The dawn of the Victorian

Age (1837-1861)
Performer Heritage
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2017
 The dawn of the Victorian Age

1837 Queen 1838 Publication of 1847 Publication of 1851 The Great

Victoria comes Oliver Twist by Jane Eyre by Exhibition opens at
1861 Prince Albert dies
to the throne Charles Dickens Charlotte Brontë Crystal Palace

1838 People’s 1840 Marriage of 1847 Publication of 1853-56 1861 Civil War
Charter calls for Queen Victoria to Wuthering Heights by Crimean War begins in America
social reforms Prince Albert Emily Brontë

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

1. Queen Victoria
• Victoria became queen at the age of eighteen
in 1837.

• She ruled for almost 64 years.

• Her sense of duty made her the ideal

head of a constitutional monarchy.

• She provided her country with stability.

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

2. Victoria and Albert

• Victoria and Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
married in 1840. They had nine children and
their family life provided a model of
respectability.
• In 1857 Victoria gave Albert the title of Prince
Consort, in recognition of his importance to the
country.

• In memory of
her beloved
husband she
had the
Albert
Memorial
(1876) built
• Albert supported reform but in December
in London.
1861 he died suddenly at the age of 42.

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

3. An age of reforms
1832
The First Reform Act = voting privileges
extended to the large industrial towns.

1833 The Factory Act = prevented children from

being employed more than 48 hours a week.
The Poor Law Amendment Act =
1834 workhouses became a deterrent against
poverty.

1846 Abolition of the Corn Laws

The Second Reform Act = voting privileges
1867
extended to part of the urban male workers.
1872 Ballot Act = introduction of the secret ballot.

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

4. Workhouses
Workhouses were places where,
often in return for board and
lodging, employment was provided
for
•the poor;
•the orphans;
•the physically and mentally sick;
•the disabled;
•the elderly;
•unmarried mothers.

The government, in the fear of

encouraging laziness, made sure
that people feared the
workhouse and would do anything
to keep out of it.
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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

4. Workhouses
Cruciform

Hexagonal

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

4. Workhouses
Workhouses were designed to
separate groups:

•families were split up;

•people in the same family could

meet during meals or in the
chapel but they were not allowed
to speak to each other;

•all meals were taken in silence;

•the official diets were so meager

that they were described as a
slow process of starvation.

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

5. Chartism
In 1838 a group of working-class radicals drew up a
People’s Charter demanding:

•universal male suffrage

•equal electoral districts

•voting by secret ballot

•pay for Members of Parliament

•annual elections of Parliament

The Chartist movement failed, although their influence

was later felt in the Second Reform Act in 1867.

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

5. Chartism

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

6. The Irish Potato Famine

Causes
•Rise in population in 1845.
•Dependence on potato crops.
•Destruction of crops because
of bad weather and unknown
plant disease.

What was done?

1846: Prime Minister Peel
abolished the Corn Laws,
which imposed tariffs on
imported corn, keeping the
price of bread high.

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

6. The Irish Potato Famine

Results

•1 million died of disease

and starvation.

•2 million emigrated by
1851.

•Decline of Irish language.

•New Catholic landlords.

•Hatred for Britain.

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

7. The Great Exhibition

Housed at the Crystal Palace, in Hyde Park, 1851

Why? It was built so other Who? Everyone from

What? It showed the
countries could show off their all over the British
increasing power
scientific and technological Empire gathered there
of the middle
developments. to see the pride of the
classes.
nations.
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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

7. The Great Exhibition

Inside there were many exhibits from several countries, including China,
America, Canada and many more.

On each industrial country’s exhibit they showcased their biggest designs,

fabrics and their latest creations to show that their home nation was better than
any other.

China’s section. America’s section. Canada’s section.

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

8. Foreign policy
In the mid-19th century England was involved in

two
Opium Crimean
Wars Indian War
Mutiny

• England gained access to five Chinese ports and the control

of Hong Kong after the Second Opium War.
• British rule acquired greater responsibility after the Indian
Mutiny.
• Florence Nightingale led a team of 38 nurses at Scutari base
hospital during the Crimean War. Once back to England, she
formed an institution for the development of the nursing
profession.
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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

9. The Victorian compromise

• The Victorians were great moralisers
 they supported personal duty, hard work, decorum,
respectability, chastity.

• Respectability  a mixture of morality and hypocrisy.

The unpleasant aspects of society – dissolution,
poverty, social unrest – were hidden under outward
respectability.

• ‘Victorian’, synonymous with prude, stood for

extreme repression; even furniture legs had to be
concealed under heavy cloth not to be ‘suggestive’.

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age

9. The Victorian compromise

• The powerful middle-class was
obsessed with gentility and decorum.

Decorum  strict ideas about authority

a. Victorian private lives dominated by an

authoritarian father.
b. Women were subject to male authority;
they were expected to marry and make
home a ‘refuge’ for their husbands.
c. Single women with a child were
marginalised as ‘fallen’ women.

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 The dawn of the Victorian Age
10. Early Victorian thinkers
John Wesley (1703-1791),
the founder of Methodism.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873),
philosopher.
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Evangelicalism
•Strict code of behaviour.
•Dedication to humanitarian causes and social reform.
•Base of Victorian emphasis upon moral conduct.
Utilitarianism
•Neglected human and cultural values.
•Any problem could be overcome by reason.
•Usefulness, happiness, avoidance of pain.
Jeremy Bentham
(1748-1832), theorist.
Empiricism
•Legislation should try to help men develop their natural talents.
•Progress came from mental energy.
•Supported popular education, trade union organisation, extension
of representation to all citizens, and the emancipation of women.
 The dawn of the Victorian Age

10. Early Victorian thinkers

Darwin and the theory of evolution
•All living creatures have developed their forms through a slow
process of change.
•Favourable physical conditions determine the survival of a species,
unfavourable ones its extinction.
• Man evolved from a monkey.

Darwin’s theory discarded the version of creation given

Charles Darwin (1809-1882). by the Bible.

The Oxford Movement

•A reaction to the challenges of science.
•Revival of religion.

John Henry Newman (1801-1890).

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