Victorianism – important events:
1833 – Factory Act limited hours of working in factories; abolition of slavery in British
colonies (Abolition Act)
1837 – Victoria became Queen of England
The 1830s-40s – The Chartist Movement demanded protection of workers
1847 – Ten Hours Factory Act limited time of working in textile industry to 10 hours a day
1867 – Second Reform Bill: the right to vote for all men (women had to wait for the voting
rights till 1918)
1870, 1880 – Elementary Education Acts made school attendance compulsory
(consequence: increased literacy)
1880 – Married Women’s Property Act gave women the right to open bank accounts
1877 – Victoria became Empress of India
The 1870s – universities accepted women: women were allowed to study at universities but
did not receive diplomas
1901 – death of Queen Victoria
Position of Great Britain:
By 1850 Britain’s transformation from an agrarian-based to an industrial economy was
complete
In 1848, Great Britain produced as much iron as all the rest of the world put together
By 1870, British foreign trade exceeded that of France, Germany, and Italy combined
(and was 4 times that of the USA)
Great Britain became a biggest workshop and banking capital in the world
Population of GB: in 1837 – 17 million; in 1901 – 37 million
London expanded from 2 to 6 million inhabitants
Growth of Empire: in 1921, after the Victorian Age, British Empire reached its peak
and ruled over ¼ of world territory and 1/3 of its population
But note many negative side-effects of industrialization (urban poverty, child
mortality, apprehensions about the spectre of revolution), growing competition of
other countries
Three Sub-periods:
The Early Victorian Period (1832-1848) – political and social problems, “Times of
Troubles”, unemployment, famine, exploitation of workers
The Mid-Victorian Period (1848-the late 1860s) – prosperity and growth,
atmosphere of optimism, self-complacency, enthusiasm for change, belief in progress
and development
The Late Victorian Period (1870-1901) – decay of Victorian values; loss of hope for
progress and improvement of social and economic conditions
Class system:
Power shifting from the land-holding and land-inheriting aristocracy to the middle
classes
The values of middle classes, their beliefs, and social customs identified as those of
the Victorian mainstream
Landless labourers and small peasant farmers migrated to urban centres and created
the urban proletariat
Changes in social relations and British identity:
New technologies (electric telegraphy, steam press, photography, railway and
steamship travel, the typewriter, phonographic recording)
Consolidation of secular culture (the rise of evolutionary biology and the human
sciences like ethnography, psychology, sociology, criminology; broad application of a
scientific attitude of mind to the study of the Bible; geology)
The Utilitarian Formula:
Utilitarianism (followers of Jeremy Bentham) – Bentham’s reformers were aiming to
test institutions, their common sense and utility, whether they contributed to the
greatest happiness or not, whether they were useful or not; challenging, for example,
the usefulness of the Church they determined it was outdated and of limited
application (met strong opposition); Utilitarians were anticlerical; they were
responsible for major reforms of government and administration
Anti-Utilitarians e.g. Carlyle – proposed substitute religion; John Henry Newman -
proposed return to traditional even dogmatic religious institutions; Newman headed
“The Oxford Movement”
Gender and Sexuality:
The doctrine of separate spheres; roles were prescribed
Women suited to the private sphere (qualities: docility, goodness, and maternal
compassion)
Men operated in the public sphere (qualities: courage, strength, leadership; Victorian
manhood)
Anxiety about gender boundaries
Victorian Code of Conduct:
Freedom of thought and religion, but not of conduct. Strict rules of behaviour:
Earnestness, responsibility, domestic propriety
Social esteem and respectability
Ascetic life (abstention from alcohol & drugs)
Cult of hard work with high work ethics
Separate spheres for men and women (it was believed that men belonged to the public
sphere and women to the domestic sphere)
Female purity
Female ideal – “Angel in the house”, as opposed to “a fallen woman”, i.e. a woman
who had free spirit and was not subservient to men
“The New Woman” – a new type of an independent and strong-minded woman which
emerged in the 1890s
Ideological Debates:
Religious freedom, Christian values, strict morality and good causes
The Evangelicals and the Nonconformists (Dissenters):
o Baptists
o Methodists (John Wesley): Christian perfection, personal holiness
o The Salvation Army, 1865, William Booth
Rational attitudes:
o Economical liberalism (Jeremy Bentham) – unregulated economy, freedom of
action
o Utilitarianism (James Mill): “greatest happiness to the greater number”
o Roman Catholicism – tradition, authority
o Social innovation – Karl Marx, “Das Kapital”, 1867
The Intellectual Climate:
Charles Darwin – “The Origin of Species”, 1859; “The Descent Man”, 1871
Charles Lyell, Scottish geologist – “Principles of Geology” vol. 1 1830, later 12
editions
Earth’s surface is produced by physical, chemical, and biological processes throughg
long periods of geological time.
Earth is infinitely old; 20 million vs 4000-6000 years.
Now: 4,5 billion
