Victorian England 1832-
1901
Named after Queen Victoria
When 18 year old Princess Victoria became Queen in 1837 no one dreamed she would reign for the rest of the century for another 64 years.
• Lives of millions were changed as suddenly the masses were able to travel further than ten miles in one direction.
The Rich Class
• enjoyed entertaining in their lavishly decorated homes – They associated clutter of ornamentation and showy display with wealth and so crammed their homes with furniture, knick knacks and pianos.
Working Conditions
• Millions of workers lived in slums or in vacated old decaying upper class houses. The occupants of slums had no sanitation, no water supply, no paved streets, no schools, no law or order, no decent food or clothing.
Hale Waihona Puke The Railway – A symbol of
Progress
• The railways moved goods, foods and people faster than canals or horse drawn wagons.
• The greatest factor in transforming Britain into an industrial nation.
Victorian Prosperity
• Country becomes Urban (cities) • Elite enjoy the development of new machinery
and new work methods. • Poor are the underpaid workforce consisting of
The Poor Class
• In a poor family—all worked—parents and children. Their were no child labor laws.
• Very few poor children were allowed an education as this would interfere with their labor time.
• Many now had to walk miles to factories to work beginning at 5.30.a.m—never less than ten. The brutal degrading conditions were so awful that drunkenness and opium taking was common as homelife had so little to offer
Society and Social Class
• In church the higher classes sat at the front in reserved pews and lower classes at the back.
• The wives of wealthy industrialists were clothed in prominent finery as they were the social representatives of their husbands.
adults and children living in wretched poverty. • By 1850 half the country's former peasants were
squashed into Britain's cities. The growth of industry, the building boom, the swift population spurt and spread of the railway changed the character of Britain too rapidly for many to understand.
• A new social class emerged: the middle class. An outward display of wealth through clothing and possessions .
Work houses and Poor Law
• The Poor Law Amendment abolished systems of poor relief that had previously existed, replaced by workhouses.
• The treatment in a workhouse was little different from that in a prison leaving many inmates feeling that they were being punished for the crime of poverty.