The Victorians

Queen Victoria 

 On the 20^th of June 1837, King William IV died and his niece, Victoria, became Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at the early age of eighteen. Her reign of sixty-four years was known for its huge change in both industry and technology. This change brought about spectacular entertainment for the masses, sensational crimes, greater divisions between the rich and poor with even greater and more grand attempts to combat the squalor and diseases of this era which had been set into motion by this change. It should also be noted that in 1837 there were only five cities outside of London with populations over one hundred thousand.

We should look at the population of the United States to acquire a fair comparison. According to the 1840 Census of the One Hundred Largest Cities [released on the 15 June 1998 – US Census Bureau] the largest cities were New York, Baltimore and New Orleans. Various other cities on the list are also cited with their total recorded population.

New York City           312,710

Baltimore                    102,710

New Orleans               102,193

Philadelphia                  93,665

Boston                          93,383

Charleston                    29,261

Louisville                     21,210

Richmond                     20,153

Savannah                      11,214

Norfolk                         10,920

Wilmington                     5,335

It is important to note that the three largest urban areas in America were seaports with good harbors; however, harbors alone were not enough to warrant a large population growth; for instance, in 1840, Wilmington, North Carolina had 5,335 folk, while Charleston South Carolina had 29,261.  Usually various things such as farming and trading methodologies, technology, fashion [social as well as clothing], were introduced to the United States from England or various areas of Europe rather than from the United States to England and Europe.

Victorian Children Textile Workers

During this period, the textile industry was at the center of British industrial expansion.  Cottons, wools, silks and the necessary dyestuff was produced at unprecedented rates and exported throughout the British Empire. The cotton industry settled in Manchester which was noted for its rainy weather because cotton needs a humid atmosphere to keep the fibers pliable. Halifax and Leeds were centers for woolens of various types. Macclesfield became the new silk-weaving center even though Spitalfields in London was known for its elaborately designed, exquisite silk fabrics. The chemical industry developed synthetic dyes in Merseyside which produced brighter colors than the vegetable dyes previously used.

Photography came into being at various dates depending upon one’s location and the definition of certain terms; however, it is generally accepted that by 1838 photography had been developed by Louis Daguerre in France and by William Fox-Talbot in England. One of the oldest photographic portraits known in the United States was made in 1839-1840 by Joseph Draper of New York, the subject was his sister; Dorothy Catherine Draper.

Postage stamps were first used in May 1840 and post office boxes came into being in England during the 1850’s.

The railway network in England flourished between 1830 and 1870. In 1841, the Great Western Railroad which ran from Bristol to London in just four hours was completed. By 1852 there were over seven thousand miles of rail track in England and Scotland. The Baltimore and Ohio opened in the United States in 1830.

In 1843, the author, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol sold out in just six days.

The Crystal Palace opened as part of the Great Exhibition in 1851. Coal fired steam engines powered England’s booming economy, be it in a factory or by rail.

The affluent middle classes usually lived outside and to the west of these cities in order to take advantage of the prevailing wind which blew the smells of industrial development away. In these suburbs there were trees and usually gardens. The proud homeowner expected to have central heat, piped water, flushing water closets [toilet], and even electric lights in some areas.

Respectable artisans lived nearer to their places of employment. Usually their cottages were built in terraces. Most of their cottages were pleasant enough with piped water and gas lighting. Each cottage had either an inside toilet or an earthen outside one. Wallpaper in flowery patterns was now affordable by all of these folk.

It was a far different story for those of the laboring classes which worked in the new industrialized cities. The water for these families was piped into one location in each of these neighborhoods and was cut on for just a few hours each week.  In the better areas there might be an outside toilet in an outside yard which served a group of families. Many times when the “outhouse” overflowed, sewage filled the yard. Many of the landlords turned a blind eye to this problem. It wasn’t long before these areas became slums, full of illness brought about by these disease ridden living conditions.

 

Row Houses In Leeds, England

Normally, most of these homes were built in rows with one house adjoining the other in order to make better use of the land which the property owner controlled, but in Leeds, which was the most notorious of England’s slums, these row houses were also built back to back leaving no room for even the smallest yard. Needless to say, dirt floors were the order of the day.

In 1853, smallpox vaccination became compulsory.

In 1854, a cholera epidemic led to demands for a clean water supply and proper sewage systems.

In 1858 with the end of the East India Company, India came under British rule.

In 1859, employment in factories of children under the age of twelve years of age was prohibited.

In 1863, the first underground railway opened in London. It ran from Paddington to Farringdon.

1868 was the year of the last public hanging in England.

1870 & 1882, The Married Women’s Act allowed married women to retain ownership of their own property.

On the 1^st of May, 1876, Queen Victoria acquired the additional title of The Empress of India. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone this same year.

In 1887, five out of every six infants to die in Bethnal Green homes where the whole family shared a bed were found to have suffocated. This neighborhood was only a twenty-five minute walk from the Bank of England [Source: Hudson, Christopher. “It Was The Worst Slum In Victorian Britian. Yet Its Crime-ridden Streets Were SAFER Than Todays.”Daily Mail News, England, 10 July 2008].

In 1888, Jack the Ripper terrorizes East London.

By 1891, the number of cities with populations over one hundred thousand in England had grown to twenty-three. In other words, more than one half of England’s total population lived in towns with most of this number working in factories.

In 1894, The Finance Act introduced death duties which led to the breakup of some large estates.

Queen Victoria was born the 24^th of May 1819 in Kensington Palace, London, United Kingdom.

She died on the 22 January 1901 at Osborne House, East Cowes, United Kingdom.

The popular English novelists of the Victorian Era from Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle to the Brontë sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and the ever popular, Jane Austin all shed light upon this dramatic period of English growth that eventually made its way across “the pond” to influence our American Dream.