|
|
|
The Victorian
Age can be divided into three periods.
|
|
The Early
Period (1830-1848)
|
|
Some historians
date the Victorian Age as beginning in 1830 with the opening of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first steam-powered public railway
line in the world. While the
Industrial Revolution began in the Romantic period of the late 18th
and early 19th centuries, it reached its height in the Victorian
Age, transforming all of society. The
railway was a significant catalyst of this transformation, for it was a force
of the technological revolution that literally spread all across England and
united the country in new ways. It
enhanced speed of transportation and communication and connected previously
isolated rural areas of the nation with the growing urban landscapes. Slower, more leisurely lifestyles gave way
to desire for speed brought on by the railroad. As the railway transformed the country to a
faster-paced and increasingly urban lifestyle, writers began to use the
railway as a symbol both of progress and destruction, a symbol
characteristic of the Victorians’ ambivalent response to the rapid changes of
their age.
|
|
In 1832,
a second event occurred that transformed the social and economic structure of
English society. Parliament passed the
First Reform Bill, extending the right to vote to the middle
classes. Previously, property
qualifications for voting kept the right to vote confined to the aristocracy
and gentry who owned land. However,
with the industrial revolution, people from other classes found they could
amass tremendous fortunes through manufacturing, industry, and trade. No longer did one have to own land (as did
the aristocracy) to become rich. By
1832, the industrial middle-class dominated the economic resources of the
country and therefore had the economic power to cause political
changes. The First Reform Bill transformed
English class structure and undermined the old feudal order, turning
England into a primarily middle-class nation.
|
|
In 1837,
the third great event that initiated the new age was the crowning of Queen
Victoria. She would reign for over
60 years (making her the longest reigning monarch in English history) and
become the most powerful monarch in the world.
|
|
Click the link
on the slide above to view a video clip on the effects of industrialization
from the documentary “Queen Victoria’s Empire.” The video, “Progress or Destructive
Change,” is required and is also accessible in the Videos folder (in the
“Victorian England” section) of COURSE DOCUMENTS.
|
