The Victorian Era

THE VICTORIAN ERA (1837-1901)
Historical and Social Background
We are living in an age of transition.

- John Stuart Mill
The Old has passed away, but alas, the New appears not in its stead; the Time is still in pangs
of travail with the New.
-Thomas Carlyle
William IV was succeeded by his niece Victoria, who was only eighteen. She was crowned in
1837 and was to reign for 64 years till her death in 1901, and become the symbol of a whole era,
which was called the Victorian Era. The period was marked by many important social and
historical changes that altered the nation in many ways. The population nearly doubled, the
British Empire expanded exponentially and technological and industrial progress helped Britain
become the most powerful country in the world. The industrial revolution, the railway age, steam
engines were being used in mines, factories and ships. Despite the industrial revolution, the
factories, mills, mines and workshops, England was still an almost entirely agricultural country.
The English countryside was a part of everyone´s existence. The industrial revolution, however,
was just beginning to bring dirt and squalor, ugliness and crime, into the lives of the poor whom
circumstances forced to live and work in the mills and factories of the new towns. Labourers
were being unfairly treated without redress, women workers were also ill-treated and underpaid,
while children were often overworked in abominable conditions. Society in the country was still
effectively feudal.
While the country saw economic progress, poverty and exploitation were also equally a part of it.
The gap between the rich and the poor increased significantly and the drive for material and
commercial success was seen to propagate a kind of a moral decay in the society itself.
Victorian society was organized hierarchically. While race, religion, region, and occupation were
all meaningful aspects of identity and status, the main organizing principles of Victorian society
were gender and class. Gender was considered to be biologically based and to be determinative
of almost every aspect of an individual’s potential and character. Victorian
gender ideology was premised on the “doctrine of separate spheres.” This stated that men and
women were different and meant for different things. Men were physically strong, while women
were weak. Men were meant to participate in politics and in paid work, while women were
meant to run households and raise families.
Class was both economic and cultural and encompassed income, occupation, education, family
structure, sexual behaviour, politics, and leisure activities. The working class, about 70 to 80
percent of the population, got its income from wages, with family incomes usually under £100
per annum. The middle class, which got its income from salaries and profit, grew rapidly during
the 19th century. The very small and very wealthy upper class got its income from property, rent,
and interest. The upper class had titles, wealth, land, or all three; owned most of the land in
Britain; and controlled local, national, and imperial politics.
The Victorian era was an important time for the development of science and the Victorians had a
mission to describe and classify the entire natural world. Much of this writing does not rise to the
level of being regarded as literature but one book in particular, Charles Darwin 's On the Origin
of Species, remains famous. The theory of evolution contained within the work shook many of
the ideas the Victorians had about themselves and their place in the world and although it took a
long time to be widely accepted it would change, dramatically, subsequent thought and literature.
During the nineteenth century the novel become the leading form of literature in English. The
works by pre-Victorian writers such as Jane Austen and Walter Scott had perfected both closely
observed social satire and historical fiction.
The nineteenth century is often regarded as a high point in European literature and Victorian
literature, including the works of Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Robert Browning, Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, Lewis Carroll, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas
Hardy, A.E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Alfred Lord
Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope and Oscar Wilde remain widely
popular and part of the core curricula in most universities and secondary schools.
Social Reforms and Achievements
 The FACTORY ACTS (1833), which improved the conditions of children working in
factories.
 The TEN HOURS’ ACT (1847), which limited working hours to ten hours per day.
 The MINES ACT (1842), which prohibited the working of women and children in mines.
 The PUBLIC HEALTH ACT (1875), which improved health conditions.
 The EDUCATION ACTS (1870), which re-organized elementary education.
 The PARLIAMENTARY REFORM ACT (1832), introduced wide-ranging changes to
the electoral system of England and Wales.
 The EMANCIPATION OF ALL RELIGIOUS SECTS (1871), by which the Roman
Catholics of Britain and Ireland were finally allowed to enter Oxford and Cambridge and
work in government jobs.
 The ADOPTION OF THE FAMOUS ENGLISH WEEK (1850), by which Saturday
afternoon was devoted to pleasure and entertainment.

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THE VICTORIAN ERA (1837-1901)

Historical and Social Background

We are living in an age of transition.

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