The Queen has been targeted by Twitter trolls after sending her first royal tweet.

It came as she passed a technological milestone by tweeting her first message on the micro-blogging site to declare a new Science Museum gallery open.

The official @BritishMonarchy account she used saw its followers grow by tens of thousands, but was immediately attacked by trolls sending abusive messages.

The first royal tweet was sent with the press of a button on a tablet computer, and read: “It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R.”

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “We were fully cognisant of the nature of Twitter, where anyone anywhere can express their opinion, but we were delighted that so many people – in their tens of thousands – responded positively.

“We also received tens of thousands of new followers as a result of the tweet.

“We saw some tweets with profanity but that is just the nature of the format.”