Victorian Era

1837–1901 Queen Victoria, after whom the era is named.
Preceded by	Georgian era
Followed by	Edwardian era
Monarch	Queen Victoria

Periods and eras in English history

Anglo-Saxon period	(927–1066)
Norman period	(1066–1154)
Plantagenet period	(1154–1485)
Tudor period	(1485–1603)
Elizabethan era	(1558–1603)
Stuart period	(1603–1714)
Jacobean era	(1603–1625)
Caroline era	(1625–1649)
The Interregnum	(1649–1660)
Restoration era	(1660–1688)
Georgian era	(1714–1830)
Victorian era	(1837–1901)
Edwardian era	(1901–1910)
World War I	(1914–1918)
Interwar Period	(1918–1939)
World War II	(1939–1945)
Modern Britain	(1945–Present)
v t e

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.^[1] It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence for Britain. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities and political concerns to the passage of the Reform Act 1832.

The era was preceded by the Georgian period and succeeded by the Edwardian period. The latter half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first portion of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe and the Gilded Age of the United States.

Culturally there was a transition away from the rationalism of the Georgian period and toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and the arts.^[2] The era is popularly associated with the values of social and sexual restraint.

In international relations the era was a long period of peace, known as the Pax Britannica, and economic, colonial, and industrial consolidation, temporarily disrupted by the Crimean War in 1854. The end of the period saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of gradual political reform, industrial reform and the widening of the voting franchise.

Two especially important figures in this period of British history are the prime ministers Gladstone and Disraeli, whose contrasting views changed the course of history. Disraeli, reputed to be favoured by the queen, was a gregarious Tory. Gladstone, his historical rival, a Liberal, served more terms and oversaw much of the overall liberal law-making of the era.

The population of England almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901.^[3] Scotland's population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. Ireland's population decreased rapidly, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due to the Great Famine.^[4] At the same time, around 15 million emigrants left the United Kingdom in the Victorian era and settled mostly in the United States, Canada, and Australia.^[5]

During the early part of the era, the House of Commons was headed by the two parties, the Whigs and the Tories. From the late 1850s onwards, the Whigs became the Liberals; the Tories became the Conservatives. These parties were led by many prominent statesmen including Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, William Ewart Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, and Lord Salisbury. The unsolved problems relating to Irish Home Rule played a great part in politics in the later Victorian era, particularly in view of Gladstone's determination to achieve a political settlement. Indeed, these issues would eventually lead to the Easter Rising of 1916 and the subsequent domino effect that would play a large part in the fall of the empire.

Victoria's reign lasted for 63 years and 216 days, the longest in British history up to the present day. However, the present monarch, Elizabeth II, will surpass this if she remains on the throne until 9 September 2015.

Population in the Victorian era[link]

The Victorian era was a time of unprecedented demographic increase in England. The population rose from 13.897 million in 1831 to 32.528 million in 1901. Two major factors affecting population growth are fertility rates and mortality rates. England was the first country to undergo the Demographic transition and the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions.

Many countries in the 19th century did not increase in population so rapidly and successfully throughout the Industrial Revolution. At the time, some believed this lack of growth outside Britain was due to the ‘Malthusian trap’ theory; Thomas Malthus argued before the start of the Industrial Revolution that it was the tendency of a population to expand beyond the limits of resource sustainability, at which point a crisis (such as famine, war, or epidemic) would reduce the population to a sustainable size. England escaped the ‘Malthusian trap’ because the Industrial Revolution had a positive impact on living standards. People had more money and could improve their standards; therefore, a population increase was sustainable.

Fertility rates[link]

Fertility rates in the Victorian era increased every decade until 1901 when the rates started evening out.^{[citation needed]} There are several reasons for the increase in birth rates. One reason is biological. With living standards improving, the percentage of women who were able to have children increased. Another possible explanation is social. In the 19th century, the marriage rate increased, and the age people were getting married was very young until the end of the 19th century, when the average age of marriage started to increase again slowly. Reasons why people got married younger and more frequently are uncertain. One theory is that greater prosperity allowed people to finance marriage and new households earlier than previously possible. With more births inside marriage it seems inevitable that marriage rates and birth rates would rise together.

Birth rates were originally measured by the ‘Crude Birth Rate’ – births per year in population per every thousand people. This is thought not to be accurate enough as key groups and their fertility rates are not clear. It also does not take into account population changes, e.g. same number of births in a smaller population (if men go to war, etc.). It was then changed to be recorded by the ‘Net Reproduction Rate’ that only measured the fertility rate of women who were capable of giving birth.

The evening out of fertility rates at the beginning of the 20th century was mainly a result of a few big changes: forms of birth control became available, and people's attitude towards sex altered (Bradlaw and Besant published ‘Fruits of Philosophy’, which is a publication about birth control.) Abortion also became a more widely used practice – with attitudes becoming less negative towards it. Finally, the state banned child labour – attitudes to children changed as they were no longer seen as economical assets.

Mortality rates[link]

The mortality rates in England changed greatly through the 19th century. There was no catastrophic epidemic or famine in England or Scotland in the 19th century – it was the first century in which a major epidemic did not occur, with deaths per 1000 of population per year in England and Wales dropping from 21.9 from 1848–54 to 17 in 1901 (contrasting with, for instance, 5.4 in 1971).^[6] Class had a big effect on mortality rates as the upper classes had a lower rate of premature death early in the 19th century than poorer classes did.^[7]

Environmental and health standards rose throughout the Victorian era; improvements in nutrition may also have played a role, although the importance of this is debated.^[6] Sewage works were improved as was the quality of drinking water. With a healthier environment, diseases were caught less easily and did not spread as much. Technology was also improving because the population had more money to spend on medical technology (for example, techniques to prevent death in childbirth so more women and children survived), which also led to a greater number of cures for diseases. However, a cholera epidemic took place in London in 1848–49 killing 14,137, and subsequently in 1853 killing 10,738. This anomaly was attributed to the closure and replacement of cesspits by the modern sewerage systems.^[8]

Culture[link]

Gothic Revival architecture became increasingly significant during the period, leading to the Battle of the Styles between Gothic and Classical ideals. Charles Barry's architecture for the new Palace of Westminster, which had been badly damaged in an 1834 fire, was built in the medieval style of Westminster Hall, the surviving part of the building. It constructed a narrative of cultural continuity, set in opposition to the violent disjunctions of Revolutionary France, a comparison common to the period, as expressed in Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution: A History and Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. Gothic was also supported by critic John Ruskin, who argued that it epitomised communal and inclusive social values, as opposed to Classicism, which he considered to epitomise mechanical standardisation.

The middle of the 19th century saw The Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World's Fair, which showcased the greatest innovations of the century. At its centre was the Crystal Palace, a modular glass and iron structure – the first of its kind. It was condemned by Ruskin as the very model of mechanical dehumanisation in design, but later came to be presented as the prototype of Modern architecture. The emergence of photography, showcased at the Great Exhibition, resulted in significant changes in Victorian art with Queen Victoria being the first British monarch to be photographed. John Everett Millais was influenced by photography (notably in his portrait of Ruskin) as were other Pre-Raphaelite artists. It later became associated with the Impressionistic and Social Realist techniques that would dominate the later years of the period in the work of artists such as Walter Sickert and Frank Holl.

Industrialization brought with it a burgeoning middle class whose increase in numbers had a significant effect on the social strata itself: cultural norms, lifestyle, values and morality. Identifiable characteristics came to define, in particular, the middle class home. Previously, in town and city, residential space was adjacent to or incorporated into the work site, virtually occupying the same geographical space. The difference between private life and commerce was a fluid one distinguished by an informal demarcation of function. In the Victorian era, English family life increasingly became compartmentalized, the home a self-contained structure housing a nuclear family extended according to need and circumstance to include blood relations. The concept of “privacy” became a hallmark of the middle class life. “...The English home closed up and darkened over the decade (1850s), the cult of domesticity matched by a cult of privacy.” Bourgeois existence was a world of interior space, heavily curtained off and wary of intrusion, and opened only by invitation for viewing on occasions such as parties or teas. ^[9] “The essential, unknowablility of each individual, and society’s collaboration in the maintenance of a façade behind which lurked innumerable mysteries, were the themes which preoccupied many mid-century novelists.” ^[10]

Funeral customs[link]

In Victorian times people often booked formal funeral photographers when they could afford it. The memorial photograph of the deceased was taken to create the last visual remembrance of the person, and would usually be displayed in the drawing room afterward. Occasionally the photographer took pictures of the family at the funeral as well, as this was one of the few times that people would all be together.^{[citation needed]}

Events[link]

1832

Passage of the first Reform Act.^[11]

1837

Ascension of Queen Victoria to the throne.^[11]

1840

Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield. He had been naturalised and granted the British style of Royal Highness beforehand. For the next 17 years, he was known as HRH Prince Albert.

1840

Birth of the Queen's first child The Princess Victoria. Within months she was granted the title Princess Royal.

1840

New Zealand becomes a British colony, through the Treaty of Waitangi.

1841

Birth of the Queen's heir-apparent The Prince Albert Edward, Duke of Cornwall (Duke of Rothesay). He was swiftly made Prince of Wales.

1842

Treaty of Nanking. Massacre of Elphinstone's Army by the Afghans in Afghanistan results in the death or incarceration of 16,500 soldiers and civilians.^[12] The Mines Act of 1842 banned women/children from working in coal, iron, lead and tin mining.^[11] The Illustrated London News was first published.^[13]

1843

Birth of The Princess Alice

1844

Birth of The Prince Alfred

1845

The Irish famine begins. Within 5 years it would become the UK's worst human disaster, with starvation and emigration reducing the population of Ireland itself by over 50%. The famine permanently changed Ireland’s and Scotland's demographics and became a rallying point for nationalist sentiment that pervaded British politics for much of the following century.

1846

Repeal of the Corn Laws.^[11]

1846

Birth of The Princess Helena

1848

Death of around 2,000 people a week in a cholera epidemic.

1848

Birth of The Princess Louise

1850

Restoration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Britain.

1850

Birth of The Prince Arthur

1851

The Great Exhibition (the first World's Fair) is held at the Crystal Palace,^[11] with great success and international attention. The Victorian gold rush. In ten years the Australian population nearly tripled.^[14]

1853

Birth of The Prince Leopold

1854

Crimean War: The United Kingdom declares war on Russia.

1857

The Indian Mutiny, a widespread revolt in India against the rule of the British East India Company, is sparked by sepoys (native Indian soldiers) in the Company's army. The rebellion, involving not just sepoys but many sectors of the Indian population as well, is largely quashed within a year. In response to the mutiny, the East India Company is abolished in August 1858 and India comes under the direct rule of the British crown, beginning the period of the British Raj. Prince Albert is given the title The Prince Consort

1857

Birth of The Princess Beatrice

1858

The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, responds to the Orsini plot against French emperor Napoleon III, the bombs for which were purchased in Birmingham, by attempting to make such acts a felony; the resulting uproar forces him to resign.

1859

Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, which leads to various reactions.^[11] Victoria and Albert's first grandchild, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, is born — he later became William II, German Emperor. John Stuart Mill publishes On Liberty, a defense of the famous harm principle.

1861

Death of Prince Albert;^[11] Queen Victoria refuses to go out in public for many years, and when she did she wore a widow's bonnet instead of the crown.

1863

The Prince of Wales marries Princess Alexandra of Denmark at Windsor.

1865

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published.

1866

An angry crowd in London, protesting against John Russell's resignation as Prime Minister, is barred from Hyde Park by the police; they tear down iron railings and trample on flower beds. Disturbances like this convince Derby and Disraeli of the need for further parliamentary reform.

1867

The Constitution Act, 1867 passes and British North America becomes Dominion of Canada.

1875

Britain purchased Egypt's shares in the Suez Canal^[11] as the African nation was forced to raise money to pay off its debts.

1877

The Princess Alice becomes Grand Duchess of Hesse when her husband succeeds as Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse

1878

Treaty of Berlin (1878). Cyprus becomes a Crown colony. The Princess Alice dies. Princess Louise's husband The Marchioness of Lorne is appointed Governor-General of Canada

1879

Victoria and Albert's first great-grandchild, Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen, is born.

1882

British troops begin the occupation of Egypt by taking the Suez Canal, in order to secure the vital trade route and passage to India, and the country becomes a protectorate.

1883

Princess Louise and Lord Lorne return from Canada

1884

The Fabian Society is founded in London by a group of middle class intellectuals, including Quaker Edward R. Pease, Havelock Ellis, and E. Nesbit, to promote socialism.^[15] Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany dies.

1886

Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone and the Liberal Party tries passing the First Irish Home Rule Bill, but the House of Commons rejects it.

1888

The serial killer known as Jack the Ripper murders and mutilates five (and possibly more) prostitutes on the streets of London.^[11] Victoria's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, becomes German Empress when her husband succeeds as Frederick III, German Emperor. Within months, Frederick dies, and their son becomes William II, German Emperor. The widowed Vicky becomes the Dowager Empress as is known as "Empress Frederick".

1870 – 1891

Under the Elementary Education Act 1870, basic State Education becomes free for every child under the age of 10.^[16]

1891

Victoria and Albert's last grandchild, Prince Maurice of Battenberg, is born.

1892

The Prince of Wales' eldest son Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence dies of influenza.

1893

The Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh succeeds as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha when his uncle dies. The Duchy skips over The Prince of Wales due to his renunciation of his succession rights to that Duchy.

1900

Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha dies. His nephew Prince Charles Edward, Duke of Albany succeeds him, because his brother Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and nephew Prince Arthur of Connaught had renounced their rights.

1901

The death of Victoria sees the end of this era. The ascension of her eldest son, Edward, begins the Edwardian era; albeit considerably shorter, this was another time of great change.

Entertainment[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Popular forms of entertainment varied by social class. Victorian Britain, like the periods before it, was interested in literature (see Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle and William Makepeace Thackeray), theatre and the arts (see Aesthetic movement and Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood), and music, drama, and opera were widely attended. Michael Balfe was the most popular British grand opera composer of the period, while the most popular musical theatre was a series of fourteen comic operas by Gilbert and Sullivan, although there was also musical burlesque and the beginning of Edwardian musical comedy in the 1890s. Drama ranged from low comedy to Shakespeare (see Henry Irving). There were, however, other forms of entertainment. Gentlemen went to dining clubs, like the Beefsteak club or the Savage club. Gambling at cards in establishments popularly called casinos was wildly popular during the period: so much so that evangelical and reform movements specifically targeted such establishments in their efforts to stop gambling, drinking, and prostitution.

Brass bands and 'The Bandstand' became popular in the Victorian era. The band stand was a simple construction that not only created an ornamental focal point, but also served acoustic requirements whilst providing shelter from the changeable British weather. It was common to hear the sound of a brass band whilst strolling through parklands. At this time musical recording was still very much a novelty.

The Victorian era marked the golden age of the British circus. Astley's Amphitheatre in Lambeth, London, featuring equestrian acts in a 42-foot wide circus ring, was the epicentre of the 19th century circus. The permanent structure sustained three fires but as an institution lasted a full century, with Andrew Ducrow and William Batty managing the theatre in the middle part of the century. William Batty would also build his own 14,000-person arena, known commonly as Batty's Hippodrome, in Kensington Gardens and draw crowds from the Crystal Palace Exhibition. Travelling circuses, like Pablo Fanque's, dominated the British provinces, Scotland, and Ireland (Fanque would enjoy fame again in the 20th century when John Lennon would buy an 1843 poster advertising his circus and adapt the lyrics for The Beatles song, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!). Fanque also stands out as a black man who achieved great success and enjoyed great admiration among the British public only a few decades after Britain had abolished slavery.^[17][17]

Another form of entertainment involved 'spectacles' where paranormal events, such as mesmerism, communication with the dead (by way of mediumship or channelling), ghost conjuring and the like, were carried out to the delight of crowds and participants. Such activities were more popular at this time than in other periods of recent Western history.

Natural history became increasingly an "amateur" activity. Particularly in Britain and the United States, this grew into specialist hobbies such as the study of birds, butterflies, seashells (malacology/conchology), beetles and wild flowers. Amateur collectors and natural history entrepreneurs played an important role in building the large natural history collections of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Many people used the train services to visit the seaside, helped by the Bank Holiday Act of 1871, which created a number of fixed holidays which all sectors of society could enjoy. Large numbers travelling to quiet fishing villages such as Worthing, Brighton, Morecambe and Scarborough began turning them into major tourist centres, and people like Thomas Cook saw tourism and even overseas travel as viable businesses.

Technology and engineering[link]

The railways changed communications and society dramatically

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

An important development during the Victorian era was the improvement of communication links. Stagecoaches, canals, steam ships and most notably the railways all allowed goods, raw materials and people to be moved about, rapidly facilitating trade and industry. Trains became another important factor ordering society, with "railway time" being the standard by which clocks were set throughout Britain. Steam ships such as the SS Great Britain and SS Great Western made international travel more common but also advanced trade, so that in Britain it was not just the luxury goods of earlier times that were imported into the country but essentials such as corn from the United States and meat from Australia. One more important innovation in communications was the Penny Black, the first postage stamp, which standardised postage to a flat price regardless of distance sent.

Even later communication methods such as cinema, telegraph, telephones, cars and aircraft, had an impact. Photography was realized in 1839 by Louis Daguerre in France and William Fox Talbot in the UK. By 1900, hand-held cameras were available.

Brunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol

Similar sanitation reforms, prompted by the Public Health Acts 1848 and 1869, were made in the crowded, dirty streets of the existing cities, and soap was the main product shown in the relatively new phenomenon of advertising. A great engineering feat in the Victorian Era was the sewage system in London. It was designed by Joseph Bazalgette in 1858. He proposed to build 82 mi (132 km) of sewer system linked with over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) of street sewers. Many problems were encountered but the sewers were completed. After this, Bazalgette designed the Thames Embankment which housed sewers, water pipes and the London Underground. During the same period London's water supply network was expanded and improved, and a gas network for lighting and heating was introduced in the 1880s.

The Victorians were impressed by science and progress, and felt that they could improve society in the same way as they were improving technology. The model town of Saltaire was founded, along with others, as a planned environment with good sanitation and many civic, educational and recreational facilities, although it lacked a pub, which was regarded as a focus of dissent. During the Victorian era, science grew into the discipline it is today. In addition to the increasing professionalism of university science, many Victorian gentlemen devoted their time to the study of natural history. This study of natural history was most powerfully advanced by Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution first published in his book On the Origin of Species in 1859.

Glasgow slum in 1871

Although initially developed in the early years of the 19th century, gas lighting became widespread during the Victorian era in industry, homes, public buildings and the streets. The invention of the incandescent gas mantle in the 1890s greatly improved light output and ensured its survival as late as the 1960s. Hundreds of gasworks were constructed in cities and towns across the country. In 1882, incandescent electric lights were introduced to London streets, although it took many years before they were installed everywhere.

Health and medicine[link]

Medicine progressed during Queen Victoria's reign.^[18]

Although nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, had been proposed as an anaesthetic as far back as 1799 by Humphry Davy, it wasn't until 1846 when an American Dentist named William Morton started using ether on his patients that anaesthetics became common in the medical profession.^[19] In 1847 chloroform was introduced as an anaesthetic by James Young Simpson.^[20] Chloroform was favoured by doctors and hospital staff because it is much less flammable than ether, but critics complained that it could cause the patient to have a heart attack.^[20] Chloroform gained in popularity in England and Germany after Dr. John Snow gave Queen Victoria chloroform for the birth of her eighth child (Prince Leopold).^[21]

Look up narcosis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

By 1920, chloroform was used in 80 to 95% of all narcoses performed in the UK and German-speaking countries.^[20]

Anaesthetics made painless dentistry possible. At the same time the European diet grew a great deal sweeter as the use of sugar became more widespread.^[22] As a result, more and more people were having teeth pulled and needed replacements. This gave rise to "Waterloo Teeth", which were real human teeth set into hand-carved chunks of ivory from hippopotamus or walrus jaws.^[22][23] The teeth were obtained from executed criminals, victims of battlefields, from grave-robbers, and were even bought directly from the desperately impoverished.^[22]

Medicine also benefited from the introduction of antiseptics by Joseph Lister in 1867 in the form of Carbolic acid (phenol).^[24] He instructed the hospital staff to wear gloves and wash their hands, instruments, and dressings with a phenol solution and, in 1869, he invented a machine that would spray carbolic acid in the operating theatre during surgery.^[24]

Poverty[link]

Working class life in Victorian Wetherby, West Yorkshire

19th century Britain saw a huge population increase accompanied by rapid urbanization stimulated by the Industrial Revolution. The large numbers of skilled and unskilled people looking for work kept wages down to a barely subsistence level. Available housing was scarce and expensive, resulting in overcrowding. These problems were magnified in London, where the population grew at record rates. Large houses were turned into flats and tenements, and as landlords failed to maintain these dwellings slum housing developed. Kellow Chesney described the situation as follows: "Hideous slums, some of them acres wide, some no more than crannies of obscure misery, make up a substantial part of the metropolis... In big, once handsome houses, thirty or more people of all ages may inhabit a single room."^[25] Significant changes happened in the British Poor Law system, including in England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. These included significant expansions in workhouses (or poorhouses in Scotland), although with changing populations during the era.

Child labour[link]

Girl pulling a coal tub in mine. From official report of the parliamentary commission in the mid 19th century.^[26]

The Victorian era became notorious for the employment of young children in factories and mines and as chimney sweeps.^[27] Child labour, often brought about by economic hardship, played an important role in the Industrial Revolution from its outset: Charles Dickens, for example, worked at the age of 12 in a blacking factory, with his family in a debtors' prison. In 1840 only about 20 percent of the children in London had any schooling. By 1860 about half of the children between 5 and 15 were in school (including Sunday school).^[28]

The children of the poor were expected to help towards the family budget, often working long hours in dangerous jobs for low wages.^[25] Agile boys were employed by the chimney sweeps; small children were employed to scramble under machinery to retrieve cotton bobbins; and children were also employed to work in coal mines, crawling through tunnels too narrow and low for adults. Children also worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, or shoe blacks, or selling matches, flowers, and other cheap goods.^[25] Some children undertook work as apprentices to respectable trades, such as building, or as domestic servants (there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London in the mid 18th century). Working hours were long: builders might work 64 hours a week in summer and 52 in winter, while domestic servants worked 80 hour weeks. Many young people worked as prostitutes (the majority of prostitutes in London were between 15 and 22 years of age).^[28]

"Mother bides at home, she is troubled with bad breath, and is sair weak in her body from early labour. I am wrought with sister and brother, it is very sore work; cannot say how many rakes or journeys I make from pit's bottom to wall face and back, thinks about 30 or 25 on the average; the distance varies from 100 to 250 fathom. I carry about 1 cwt. and a quarter on my back; have to stoop much and creep through water, which is frequently up to the calves of my legs." (Isabella Read, 12 years old, coal-bearer, testimony gathered by Ashley's Mines Commission 1842)^[26]

"My father has been dead about a year; my mother is living and has ten children, five lads and five lasses; the oldest is about thirty, the youngest is four; three lasses go to mill; all the lads are colliers, two getters and three hurriers; one lives at home and does nothing; mother does nought but look after home. All my sisters have been hurriers, but three went to the mill. Alice went because her legs swelled from hurrying in cold water when she was hot. I never went to day-school; I go to Sunday-school, but I cannot read or write; I go to pit at five o'clock in the morning and come out at five in the evening; I get my breakfast of porridge and milk first; I take my dinner with me, a cake, and eat it as I go; I do not stop or rest any time for the purpose; I get nothing else until I get home, and then have potatoes and meat, not every day meat. I hurry in the clothes I have now got on, trousers and ragged jacket; the bald place upon my head is made by thrusting the corves^{[disambiguation needed ]}; my legs have never swelled, but sisters' did when they went to mill; I hurry the corves a mile and more under ground and back; they weigh 300 cwt.; I hurry 11 a-day; I wear a belt and chain at the workings, to get the corves out;" (Patience Kershaw, 17 years old, coal-bearer, testimony gathered by Ashley's Mines Commission 1842)^[26]

Children as young as four were put to work. In coal mines children began work at the age of 5 and generally died before the age of 25. Many children (and adults) worked 16 hour days. As early as 1802 and 1819, Factory Acts were passed to limit the working hours of workhouse children in factories and cotton mills to 12 hours per day. These acts were largely ineffective and after radical agitation, by for example the "Short Time Committees" in 1831, a Royal Commission recommended in 1833 that children aged 11–18 should work a maximum of 12 hours per day, children aged 9–11 a maximum of eight hours, and children under the age of nine should no longer be permitted to work. This act, however, only applied to the textile industry, and further agitation led to another act in 1847 limiting both adults and children to 10 hour working days.^[28]

Prostitution[link]

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Beginning in the late 1840s, major news organizations, clergymen, and single women became increasingly concerned about prostitution, which came to be known as "The Great Social Evil". Estimates of the number of prostitutes in London in the 1850s vary widely (in his landmark study, Prostitution, William Acton reported that the police estimated there were 8,600 in London alone in 1857). When the United Kingdom Census 1851 publicly revealed a 4% demographic imbalance in favour of women (i.e., 4% more women than men), the problem of prostitution began to shift from a moral/religious cause to a socio-economic one. The 1851 census showed that the population of Great Britain was roughly 18 million; this meant that roughly 750,000 women would remain unmarried simply because there were not enough men. These women came to be referred to as "superfluous women" or "redundant women", and many essays were published discussing what, precisely, ought to be done with them.^[29]

While the Magdalene Asylums had been "reforming" prostitutes since the mid-18th century, the years between 1848 and 1870 saw a veritable explosion in the number of institutions working to "reclaim" these "fallen women" from the streets and retrain them for entry into respectable society — usually for work as domestic servants. The theme of prostitution and the "fallen woman" (an umbrella term used to describe any women who had sexual intercourse out of Marriage) became a staple feature of mid-Victorian literature and politics. In the writings of Henry Mayhew, Charles Booth, and others, prostitution began to be seen as a social problem.

When Parliament passed the first of the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1864 (which allowed the local constabulary to force any woman suspected of venereal disease to submit to its inspection), Josephine Butler's crusade to repeal the CD Acts yoked the anti-prostitution cause with the emergent feminist movement.^{[citation needed]} Butler attacked the long-established double standard of sexual morality.

Prostitutes were often presented as victims in sentimental literature such as Thomas Hood's poem The Bridge of Sighs, Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton, and Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. The emphasis on the purity of women found in such works as Coventry Patmore's The Angel in the House led to the portrayal of the prostitute and fallen woman as soiled, corrupted, and in need of cleansing.

This emphasis on female purity was allied to the stress on the homemaking role of women,^{[citation needed]} who helped to create a space free from the pollution and corruption of the city. In this respect, the prostitute came to have symbolic significance as the embodiment of the violation of that divide. The double standard remained in force. Divorce legislation introduced in 1857 allowed for a man to divorce his wife for adultery, but a woman could only divorce if adultery were accompanied by cruelty. The anonymity of the city led to a large increase in prostitution and unsanctioned sexual relationships. Dickens and other writers associated prostitution with the mechanisation and industrialisation of modern life, portraying prostitutes as human commodities consumed and thrown away like refuse when they were used up. Moral reform movements attempted to close down brothels, something that has sometimes been argued to have been a factor in the concentration of street-prostitution^[30] in Whitechapel (where the Jack the Ripper prostitute murders took place), part of the East End of London, by the 1880s (near the end of the 19th century).

See also[link]

• Horror Victorianorum
• Imperialism
• Neo-Victorian
• Social history of England
• Victorian America
• Victorian cemeteries

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Crucitti, Silvia [editor]"Female Sociability in Victorian England. The relationship between women and social life during the Victorian age." 144 pg. VDM Publishing Group, 2010. ISBN 978-3-639-22577-8
• Altick, Richard Daniel. Victorian People and Ideas: A Companion for the Modern Reader of Victorian Literature. W.W. Norton & Company: 1974. ISBN 0-393-09376-X.
• Burton, Antoinette (editor). Politics and Empire in Victorian Britain: A Reader. Palgrave Macmillan: 2001. ISBN 0-312-29335-6.
• Gay, Peter, The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, 5 volumes, Oxford University Press, 1984–1989
• Heilmann, Ann, and Mark Llewellyn, eds. Neo-Victorianism: The Victorians in the Twenty-First Century, 1999–2009 (Palgrave Macmillan; 2011) 323 pages; looks at recent literary & cinematic, interest in the Victorian era, including magic, sexuality, theme parks, and the postcolonial
• Flanders, Judith. Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England. W.W. Norton & Company: 2004. ISBN 0-393-05209-5.
• Mitchell, Sally. Daily Life in Victorian England. Greenwood Press: 1996. ISBN 0-313-29467-4.
• Wilson, A. N. The Victorians. Arrow Books: 2002. ISBN 0-09-945186-7
• A Victorian Childhood, Annabel Jackson, 1932 (memoir)

External links[link]

• Great Victorian Lives – An Era in Obituaries from The Times
• Mostly-Victorian.com A collection of primary-source documents drawn from Victorian periodicals.
• The Victorian Dictionary
• The Victorian Web
• The Twilight City An exploration of vagrancy and streetwalkers in late Victorian London
• Victorians British Library history resources about the Victorian era, featuring collection material and text by Liza Picard.
• Timelines: Sources from history – British Library interactive
• Notable Victorian Scientists and Inventors

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Victorian era

Richard John Evans (born 29 September 1947) is a British academic and historian, prominently known for his history of Germany.

Life[link]

Interior east side of Gonville and Caius Court

Evans was born in London, of Welsh parentage, and is now Regius Professor of Modern History (Cambridge) at the University of Cambridge and President of Wolfson College. Evans applied for the distinguished Cambridge position, whereas his predecessors were chosen — marking a procedural change at Cambridge.^[3] Evans has also taught at the University of Stirling, University of East Anglia and Birkbeck College, London. Having been a Visiting Professor in History at Gresham College during 2008/09, he is now the Gresham Professor of Rhetoric.

He was educated at Forest School, Jesus College, Oxford (MA), and St Antony's College, Oxford (DPhil) and the University of East Anglia (LittD). In a 2004 interview, Evans stated that frequent visits to Wales during his childhood inspired both an interest in history and a sense of "otherness".^[2]

Career as a historian[link]

As an undergraduate, Evans was much influenced by the History Workshop school, which was in its founding phase at Oxford while he was studying there, and by the English Marxist historians. He was also influenced by E.H. Carr's What Is History?

He was drawn to modern German history in the late 1960s because of what he saw as parallels between the Vietnam War and German imperialism.^[2] Evans first established his academic reputation on the Second Reich period of German history. He admired the work of Fritz Fischer, whom he credits with inspiring him to study modern German history.^[2] In the early 1970s, Evans travelled to Germany to research his dissertation, a study of the feminist movement in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century.^[2] Evans's dissertation was published as The Feminist Movement In Germany, 1894–1933 in 1976. Evans followed his study of German feminism by another book, The Feminists (1977) which traced the history of the feminist movement in North America, Australasia and Europe in the period 1840–1920.^[2] A theme of both books was the weakness of the middle class in Germany with a culture that laid great stress on traditional values such as honour, deference, and the need for women to obey men.^[2] For these reasons, Evans argued that both liberalism and feminism failed in Germany while flourishing elsewhere in the Western world^[2]

Evans' main interests are in social history and he is much influenced by the Annales School.^[2] He largely agrees with Fischer that the way that German society developed in the nineteenth century led to the rise of Nazi Germany, although Evans takes pains to point out that this outcome was one among many possibilities and was not inevitable.^[4] For Evans, the values of the 19th century German middle class had the seeds of National Socialism already germinating.^[2]

He studied under Fischer in Hamburg in 1970–71, but came to disagree with the 'Bielefeld School’ of historians who argued for the Sonderweg thesis and saw the roots of Germany’s political development in the first half of the twentieth century in a "failed bourgeois revolution" in 1848. Influenced by the New Left, Evans was a member of a group of young British historians who in the 1970s sought to examine German history in the Imperial period "from below".^[5] Evans argued that he and his associates wanted to highlight "the importance of the grass roots of politics and the everyday life and experience of ordinary people"^[6] Evans argued he sought the creation of a "new school of people's history", which was a result of a trend that "has taken place across a whole range of historical subjects, political opinions, and methodological approaches and has been expressed in many different ways".^[6] In 1978, as editor of a collection of essays by young British historians entitled Society And Politics In Wilhelmine Germany, he launched a critique of the ‘top-down’ approach of the Bielefeld School associated with Hans-Ulrich Wehler and Jürgen Kocka in regards to the Wilhelmine Germany. With the historians Geoff Eley and David Blackbourn, Evans emphasized instead the "self-mobilization from below" of key sociopolitical groups, as well as the modernity of National Socialism. In the 1980s, Evans organized ten international workshops on modern German social history at the University of East Anglia that did a good deal to refine these ideas, to pioneer research in this new historical field and, in six collections of papers, present it to an Anglophone readership.^[7]

His two major research works are Death in Hamburg (1987), a study of class conflict and liberal government in nineteenth-century Germany using the example of Hamburg’s cholera epidemics and applying statistical methods to the exploration of social inequality in an industrializing society, and Rituals of Retribution (1996), a study of capital punishment in German history applying structural anthropological concepts to the rituals of public execution up to the mid-nineteenth century, and exploring the politics of the death penalty till its abolition by the GDR in 1987. In Death in Hamburg, Evans studied the cholera outbreak in Hamburg in 1892, which he concluded was caused by a failure in the medical system to safeguard against such an event.^[2] Another study in German social history was Tales from the German Underworld (1998), where Evans traced the life stories of four German criminals in the late 19th century, namely a homeless woman, a forger, a prostitute and a con-man.^[2] In Rituals of Retribution, Evans traced the history of capital punishment in Germany, and using the ideas of Michel Foucault, Philippe Ariès and Norbert Elias as his guide argued that opposition to the death penalty was strongest when liberalism was in the ascendancy, and support for capital punishment coincided when the right was in the ascendancy.^[2] Thus, in Evan's view, capital punishment in Germany was never a mere matter of law being disinterestedly applied, but was rather a form of state power being exercised.^[2] In addition, Evans examined such subjects as belief in witchcraft, torture, the last words of the executed, the psychology of mobs, varying forms of execution from the Thirty Years War to the 1980s, profiles of executioners, cruelty, and changing views towards the death penalty.^[2]

In the 1980s, Evans played a prominent role in the Historikerstreit. Evans took issue with the historical work and theories of Ernst Nolte, Joachim Fest, Andreas Hillgruber, Michael Stürmer, Hagen Schulze, Imanuel Geiss and Klaus Hildebrand, all of whom he described as German apologists seeking to white-wash the German past. Evans's views on the Historikerstreit were best summarized in his 1989 book, In Hitler's Shadow. Evans took Nolte—the central target of his book—to task for his defence of the Commissar Order as a legitimate military order; his argument that the Einsatzgruppen massacres of Soviet Jews were a reasonable "preventive security" response to partisan attacks; his statements citing Viktor Suvorov that Operation Barbarossa was a "preventive war" forced on Hitler by an alleged impending Soviet attack; and his claim that too much scholarship on the Shoah has been done by "biased" Jewish historians.^[8] In In Hitler's Shadow, Evans strongly criticized Nolte for statements which implied that perhaps there was something to Holocaust denial^[9] In addition, Evans took Nolte to task for his claim that the victors write history, and that the only reason why Nazi Germany is seen as evil is because Germany lost the war rather than because of the Holocaust.^[10] In addition, Evans attacked Nolte for claiming that a letter written to Neville Chamberlain from Chaim Weizmann on 3 September 1939 promising that the Jewish Agency would support the war effort was a "Jewish declaration of war" on Germany that justified "interning" all Jews in concentration camps as an attempt to justify the Holocaust^[11] Writing from a functionalist perspective, Evans took Hillgruber and Hildebrand to task in In Hitler's Shadow for their intentionalist theories about the Holocaust^[12] Evans denounced Stürmer for writing a laudatory biography of Otto von Bismarck, which he felt marked a regression to the Great man theory of history and an excessive focus on political history.^[13] Evans argued that a social historical approach was a better way of understanding German history.^[13] Concerning the attitudes of the German people towards the Holocaust, Evans wrote that he very much approved of Ian Kershaw's conclusion that "The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference", namely that the German people were by and large indifferent towards the Holocaust.^[14] In addition, in his book about the Historikerstreit, In Hitler's Shadow, Evans attacked the historical work of Robert Conquest, Hugh Thomas, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and Geoffrey Elton, all of whom Evans viewed as part of a neo-conservative historical trend.^[15] In the same book, Evans endorsed Martin Broszat's call for the "historicization" of the Third Reich as a "rational approach to Nazism" and as a "gain" to history.^[16] Though Evans had much to offer in the way of praise for the functionalist arguments of Hans Mommsen, he also wrote of Mommsen's work that "it was surely the case that the argument has now been carried a little too far".^[17]

One of his most famous works is In Defence of History, a book in defence of the study of history against postmodernist theories that hold the study of history to be outmoded and no longer useful. Evans suggested that the appeal of Holocaust denial had been much increased by the spread of post-modernist theories since the mid-1970s which declare that history is a construct, and that rationalist tradition of the West is a form of oppression^[18] However, Evans stresses throughout his book that some of the criticisms made by postmodernists have been beneficial to history as a whole, in particular that subjectivity is an inevitable and unavoidable part of the historic construct.

Role as an expert witness in Irving v. Lipstadt[link]

Richard Evans is probably best known to the general public in the role of an expert witness for the defence in the high profile libel case of David Irving against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt in 2000, Irving v. Lipstadt. Lipstadt was sued for libel by Irving, after she referred to him as a "holocaust denier" and "an ardent follower of Adolf Hitler" in her 1993 book Denying the Holocaust. Lipstadt further accused Irving of "distorting evidence and manipulating documents to serve his own purposes...[as well as] skewing documents and misrepresenting data in order to reach historically untenable conclusions, particularly those that exonerate Hitler."^[19]

Evans acted as an expert witness for the defence in the case. His role was to investigate Irving's books, speeches, and other publications to determine whether Irving was, in fact, a Holocaust denier who had manipulated documents to serve his own political interests. Starting in the autumn of 1997, Evans, along with Thomas Skelton-Robinson and Nik Wachsmann, two of his PhD students, closely examined Irving's work.^[20] They found several instances in which he had used forged documents, disregarded contrary evidence, selectively quoted historical documents out of context, and mis-cited historical records.^[21][22] Evans concluded that Irving was a Holocaust denier who had twisted and distorted the historical record in order to further his own political ideals; the court accepted this view. Evans proved to be a powerful witness in Lipstadt's ultimately successful defence, and he later wrote a book about his experience, titled Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial based on his expert report to the court.

The cross-examination of Evans by Irving was noted for the high degree of personal dislike between the two men.^[23] Such was the degree of dislike that Irving challenged Evans on very minor points, such as Evans doubting the fairness of a 1938 German plebiscite in which the Nazi regime received 98.8% of the vote.^[24] A subject that much engaged Irving and Evans in a debate was a memo by the Chief of the Reich Chancellery Hans Lammers to the Reich Justice Minister Franz Schlegelberger in which Lammers wrote that Hitler ordered him to put the "Jewish Question" on the "back-burner" until after the war.^[25] Evans chose to accept the interpretation of the memo put forward by Eberhard Jäckel in the 1970s;^[26] Irving chose to interpret the memo literally and taunted Evans by saying, "It is a terrible problem, is it not that we are faced with this tantalizing plate of crumbs and morsels of what should have provided the final smoking gun, and nowhere the whole way through the archives do we find even one item that we do not have to interpret or read between the lines of, but we do have in the same chain of evidence documents which...quite clearly specifically show Hitler intervening in the other sense?"^[27] In response, Evans stated "No, I do not accept that at all. It is because you want to interpret euphemisims as being literal and that is what the whole problem is. Every time there is an euphemism, Mr. Irving … or a camouflage piece of statement or language about Madagascar, you want to treat it as the literal truth, because it serves your purpose of trying to exculpate Hitler. That is part of … the way you manipulate and distort the documents."^[28]

In a 2001 interview, Evans described to the Canadian columnist Robert Fulford his impression of Irving after being cross-examined by him as: "He [Irving] was a bit like a dim student who didn't listen. If he didn't get the answer he wanted, he just repeated the question."^[29] His findings and his account of the trial were published in his 2001 book Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, And The David Irving Trial, which was published as Telling Lies About Hitler in the United States in 2002. The High Court rejected Irving’s libel suit and awarded costs to the defence.

The Third Reich trilogy[link]

Between 2003 and 2008, Richard Evans published a three-volume history of the Third Reich. Drawing on years of experience as a leading scholar of German history, Evans wove together the most extensive and comprehensive history of the rise and fall of Hitler’s regime ever produced by a single scholar.^[30]

The first volume, The Coming of the Third Reich (published by Penguin in 2003), shows how a country torn apart by the First World War, Versailles, hyperinflation and the Great Depression moved towards an increasingly authoritarian solution and explains how Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933 and how swiftly he transformed Germany into a one party dictatorship. The first volume featured highly favorable words of praise from Evans's friend, Ian Kershaw on its cover.^[2]

Adolf Hitler, at a window of the Reich's Chancellory, receives an ovation from supporters in his first day in office as Chancellor. (30 January 1933)

The second volume, The Third Reich in Power (published by Penguin in 2005), covers the peacetime years of Nazi rule between 1933 and 1939. The final chapter examines the road to the Second World War, but the real focus is on life inside Nazi Germany. One of the great strengths of this volume is the way Evans allows small stories of key individuals to illustrate many of the key social, economic and cultural events of the period. A leading historian of the Third Reich, Richard Overy, in a review in the Literary Review described this book as "magisterial."^{[citation needed]}

The third volume, The Third Reich at War, (published by Penguin in 2008), looks at major developments from 1939 to 1945, including the key battles of the Second World War, a vivid, moving and detailed account of the mass murder enacted during the Holocaust and Hitler's dramatic downfall in Berlin in 1945. In an October 2008 review of the third volume for The Times, best-selling historian Antony Beevor writes: "With this third volume, Richard Evans has accomplished a masterpiece of historical scholarship ... [He] has produced the best and most up-to-date synthesis of the huge work carried out on the subject over the past decades."^[31]

Regius Professor of Modern History[link]

In 2008, Richard Evans was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. The post is a royal appointment in the gift of the Prime Minister of the day and dates back to 1724. Previous holders of the title have included Herbert Butterfield (1963), Geoffrey Elton (1983), and Quentin Skinner (1998). But Evans is the first historian to have to apply for the post and be interviewed by a Board of Electors, including Cambridge's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alison Richard, and representatives of the History Faculty and the university, as well as external assessors from Yale, Harvard, Oxford and London. The Board selected a shortlist of four, each of whom was asked to give a presentation to the entire Cambridge history faculty. The shortlist of four was then reduced to two, who the Board interviewed, resulting in the Board's recommendation of Professor Evans to the Prime Minister, resulting in the issue of a Royal Warrant for his appointment. As well as being Regius Professor, he has served as chairman of the History Faculty since October 2008; his term of office ends on 30 September 2010. But Evans is used to combining administration with research. At Birkbeck College, London, where he worked before Cambridge, he acted as Master when Baroness Blackstone left suddenly to become Tony Blair's first higher education minister. On 27 January 2010 he was elected to the position of President of Wolfson College, Cambridge to take up office on 1 October 2010.

TV and media appearances[link]

Richard Evans has appeared regularly as "talking head" on a number of TV documentaries related to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. He recently appeared on a major TV documentary on the History Channel which examined the Valkyrie bomb plot against Hitler in July 1944, which was the subject of a Hollywood film starring Tom Cruise. He also appears regularly on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Start the Week" and often writes reviews of history books on his specialist era in major newspapers and periodicals. He is also a noted lecturer and gives numerous keynote lectures at international conferences around the world and also at student conferences as part of his remit to take history to a wider audience beyond academia. He is known as an excellent public speaker and often appears regularly as a keynote speaker at universities and schools and at conferences for academics and students around the world.

See also[link]

• List of Adolf Hitler books

References[link]

Work[link]

• The Feminist Movement In Germany, 1894–1933, London: Sage Publications, 1976.
• "German Women and the Triumph of Hitler," The Journal of Modern History Vol. 48, No. 1, March 1976
• The Feminists: Women's Emancipation Movements in Europe, America and Australasia, 1840–1920, London: C. Helm, 1977.
• Society And Politics In Wilhelmine Germany edited by R. J. Evans, London: Croom Helm, 1980, 1978.
• Review article: "The History of European Women: A Critical Survey of Recent Research," The Journal of Modern History Vol. 52, No. 4, December 1980
• The German Family: Essays on the Social History of The Family in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Germany, London: C. Helm ; Totowa, N. J.: Barnes & Noble Books, 1981.
• The German Working Class, 1888–1933: The Politics Of Everyday Life, London: Croom Helm ; Totowa, N. J.: Barnes & Noble, 1982.
• The German Peasantry: Conflict And Community in Rural Society from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries edited by Richard J. Evans and W. R. Lee, London: Croom Helm, 1986.
• The German Unemployed: Experiences And Consequences Of Mass Unemployment From The Weimar Republic To The Third Reich, London: C. Helm, 1987.
• Rethinking German History: Nineteenth-Century Germany And The Origins Of The Third Reich, London: Allen and Unwin, 1987.
• Comrades And Sisters: Feminism, Socialism, And Pacifism In Europe, 1870–1945, Brighton, Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.
• "The New Nationalism and the Old History: Perspectives on the West German Historikerstreit," The Journal of Modern History, Volume 59, No. 4, December 1987, pages 761–97
• Death In Hamburg: Society And Politics In The Cholera Years, 1830–1910 Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.
• The German Underworld: Deviants And Outcasts In German history, London: Routledge, 1988.
• In Hitler's Shadow: West German Historians And The Attempt To Escape From The Nazi Past, London: I. B. Tauris, 1989, ISBN 1-85043-146-9.
• Proletarians And Politics: Socialism, Protest, And The Working Class In Germany Before The First World War, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990.
• The German Bourgeoisie: Essays On The Social History Of The German Middle Class From The Late Eighteenth To The Early Twentieth Century London: Routledge, 1991.
• Rituals Of Retribution: Capital Punishment In Germany 1600–1987, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Rereading German History: From Unification To Reunification, 1800–1996, London; New York: Routledge, 1997.
• Tales From The German Underworld: Crime And Punishment In The Nineteenth Century, New Haven [Conn.]; London: Yale University Press, 1998.
• In Defense of History, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999.
• Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, And The David Irving Trial, New York: Basic Books, 2001; published in the United Kingdom as Telling Lies About Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial, Verso Books, 2002.
• The Coming Of The Third Reich, London: Allen Lane, 2003.
• The Third Reich In Power, 1933–1939, New York: Penguin, 2005.
• The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster , London: Allen Lane, 2008.
• Cosmopolitan Islanders: British Historians and The European Continent, Cambridge University Press, 2009

Bibliography[link]

• Guttenplan, D.D. The Holocaust On Trial, New York: Norton, 2001.
• Snowman, Daniel "Richard J. Evans" pages 45–47 from History Today Volume 54, Issue #1, January 2004.

External links[link]

• Personal website
• Richard J Evans on Twitter
• Faculty member webpage at University of Cambridge
• Richard Evans on 'Crosstalk, Russia Today

Queen Victoria
Victoria wearing her small diamond crown Photograph by Alexander Bassano, 1882
Queen of the United Kingdom
Reign	20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901
Coronation	28 June 1838
Predecessor	William IV
Successor	Edward VII
Prime Ministers	See list
Empress of India
Reign	1 May 1876 – 22 January 1901
Imperial Durbar	1 January 1877
Predecessor	Title created
Successor	Edward VII
Viceroys	See list
Consort	Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Detail Issue
Victoria, Princess Royal, German Empress Edward VII Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Helena, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg
Full name
Alexandrina Victoria
House	House of Hanover
Father	Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn
Mother	Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Born	(1819-05-24)24 May 1819 Kensington Palace, London
Died	22 January 1901(1901-01-22) (aged 81) Osborne House, Isle of Wight
Burial	4 February 1901 Frogmore, Windsor
Signature

Queen Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Both the Duke of Kent and the King died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne at the age of 18, after her father's three elder brothers had all died without surviving legitimate issue. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the Sovereign held relatively few direct political powers. Privately, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments. Publicly, she became a national icon, and was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

She married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children and 26 of their 34 grandchildren who survived childhood married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.

Her reign of 63 years and 7 months, which is longer than that of any other British monarch and the longest of any female monarch in history, is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover; her son and successor Edward VII belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father.

Birth and family[link]

Princess Victoria, aged four.
Painting by Stephen Poyntz Denning, 1823

Victoria's father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of the reigning King of the United Kingdom, George III. Until 1817, Edward's niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a succession crisis in the United Kingdom that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent (and his unmarried brother) to marry and have children. In 1818, he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a German princess whose brother Leopold was the widower of Princess Charlotte. The Duke and Duchess of Kent's only child, Victoria, was born at 4.15 am on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London.^[1]

She was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace.^[2] She was baptised Alexandrina, after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of the Duke's elder brother, the Prince Regent (later George IV).^[3]

At birth, Victoria was fifth in the line of succession after her father and his three older brothers: the Prince Regent, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence (later William IV).^[4] The Prince Regent was estranged from his wife and the Duchess of York was 52 years old, so the two eldest brothers were unlikely to have any further children. The Dukes of Kent and Clarence married on the same day 12 months before Victoria's birth, but both of Clarence's daughters (born in 1819 and 1820 respectively) died as infants. Victoria's grandfather and father died in 1820, within a week of each other, and the Duke of York died in 1827. On the death of her uncle George IV in 1830, Victoria became heiress presumptive to her next surviving uncle, William IV. The Regency Act 1830 made special provision for the Duchess of Kent to act as regent in case William died while Victoria was still a minor.^[5] King William distrusted the Duchess's capacity to be regent, and in 1836 declared in her presence that he wanted to live until Victoria's 18th birthday, so that a regency could be avoided.^[6]

Heiress presumptive[link]

Princess Victoria with her spaniel Dash, 1833
Painting by George Hayter

Victoria later described her childhood as "rather melancholy".^[7] Her mother was extremely protective, and Victoria was raised largely isolated from other children under the so called "Kensington System", an elaborate set of rules and protocols devised by the Duchess and her ambitious and domineering comptroller, Sir John Conroy, who was rumoured to be the Duchess's lover.^[8] The system prevented the princess from meeting people whom her mother and Conroy deemed undesirable (including most of her father's family), and was designed to render her weak and dependent upon them.^[9] The Duchess avoided the court because she was scandalised by the presence of the King's bastard children,^[10] and perhaps prompted the emergence of Victorian morality by insisting that her daughter avoid any appearance of sexual impropriety.^[11] Victoria shared a bedroom with her mother every night, studied with private tutors to a regular timetable, and spent her play hours with her dolls and her King Charles spaniel, Dash.^[12] Her lessons included French, German, Italian, and Latin,^[13] but she spoke only English at home.^[14]

Self-portrait, 1835

In 1830, the Duchess of Kent and Conroy took Victoria across the centre of England to visit the Malvern Hills, stopping at towns and great country houses along the way.^[15] Similar journeys to other parts of England and Wales were taken in 1832, 1833, 1834 and 1835. To King William's annoyance, Victoria was enthusiastically welcomed in each of the stops.^[16] William compared the journeys to royal progresses and was concerned that they portrayed Victoria as his rival rather than his heiress presumptive.^[17] Victoria disliked the trips; the constant round of public appearances made her tired and ill, and there was little time for her to rest.^[18] She objected on the grounds of the King's disapproval, but her mother dismissed his complaints as motivated by jealousy, and forced Victoria to continue the tours.^[19] At Ramsgate in October 1835, Victoria contracted a severe fever, which Conroy initially dismissed as a childish pretence.^[20] While Victoria was ill, Conroy and the Duchess unsuccessfully badgered her to make Conroy her private secretary.^[21] As a teenager, Victoria resisted persistent attempts by her mother and Conroy to appoint him to her staff.^[22] Once Queen, she banned him from her presence, but he remained in her mother's household.^[23]

By 1836, the Duchess's brother, Leopold, who had been King of the Belgians since 1831, hoped to marry his niece to his nephew, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.^[24] Leopold, Victoria's mother, and Albert's father (Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) were siblings. Leopold arranged for Victoria's mother to invite her Coburg relatives to visit her in May 1836, with the purpose of introducing Victoria to Albert.^[25] William IV, however, disapproved of any match with the Coburgs, and instead favoured the suit of Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, second son of the Prince of Orange.^[26] Victoria was aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes.^[27] According to her diary, she enjoyed Albert's company from the beginning. After the visit she wrote, "[Albert] is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful."^[28] Alexander, on the other hand, was "very plain".^[29]

Victoria wrote to her uncle Leopold, whom Victoria considered her "best and kindest adviser",^[30] to thank him "for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me, in the person of dear Albert ... He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy. He is so sensible, so kind, and so good, and so amiable too. He has besides the most pleasing and delightful exterior and appearance you can possibly see."^[31] However at 17, Victoria, though interested in Albert, was not yet ready to marry. The parties did not undertake a formal engagement, but assumed that the match would take place in due time.^[32]

Early reign[link]

Victoria receives the news of her accession from Lord Conyngham (left) and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Victoria turned 18 on 24 May 1837, and a regency was avoided. On 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom. In her diary she wrote, "I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma, who told me the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen."^[33] Official documents prepared on the first day of her reign described her as Alexandrina Victoria, but the first name was withdrawn at her own wish and not used again.^[34]

Since 1714, Britain had shared a monarch with Hanover in Germany, but under Salic law women were excluded from the Hanoverian succession. While Victoria inherited all the British dominions, Hanover passed instead to her father's younger brother, her unpopular uncle the Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, who became King Ernest Augustus I of Hanover. He was her heir presumptive until she married and had a child.^[35]

Coronation portrait by George Hayter

At the time of her accession, the government was led by the Whig prime minister Lord Melbourne, who at once became a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced Queen, who relied on him for advice.^[36] Charles Greville supposed that the widowed and childless Melbourne was "passionately fond of her as he might be of his daughter if he had one", and Victoria probably saw him as a father figure.^[37] Her coronation took place on 28 June 1838, and she became the first sovereign to take up residence at Buckingham Palace.^[38] She inherited the revenues of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, and was granted a civil list of £385,000 per year. Financially prudent, she paid off her father's debts.^[39]

At the start of her reign Victoria was popular,^[40] but her reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting, Lady Flora Hastings, developed an abdominal growth that was widely rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy.^[41] Victoria believed the rumours.^[42] She hated Conroy, and despised "that odious Lady Flora",^[43] because she had conspired with Conroy and the Duchess of Kent in the Kensington System.^[44] At first, Lady Flora refused to submit to a naked medical examination, until in mid-February she eventually agreed, and was found to be a virgin.^[45] Conroy, the Hastings family and the opposition Tories organised a press campaign implicating the Queen in the spreading of false rumours about Lady Flora.^[46] When Lady Flora died in July, the post-mortem revealed a large tumour on her liver that had distended her abdomen.^[47] At public appearances, Victoria was hissed and jeered as "Mrs. Melbourne".^[48]

In 1839, Melbourne resigned after Radicals and Tories (both of whom Victoria detested) voted against a Bill to suspend the constitution of Jamaica. The Bill removed political power from plantation owners who were resisting measures associated with the abolition of slavery.^[49] The Queen commissioned a Tory, Sir Robert Peel, to form a new ministry. At the time, it was customary for the prime minister to appoint members of the Royal Household, who were usually his political allies and their spouses. Many of the Queen's Ladies of the Bedchamber were wives of Whigs, and Peel expected to replace them with wives of Tories. In what became known as the bedchamber crisis, Victoria, advised by Melbourne, objected to their removal. Peel refused to govern under the restrictions imposed by the Queen, and consequently resigned his commission, allowing Melbourne to return to office.^[50]

Marriage[link]