The Victorian Age or The age of the empire (1837-1901)

1. The Victorian Age or The age of the empire (1837-1901)

2. Social context • England changed from an agricultural into an industrialized country thanks to: • the application of steam power to the machines, • the cutting of new canals, • the building of new roads and railways. • All this made the transportation of goods easier and cheaper.

3. Urbanization • Many towns were created in the industrial areas of the North and the Midlands where more and more people arrived from the countryside in search of a job. • By the middle of the century the majority of England’s and Wales’s population lived in town.

4. Consequences of urbanization • Intolerable overcrowding: • houses were built back to back and side by side. They also lacked toilets, sewers and piped water. • Appalling living conditions: • many workers were so poor that they couldn’t even afford to pay low rents so they lived in damp, airless cellars. • Easy transmission of infectious diseases: outbreaks of cholera and typhus were very common among the lower classes because of the very poor sanitary conditions they lived in.

5. Liberalism • The conditions in which the members of the working class lived were terrible, but their working conditions were even worse and this situation was mainly the consequence of Liberalism. • Liberalism was the political philosophy which inspired both the Tory and the Whigs parties during the Victorian Age. • This philosophy defended the freedom of the individualsin the realization of their potentials. • The economic theory which was strictly connected with Liberalism was that of Free Trade. • According to such a theory the government did not have to interfere in industry and commerce which had to be ruled only by the law of “supply and demand” and by free competition.

6. Liberalism • Workers were those who mainly suffered the consequences of the application of such a theory. Their human interests, in fact, were neglected in favour of the commercial and industrial interests: • men, women and children worked in factories sometimes up to 14-16 hours a day and received very low wages for the work done. • In case of economic depression they were sacked by their employers.

7. Liberalism • Women often worked in very unhealthy environments and suffered from diseases due to lead or sulphur poisoning; • children were exploited in textiles mills and in mines. • Their terrible living and working conditions became the subject-matter of many famous writers and novelists of the period such as Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Bernard Shaw etc.

8. The structure of the Victorian Society • English society was divided into : • Aristocracy – Rich landowners who held power in Parliament for most of the century. • The Middle Class – bankers, manufacturers , merchants etc. who, thanks to the Reform Bill of 1832, began to acquire an increasing political power. • The Working Class made up of factory workers and rural labourers.

9. The structure of the Victorian Society ARISTOCRACY MIDDLE CLASS WORKING CLASS

10. The structure of the Victorian Society • the Middle class was the class that mostly benefited from the process of industrialization and the progress of technology; • by the end of the century it held the power previously held by the Aristocracy; • class distinction was now based on finance rather than land;

11. Values of Victorian Society The way of life of the Middle Class was mainly inspired by the following values : • Respectability • Good manners • Wise and careful spending of money • Duty • Hard work • Honesty • Faith in the material progress • Optimism • Humanitarianism • Philanthropy • Moralism • Conformism

12. Values of Victorian Society • They also believed in the family. • This was under the father’s authority, which was never questioned. • Girls were closely guarded by their parents until they got married. • They spent their time embroidering , reading novels, taking singing lessons and learning to play the piano. Their only dream was to get married. • Sex was a taboo subject to girls, who were supposed to be completely ignorant about it. • Obviously, reality was a bit different from this respectable picture : prostitution, illegitimacy and crimes were very common and widespread in large cities, mainly in London

13. The Great Exhibition of Industry • In 1851 there was the Great exhibition of Industry which was held in London to show the achievements of industrial Britain to the whole world . • The Victorian Middle Class was very proud of the achievements obtained in technology and engineering and they thought that their way of life could be exported to every part of the Empire.

14. Improvements in the working conditions of the lower classes • A number of Bills were passed in Parliament which aimed at bettering the lot of the working classes: • in 1842 the Mines Act forbade the employment of children under ten and of women underground • in 1847 and 1867 the Factory Acts regulated child labour in factory • in 1870 the Education Act provided a system of State primary schools

15. Spread of Trade Unionism • The last decades of the century also saw the spread of Trade Unionism. • At first only a small minority of skilled workers succeeded in getting their Trade Unions accepted by employers and Parliament; gradually all Trade Unions were legalised; • in 1871 Parliament passed the Trade Union Act.

16. First representatives of the working class in Parliament • In 1884 a political agreement between Liberal and Labour representatives allowed a few Labour candidates to be elected in Parliament. • Successively a Conference of the Representatives from various working class organizations was held to allow a greater number of Labour representatives to be elected. • This Conference resulted in the Labour Representation Committeewhich would become the Labour Party in 1906.

17. Socialism in England • Friederich Engels was a Manchester factory owner and Karl Marxsettled in England in 1849 and based his theories on the close observation of the British economy but… • revolutionary socialism never became popular in England: it never spread from the Middle Class circle of intellectuals to the Working Classes. • even though the working class interests were clearly and openly opposed to those of the middle Class and this century saw the rise of the working class movements and trade unionism, English socialism remained essentially evolutionary, that is, it asked for the gradual introduction of social reforms. • The Fabian Society was a clear example of this type of socialism: they preferred discussion , conferences and pamphleteering to violent changes.

18. The Fabian Society • The society was founded on 4 January 1884 in London as a branch of a society founded in 1883 called The Fellowship of the New Life.whose members wanted to transform society by setting an example of clean simplified living for others to follow. • But when some members also wanted to become politically involved to aid society's transformation, it was decided that a separate society, The Fabian Society, also be set up. All members were free to attend both societies. • The group favoured gradual rather than revolutionary change of society. • The Fellowship of the New Life was dissolved in 1898, but the Fabian Society grew to become the pre-eminent intellectual society in the United Kingdom in the Edwardian era, the ten-year period soon after the Victorian Age, from 1901 to 1910, when King Edward VII ruled Britain. • Immediately upon its foundation, the Fabian Society began attracting many intellectuals drawn to its socialist cause.

19. The position of women in Victorian society towards the end of the century • Women’s condition started to change, even if this change was very slow and gradual. • At the beginning of the century women were obliged to pass all their money and properties to their husbands when they got married and their only means of living was through teaching and writing; • by the end of the century there were schools and colleges for women and they could enter several professions.