John Conroy - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Conroy has been portrayed numerous times in film and television. Herbert Wilcox's Victoria the Great (1937) depicted Conroy as a "smarmy character" who is not well developed in the film. The baronet was played by Stefan Skodler in 1954's The Story of Vickie, and Herbert Hübner in Mädchenjahre einer Königin (1936). Patrick Malahide played Conroy in Victoria & Albert, a 2001 TV miniseries that depicted Victoria's early influences. English actor Mark Strong played him in the 2009 film The Young Victoria. The film depicts Conroy as a maniacal controlling pseudo-father to the young Victoria during the year preceding her ascension even going so far as depicting him assaulting the princess twice. The film goes on to depict Conroy's expulsion from Queen Victoria's household.

Conroy also appears in numerous historical fiction novels about Queen Victoria. Writing under the pen names Jean Plaidy and Eleanor Burford, author Eleanor Hibbert's published a series of novels in the 1970s and 1980s, which included The Captive of Kensington Palace (1972), The Queen and Lord M (1973) and Victoria Victorious: The Story of Queen Victoria (1985). A. E. Moorat released the parody novel Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter in 2009.