QUEEN VICTORIA
1837 – 1901
THE LONGEST REIGN IN THE
HISTORY OF ENGLAND (??)
Key words
• Political and constitutional developments
• Material progress
• Victorian Compromise
• Imperial expansion
INNER POLICY
• Chartism: radical working-class
movement. In 1838 They asked for a series
of reforms but they were refused.
• Second Reform Bill (1867) right to vote
was given to town workers
• Third Reform Bill (1884) right to vote
extended to all male workers.
THE PEOPLE’S CHARTER
A six-point programme:
• universal adult male suffrage
• equal electoral districts
• the right for a man without property to be an MP
• secret ballot
• annual general election
• payment of Members of Parliament.
INNER POLICY
• Policy of free trade: Corn Laws were repealed
(after the Napoleonic wars they kept the price of
corn higher than necessary to protect British
farmers and landowners); tariffs on imports and
exports were asked to be abolished.
• Great International Exhibition of London
housed in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in 1851:
it was the celebration of the scientific and
industrial progress of the time
INNER POLICY
THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE
• Scientific and industrial progress: steamboat
services, railways development, electricity, the
telegraph, gas lighting….
• The urban slums (unhealthy and unbearable
living conditions for industrial workers) and the
Poor Law (1834) which instituted the workhouses
where poor people were amassed in frightful
living conditions.
HYPOCRISY
• Philanthropy: birth of charitable institutions.
INNER POLICY
Other Social Reforms:
• The Mines Act: women and children
excluded from mines
• Emancipation of Religious Sects (the old
Test Act was repealed )
• Trade Union Act: Trade Unions were
legalized
INNER POLICY
WOMEN
• First colleges for women: they started men’s
professions
• First Petitions asking for women’s suffrage (1918:
vote for women over 30)
• Mary Wollstonecraft,Florence Nightingale, John
Stuart Mill.
• Married Women’s Property Acts: (1870-1908)
women could keep their dowry after marriage
INNER POLICY
New Political Parties
• Conservatives: old Tories (Benjamin Disraeli,
Lord Salisbury)
• Liberals: old Whigs (Lord Palmerston, William
Gladstone)
• Labour Party: born in 1900 thanks to the growth
in political importance of the working class, it
took over from the Liberals by the 1920s and is
nowadays the political alternative to the
Conservatives
FOREIGN POLICY
THE IRISH QUESTION
• Very poor country
• Ireland suffered the lack of interest of England
• Economy based on agriculture
• Potato blight: (1845) the failure of the potato
crops caused famines and the emigration to either
England or the USA
• Irish Independence: first movement for Home
Rule led by Charles Parnell but twice refused by
the central government when the PM Gladstone
proposed the Irish Home Rule Bill
FOREIGN EUROPEAN
POLICY
• The Crimean War (1854-1856): conflict between
Turkey and Russia about their border.
• Britain and France sided with Turkey and won
• Florence Nightingale: she organized camp
hospitals and promoted the foundation of the Red
Cross in Geneva (1864)
• The Boer War: fought to gain control over the
Provinces of Transvaal and Orange against the
Dutch for the property of mines of gold and
diamonds. It was highly criticized by the public
opinion for the high number of casualties.
FOREIGN POLICY
THE COLONIAL EXPANSION
Jingoism (the white man’s burden)
• Australia, New Zealand
• Canada
• Hong Kong
• India, Bangladesh, Pakistan
• Africa: Uganda, Rhodesia, Kenya, Niger, Suez
Canal (majority of shares; England left it only in
1956 when it was nationalized by Egypt)
• In 1876 Queen Victoria became Empress of India
(the East India Company was abolished), the
control of India was under the central government
