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00:01It is always difficult to pass comment on the values and achievements of a society when so many years have passed.
00:08But it is true that unlike any other age, the extraordinary Victorian period of British history has always excited mixed emotions in those who care to look back.
00:20Perhaps some find the superficial, po-faced prudishness of the age faintly amusing.
00:26Others, some modern-day politicians included, believe Victorian values are something to be aspired to.
00:34Many remember a society where great comfort and wealth stood in stark contrast with dire poverty and child cruelty.
00:45Yet few could deny that the age to which Queen Victoria gave her name saw incredible and monumental changes in British society.
00:52There was, for instance, the urbanisation of a country which was swept along by the Industrial Revolution,
01:01whose population rose from 25 million in the early 1800s to almost 40 million people by the end of the century.
01:10There were great advances in engineering, education and medicine.
01:14There was at least some attempt to tackle the poverty and squalor which blighted the land.
01:21The era heralded the genius of Dickens and Hardy, Stevenson and Brunel.
01:27And the British people watched in admiration as the famous redcoat armies marched to win an empire for their queen and country.
01:35It was a truly remarkable age, a time of transition and progress.
01:44It was the age of Victorian Britain.
01:48I was awoke at six o'clock by Mama, who told me that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Cunningham were here and wished to see me.
02:13I got out of bed and went to my sitting room, only in my dressing gown and alone, and saw them.
02:20Lord Cunningham, the Lord Chamberlain, then acquainted me that my poor uncle the king was no more,
02:27and had expired at twelve minutes past two this morning, and that consequently I am queen.
02:33It was the early hours of 20th of June, 1837, that the long reign of Queen Victoria began.
02:44She would become the longest reigning monarch in British history.
02:49Her journal noted the moment when she learned of her ascension to the throne.
02:54It is said that upon hearing Lord Cunningham utter the word Queen,
02:58Victoria instinctively flung out her hand for him to kiss.
03:01It was a typical spontaneous gesture, which symbolised the young Victoria's acute awareness of her new position.
03:11She was, even now, bound by the concept of duty.
03:15For the entry in her diary for that momentous day also reads,
03:20I shall try to do what is fit and right.
03:25Victoria was a mere eighteen years old when she ascended the throne.
03:28She had been a serious child with a demeanour which is best described as spirited.
03:36There is no royal road to music, princess.
03:39You must practise every day, her music master had pleaded to the seven-year-old Victoria.
03:45The young princess had responded by shutting the piano with a loud bang
03:49and fixing the master with a cold stare.
03:53There, you see, there is no must about it, she had replied,
03:59leaving the chastened master to beg her forgiveness.
04:01As a child, Victoria was always acutely aware of her exalted position in life.
04:10She once scolded a playmate who dared play with her toys.
04:14You must not touch those, they are mine.
04:18And I may call you Jane, but you must not call me Victoria.
04:21The queen was of a diminutive stature, a mere five feet, two inches tall,
04:30but with a presence which impressed even the most worldly of her counsellors.
04:36She looked very well, and though so small in stature and without any pretension to beauty,
04:41the gracefulness of her manner and the good expression of her countenance
04:45give her, on the whole, a very agreeable appearance.
04:49Her youth inspires an excessive interest in all who approach her.
04:56However, Britain in 1837 was a divided, dispirited country.
05:02William IV's brief reign had seen a time of enormous political upheaval
05:06which seemed to bewilder the well-intentioned but rather timid king.
05:11The first reform bill of 1831, for example,
05:15which had sought to reform the country's ludicrous system of parliamentary representation,
05:20was eventually defeated in the House of Commons.
05:23A result which pre-empted the dissolution of Parliament.
05:27A bad-tempered, acrimonious election followed,
05:30which eventually resulted in a sensational Whig victory.
05:35Although violence erupted throughout the country,
05:38the Great Reform Bill finally became law in 1832.
05:44When William's chaotic reign ended in 1837,
05:48the reputation of the monarchy was at a low ebb,
05:51with public confidence in its most reliable institution somehow shaken.
05:56Some had even come to despise the monarchy.
05:59The new Queen Victoria came undaunted to this unhappy state of affairs.
06:06And it is a testament to her personality
06:09that by the time of her death,
06:11she was a figure who commanded worldwide respect
06:14and who was greatly loved by her people.
06:17Most of the population at that time
06:36were living in rural areas, villages, small towns,
06:40not in the large industrial conurbations.
06:41The kind of work most people did was largely agricultural.
06:46A lot of women worked, however,
06:48they worked at home on straw plaiting,
06:50sewing, that kind of activity.
06:53There was a lot of poverty,
06:55as there was throughout the century.
06:57This was the rural poverty,
06:59in that people either couldn't find work
07:02or were unwilling to work.
07:04There had been the enclosures in the earlier part of the century
07:07where common land had been enclosed
07:09and comprised of large farms
07:11and indeed some small holdings,
07:14which were far more efficient.
07:16So increased work was available there.
07:18But there were far fewer opportunities
07:20for people who wanted to work on their own
07:22and run a small, perhaps substandard, small holding
07:25which would maintain a living for themselves.
07:28Life expectancy was about 50 years
07:31and even at that time,
07:32higher in the country than it was in the towns,
07:34education was fairly minimal.
07:38It was available if you could pay for it.
07:40However, a lot of poor children
07:41obviously received very little education at all.
07:44Charitable institutions did exist.
07:47However, sometimes the education there
07:49could be very minimal.
07:50So a large number of children
07:51simply learned how to cope with life
07:53and to do the job they were put to
07:55probably at a very early age.
07:57Various things were beginning to happen.
08:00The steam engine had been invented by this time,
08:03though obviously it was not in general use
08:05as we know it today.
08:07Most transport was by horsepower.
08:10There was a postal system.
08:12That form of communication existed.
08:14But again, it depended on the speed of the horse
08:16to get it from A to B.
08:17At the beginning of Victoria's reign,
08:30the majority of lower class people
08:32worked on the land.
08:34Britain was still a nation of farms and farmers,
08:37not yet the great manufacturing nation
08:39she would later become.
08:41But the wages and conditions
08:43of an average farm worker were pitiful.
08:45Kept down by profiteering landowners
08:48whose best interests were considered
08:50by the government to be of crucial importance.
08:53One landowner is certainly known
08:55to have employed 12 desperate men
08:57to dig a field at a mere nine pence each per day.
09:01It was, quite simply,
09:03cheaper than hiring a horse to plough it.
09:07Farm workers often had to feed their large families
09:09on as little as eight shillings per week.
09:11Bread, cheese and tea were their staple diet.
09:16Sometimes, if they were lucky,
09:18some potatoes and milk.
09:20Rarely, if ever, did their plates see any meat.
09:25The great reformer, William Cobbett,
09:28movingly described the privations
09:30of these poor men of the land
09:31in his classic 1830 book, Rural Rides.
09:34The book contains barbed observations
09:39upon British rural life
09:40combined with a wistful nostalgia
09:42for a plentiful past
09:44which, if it ever existed,
09:46had long gone.
09:49A contemporary reads an extract.
09:52The lower classes of farm workers
09:55were the worst-used laboring people
09:58upon the face of the earth.
10:00Dogs and hogs and horses
10:02are treated with more civility.
10:05And as to food and lodging,
10:07how gladly will the laborers change with them?
10:09I really am ashamed to ride a fat horse,
10:14to have a full belly,
10:17and to have a clean shirt upon my back
10:19when I look at those wretched countrymen of mine,
10:24while I actually see them reeling with weakness,
10:28when I see their poor faces present me
10:31nothing but skin and bone.
10:34However, some other contemporaries
10:42quite clearly disagreed with Cobbett's view.
10:46Esther Copley's cottage comfort
10:48and cottage cookery
10:49managed not only to denigrate the misery
10:51of the rural lower classes,
10:53but to patronize them too.
10:56The want and misery of many families
10:59arises more from want of discretion
11:01in managing their resources.
11:04than from the real scantiness of their income.
11:08In 1846, the Corn Law was repealed.
11:13The Act, which since 1815
11:15had prohibited the import of cheap corn from abroad,
11:19exposed landowners to the vagaries
11:21of the free market for the first time.
11:24It was the central drama
11:25of what came to be known as the Hungry Forties,
11:30a desperate decade of utter depression
11:32in the agricultural industry.
11:34Although farm workers and their families
11:37lived in unimaginable poverty,
11:40woe betide the man who stole
11:42from the master's fields
11:43in an attempt to feed his wife and children.
11:47Heavy fines were imposed without mercy,
11:50and at worst,
11:51offenders were deported to the colonies.
11:53It is not surprising that the hardships presented by country life
12:09saw many people move into the large cities and towns
12:12in search of a better life.
12:14The urban worker had worked in the traditional industries
12:17as craftsmen, tradesmen, storekeepers, or shop owners.
12:22Or work had been found in domestic service as servants or footmen.
12:26Now, in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign,
12:30the Industrial Revolution was gathering pace.
12:35Innovations and advances in machinery,
12:37and in particular communications,
12:39such as those pioneered by Telford and Macadam,
12:42gave easier access to the big cities
12:44for the raw materials which fed heavy industry.
12:47People flocked to the new major industrial areas,
12:52London, Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester.
12:55It was here that the new cotton mills and factories,
12:59the symbol of the Industrial Revolution, had grown.
13:06Industrial development did not only take place in large towns,
13:09and here where we are today at Ironbridge
13:11is a prime example of the kind of development
13:13that took place outside of the major industrial centres.
13:16Ironbridge has been known as a cradle of the Industrial Revolution,
13:21and industrial development went on here
13:23during the 17th and 18th centuries,
13:26most notably in 1709,
13:28the development of smelting iron with coke instead of coal,
13:31which allowed for mass production of cast iron.
13:34And then, of course, in 1779,
13:36the building of the world's first iron bridge.
13:40But apart from that, on into the 19th century,
13:43there were ceramic industries here,
13:46the Coalport China Works,
13:48which had been working for some considerable while.
13:51There were tile manufacturers on the other side of the river.
13:54The Coalrootdale Company,
13:56which was the inheritor of Abraham Darby's original works,
14:00were producing high-quality decorative cast iron work
14:03and street furniture and fireplaces.
14:06And on the site where we are today,
14:08which is Bliss Hill,
14:09industry was carrying on here.
14:11There was mining here,
14:12there was a brick and tile works here,
14:14there was a canal built through the site,
14:17and there was a blast furnace also producing cast iron.
14:20And into the area came two railway companies,
14:23so there was a good supply of communication.
14:26However, as the terrain became more difficult,
14:28it's very hilly,
14:29and some of it is somewhat unstable.
14:31The industry here died towards the end of the century
14:35and closed down more or less completely
14:37in the first part of the 20th century.
14:40By the 1850s,
14:42rows of terraced housing had been built
14:44to accommodate the workers in the new factories.
14:47But little or no planning had gone into the design
14:50of these terrible brick buildings.
14:52They had no running water
14:54and certainly no sanitary provision.
14:57Soon, the rows and rows of dingy houses
15:01in dark, smog-filled streets
15:03became dangerously overcrowded
15:05by the large families of the workers.
15:09Before long, smallpox and cholera ran rife.
15:14Britain was entering a new phenomenon,
15:17the city slum.
15:19There were two immediate effects
15:21of industrial revolution on the Victorian society.
15:25One was the increased movement of population
15:28into the towns where the wages were higher,
15:31and the second was the development
15:34of a moneyed MIGO class
15:36who made their money in the industrial developments
15:39and became a force in the country for that reason.
15:43There were obviously a whole range
15:44of other effects as well.
15:47People who disliked their wages
15:49and conditions in the country
15:50exchanged the poverty of the country
15:53for the degradation and squalor
15:56and disease of living in the town,
15:57where the conditions were, if anything, worse.
16:01They also had a wider range of work
16:03when they got there,
16:05industrial work of a great variety.
16:08Women also were going out to work,
16:10particularly in the north,
16:11where they worked in the textile mills,
16:13so they no longer worked at home,
16:15which had an effect on the family structure as well.
16:19The health was poor,
16:22the life expectancy was lower,
16:24and the education prospects
16:26were just as bad as they always had been.
16:30As late as the 1890s,
16:32Joseph Ritson, a Methodist minister,
16:34reported that of the 700 families
16:36living in his London parish,
16:38500 were living in single rooms.
16:44The walls and ceilings are black
16:46with the secretions of filth
16:48which have gathered upon them
16:49through the long years of neglect.
16:52It is exuding through the cracks
16:54in the boards overhead.
16:56It is running down the walls.
16:58It is everywhere.
17:00What goes by the name of a window
17:03is half of it stuffed with rags
17:05or covered by board
17:07to keep out the wind and rain.
17:09The rest is so begrimed and obscure
17:11that scarcely any light can enter
17:14or anything be seen outside.
17:33The rest is so begrimed and beautiful
17:34and beautiful and beautiful.
17:35The rest is so begrimed and beautiful
17:36and beautiful and beautiful.
17:37The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:38The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:39The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:40The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:41The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:42The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:43The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:44The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:45The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:46The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:47The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:48The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:49The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:50The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:51The rest is so begrimed and beautiful.
17:52During 1844, a society was formed
18:21to study the conditions of the poor in London, Britain's greatest city.
18:26The Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes
18:30found damning evidence of overcrowding and homelessness.
18:36The Society found that one room contained no less than 50 people,
18:42and this in a space no bigger than 20 feet by 16.
18:46London's parks, even its bridges, were to be found at night
18:52housing entire families sheltering under trees or dark recesses.
18:58For these poor wretches, the back-breaking hours of daylight
19:02were replaced with the misery of a dark night without a roof over their head.
19:07It was in London, even then a teeming metropolis,
19:14which threw the stark contrasts of Victorian life into sharpest relief.
19:19Here, the poor wretches of the city looked in wonder
19:22at the wealth on display in affluent Westminster.
19:27Churches stood in silent witness to the struggles of the poor,
19:30to the sordid scenes of vice and petty crime.
19:33A whole world away from the clubs and dinner parties of the wealthy.
19:41Charles Dickens, perhaps Britain's greatest author
19:44and a tireless campaigner for the poor,
19:47always found London a constant source of inspiration,
19:51in turn fascinated, revolted and angered by Britain's capital city.
19:55Without doubt, it inspired some of his greatest work.
20:02It was in his 1838 book, Nicholas Nickleby,
20:05that Dickens brilliantly described the two very different sides of London.
20:11In this extract, Nicholas at last arrives in the big city.
20:15They rattled on through the noisy, bustling, crowded streets of London,
20:21now displaying long rows of brightly burning lamps,
20:25dotted here and there with the chemist's glaring lights,
20:28and illuminated besides with the brilliant flood
20:31that streamed from the windows of the shops.
20:34Their sparkling jewellery, silks, and velvets of richest colours,
20:38the most inviting delicacies and most sumptuous articles of luxurious ornament
20:44succeeded each other in rich and glittering profusion.
20:51Streams of people, apparently without end, poured on and on,
20:55jostling each other in the crowd and hurrying forward,
20:58scarcely seeming to notice the riches that surrounded them on every side,
21:02while vehicles of all shapes and makes,
21:06mingled up together in one moving mass like running water,
21:10left their ceaseless roar to swell in noise and tumult.
21:15As they dashed by the quickly changing and ever-varying objects,
21:19it was curious to observe in what strange possession they passed before the eye.
21:24Emporiums of splendid dresses,
21:28the materials brought from every quarter of the world,
21:31tempting stores of everything to stimulate and pamper the sated appetite
21:35and give new relish to the oft-repeated feast.
21:39Vessels of burnished gold and silver
21:42wrought into every exquisite form of vase and dish and goblet,
21:48guns, swords, pistols, and patent engines of destruction,
21:53screws and irons for the crooked,
21:55clothes for the newly born,
21:57drugs for the sick,
21:59coffins for the dead,
22:00and churchyards for the buried.
22:03All these jumbled each with the other,
22:06and flocking side by side seemed to flit in motley dance,
22:10like the fantastic dance groups of the old Dutch painter,
22:14and with the same stern model for the unheeding, restless crowd.
22:18Nor were there wanting objects in the crowd itself to give new point and purpose to the shifting scene.
22:27The rags of the squalid ballad singer fluttered in the rich light that showed the blacksmith's treasures.
22:34Pale and pinched-up faces hovered above the windows where was tempting food,
22:38wandering over the profusion guarded by one thin sheet of brittle glass.
22:43An iron wall to them, half-naked, shivering figures stopped to gaze at Chinese shawls and golden stuffs of India.
22:53There was a christened party of the largest copy-makers,
22:57and the funeral hatchment had stopped some great improvements in the bravest mansion.
23:02Life and death went hand in hand.
23:06Wealth and poverty stood side by side.
23:11Repletion and starvation laid them down together.
23:14But, it was London.
23:31Made infamous by Charles Dickens' magnificent Oliver Twist,
23:36the workhouse was a sad and brutal part of early Victorian life.
23:40These joyless buildings existed in almost every parish in England.
23:46The simple idea had been to provide a place of shelter
23:49and a meal for those too wretchedly poor to provide for themselves.
23:54In return for this generosity, the inhabitants, perhaps they should be called inmates,
24:00were made to do exhausting, physical, back-breaking work.
24:05Until 1834, these buildings were known as poor houses.
24:10But it was in that year that a new, pitiless regime determined to make life in them even harder.
24:18Outdoor food relief was abruptly abolished,
24:22which meant that those who sought food relief would now be forced to live in the workhouses.
24:28By making the conditions even worse than those endured by a low-paid factory worker,
24:34it was hoped to dissuade all but the desperate from seeking entry.
24:37Conditions in the new workhouses were brutal.
24:43The diet not much above starvation level and no visitors were allowed.
24:48Until 1842, conversation was even forbidden at mealtimes.
24:53It was to an unwed workhouse girl that Dickens' great character, Oliver Twist, was born.
25:03The book contains some of Dickens' most biting social comment
25:07and is a damning indictment of a society which, if it ever knew its failings,
25:12for the most part, never cared.
25:14Thankfully, these appalling institutions have long since disappeared.
25:20But Dickens' description of Oliver Twist's early years in the workhouse
25:24are still powerful enough to chill the blood and sadden the heart.
25:30Oliver was the victim of a systematic course of treachery and deception.
25:37He was brought up by hand.
25:40The hungry and destitute situation of the infant authorities
25:45was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities.
25:51The parish authorities inquired with dignity of the workhouse authorities
25:55whether there was no female then domiciled in the house
25:59who was in a position to impart to Oliver Twist
26:02the consolation and nourishment of which he stood in need.
26:07The workhouse authorities replied with humility that there was not.
26:12Upon this, the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely
26:17resolved that Oliver should be farmed,
26:20or in other words, that he should be dispatched to a branch workhouse
26:24some three miles off,
26:26where twenty or thirty other offenders against the poor laws
26:31rolled about the floor all day
26:33without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing
26:37under the parental guidance of an elderly female
26:40who received the culprits at and for the consideration
26:45of seven pence ha'penny per head per week.
26:50Seven pence ha'penny per week is a good round diet for a child.
26:55A great deal may be got for seven pence ha'penny
26:59quite enough to overload the stomach and make it uncomfortable.
27:04The elderly woman was a woman of wisdom and experience
27:10and she had an acute perception of what was good for a child
27:14and she had an accurate perception of what was good for herself.
27:19So she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend for her own use
27:25and consigned the rising parochial generation
27:29to even a shorter allowance than was originally provided for them,
27:34thereby finding in the lowest depth a deeper still
27:39and proving herself a very great experimental philosopher.
27:46Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher
27:50who had a great theory about a donkey being able to live without eating
27:54and who demonstrated it so well
27:57that he got his donkey down to a straw a day
28:00and would have unquestionably have rendered him
28:03a very spirited and rapacious animal and nothing at all.
28:06If he had not died four and twenty hours
28:10before he was to have had his first comfortable bait of air,
28:15unfortunately for the experimental philosophy of the female
28:19to whose protecting care Oliver Twist was delivered over,
28:23a similar result usually attended the operation of her system.
28:28For at the very moment when a child can try to exist
28:31on the smallest possible portion of the weakest possible food,
28:35it did perversely happen in eight cases out of ten
28:39either that it sickened from want or cold
28:42or fell into the fire from neglect
28:45or got half smothered by accident,
28:47in any one of which cases
28:51the miserable little being was usually summoned into another world
28:54The bitter dark black humour which Dickens so skilfully employed
29:07in his wonderful narrative added power to the already shocking story.
29:11Of course Oliver Twist was a fictional character,
29:15but his miserable circumstances were not the product of the author's fertile imagination.
29:21For thousands of children, the horrors of the workhouse
29:26and the cruelty of child labour were all too real.
29:30As Dickens' story continued, Oliver Twist, his invented name for no one has claimed the ten pound reward
29:38for the discovery of his real identity, is taken before the board of governors of the workhouse.
29:44Oliver, in his poor parish clothes, stands helplessly and pathetically before them
29:50as he is treated like a petty criminal.
29:54Dickens' workhouse description culminates in the memorable scene
29:58in which Oliver Twist, driven half mad with hunger, dares to ask for more.
30:04Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months.
30:10At last they got so wild and voracious with hunger
30:14that one boy who was tall for his age and hadn't been used to that sort of thing
30:20his father used to run a small cook shop
30:22hinted darkly to his companions
30:24that unless he had another basin of gruel
30:26he was afraid he might some might
30:28happen to eat the boy who slept next to him
30:30who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age.
30:34He had a wild, hungry eye
30:36and they implicitly believed him.
30:40A council was held.
30:42Lots were cast.
30:44Who shall walk up to the master that evening
30:46and ask for more?
30:48And it fell to Oliver Twist.
30:54The evening arrived.
30:56The boys took their places.
30:58The master, in his cook's uniform,
31:00staged himself at the copper.
31:02His pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him.
31:04A gruel was served out
31:06and a long grace was said over the short commons.
31:10The groom disappeared.
31:14The boys whispered to each other
31:16and winked at Oliver while his next neighbours nudged him.
31:20Child as he was,
31:22he was desperate with hunger
31:24and reckless with misery.
31:26He rose from the table
31:28and advancing to the master,
31:30basin and spoon in hand,
31:32said somewhat alarmed at his own temerity.
31:34Please, sir,
31:36I want some more.
31:38The master was a fat, healthy man,
31:42but he turned very pale.
31:46He gazed in stupefied astonishment
31:48on the small rebel for some seconds,
31:52and then, tongue to support, to the copper.
31:56The assistants were paralysed with wonder,
31:58the boys with fear.
32:02What?
32:04said the master at length in a faint voice.
32:08Please, sir.
32:10Oh, and some more.
32:12The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with a ladle,
32:14pinioned him in his arms,
32:16and shrieked aloud to the beadle.
32:18The board was sitting in solemn conclave
32:20when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room
32:22in great excitement
32:24and, addressing the gentleman in the high chair,
32:26said,
32:27Mr. Lincoln, I beg your pardon, sir.
32:29Oliver Twist has asked for more.
32:44It was probably the middle classes
32:46which gave to posterity the popular image
32:48of Victorian staidness.
32:51Certainly, family life could be a little restricting,
32:54particularly for daughters of marrying age.
32:56They were, of course, very carefully cosseted
32:59and meticulously trained in an effort
33:01to avoid that horror of horrors,
33:03the socially unacceptable marriage.
33:07Prospective paramours were carefully vetted
33:10by the family elders,
33:12using a well-tried system of family outings,
33:15tea parties and picnics.
33:18Once the family approval had been gained,
33:20the gentleman was expected to ask
33:22the father of the bride-to-be
33:24for her hand in marriage.
33:26If granted, the grand formalities
33:29of Victorian engagement and marriage
33:32would follow.
33:34The middle-class Victorian home
33:36was a dark rather joyless place.
33:39Heavy velvet curtains hung from dark pelmets
33:43covering long windows
33:45and walls were covered
33:46by heavily patterned dark-coloured wallpaper.
33:49Rooms were illuminated
33:51by the rather odorous gas lamp of the time
33:54and they were crammed
33:55with every conceivable kind of ornament.
33:57Furniture was also dark,
34:00usually made from mahogany or oak,
34:03and was carved ornately.
34:05The middle-class Victorian housewife
34:07considered her shopping trips
34:09to obtain supplies for the household
34:11to be part of her essential duties.
34:14A trip into town would usually see a visit
34:17to the butcher, the confectioners,
34:19perhaps the bank, the candle maker,
34:21sometimes the baker.
34:25The housewife moved among the throng
34:27in the shops and stalls,
34:29probably studiously ignoring those
34:31drinking outside the public house.
34:34Alcohol was certainly not approved of.
34:37Drunkenness was considered a weakness
34:39of the lower classes.
34:44In Victorian society,
34:45it was the middle-class
34:47which was not strictly defined.
34:50For example, doctors, lawyers, solicitors,
34:52bank managers formed the upper middle-class.
34:55Shopkeepers and clerks
34:57were part of the lower middle-class.
35:00Victorian businessmen lacking a profession
35:03but who had earned a good living,
35:04perhaps a thousand pounds per year,
35:06were simply middle-class.
35:09To each his place
35:11and a place for everything.
35:13The class structure in Britain
35:15was extremely important
35:17to the ordered Victorian mind.
35:19For their entertainment,
35:22the middle-classes attended
35:23lavish productions at the theatre
35:25or visited the many colourful music halls
35:28which typified the age.
35:30In the concert halls,
35:32the music of great composers
35:34such as Brahms, Grieg
35:36and Queen Victoria's particular favourite,
35:38Mendelssohn, was being played.
35:40and played.
35:41a band,
35:42a band,
35:44a band.
35:46There are agencies
35:47who have helped us
35:48toacağız
35:50a little more
35:51than afinish
36:04tokämpel.
37:05If the contrast between the hardships of the rural and urban poor and the comfort of
37:17the middle classes was not apparent enough, both compared poorly to the life of the aristocracy.
37:24There were perhaps 300 aristocratic families in Britain whose incomes exceeded £100,000
37:31per annum, millionaire status in today's money.
37:34The landed gentry, on the other hand, naval officers, army officers, members of parliament,
37:41were the power behind Britain.
37:44Together, they controlled much of the wealth of the country.
37:47The Victorian high society, to a large extent, was largely untouched by the major upheavals
37:55that were going on.
37:57If you lived on a large landed estate that was largely self-sufficient, it didn't need
38:03to disturb you.
38:04You might have found your staff going to the town where it was better paid work, and you
38:08might have slight difficulty replacing them.
38:10But to a large extent, you only needed to be as involved as you wished to be, and to take
38:16the developments you wished.
38:19For example, the train system meant that you could have fresh fruit and vegetables delivered
38:23from your estate to your London townhouse every day, which was an immense advantage.
38:28It saved you having to send the servants off to battle in the market.
38:32There were those, of course, who took a considerable interest, particularly in the poverty and the
38:38other aspects that developed so concentratedly in the towns.
38:42And, of course, in the towns, they were far closer to the poverty and the degradation than
38:47they might otherwise be on their country estates.
38:50Philanthropic work by certain ladies, high society ladies, was very influential in the development
38:57and improvement on the condition of the poor.
38:59Younger sons of the families went, as they had always done, into the army, the navy, some
39:05into the church, and some into money, business, professions.
39:10And also, some of them married money, whether intentionally or not, I don't know, but the new money.
39:17Some of them married American heiresses, some of them heiresses from the new rich in the country.
39:27The Victorian era was one of major progress in all walks of life, but some of the most notable
39:42advances were made in the field of transport.
39:46Apart from the improvements made to roads by John McAdam, new efficient modes of transport
39:51were invented to make travel throughout the country speedier and more comfortable.
39:58By the 1850s, the old stagecoaches, which had served for years, were being replaced by the new
40:05horse-drawn omnibus and the handsome cab.
40:07By 1886, 7,000 handsome cabs were licensed in London alone, and the streets witnessed their
40:16first taste of traffic congestion and impatient, rude drivers.
40:22But the real stunning progress in transport and communication came with the advent of the railways,
40:30which grew to become the hallmark, not to say the pride, of Victorian Britain.
40:36It was the Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick who built the first steam engine as early as 1806.
40:44And the first passenger railway was the Stockton to Darlington Railway, which opened in 1825.
40:52But the most famous steam locomotion of all was the Rocket, built by George Stevenson and his son Robert,
40:59which made its debut at a racy 14 miles an hour in 1830.
41:04It was certainly a remarkable piece of engineering, which was capable of a top speed of 40 miles per hour,
41:11but was, amazingly, furnished with no braking system.
41:17Those who saw the rocket could scarcely believe their eyes.
41:20It was truly a wonder of the modern age.
41:24Its arrival rang the death knell for horse-drawn travel in Britain.
41:28A contemporary, suitably impressed, recalled a journey made on the Manchester to Liverpool line on Stevenson's rocket.
41:39A common sheet of paper is enough for love, but a full-scat extra can alone contain a railroad and mine ecstasy.
41:48We were introduced to the little engine which was to drag us along the rails.
41:52She, for they made these curious little firehorses all mares, consisted of a boiler, a stove, a small platform, a bench,
42:02and behind the bench a barrel containing enough water to prevent her being thirsty for 15 miles.
42:10The reins, bit and bridle of this wonderful beast, is a small steel handle which applies or withdraws the steam for the legs,
42:18or pistons, so that a child might manage it.
42:22The coals, which are its oats, were under the bench.
42:26This snorting little animal, which I felt inclined to pat, was then harnessed to our couch,
42:33and Mr. Stevenson, having taken me on the bench of the engine with him, we started about 10 miles an hour.
42:39I can't imagine how strange it seemed to be, journeying on us, without any visible cause of progress,
42:49other than the magical machine, with the flying white breath and rhythmical, unvarying pace,
42:55between those rocky walls. I felt as if no fairy tale was ever half so wonderful as what I saw.
43:03The expansion of the railway system made a fortune for the railway companies of the time,
43:13particularly that most famous company of all, the Great Western.
43:17It has been long since acknowledged that their success was in great part due to a man whose
43:24magnificent iron bridges stand to this day as monuments to his genius, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
43:32A brilliant engineer, Brunel also designed the first ships to be powered by screw propellers,
43:40and became famous for his tunnelling work, including the tunnel beneath the Thames from Rotherhide to Wapping,
43:47which was opened in 1843 to universal wonder.
43:55By the end of the Victorian era, however, even the railways had been eclipsed in the eyes of a public,
44:01hungry for progress and technological advances.
44:05The new novelty was the horseless carriage, pioneered in Europe by the engineers Daimler and Benz.
44:13However, the British government seemed wary at first of this latest invention,
44:18and unappreciative of its massive potential.
44:22It was not until 1896 that the locomotives on highways acts
44:27raised the permitted speed limit on the roads from 4 to 14 miles per hour,
44:33effectively creating the climate by which the motor industry might expand.
44:38In celebration of its newfound freedom, the London to Brighton Motor Car Run was initiated
44:45by the Motor Car Club in the same year.
44:49Now called the Vintage Car Rally, the event is still staged every November to this very day.
44:55Throughout the Victorian years, there were also major improvements to public utilities.
45:05The postal system was one service revolutionized by Roland Hill,
45:09who introduced the famous Penny Post in 1840.
45:12It was Hill's innovation and foresight which enabled the post office to grow and expand.
45:20For the public could now send a letter weighing up to half an ounce anywhere in Britain for a standard charge of one penny.
45:29As a consequence, pillar boxes arrived in the capital in 1855.
45:34Postal orders were introduced in 1881.
45:37The Post Office Savings Bank was opened in 1861.
45:43What had previously been an elitist and expensive service blossomed into a profitable business
45:49and a valuable public utility.
45:53With the social reforms in the Victorian era,
45:55one of the things that may have helped people become so aware of the problems
46:00was the high density of population in the towns.
46:02A great many classes were living within close proximity.
46:06And certainly the problems and certainly the smells of bad sewage and what have you
46:11drifted across the town and became very apparent to everyone.
46:14A lot of people became very concerned about the social conditions, particularly of the poor
46:20during the early part of the Victorian period.
46:23Lord Shaftesbury, for one, is someone who devoted a great deal of time, energy and his political time
46:29to try to improve those conditions.
46:32Reform was slow in coming and it gathered momentum through the century towards the end.
46:38The main campaign to start with was to prevent young children being made to work,
46:44but it was not until the middle of the century until children under nine and in minds under 10
46:49were banned from working. So that's really quite late in the 19th century.
46:55Education was another matter that did not get fully reformed until late in the century.
46:59The government was putting money into certain organisations to support education on a payment
47:05by results basis from before Victoria's reign, and that carried on throughout the century.
47:12It was not until towards the end of the century, and we're talking about the 1880s,
47:16when children received compulsory education until the age of 10, and the end of the century before
47:21they received compulsory education until the age of 12. This may to some extent tie in with Disraeli's
47:28bill that finally got through in the 1870s to limit working hours to 10 hours a day,
47:34which may help release the children for their education. But as we find, and indeed in the schools
47:40around here, that in the autumn when the harvest was due, you would still lose children to go and
47:45work in the fields at that particular time of year. Also a small practical point, you got poor attendance
47:51on wet days. Without Mackintoshes and umbrellas, all you got by going to school on a wet day was a very,
47:57very wet child, and they were sent home. Health was another matter requiring considerable attention,
48:03particularly the concentration of disease and bad sewage in the towns. And it wasn't until after
48:09a fourth cholera epidemic in 1866 that the government finally decided to take positive action
48:15about doing something to improve the sewage in the big cities.
48:21In the 19th century, Britain was probably at her peak as a world power. Although she fought no wars
48:37in Europe during Queen Victoria's reign, there was almost constant British involvement in other
48:43countries' affairs. Under the guidance of Lord Palmerston, who between 1830 and 1865 held the
48:51post as prime minister or foreign secretary almost without interruption, Britain sought to defend
48:57what she saw as constitutional states. There were disagreements with the Chinese in 1839,
49:05the Greeks in 1850, and most famously of all, the great war against Russia in defense of Turkey in
49:11the Crimea in 1854 and 1855. It was during the Crimean War that the Light Brigade made its
49:21famous charge, a lasting testament to the gallantry and courage of the Victorian soldier.
49:29The war also introduced a new Victorian heroine in Florence Nightingale, who did so much to improve
49:36the awful conditions in the field hospitals of the Crimea. But the Victorian era will be forever known
49:44as the age of the empire. But during that heady period, Britain ruled over the largest empire the world had yet seen.
49:54Proudly, Britain's called it the empire on which the sun never sets. And by the end of Victoria's reign,
50:01it stretched across a quarter of the world's land mass and contained a population of something like 400 million people.
50:08The famous red coat armies marched out before cheering crowds to win more land for their sovereign.
50:19Their most spectacular gains were made in Africa, on the Sudan and the Gold Coast, and in the Zulu Wars.
50:27Only the resistance of the stubborn Afrikaners during the Boer Wars undermined further progress in South Africa.
50:34In 1876, Disraeli bestowed upon the Queen the title, Empress of India. It was called the jewel in the crown of the empire.
50:49Missionaries such as David Livingstone ventured out into the world's remotest regions to spread the Christian word and convert the heathen.
50:57And a powerful Britain surveyed her conquests, secured in the knowledge that she now had captive markets for her manufactured goods and an invaluable source of supply for essential raw materials.
51:12For British foreign policy, it was the best of times. Only the emerging German empire clouded its golden horizon.
51:27On January the 22nd, 1901, Queen Victoria died at Osborne House, surrounded by her beloved children and grandchildren.
51:44She was 82 years old and had reigned for 64 years.
51:49England was immediately plunged into mourning.
51:55As the Queen's coffin travelled through London, the crowds gathered to pay their respects to Britain's one and only Queen Empress.
52:04A woman who commanded the respect and love of her subjects in a way few monarchs before or since have ever done.
52:12For most, of course, her passing marked the end of an epoch.
52:18And, of course, it was.
52:20The feelings of the country were eloquently summed up by the Daily Telegraph, which solemnly declared,
52:27The golden reign is over.
52:30Never, never was lost like this, so inward and profound that only the slow years can reveal its true reality.
52:39The Queen is dead.
52:55In very basic terms, the Victorian era are 64 years, which encompass most of the 19th century and the first year of this century.
53:05It was an age of immense change, immense invention, immense energy, immense poverty, immense exploration, immense dynamism throughout an age of great contrasts for some absolute misery, for some considerable success and wealth.
53:25Essentially, for me, the crucial point about it is standing where we are at the end of the 20th century is if we went back to 1837,
53:37we will be in a world that we will probably find it very hard to survive in, in that we would not understand the way that world worked.
53:45I have a feeling if we went back to the end of the Victorian era, we will find a lot more that was familiar to us in the way that it was working and functioning in.
53:56Britain had never lived through an era like the Victorian age.
53:59Never before had the country seen such change in all aspects of society.
54:05Even today, the Victorian world is all around us.
54:11The buildings of the era still stand.
54:15The great literature and art of the period still lives and breathes.
54:21Truly, our modern way of life is rooted in the discoveries, ideas and inventions of a century ago.
54:33It was a time when men dreamed and then turned their dreams to reality.
54:42It was the age of Victorian Britain.
54:51It was a time when men friendships.
54:52It was the age of Victorian Jennifer has been a date year's