The Victorian era of British History was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June
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Within the fields of social history and literature, Victorianism refers to the study of late-Victorian attitudes and culture with a focus on the highly moralistic, straitlaced language and behaviour of Victorian morality. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first portion of the Belle Epoque era of continental Europe.
Historians have characterized the mid-Victorian era, (1850–1870) as Britain's 'Golden Years.' There was prosperity, as the national income per person grew by half. Much of the prosperity was due to the increasing industrialization, especially in textiles and machinery, as well as to the worldwide network of trade and engineering that produce profits for British merchants and experts from across the globe. There was peace abroad (apart from the short Crimean war, 1854–56), and social peace at home. Employers typically were paternalistic, and generally recognized the trade unions. Companies provided their employees with welfare services ranging from housing, schools and churches, to libraries, baths, and gymnasia. Middle-class reformers did their best to assist the working classes aspire to middle-class norms of 'respectability.'
Population
The Victorian era was a time of unprecedented demographic increase in Britain. The population rose from 13.9 million in 1831 to 32.5 million in 1901. Two major factors affecting population growth are fertility rates and mortality rates. Britain was the first country to undergo the Demographic transition and the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. Britain had the lead in rapid economic and population growth. People had more money and could improve their standards; therefore, a population increase was sustainable.
Fertility Rates
In the Victorian era, fertility rates increased in every decade until 1901, when the rates started evening out. There are several reasons for the increase in birth rates. One is biological: with improving living standards, the percentage of women who were able to have children increased. Another possible explanation is social. In the 19th century, the marriage rate increased, and people were getting married at a very young age until the end of the century, when the average age of marriage started to increase again slowly. The reasons why people got married younger and more frequently are uncertain. One theory is that greater prosperity allowed people to finance marriage and new households earlier than previously possible. With more births within marriage, it seems inevitable that marriage rates and birth rates would rise together.
The evening out of fertility rates at the beginning of the 20th century was mainly the result of a few big changes: availability of forms of birth control, and changes in people's attitude towards sex.
Mortality Rates
The mortality rates in England changed greatly through the 19th century. There was no catastrophic epidemic or famine in England or Scotland in the 19th century – it was the first century in which a major epidemic did not occur throughout the whole country, with deaths per 1000 of population per year in England and Wales dropping from 21.9 from 1848–54 to 17 in 1901 (contrasting with, for instance, 5.4 in 1971). Class had a significant effect on mortality rates as the upper classes had a lower rate of premature death early in the 19th century than poorer classes did.
Environmental and health standards rose throughout the Victorian era; improvements in nutrition may also have played a role, although the importance of this is debated. Sewage works were improved as was the quality of drinking water. With a healthier environment, diseases were caught less easily and did not spread as much. Technology was also improving because the population had more money to spend on medical technology (for example, techniques to prevent death in childbirth so more women and children survived), which also led to a greater number of cures for diseases. However, a cholera epidemic took place in London in 1848–49 killing 14,137, and subsequently in 1853 killing 10,738. This anomaly was attributed to the closure and replacement of cesspits by the modern London sewerage system. Tuberculosis (spread in congested dwellings), lung diseases from the mines and typhoid were also common.
Culture
Gothic revival architecture became increasingly significant during the period, leading to the Battle of the Styles between Gothic and Classical ideals. Charles Barry's architecture for the new Palace of Westminster, which had been badly damaged in an 1834 fire, was built in the medieval style of Westminster Hall, the surviving part of the building.
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| Image : GoogleThe Poultry Cross, Salisbury, painted by Louise Rayner , c. 1870 |
The middle of the 19th century saw The Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World's Fair, which showcased the greatest innovations of the century. At its centre was the Crystal Palace, a modular glass and iron structure – the first of its kind. It was condemned by Ruskin as the very model of mechanical dehumanisation in design, but later came to be presented as the prototype of Modern Architecture. The emergence of photography, showcased at the Great Exhibition, resulted in significant changes in Victorian art with Queen Victoria being the first British monarch to be photographed.
Industrialisation brought with it a burgeoning middle class whose increase in numbers had a significant effect on the social strata itself: cultural norms, lifestyle, values and morality.
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| Image : Google A picture of Leadenhall Street, London, c. 1837 |
In the Victorian era, English family life increasingly became compartmentalised, the home a self-contained structure housing a nuclear family extended according to need and circumstance to include blood relations. The concept of "privacy" became a hallmark of the middle class life.
Bourgeois existence was a world of interior space, heavily curtained off and wary of intrusion, and opened only by invitation for viewing on occasions such as parties or teas.
Entertainment
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| Image : Google The Epsom Derby; painting by James Pollard, c. 1840 |
Popular forms of entertainment varied by social class. Victorian Britain, like the periods before it, was interested in literature ( Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charlotte Brontë and her sisters, Robert Louis Stevenson and William Makepeace Thackeray), theatre and the arts ( Aesthetic movement and Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood), and music, drama, and opera were widely attended. Michael Balfe was the most popular British grand opera composer of the period, while the most popular musical theatre was a series of fourteen comic operas by Gilbert and Sullivan, although there was also musical burlesque and the beginning of Edwardian musical comedy in the 1890s. Drama ranged from low comedy to Shakespeare ( Henry Irving ). There were, however, other forms of entertainment. Gentlemen went to dining clubs, like the Beefsteak club or the Savage club. Gambling at cards in establishments popularly called casinos was wildly popular during the period: so much so that evangelical and reform movements specifically targeted such establishments in their efforts to stop gambling, drinking, and prostitution.
Brass bands and 'The Bandstand' became popular in the Victorian era. The band stand was a simple construction that not only created an ornamental focal point, but also served acoustic requirements whilst providing shelter from the changeable British weather. It was common to hear the sound of a brass band whilst strolling through parklands. At this time musical recording was still very much a novelty.
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| Image : GooglePablo Fanque performing at Astley's Amphitheatre, 1847 |
The Victorian era marked the golden age of the British circus. Astley's Amphitheatre in Lambeth, London, featuring equestrian acts in a 42-foot wide circus ring, was the epicentre of the 19th century circus.
Another form of entertainment involved 'spectacles' where paranormal events, such as mesmerism, communication with the dead (by way of mediumship or channelling), ghost conjuring and the like, were carried out to the delight of crowds and participants. Such activities were more popular at this time than in other periods of recent Western history.
Natural history became increasingly an "amateur" activity. Particularly in Britain and the United States, this grew into specialist hobbies such as the study of birds, butterflies, seashells (malacology/conchology), beetles and wild flowers. Amateur collectors and natural history entrepreneurs played an important role in building the large natural history collections of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Middle-class Victorians used the train services to visit the seaside, helped by the Bank Holiday Act of 1871, which created a number of fixed holidays. Large numbers travelling to quiet fishing villages such as Worthing, Brighton, Morecambe and Scarborough began turning them into major tourist centres, and people like Thomas Cook saw tourism and even overseas travel as viable businesses.
Technology and engineering
The Victorians were impressed by science and progress, and felt that they could improve society in the same way as they were improving technology. Britain was the leading world center for advanced engineering and technology. Its engineering firms were in worldwide demand for designing and constructing railways.
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| Image : GoogleThe railways changed communications and society dramatically. |
A central development during the Victorian era was the improvement of communication. The new railways all allowed goods, raw materials and people to be moved about, rapidly facilitating trade and industry. The financing of railways became an important specialty of London's financiers. Trains became important factor ordering society, with "railway time" being the standard by which clocks were set throughout Britain, and with the complex railway system setting the standard for technological advances and efficiency. Steam ships such as the SS Great Britain and SS Great Western made international travel more common but also advanced trade, so that in Britain it was not just the luxury goods of earlier times that were imported into the country but essentials and raw materials such as corn and cotton from the United States and meat and wool from Australia. One more important innovation in communications was the Penny Black, the first postage stamp, which standardised postage to a flat price regardless of distance sent.
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| Image : GoogleBrunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. |
Even later communication methods such as electric power, telegraph, and telephones, had an impact. Photography was realised in 1839 by Louis Daguerre in France and William Fox Talbot in Britain. By 1889, hand-held cameras were available.
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| Image : GoogleGlasgow slum in 1871 |
Similar sanitation reforms, prompted by the Public Health Acts 1848 and 1869, were made in the crowded, dirty streets of the existing cities, and soap was the main product shown in the relatively new phenomenon of advertising. A great engineering feat in the Victorian Era was the sewage system in London.After this, Bazalgette designed the Thames Embankment which housed sewers, water pipes and the London Underground. During the same period London's water supply network was expanded and improved, and a gas network for lighting and heating was introduced in the 1880s.
Although initially developed in the early years of the 19th century, gas lighting became widespread during the Victorian era in industry, homes, public buildings and the streets. The invention of the incandescent gas mantle in the 1890s greatly improved light output and ensured its survival as late as the 1960s. Hundreds of gasworks were constructed in cities and towns across the country. In 1882, incandescent electric lights were introduced to London streets, although it took many years before they were installed everywhere.
Railways
One of great achievements of the Industrial Revolution in Britain was the introduction and advancement of railway systems, not only in the United Kingdom and the British Empire, but across the world.
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| Image : GoogleCrossing the Lagan Canal by the Ulster Railway near Moira, a sensible legacy of the Victorian era. |
The engineers and businessmen needed to create and finance a railway system were available; they knew how to invent, to build, and to finance a large complex system. The first quarter of the 19th century involved numerous experiments with locomotives and rail technology. By 1825 railways were commercially feasible, as demonstrated by George Stephenson (1791-1848) when he built the Stockton and Darlington. Thomas Brassey (1805-70) was even more prominent.They invented and improved thousands of mechanical devices, and developed the science of civil engineering to build roadways, tunnels and bridges.
Sport
The Victorian Era saw the introduction and development of many modern sports. Cricket, cycling, croquet, horse-riding, and water activities are examples of some of the popular sports in the Victorian Era. The modern game of tennis originated in Birmingham, England, between 1859 and 1865. The world's oldest tennis tournament, the Wimbledon championships, were first played in London in 1877. The first Olympic Games held under the auspices of the IOC were hosted in Athens in 1896. The Games brought together 12 nations and 241 athletes who competed in 43 events.
Football
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| Image : GoogleThe Aston Villa team of the 1890s. |
The first football league in the world was established in 1888 by Aston Villa director William McGregor. Aston Villa was the most successful English club of the Victorian era, winning five League titles and three FA Cups by the end of Queen Victoria's reign. Other prominent clubs of the era were Blackburn Rovers, Sunderland and Preston North End. The end of the 19th century saw Britain being swept by football mania, attracting huge crowds of largely working class men.
Health and Medicine
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| Image : Google Joseph Thomas Clover demonstrating the Chloroform apparatus he invented in 1862. |
Medicine progressed during Queen Victoria's reign.In 1847 chloroform was introduced as an anaesthetic by James Young Simpson.Chloroform was favoured by doctors and hospital staff because it is much less flammable than ether, but critics complained that it could cause the patient to have a heart attack. Anaesthetics made painless dentistry possible. Medicine also benefited from the introduction of antiseptics by Joseph Lister in 1867 in the form of carbolic acid (phenol).
Morality
The Victorian era is famous for the Victorian standards of personal morality. Historians generally agree that the middle classes held high personal moral standards (and usually followed them), but have debated whether the working classes followed suit. Moralists in the late 19th century such as Henry Mayhew decried the slums for their supposed high levels of cohabitation without marriage and illegitimate births. By contrast in 21st century Britain, nearly half of all children are born outside marriage, and nine in ten newlyweds have been cohabitating.
Events
- 1832
- Passage of the first Reform Act.
Image : Google - 1837
- Ascension of Queen Victoria to the throne.
- 1838
- Treaty of Balta Liman (Great Britain trade alliance with the Ottoman Empire)
- 1839
- First Opium War (1839–42) fought between Britain and China.
- 1840
- Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield. He had been naturalised and granted the British style of Royal Highness beforehand. For the next 17 years, he was known as HRH Prince Albert.
- 1840
- Birth of the Queen's first child The Princess Victoria. Within months she was granted the title Princess Royal.
- 1840
- New Zealand becomes a British colony, through the Treaty of Waitangi. No longer part of New South Wales.
Image : Google - 1841
- Birth of the Queen's heir-apparent The Prince Albert Edward, Duke of Cornwall (Duke of Rothesay) . He was swiftly made Prince of Wales. Sir James Brooke founds the White Rajah dynasty of Sarawak.
Image : Google - 1842
- Treaty of Nanking. The Massacre of Elphinstone's Army by the Afghans in Afghanistan results in the death or incarceration of 16,500 soldiers and civilians.The Mines Act of 1842 banned women/children from working in coal, iron, lead and tin mining. The Illustrated London News was first published.
- 1843
- Birth of The Princess Alice.
- 1844
- Birth of The Prince Alfred.
- 1845
- The Irish famine begins. Within 5 years it would become the UK's worst human disaster, with starvation and emigration reducing the population of Ireland itself by over 50%. The famine permanently changed Ireland's and Scotland's demographics and became a rallying point for nationalist sentiment that pervaded British politics for much of the following century.
- 1846
- Repeal of the Corn Laws.
- 1846
- Birth of The Princess Helena.
- 1848
- Death of around 2,000 people a week in a cholera epidemic.
- 1848
- Birth of The Princess Louise.
Image : Google - 1850
- Restoration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales. (Scotland did not follow until 1858.)
- 1850
- Birth of The Prince Arthur.
- 1851
- The Great Exhibition (the first World's Fair) is held at the Crystal Palace, with great success and international attention. The Victorian gold rush. In ten years the Australian population nearly tripled.
Image : Google - 1853
- Birth of The Prince Leopold.
- 1854
- Crimean War: The United Kingdom declares war on Russia.
- 1857
- The Indian Mutiny, a widespread revolt in India against the rule of the British East India Company, is sparked by sepoys (native Indian soldiers) in the Company's army. The rebellion, involving not just sepoys but many sectors of the Indian population as well, is largely quashed within a year. In response to the mutiny, the East India Company is abolished in August 1858 and India comes under the direct rule of the British crown, beginning the period of the British Raj.Prince Albert is given the title The Prince Consort.
- 1857
- Birth of The Princess Beatrice.
- 1858
- The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, responds to the Orsini plot against French emperor Napoleon III, the bombs for which were purchased in Birmingham, by attempting to make such acts a felony; the resulting uproar forces him to resign.
- 1859
- Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, which leads to various reactions. Victoria and Albert's first grandchild, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, is born — he later became William II, German Emperor. John Stuart Mill publishes On Liberty, a defence of the famous harm principle.
- 1861
- Death of Prince Albert; Queen Victoria refuses to go out in public for many years, and when she did she wore a widow's bonnet instead of the crown.
- 1863
- The Prince of Wales marries Princess Alexandra of Denmark at Windsor.
- 1865
- Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published.
- 1866
- An angry crowd in London, protesting against John Russell's resignation as Prime Minister, is barred from Hyde Park by the police; they tear down iron railings and trample on flower beds. Disturbances like this convince Derby and Disraeli of the need for further parliamentary reform.
- 1867
- The Constitution Act, 1867 passes and British North America becomes Dominion of Canada.
- 1875
- Britain purchased Egypt's shares in the Suez canals as the African nation was forced to raise money to pay off its debts.
- 1876
- Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.
- 1877
- The Princess Alice becomes Grand Duchess of Hesse when her husband succeeds as Louis IV,Grand Duke of Hesse.
- 1878
- Treaty of Berlin (1878). Cyprus becomes a Crown colony. The Princess Alice dies. Princess Louise's husband The Marquis of Lorne is appointed Governor-General of Canada. First incandescent light bulb by Joseph Wilson Swan.
- 1879
- The Battle of Isandwana is the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War. Victoria and Albert's first great-grandchild, Princess Fedora of Saxe-Meiningen, is born.
- 1881
- The British suffer defeat at the Battle of Majuba Hill, leading to the signing of a peace treaty and later the Pretoria Convention, between the British and the reinstated South African Republic, ending the First Boer War. Sometimes claimed to mark the beginning of the decline of the British Empire.
- 1882
- British troops begin the occupation of Egypt by taking the Suez Canal, to secure the vital trade route and passage to India, and the country becomes a protectorate.
- 1883
- Princess Louise and Lord Lorne return from Canada.
- 1884
- The Fabian Society is founded in London by a group of middle class intellectuals, including Quaker Edward R. Pease, Havelock Ellis, and E. Nesbit, to promote socialism. Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany dies.
- 1885
- Blackpool Electric Tramway Company starts the first electric tram service in the United Kingdom.
- 1886
- Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone and the Liberal Party tries passing the First Irish Home Rule Bill, but the House of Commons rejects it.
- 1888
- The serial killer known as Jack the Ripper murders and mutilates five (and possibly more) prostitutes on the streets of London. Victoria's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, becomes German Empress when her husband succeeds as Frederick III, German Emperor. Within months, Frederick dies, and their son becomes William II, German Emperor. The widowed Vicky becomes the Dowager Empress as is known as "Empress Frederick".
- 1889
- Emily Williamson founds the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
- 1870 – 1891
- Under the Elementary Education Act 1870, basic State Education becomes free for every child under the age of 10.
- 1891
- Victoria and Albert's last grandchild, Prince Maurice of Battenberg, is born.
- 1892
- The Prince of Wales' eldest son Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence dies of inflluenza.
- 1893
- The Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburg succeeds as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha when his uncle dies. The Duchy skips over The Prince of Wales due to his renunciation of his succession rights to that Duchy.
- 1898
- British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeat the Mahdist forces at the battle of Omdurman, thus establishing British dominance in the Sudan. Winston Churchill takes part in the British cavalry charge at Omdurman.
- 1899
- The Second Boer War is fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics. The Boers finally surrendered and the British annexed the Boer republics.
- 1900
- Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha dies. His nephew Prince Charles Edward, Duke of Albany succeeds him, because his brother Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and nephew Prince Arthur of Connaug had renounced their rights.
- 1901
- The death of Victoria sees the end of this era. The ascension of her eldest son, Edward, begins the Edwardian era; albeit considerably shorter, this was another time of great change.
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