associated with the increasing modernization of the impending Industrial Revolution. The Georgian era is defined by the advancement of science during The Age of Enlightenment.

The current Windsor era has been dominated by the reign of Queen Elizabeth II from 1952 to 2022. If you consider the changes that happened solely during her lifetime, how would you define that era? The rate of societal change has increased so much that it’s hard to correlate it to a single familial reign. Also, it’s unlikely the House of Windsor will be toppled by war or invasion, so it could theoretically remain in power for hundreds of years to come.

Therefore, the current British reign will likely be too big to neatly correspond to societal changes. As such, it may not need a name.

Why I Looked It Up

I was reading a couple classics, and the name of the various eras came up in the introductions. It suddenly occurred to me that the names of eras (“Victorian”) corresponded to first names (“Victoria”) and these were likely the royal rules of those ages.

Postscript

Added on

In The Family, when describing Prescott Bush, someone was quoted:

That’s the kind of man he was. Edwardian, in the best sense of the word.

I did a little searching, but I couldn’t find any common reference on what it means to describe a person as “Edwardian.” Most everything referred to the Edwardian era (the first decade of the 20th Century), but didn’t note any personal characteristics that would correspond to that era.

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