The Victorian Age 
(1837 - 1901)
Victoria met Prince Albert of Saxe -Coburg Gotha and married him in 1840
The young Victoria
she was born on 24th May 1819, daughter of the Duke of Kent
She had an unhappy childhood , living in Kensington Palace
She succeded King William IV
She was 18 when she became Queen of England
They had 9 children together
Prince Albert died in 1861 at the age of 42.
She retired to private life for some years
She depended upon her husband advice and support
The first half of Queen Victoria's reign
her exemplary way of life and her strict moral and religious code of behaviour made her beloved
It was a period of
imperial expansion
political developments
social reforms
Ten Hours' Act: it limited the working hours to ten a day
Mines Act: it banned women and children from working down the mines
The Education Act: it created a unified national system of Primary Education
Public Health Act: it improved general health conditions
She never overruled the Paliament and became a mediator above party politics
working -class movements
CHARTISM
1838 - 1848
the extension of the right to vote to all male adults
Third Reform Bill (1884) gave all male workers the vote
The Great Exhibition 1851
Expansion of industry an trade
scientific and technological developments
Britain's leading industrial and economic position
Exhibition of goods from all
the different countries of the Empire
It attracted huge crowds
The British Empire
It started under Queen Elizabeth I and James I
Britain: the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. (EMPIRE: ¼ of the Earth’s surface)
1877 Queen Victoria was crowned Empress of India
Great Britain ruled over a wide and powerful empire
settling of Engish people in Ireland
Elizabeth I chartered the British East India Company
other territories
Australia
New Zealand
parts of China (including Hong Kong)
Africa (Egypt, Sudan, South Africa - Boer Wars-)
Patriotism
ideas of racial superiority
The white man's burden: an obbligation imposed by God on the British to impose their superior way of life, institutions, laws and politics
The Victorian Compromise
It promoted a code of values that reflected the world as they wanted it to be, not as it really was
Values
a contraddictory era
age of progress, stability and great social reforms
characterized by by poverty, injustice and social unrest
hard work
respectability
charity
mixture of morality and hypocracy, severity and conformity to social standards
possession of good manners
possession of house with servants and a carriage
regular attendance to church
philantrophy
family
patriarchal unit
The husband represented the authority
the role of the woman
the education of the children
the managing of the house
the care of the husband
Sexuality
it was generally repressed in its public and private form
denunciation of nudity in art
rejection of words with a sexual connotation
:
:
click to edit