A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain
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prison 50–1
prostitution 40–1
public school/university sports 255, 265–6, 269, 271–2, 275–6
Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore 78–80
Punch xxiv, 40, 46, 53, 99, 205, 286–8
punts 255–6
Puritan values 164–5
Pusey, Edward 159
‘quadricycles’ 148
Queen Anne style 72, 102–3
Rackham, Arthur 290
racquets 276
Ragged School movement 47–8
Raglan, Lord 312, 314–15
Railway Act (1844) 117–18
railway bridges and viaducts 120
railway stations 120–1, 124, 209, 291–2
railways 111, 116–19
Channel Tunnel proposal 338
classes 122, 140–1
foreign 121, 124, 259–60
line building 119–24
locomotives 122
royal travel by 16, 18
seaside destinations 248
and shipping links 126
Tay Bridge collapse 161
transport of building materials 76
transport of food 56
underground 138–42
Rainhill trials, Liverpool 116
The Red House, Bexleyheath 104–5
Reed, Talbot Baines xxi
Reform Bill (1832) 313
riots 73, 161
refrigeration 57–8, 69
Regency style
architecture 71, 77, 87, 89, 92, 100
clothes 215, 216, 225, 227
footwear 221, 228
hats 229
republicanism 22–3, 26
river-boating 255–7, 271–2
road-building 112–13
Roberts, Lord (Lieutenant General) 30, 322–3, 325–6, 333, 334, 335
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel 104
Rourke’s Drift 328
Royal Family
clothes 16
German connections 2, 9, 15, 24, 25, 30
private life 13–15
public life 16–21
use of motor cars 154
see also individual members
Royal Navy 297, 307–9
Crimean War 313–14, 315
guardians of Empire 305–6
modernization 339–40
steam boats/ships 125, 309, 339
threat of France 336–7
rugby 264, 270–1
Rugby School 81, 266, 277
Rumford, Benjamin 58
Ruskin, John 71, 81–2, 104, 107, 233
Russell, Charles 182–3
Russell, Odo 338
Russell, William Howard 316
Sabbath see Sunday
sailing-ships 129–30, 305, 306
St Aubyn, Giles 28
Sala, George Augustus 83, 85–6, 188, 213–14, 224–5, 226–7
Salisbury, Lord 27
Salomons, Sir David 152
Salvation Army 160, 166
Samboume, Linley 288
Linley Sambourne House, Kensington 99–100, 101
Sankey, Ira 189–90, 191
Schlesinger, Arthur 74
Schlesinger, Max 83–5
science
and new technology 27
and religion 192–3
Scotland 161–2, 194, 252, 253–4
Balmoral 14, 21, 27, 229
Forth Bridge 120
golf 273
Highland troops 314, 315, 318–19
Presbyterian Church of 177–81
Sunday observance 177–8
Tay Bridge collapse 161
Scott, George Gilbert 81
Scott, M. H. Baillie 106–7, 108
Scott, Sir Walter 88, 91, 104, 294
screw propellers 125, 127
sea bathing 247–8, 249–50
Seacole, Mary 316
seaside 247–52
sermons 174–7, 178, 179
servants 44–6
and callers 202, 204
‘emptying slops’ 96
and family religious observance 172, 187–8
former female 40–1
quarters 76, 86–7
Sevastopol, siege of 313–14, 318–19
sewage disposal and treatment 97
Shaftesbury, Lord 48
shawls 221
Shepard, Ernest 168, 181, 185, 199
Shillibeer, George 132
shipbuilding industry 127, 128
shorthand 241
shovel hats 230
Simpson, James 315
Sirius (ship) 126
slavery 306
Smith, Francis Pettit 125
Smith, William Henry (W. H.) 291–2
smoking 199, 216–17
Smollett, Tobias 258
snooker 274
social calls
gentlemen 203–6
ladies 196–9
social unrest 35, 51, 73, 161, 164
socialism 160
The Sphere xxii
South Africa
Boer War 30, 309, 311, 324, 330–1, 332–6
Zulu War 328
Soyer, Alexis 59–60
spinsterhood and marriage 212–14
sports 247, 263–5
army officers 324–5
character building 265–6
see also specific sports
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon 66, 162, 175, 176
squash 276
stage-coaches see coach travel
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, Dean of Westminster 175, 181
steam boats/ships 124–9, 263
naval 125, 309, 339
steam cars 151–2
steam trams 137
steam turbines 128
Stevenson, George 116
Stockton and Darlington railway 116
stovepipe hats 230–1
stoves 58
Strawberry Hill 78
street children 47–8, 49
street vendors 66–9
Studd, Charles (C. T.) 191
Studd, Edward 190–1
Sudan 329–30, 331–2
Sunday 161, 170–4
charity work 168
edifying papers 288–9
at home 181–3
pastimes 183–5
Sunday Observance Acts (1677 and 1780) 161
Sunday Schools 173
swallow-tail coats 225, 227
Taeping (tea-clipper) 129–30
Tay Bridge collapse 161
Tayler, William 171–2, 183, 213
Taylor, Tom 233
tea 53, 55, 67
tea-clippers 129–30
telegraphs 27, 121, 129, 240, 315
telephones 27, 240, 242–3
Telford, Thomas 112
temperance movement 67, 160
Temple Meads station, Bristol 120
Tenniel, John 288
tennis 264, 274
terraces/town houses 74–6, 82–6, 98–9
Territorial Army 340
Thackeray, William Makepeace 62–3, 287
‘ticket-of-leave’ prisoners 51
timekeeping
‘hora Inglese’ 302
‘railway time’ 121–2
Tissot, James 94
Tolstoy, Leo 318
top hats 230–1, 232
trading links 301
tram systems 135–8
transport
commuting to work 131, 233–4
leisure 253
see also specific forms
travel 247
cultural 253–5
foreign 257–63, 296–7
Trevelyan, G. O. 22
Trevithick, Richard 116
tricycles 147–8
Trilby hats 230
trousers 225–6
Turbinia (ship) 128
Turks/Ottoman Empire 306–7, 313
‘two fingers’ greeting 198–9
typewriters 240–1, 242–3
typhoid 20, 22, 97
underground railway s
ystem 138–42
United States xx
baseball 275
bicycling 144
Civil War 242, 339
Derby hat 231–2
food imports from 56, 57–8, 254
industrialization 303
missionaries 189–90
paddle-steamers 124–5
press 284
revival of boys’ books 295
as rival power 20, 304–5, 339
steamships crossing to 126, 263
trams 135–6
Victoria Crosses (VC) 11, 19, 317, 328, 333
Victoria, Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (Duchess of Kent) 2–3, 4, 20
Victoria, Princess (‘Vicky’) 9, 23–4, 25, 30
Victoria, Queen
accession to throne 2, 4–5, 16
appearance 5–6, 17–18
attitude to motor cars 154
at Balmoral 14, 21, 27, 229
birth 2–3
at Buckingham Palace 10, 75, 97
childhood and adolescence 3–4
children 9–10
see also individual entries
coin portraits xviii–xix, 16
coronation 6
death 30–1
diplomacy 12, 13
Empress of India 24–5, 299
first conflict of reign 311
flees London 13, 73
at French Riviera 258
‘good works’ 10
‘Grandmother of Europe’ 24
humour and amusements 26–7
husband see Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
illnesses 22–3, 30–1
Indian Mutiny 162, 321
influence on hair styles 220
inspiration of Elizabeth I 4, 7–8, 19
intelligence 27–8
interest in science and technology 27
Mother of the Nation 28–31
names 1
naval songs collection 308
offers knighthood to George Peabody 36
ownership of Life at the Seaside (Frith) 248–9, 250
phases of reign xix-xx
public attitudes towards 22–3, 28–9
publications 14
relationship with John Brown 23
relationships with prime ministers/governments 6, 8, 13, 24–6
shyness 26
as symbolic war leader 19, 30
temper 3, 5, 7
travel 22, 27, 258
view of colonial subjects 29
voice 6
‘Widow of Windsor’ 21–4
see also Royal Family
Victorian era
as ‘golden age’ xiii–xiv
‘a grand triumphal march’ xi–xxvi
use of term xv
Vincent, Mr 189–90
visiting cards 196, 198, 200–2, 205
wallpaper 91, 99, 100, 105
water closets 97–8
‘water gardens’ 101
Webb Ellis, William 264
Webb, Philip 104
Wellington, Duke of 73, 265, 281, 309, 325–6, 337
West India Regiment 17, 329
whiskers 232–3
Whyte-Melville, George 233
Wilberforce, William 162
Wilde, Oscar xx
Wilhelm II (German Kaiser) 31, 150–1, 199, 288
William IV 2, 3, 4
Williamson, Mrs Harcourt 149, 150
Windsor 11, 13, 78, 97
‘Widow of Windsor’ 21–4
Windsor and Slough railway 117
Wingfield, Major Walter 274
Wollen, William Barnes 311
Wolseley, Sir Garnet 325–6, 329, 330
women
Bryant and May’s match factory strike 42
charity work 167–8
cheese 195
clerks 242–5
clothes 148–50, 215–18, 221, 249–50
cyclists 148–51
earning a living 40–4, 242–5
emancipation 25
hair styles 220–1
head-gear 218–20, 249, 251
hostesses 202–3
household management 73
leaving/visiting cards 196, 198, 200–2
and ministers of religion 175–6
morning calls 196–9
sports 272–3
writers 292
see also courting; marriage; servants
Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln 181
workhouses 33, 36–8
Symbol of an era: The Queen, depicted in early middle age by the doyen of European court painters, Franz Xavier Winterhalter.
A stereoscopic view of the Diamond Jubilee procession passing the National Gallery, 22 June 1897. This event was more than an anniversary; it was a huge celebration of the British Empire and a summing-up of the Victorian age.
Putting on a crinoline, 1850s. Though this is a particularly monstrous specimen, it conveys the sheer impracticality of any ‘cage skirt’. One of its component hoops can be seen on the right.
Though Victorian children, like those of previous eras, were often dressed as miniature adults, short jackets and sailor suits or dresses increasingly gave them a distinctively juvenile appearance. The young man in an Eton collar is C.T. Studd, later a cricketer, evangelist and missionary, seen here (appropriately) as an Eton boy.
A Victorian corner grocer’s. One is struck by the large number of staff for such a small establishment, and by the smartness of the men (for there are no women). This store is still flourishing at Walmer in Kent.
It is often assumed that servants led a dull and cowed existence, yet this young man – a page or footman in a fashionable quarter of London – is proud enough of his livery to be photographed in it. The nursemaid pictured on the right is permitted to wear a stylish straw hat while in the garden with her charges.
Interior. By the time this was taken, in the 1890s, rooms had lost much of their darkness and clutter. Here there are no heavy items of furniture or curtains, though there is still the characteristic accumulation of pictures and knick-knacks. The screen was an essential piece of household equipment, for combating draughts.
. . . and exterior. Albert Place, Kensington, in the 1870s. Many such streets were not accessible to the public, their privacy guarded by gates and uniformed watchmen.
A gentleman of the 1870s still sporting the ‘dundreary’ whiskers that had been de rigeur in the sixties. Though he wears a top hat and sober frock coat, the somewhat shocking loudness of his trousers suggests that men’s formal clothes had not yet become the dark uniform of later decades.
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98), one of several long-serving political giants – others were Palmerston, Disraeli and Salisbury – who shaped events during Victoria’s reign. A man of great integrity and undoubted ability, he nevertheless failed to hit it off with the Queen.
The Strand in London on a quiet day in the 1890s. This scene gives little idea of the noise, mess and confusion caused by horse-drawn traffic. Iron-shod wheels, horse dung and falling or shying animals could make travel in such a busy thoroughfare far from pleasant.
The Crystal Palace in its new home at Norwood in the 1860s, vastly extended from its Hyde Park original. The towers, designed by Brunel, pumped water for a series of huge fountains in the gardens below. They survived the building’s destruction in 1936 but were later demolished.
The bill of fare for a private dinner in the 1870s, printed and indented to resemble a plate. Wealthy Victorians showed little interest in healthy eating, preferring to overindulge and then seek medicinal cures such as mineral baths.
A beach mission at Deal in Kent, 1900, combining relaxation with piety. This picture offers a fascinating glimpse of how people dressed, even at the end of the century, for a seaside holiday.
Literature became a serious industry during Victoria’s reign. Not only did the age produce British and foreign authors of outstanding ability, a developing popular press and a newly literate public created an almost limitless mar
ket for the written word.
Harrow School football XI, an undated image that conveys the structure and organization that Victorians brought to traditional games, as well as the self-conscious prestige of those who played them well.
A roller-skating rink in the 1880s. The Victorians loved novelty and were much given to crazes, particularly in the field of amusements.
A stoical British ‘tommy’, as drawn for one of the numerous Victorian boys’ magazines. Images like this symbolized, for millions of readers, the qualities that entitled the British to govern the world’s largest empire.
A gentleman (perhaps a tea planter) and his family, outside their bungalow in Ceylon, 1880s, looking – and dressing – much as if they were in Surrey. The British possessed an extraordinary ability to replicate their way of life, and make themselves at home, in all corners of the world.