United Kingdom

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Victorian Era

Queen Victoria ruled Britain from 1837 to 1901. Her reign was the longest of any monarch in British history and came to be known as the Victorian era. As embodied by the monarchy, this era was represented by such 19th-century ideals as devotion to family life, public and private responsibility, and obedience to the law. Under Victoria, the British Empire expanded, and Britain became an increasingly powerful nation. As the country grew into an industrialized nation, the length and stability of Victoria’s reign gave an impression of continuity to what was actually a period of dynamic change.

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Social Reform

As the social consequences of industrialization became more apparent, so did the need for government oversight of working and living conditions in the mushrooming industrial cities. Many social reformers believed that government should restrict the influence of powerful individuals. Others believed in the philosophy of self-help. Self Help was also the title of a mid-century best-seller by social reformer Samuel Smiles. In this 1859 work, Smiles presented short, inspirational biographies of famous men and urged his readers to improve their own lives by following these examples.

The underlying belief of Victorian society was in progress—that things were better than ever before and could be made better still. This belief was the impetus for thousands of voluntary associations that worked to improve the lives of the poor both at home and abroad. It also underlay the charitable foundations created by wealthy benefactors and the public philanthropies of some of the greatest industrialists. Social experiments were conducted by individuals such as factory owner Robert Owen, who founded utopian communities in which wealth was held in common. Novelists such as Charles Dickens were ardent social reformers who brought the intolerable conditions of the workhouses and the factories to the attention of the public in their books. Dickens’s novels Oliver Twist (1837-1839) and Hard Times (1854) are examples of this kind of literature.

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Child Labor

The earliest and most persistent movement for social reform concerned child labor. Children formed an important component of the industrial labor force because employers could pay them lower wages. From a very young age they worked the same hours as their parents in the same difficult conditions. Parliament first limited the hours children could work in textile factories in 1833, following a public outcry over a parliamentary inquiry into working conditions for children. The law prevented children under nine years of age from working more than nine hours per day. In 1842 a law extended this protection to children working in mines.

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Limitation of the hours that children worked fed naturally into the movement for child education. In the 1860s less than one in seven British children had any formal education, and literacy was declining. Elementary schools were operated by private individuals or religious societies and were financed by charitable donations, personal grants, or fees paid by students. The Education Act of 1870 mandated that local districts establish public schools supported by local taxes. An act of 1881 finally made education compulsory for children aged five to ten.

Another area of reform centered on improvements in public health and in living conditions, particularly in the crowded industrial towns. Social reformer Edwin Chadwick was the primary leader in establishing boards of health, creating standards for drinking water, and overseeing the construction of effective sewage disposal systems. Social legislation aimed at improving safety and sanitary conditions in the workplace also made headway in the general movement for social reform.

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Trade Unions

The most significant issues for workers, such as wages, hours, and working conditions, could only be addressed by organizations of workers themselves. Efforts at trade union organization went back to the late 18th century, but they were isolated and sporadic until socialist Robert Owen founded the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union in 1833. Although this experiment quickly failed, it raised the prospect of a national organization of all workers.

In 1868 leaders of individual unions formed a Trades Union Congress to coordinate action among the unions, even though the formation of unions was illegal at the time. Up to that time, only highly skilled workers such as engineers had formed successful unions and bargained collectively. In 1871 the government formally recognized the existence of unions and their right to strike, although picketing remained illegal. In addition, the responsibility of unions for the acts of their members continued to threaten their financial existence. A strike by London dockworkers in 1889 secured an incontestable victory for the labor movement. Despite the use of nonunion workers and threats from the police and the government, dockworkers held firm until they won a minimum wage. Following the strike, the labor unions became a force in British politics. At the beginning of the 20th century, representatives from unions and other labor organizations formed the Labour Party to secure the election of politicians sympathetic to labor issues. During the 20th century Labour emerged as one of the two major political parties in Britain.

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Gladstone, Disraeli, and Victorian Politics

Victorian politics were characterized by the contest between two great party leaders, William Gladstone of the Liberal Party and Benjamin Disraeli of the Conservative Party. Gladstone came from a Liverpool merchant family, went to school at Eton and Oxford—two of England’s most prestigious schools—and moved effortlessly into government. Originally a Conservative, he broke with the main body of the party when he supported the repeal of the Corn Laws. In 1859 he joined the Liberal Party, ultimately becoming its leader.

Disraeli’s background was quite different. His father was a Jewish intellectual who broke with his synagogue following an argument and baptized his children into the Church of England. The fact that Disraeli was a member of the Church of England made him eligible to serve in Parliament. Disraeli did not receive an elite education and supported himself first as a novelist. He, too, entered the Conservative Party, but he supported the Corn Laws and remained in the Conservative mainstream, twice serving as chancellor of the Exchequer, the minister in charge of finances. Disraeli introduced the Reform Bill of 1867, which gained the Conservatives the support of the urban middle classes when it extended the vote to them. He briefly became prime minister in 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880. Disraeli identified the Conservatives with the monarchy, the church, the landed interests, and the strengthening of the British Empire. Nevertheless, he supported important elements of social reform legislation.

Gladstone outlasted his rival and served as prime minister on four separate occasions (1868-1874, 1880-1885, 1886, and 1892-1894). He advocated free trade and was gradually converted to parliamentary and social reform. Gladstone’s government eliminated the remaining laws that discriminated against dissenting Protestants and implemented reforms that awarded civil service jobs on the basis of merit.

Gladstone’s greatest efforts, however, were devoted to solving the problem of governing Ireland. Agitation for an independent Ireland had existed for centuries. It increased following the famine of 1845, which reshaped Irish society. Between 1845 and 1847 the Irish population was reduced by 25 percent through famine and emigration. Most families who remained faced financial ruin.

Although the famine was a natural disaster, the Irish blamed the British for creating the conditions that caused it. They condemned the British government for failing to respond adequately to the crisis. They also condemned absentee English landlords who evicted their impoverished tenants when they could no longer afford to pay rent. Many of these landlords lived in England and had grown rich collecting rents. They rarely saw their Irish properties and remained unaware of the problems affecting their tenants. Many Irish grew to despise absentee landlords, especially after evictions left thousands of starving tenants homeless.

Gladstone was sympathetic to many Irish grievances. He passed acts that removed the Protestant Church of Ireland as the nation’s official church and that protected tenants from being evicted by landlords. In the 1880s Gladstone attempted further reforms, especially to protect impoverished tenants. However, he had little support even within his own party.

Irish leaders considered Gladstone’s actions inadequate and demanded nothing less than the creation of a free Irish state. In 1867 Irish nationalists formed a secret society, the Fenians, to overthrow British rule and establish an independent Ireland. Irish resistance, led by Irish nationalist politician Charles Stuart Parnell, intensified with boycotts of English residents, businesses, and institutions. Violence against British officials also increased.

In 1886 Gladstone realized that no amount of piecemeal reform would succeed. In an about-face that shocked his party, he offered a home rule bill to establish a free Irish state. It was defeated, and the Liberal Party split between those who supported home rule for Ireland and those who wished Ireland to remain under British rule. In his final ministry, at the age of 83, Gladstone again introduced a home rule measure in Parliament and fought it successfully through the House of Commons, only to have it overwhelmingly defeated by the House of Lords. The failure to secure a form of home rule for Ireland left Britain with one of its most bitter legacies. Violent conflict would soon follow between British troops and those seeking independence for Ireland. Although most of Ireland gained its independence in 1921, violence continued to be a problem in the six northern counties of Ireland, where the Protestant majority voted to remain a part of the United Kingdom. The conflict escalated in the latter half of the 20th century.

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