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The early Victorian Age (1837-1861) - Coggle Diagram
The early Victorian Age (1837-1861)
Timeline
1847 Publication of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.
1847 Publication of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
1840 Marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert.
1851 The Great Exhibition opens at Crystal Palace.
1838 Publication of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.
1853-56 Crimean War.
1838 People’s Charter calls for social reforms.
1861 Prince Albert dies.
1837 Queen Victoria comes to the throne.
1861 Civil War begins in America.
Queen Victoria
She became queen at eighteen.
Government for 64 years
Her sense of duty made her the ideal head of a constitutional monarchy.
She provided her country with stability.
Victoria and Albert
Victoria and Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married in 1840.
In 1857 Victoria gave Albert the title of Prince Consort
Albert supported reform but in December 1861 he died suddenly at the age of 42.
In memory of her beloved husband she had the Albert Memorial built in London.
An age of reforms
1833
The Factory Act = prevented children from being employed more than 48 hours a week.
1834
The Poor Law Amendment Act = workhouses became a deterrent against poverty.
1832
The Great Reform Act = voting privileges extended to the large industrial towns.
1846
Abolition of the Corn Laws = which had kept price of corn artificially high at a time of famine in Ireland.
1867
The Second Reform Act = voting privileges extended to part of urban male workers.
1872
Ballot Act = introduction of the secret ballot.
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.
Foreign policy
Expansion of trade and the importance of new markets led to foreign friction and in the mid-19th century
England gained access to five Chinese ports and the control of Hong Kong
British rule acquired greater responsibility after the Indian Mutiny.
Florence Nightingale led a team of nurses at Scutari base hospital during the Crimean War.
She formed an institution for the development of the nursing profession.
The Great Exhibition
Housed at the Crystal Palace, in Hyde Park, 1851
What? Structure designed by Sir Joseph Paxton entirely made of iron and glass.
Why? Symbol of Britain’s leading industrial and economic position.
Who? Huge crowds from all over the world viewed the exhibition.
Inside there were many exhibits from several countries 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.
The profits were used to fund important museums in London.
City life in Victorian Britain
houses often overcrowded and unhygienic, especially for the poor who lived in slums where disease and crime were widespread;
the mortality rate was high especially for children;
only relief available in workhouses;
gradual improvements with introduction of running water, street lighting and paved roads.
Workhouses
Workhouses were places where, often in return for board and lodging, employment was provided for:
the poor;
the physically and mentally sick;
the disabled;
the elderly;
unmarried mothers and orphans.
To avoid laziness, he tried to make conditions as brutal as possible
The Victorian frame of mind
The Victorian compromise:
the Victorians were great moralisers they supported personal
Respectability a mixture of morality and hypocrisy.
‘Victorian’, synonymous with prude, stood for extreme repression; even furniture legs had to be concealed under heavy cloth not to be ‘suggestive’.
The powerful middle-class was obsessed with gentility and decorum.
Decorum strict ideas about authority.
Victorian private lives were dominated by an authoritarian father.
Women were subject to male authority; they were expected to marry and make home a ‘refuge’ for their husbands.
Single women with a child were marginalised as ‘fallen’ women.