1837 - 1901

Romanticism1770 - 1850

VICTORIAN ENGLAND

• the largest empire that had ever existed, ruling a

quarter of the world's population.

• population more than doubled, causing a huge

demand for food, clothes and housing.

• Steam engine, Industrial revolution &

Urbanization – Age of Transition.

• Victorians suffered from a sense of being displaced

in an age of technological advances.

SOCIAL CLASSES

• Upper Class: Wealth from inherited land and

investments.

• Middle Class: Men who performed white collar jobs.

• Working Class: Men & Women who performed physical

labour.

The Time of Troubles Mid-Victorian Period Late Victorian Period

1830s & 1840s 1850s to 1870s 1870s to 1901

• Unemployment

• Poverty

• Rioting

• Slums

• Working

conditions for

women and

children

• prosperity

• improvement

• Stability

• optimism

• Degradation of

Victorian values

• RISE of the USA

• Economic

depression

• mass Emigration

• Mood of

melancholy

Conditions of women in Victorian England

• Job opportunities for women through Industrial Revolution.

• The Factory Acts (1802-78): regulations of the conditions of labor in mines and factories.

• The Custody Act (1839): gave a mother the right to petition the court for access to her minor

children and custody of children under seven, and later sixteen.

• The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act: established a civil divorce court.

• Married Women’s Property Acts.

• First women’s college established in 1848 in London.

• By the end of Victoria’s reign, women could take degrees at twelve university colleges.

• Underemployment drove thousands of women into prostitution.

• The only occupation at which an unmarried middle-class woman could earn a living and

maintain some claim to gentility was that of a governess (wet nurse).

Victorian cities

• By 1851, half of the British population lived in

towns; The Population of London grew from 2

million to 6 million.

• Cholera and typhoid epidemics due to polluted

water; Typhus due to lice; Summer diarrhoea due

to flies feeding on horse manure and human waste.

• Crime, street violence, robbery, prostitution &

Child labour.

Child Labour during Victorian Times

• Children were employed for 3 reasons :

- plenty of them in orphanages; could be easily replaced.

- Cheaper Labour than adults.

- Small enough to crawl into chimneys & under machinery to tie up

broken threads.

• Children as young as 5 years of age worked in mines,

factories, mills, or as chimney sweeps.

• Children forced to steal and beg.

Victorian novels seek to represent a

large and comprehensive social

world, with a variety of classes. They

are realistic and represent the place

of the individual in society, the

aspiration of the hero or heroine for

love or social position. The

protagonist’s search for fulfillment is

emblematic of the human condition.

Adam Smith

(1723 – 1790)

Charles Darwin

(1809 – 1882)

Karl Marx

(1818 – 1883)

&

Friedrich Engels

(1820 – 1895)