Victorian England

By A.E.W

Victorian Background• Victoria's empire

In 1882 Britain was in the later stages of acquiring the largest empire the world had ever seen. By the end of Victoria's reign, the British empire extended

over about one-fifth of the earth's surface and almost a quarter of the world's population at least theoretically owed allegiance to the 'queen empress'.

• Industrial Revolution

Victoria came to the throne during the early, frenetic phase of the world's first industrial revolution. Industrialisation brought with it new markets, a

consumer boom and greater prosperity for most of the propertied classes.

It also brought rapid, and sometimes chaotic change as towns and cities expanded at a pace which precluded orderly growth.

• Politics

At the beginning of Victoria's reign, about a fifth of adult males were entitled to vote. That proportion increased, through parliamentary reform acts passed

in 1867 and 1884, to one-third and two-thirds respectively.

No women could legally vote in parliamentary elections until almost 18 years after Victoria's death

Victorian Social Hierarchy

S o c i e t y

Victorian society had high views on

morality. Victorian morality is a

distillation of the moral views of

people living at the time of Queen

Victoria's reign (1837–1901) and of

the moral climate of the United

Kingdom of the 19th century in

general, which contrasted greatly

with the morality of the previous

Georgian period. Many of these

values spread throughout the

British Empire. Today, the term

"Victorian morality" can describe

any set of values that espouse

sexual restraint, low tolerance of

crime and a strict social code of

C l a s sThe Upper Class

This was the highest social class of the Victorian England

social hierarchy. The people under this class did not work

manually. Their income normally came from the investments

made by them or from the inherited lands. Their routine work

was fulfilled by the lower class people. This class further got

sub divided in three parts as below -

Royal Class – This include people from royal family and the

spiritual lords of that time.

Middle Upper Class – This class include great officers of the

England, the baronets along with temporal lords.

Lower Upper Class – This class include country wealthy

gentleman and large scale business men who had made

their way with the immense wealth they possessed.

The Middle Class

These were the people who used to work meaning they had

jobs to do. They made their living from the salaries they got

according to the job done. This class included the following

sub-classes.

Higher Level Middle Class – These were high in terms of

salaries and social status as compared to lower middle class.

Lower Level Middle Class – These were the people who

worked on the orders of the higher level middle class people.

The Working Class

These were the group of labours which further got sub

divided in two divisions.

Skilled Class – They had unskilled labours working under

their supervision.

Unskilled Class – They were lowest category labour people.

The Under Class

This class was incorporated in England’s social system

MedicineTwo great discoveries in medicine were made in the

nineteenth century - anaesthesia and the antiseptic method of surgery. Being able to put patients to sleep allowed surgeons to remove or repair troublesome bits inside. Antiseptics gave patients a better chance of surviving

surgery.Unfortunately it was early days for both these discoveries

when the Crimean war was fought (1854-56). In an attempt to improve the vile conditions for wounded

soldiers, Florence Nightingale (in the picture) laid the foundations for nursing to become a properly trained profession. Previously nurses had often been rather

unsavoury characters with little idea of hygiene or how to give proper care.

The emphasis Miss Nightingale put on hygiene had great effect on a soldier's chances of living, and established

cleanliness as essential in care of the sick.

Arch i tecture

•The Houses of Parliament (Charles Barry and A.W.N. Pugin, 1840-60) replaced the building destroyed by fire in 1834. A good example of the period's confused love affair with the past, it was summed up earlier this century as classic in inspiration, Gothic in detailing, and carried out with scrupulous adherence to the architectural detail of

the Tudor period.•With its quiet, unassuming love for the vernacular of Kent and Sussex, and its rejection of Victorian pomposity,

Philip Webb's Red House at Bexleyheath (1859-60) is the building which started the Arts and Crafts movement. It was originally designed for newly-weds William and Janey Morris.

•Castell Coch, near Cardiff (1872-79), is a piece of inspired lunacy by William Burges, best known for his restoration of Cardiff Castle, an opium habit and the fact that he used to relax at home with a pet parrot perched on the shoulder of his hooded medieval robe. This reconstruction of a 13th century chieftain's stronghold - right down to the working portcullis - is scholarly, at least as far as the exterior is concerned. The interior is downright weird, combining High Victorian romanticism with Burges' own eclectic drawings from ancient British history,

Moorish design and classical mythology.•Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art (1896-99, 1907-9) proves that there were a few dissenting voices raised against the Victorian trend to return to the past. Mackintosh was uncompromising in his rejection of

historicism, and his buildings have more in common with the vertical geometry and sinuous curves of Art Nouveau work in France, Belgium and Austria. But his decadent approach to design met with hostility in Britain

and, a few years after the School of Art was completed in 1909, he gave up architecture.

During the 19th century, London became the first "world city"

1) it had a large population distributed over a very large geographical area; this dispersion of the population to suburbs was made possible, as we shall see, by the mechanization of transportation; the railroads were built beginning in the

1830s, the Underground was begun in 1865, and there were horse-drawn trams by the 1880s

2) the population of a world city comes from the whole world; London attracted the dispossessed and ambitious from the British Isles; it attracted the poor and the

politically oppressed from southern and eastern Europe; and it lured immigrants from British possessions throughout the world, particularly India and China

3) a world city has direct industrial and commercial ties to the entire world. In 1880, the Port of London received 8,000,000 tons of goods (up from 800,000 in about 1800). A contemporary guidebook advised: "Nothing will convey to the

stranger a better idea of the vast activity and stupendous wealth of London than a visit to the warehouses, filled to overflowing with interminable stores of every

kind of foreign and colonial product." (Willis, World Civilizations, p. 323)4) a world city is involved in the internal affairs of other nations. London was the

capital of Great Britain, the capital of the British Empire, and the capital of the British Commonwealth of Nations. In addition, its naval power made England a

necessary participant in world affairs.

•Like other capital cities, London was a political and administrative centre, and it housed thousands of civil servants who worked for expanding bureaucracies; it also attracted ambitious political figures; it was also the financial centre, the hub of the

rail and road system, and a large marketplace for goods and services; industry tended to be located in the suburbs; city centre housed government buildings and mercantile

activities; capital cities were also cultural centres: newspaper and book publishers were there, as were theatres and operas, restaurants and pleasure gardens.

•Problems facing 19th century capitals like London: many were centuries old, and their centres were clusters of old streets, churches, and palaces; social structures and

traditions were ancient; in-migration had flooded the old central districts and even some suburbs; hence urban development in the 19 century consisted both of the

reconstruction of the ancient centres and rapid growth on the periphery; •19th century urban dweller faced common tensions and traumas of urban living, i.e. congestion and crime; but also new problems: long commutes or a sense of isolation

and despair.

Touris

m

The British Empire was the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and for more than a century Britain was the foremost global power. It began in the 15th and 16th centuries

when global exploration sanctioned by the English and Scottish people began to establish overseas colonies. There are many reasons why these colonies were established, but one of

the principal reasons was trade and financial benefit. Initially many colonies were established in North America and the Caribbean, but spread to Africa and Asia. The growth of the empire was not without opposition, notably from France and the Netherlands, and a big loss was sustained in 1783 when thirteen American colonies broke away from British

rule. Australia and New Zealand were later added to the growing list.The years 1815 to 1914 are referred to as Britain's imperial century, and at this time, the

Empire included over 14 million square miles of territory and 450 million people. It included more than a quarter of the world's population and it was said that the sun never

set on the British Empire, a phrase attributed to a Scottish writer, John Wilson. With supremacy at sea, Britain took on the role of global policeman, sometimes called the Pax

Britannica. As well as having formal control over its own colonies, with a dominant position in world trade Britain could effectively control the economies of many countries including

China, Argentina and Siam.The empire was vital for trade and during the reign of Queen Victoria, at the height of the British Empire, British ports were full with ships arriving from far and wide carrying the

goods that were processed and sold making Britain a wealthy nation. The Great Exhibition of 1851, the very first World's Fair, was a celebration of the diversity and richness of the

Empire.

•The British Army during the Victorian era served through a period of great technological and social change. Queen

Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, and died in 1901. Her long reign was marked by the steady expansion and

consolidation of the British Empire, and industrialisation and the enactment of liberal reforms (by both Liberal and

Conservative governments) within Britain.•The British Army began the period with few differences

from the British Army of the Napoleonic Wars that fought at Waterloo. There were three main periods of the Army's

development during the era. From the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the mid-1850s, the Duke of Wellington and his

successors attempted to maintain its organisation and tactics as they had been in 1815, with only detail changes. In 1854,

the Crimean War, and the Indian Rebellion of 1857 highlighted the shortcomings of the Army, but entrenched interests prevented major reforms from taking place. From

1868 to 1881, sweeping changes were made by Liberal governments, giving it the broad structure it retained until

1914.•On Victoria's death, the Army was still engaged in the

Second Anglo-Boer War, but other than expedients adopted for that war, it was recognisably the army that would enter the First World War. The Industrial Revolution had changed its weapons, transport and equipment, and social changes

such as better education had prompted changes to the terms of service and outlook of many soldiers. Nevertheless, it

retained many features inherited from the Duke of Wellington's army, and since its prime function was to

maintain the expanding British Empire, it differed in many ways from the conscripted armies of continental Europe.

BRITAIN AT WAR