Victorian era

The Victorian era of Great Britain marked the height of the British industrial revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Although commonly used to refer to the period of Queen Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901, scholars debate whether the Victorian period--as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be associated with the Victorians--actually begins with the passage of the Reform Act 1832. The Victorian era was preceded by the Regency era and succeeded by the Edwardian period.

Queen Victoria had the longest reign in British history, and the cultural, political, economic, industrial and scientific changes that occurred during her reign were remarkable. When Victoria ascended to the throne, England was essentially agrarian and rural; upon her death, the country was highly industrialized and connected by a massive railway network. Such a transition was not smooth by any stretch of the imagination, nor were the early decades of the period without indicent. The first decades of Victoria's reign witnessed a series of epidemics (typhus and cholera, most notably), crop failures and economic collapses. There were riots over enfranchisement and the repeal of the Corn Laws, which had been established to protect English agriculture during the Napoleonic Wars in the early part of the 19th century.

Discoveries by Lyell and Darwin began to question centuries of assumptions about man and the world, about science and history, and, finally, about religion and philosophy. As the country grew increasingly connected by a massive network of railway lines, small, previously isolated communities were exposed and entire economies shifted as cities became more and more accessible. This inescapable sense of newness resulted in a deep interest in the ancient, and more specifically, in making buildings look far older than they actually were. Gothic Revival architecture dominated the period, most clearly evident in Charles Barry's architecture for the Palace of Westminster, commonly known as Parliament, which had burned almost entirely in 1834.

The middle of the century saw the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World's Fair and showcased the greatest innovations of the century. At its center was the Crystal Palace, an enormous, modular glass and steel structure--the first of its kind. The emergence of photography, which was showcased at the Great Exhibition, resulted in significant changes in Victorian art and in no small way led to the Impressionitic techniques that would dominate the latter years of the period.

The mid-Victorian period also witnessed significant social changes: an evangelical revival occurred alongside a series of legal changes in women's rights. While women were not enfranchised during the Victorian period, they did gain the legal right to their property upon marriage through the Married Women's Property Act, the right to divorce, and the right to fight for custody of their children upon separation.

The Census of 1851 revealed that women outnumbered men by 4%, which meant that large numbers of women were incapable of marriage simply because there were not enough men. The result of these findings (which had also been reflected in earlier censuses) was a tremendous popular concern over what would come to be two of the most public mid-Victorian concerns: "superfluous women" (i.e. single women of marriagable age) and prostitution. These two issues, for obvious reasons, brought together a motley crew of evangelicals and women's rights activists, all of whom were concerned with what would come to be known as "the woman question."

When the passage of the first of the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1864 authorized any constable to order any woman suspected of being a prostitute infected with a venereal disease, these various groups would be unified by their desire to repeal the acts.

By the time the CD Acts were repealed in 1885, Victorian England had been completely transformed. This era, which at its outset looked no different from the century before it, would end resembling far more the era that would follow.

Politics

The period is often characterised as a long period of peace and economic, colonial, and industrial consolidation, temporarily disrupted by the Crimean War, although Britain was at war every year during this period. Towards the end of the century, the policies of New Imperialism led to increasing colonial conflicts and eventually the Boer Wars. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of gradual political reform and the widening of the franchise.

In the early part of the era the House of Commons was dominated by the two parties, the Whigs and the Tories. From the late 1850s onwards the Whigs became the Liberals. Many prominent statesmen led one or other of the parties, including Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, William Ewart Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Salisbury. The unsolved problems relating to Ireland played a great part in politics in the later Victorian era, particularly in view of Gladstone's determination to achieve a political settlement.

In January 1858, the Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, responded 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, but the resulting uproar forced him to resign.

In July 1866, an angry crowd in London, protesting Russell's resignation as prime minister, was barred from Hyde Park by the police; it tore down iron railings and trampled the flower beds. Disturbances like this convinced Derby and Disraeli of the need for further parliamentary reform.

During 1875 Britain purchased Egypt's shares in the Suez Canal as the African nation was forced to raise money to pay off its debts.

In 1882 Egypt became a protectorate of Great Britain after British troops occupied land surrounding the Suez Canal in order to secure the vital trade route, and the passage to India.

In 1884 the Fabian Society was founded in London by a group of middle-class intellectuals, including Quaker Edward Pease, 17, Havelock Ellis, 25, and Edith Nesbit, 26, to promote socialism. George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells would be among many famous names to later join this society.

On Sunday, November 13, 1887, tens of thousands of people, many of them socialists or unemployed, gathered in Trafalgar Square to demonstrate against the government. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren ordered armed soldiers and 2,000 police constables to respond. Rioting broke out, hundreds were injured and two people died. This event was referred to as Bloody Sunday.

Events

In 1851 the Great Exhibition (the first World's Fair) was held in The Crystal Palace, with great success and international attention.

In 1888, the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper murdered and mutilated prostitutes on the streets of London, leading to world-wide press coverage and hysteria. Newspapers used the deaths to bring greater focus on the plight of the unemployed and to attack police and political leaders. The killer was never caught, and the affair contributed to Sir Charles Warren's resignation.

Victorian Entertainment

Brass bands and 'The bandstand' became popular in the Victorian era typically associated with the British brass band. The band stand is a simple construction which not only creates an ornamental focal point, it also serves acoustic requirements whilst providing shelter for 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.

Another form of entertainment involved 'spectacles' where paranormal events, such as hypnotism, 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 very popular during this time compared to others in recent Western history.

Science, technology and engineering

The impetus of the industrial revolution had already occurred, but it was during this period that the full effects of industrialisation made themselves felt, leading to the mass society of the 20th century. The revolution led to the rise of railways across the country and massive leaps forward in engineering, most famously by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

During the Victorian era, science grew into the discipline it is today. In addition to the increasing professionalism of university science, many Victorian gentlemen devoted their time to the study of natural history.

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published in 1859 and had a tremendous effect on the popular mindset.

In 1882, incandescent electric lights were introduced to London streets, although it took many long years before they were installed everywhere.

Prostitution

In the writings of Henry Mayhew, Charles Booth and others, prostitution began to be seen as a social problem, rather than just a fact of urban life. It also began to be seen as a feminist issue in the work of Josephine Butler, who attacked the long-established double standard of sexual morality. Prostitutes were often presented as victims in sentimental literature such Thomas Hood's poem The Bridge of Sighs, Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton and Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. The emphasis on the purity of women found in such works as John Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies led to the portrayal of the prostititute as soiled and corrupted, who needed to be cleansed.

This emphasis on purity was allied to the stress on the homemaking role of women, who helped to create a space free from the pollution and corruption of the city. In this respect the prostitute came to have symbolic significance as the embodiment of the violation of that divide. The double standard remained in force. Divorce legislation introduced in 1857 allowed for a man to divorce his wife for adultery, but a woman could only divorce if adultery was accompanied by cruelty. The anonymity of the city led to a large increase in prostitution and unsanctioned sexual relationships. Dickens and other writers associated prostitution with the mechanisation and industrialisation of modern life, portraying prostitutes as human commodities consumed and thrown away like refuse when they were used up. Moral reform movements attempted to close down brothels, something that has sometimes been argued to have been a factor in the concentration of street-prostitution in Whitechapel by the late 1880s.

Sources and further reading

Altick, Richard Daniel. Victorian People and Ideas: A Companion for the Modern Reader of Victorian Literature. W.W. Norton & Company: 1974. ISBN 039309376X.
Burton, Antoinette (editor). Politics and Empire in Victorian Britain: A Reader. Palgrave Macmillan: 2001. ISBN 0312293356.
Flanders, Judith. Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England. W.W. Norton & Company: 2004. ISBN 0393052095.
Mitchell, Sally. Daily Life in Victorian England. Greenwood Press: 1996. ISBN 0313294674.
Wilson, A. N. The Victorians. Arrow Books: 2002. ISBN 0099451867

and so on

External links and references

Victorian era | Golden ages

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