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The Victorian era

The 19th century was ane of rapid development and change, far swifter than in previous centuries. During this menstruum England changed from a rural, agronomical country to an urban, industrialised i. This involved massive dislocation and radically altered the nature of society. It took many years for both authorities and people to adjust to the new conditions.

Strictly speaking, the Victorian era began in 1837 and ended with Queen Victoria's death in 1901, but the catamenia tin can exist stretched to include the years both before and later on these dates, roughly from the Napoleonic Wars until the outbreak of World State of war I in 1914.

Questions to hash out

Does technological advance mean the same thing as progress?
How does Victorian pollution compare with pollution in our own fourth dimension?
What patterns of migration occurred – within, from, and to the UK?
Could the 19th century be called 'The Age of Improvement'?
How does the British Empire compare with the Roman Empire?

Key themes and developments

Over the catamenia there were changes and developments in every sphere of life. Fundamental themes include the following:

The Industrial Revolution

This was made up of technological, scientific and industrial innovations (e.g. mass production, steam engines, railways, sewing machines, gas and electric light, the telegraph) that led to an enormous expansion of production, specially through the factory system. At that place were huge social costs: the dehumanisation of work, child labour, pollution, and the growth of cities where poverty, filth and disease flourished. Kid labour and poverty were too a feature of rural life, where farm work involved long hours, very low pay and exposure to all weathers.

See 'Children in Victorian United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland' (please note: these lessons pre-engagement the 2014 National Curriculum):

Down the mine
Textile mills
Slate mining
Victorian boarding-school

Encounter also these articles from Primary History:

Using classic fiction to support the study of Victorian childhood
Local history unit – your local railway

Population growth and migration

Betwixt 1801 and 1871 alone the population of the UK doubled. Migration in both directions was a feature of Victorian life. Many Britons left the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland for North America or the colonies in search of a better life. The Irish gaelic poor formed a large number of these migrants, especially subsequently the Spud famine in 1845: the Irish moved in large numbers to England and Scotland, likewise as abroad. Within the Britain equally a whole, people moved from the countryside into the new industrial cities to find work. Migrants from across the world likewise settled in Britain, notably Jews from Europe and Russia.

Social reforms

As a event of early campaigns past people such as Michael Sadler and the Earl of Shaftesbury, and reports by parliamentary commissions, legislation protecting kid and developed workers began to be enacted. Of import reforms included legislation on child labour, rubber in mines and factories, public health, the end of slavery in the British Empire, and education (by 1880 education was compulsory for all children upward to the historic period of ten). There was also prison reform and the establishment of the law.

The rise of the centre classes

Society was hierarchical, withal in that location was much social and geographical mobility. Cocky-made entrepreneurs used their new wealth to rise in social club, building large houses, educating their children and employing domestic servants (by the 1880s 1.25 million people were employed in domestic service – more than in any other piece of work category).

For more on the urban middle classes and their servants see Urban spaces
See also A Victorian Christmas

The growth of democracy

The franchise was gradually extended to the working classes, until past 1918 in that location was universal suffrage for men. The fight for votes for women was in full swing, but it was not until 1930 that women achieved the same voting rights as men.

Encounter besides Ideas for Assemblies: Women in Parliament

Expansion of Empire

Before the start of the 19th century Britain had already lost her American Empire, and was acquiring another in India. Her accumulation of additional territory across the globe connected steadily. The Swell Exhibition of 1851 displayed the wonders of both industry and Empire. Tied upward with the Empire were Britain's trading dominance, naval and military strength, and competition for territory confronting other European nations. Past the end of Victoria'south reign imperialists could boast that the lord's day never set upon the British Empire.

Idealisation of the family unit

The ideal of family unit– respectable and loving – dominated the Victorian period. The cult of the home grew steadily, with Queen Victoria and her family providing a role model for the nation. Women were expected to stay at habitation and bring up the family, just the reality for many poor families was that women had to work; and many unmarried center-class women also had to piece of work.

The growth of leisure pursuits

The 19th century saw the showtime of mass leisure: seaside holidays, religious activities, and the development of public parks, museums, libraries, spectator sports, theatres and music halls.

Instruction the Victorians

For this menses nosotros accept the voices of those not oft heard: the poor, women and children, giving usa a existent insight into their thoughts and daily lives. The pictures and words of children working in mines and factories, recorded by parliamentary commissioners, are peculiarly evocative– encounter the lessons on Lotte (Down the mine) and child labour in factories (Fabric mills).

Books such as Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford and Mrs Beetons Household Management are treasure troves of information about domestic work and life that children can relate to (see for example Blenheim Square). Henry Mayhew's graphic 1851 descriptions of London labour and the London poor illuminate the lives led past destitute people in Victorian cities.

Indeed, the whole period abounds in rich sources: buildings, canals, railways, documents (including statistics, censuses, trade directories, parish registers, show to parliamentary commissions), pictures, objects and music.

Films and television set serial of novels by Charles Dickens convey a peculiarly vivid sense of life at many levels of Victorian lodge. Skillful educational videos include Yorkshire Boob tube'due south 'The style nosotros used to live', and the BBC's 'Landmarks' series, both made in the early 1990s. There are too many internet sites covering all aspects of the Victorian era.

The period is particularly suited to local history studies, and your local studies library should agree a range of sources for studying events and developments in your surface area during Victorian times (such as school life through log books, shops and occupations through trade and street directories, who lived in the area through the demography, a visit by Queen Victoria, mining disasters). For examples of local Victorian studies, run into the Fulwell windmill and Mining disasters lessons; besides Victorian schoolhouse buildings and Reading merchandise directories teaching method exemplars.

The Victorians (article)
The Victorians (topic pack)

There are opportunities for cantankerous-curricular pedagogy touching about subjects, merely particularly strong are links with geography, design and technology, science and PSCHE– and, as e'er, with literacy (speaking and listening, reading and writing).

Citizenship

Give-and-take about Empire and migration can aid children to explore issues of identity and how the multicultural Britain of today came about. Peculiarly useful is to observe how Victorian attitudes towards immigrants have contradistinct over the years, how these immigrants have go office of British society, and the conclusions we can draw from this procedure.

Victorian achievements

A danger is that children will view the Victorian era as one of unrelenting darkness, cruelty and poverty. So it is worth focusing, as well, on the achievements of the Victorians.

What had the Victorians accomplished past the end of the era that didn't exist before?

Scheme of work: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Comparing Victorians with the Romans, and with aspects of today'south world, is a useful do.

Key concepts

Industrialisation
Urbanisation
Global Empire
Progress (this is contentious: progress for whom, and progress of what type?)
Respectability
Cocky-help
Suffrage (the vote: for both men and women)
Migration

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Source: https://www.history.org.uk/primary/resource/3871/victorian-britain-a-brief-history