The Victorian Age
or
the age of the emire
1837-1901
Historical context
• 1837 ascent to the throne of Victoria
• her young age (18) and lack of experience
facilitates the establishment of a
constitutional monarchy with the government
controlled by Parliament
• the process of industrialization started in the
late 18th century goes on without meeting
any obstacles.
first decades of Victoria’s reign
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terrible working conditions in the factories;
high food prices;
economic depression;
much discontent among the workers
first working class movements.
Chartism
• Chartism was perhaps the first mass working
class movement in the world.
• It was made up of radicals and workers who
presented a document, “the People’s Charter”,
to Parliament in 1838.
• It aimed at political and social reforms in the
United Kingdom and was active between 1838
and 1848.
“the People’s Charter”
• Universal suffrage for all men over the age of
21;
• Equal-sized electoral districts;
• Voting by secret ballot;
• An end to the need for a property
qualification for Parliament;
• Pay for members of Parliament;
• Annual election of Parliament;
• When the petition was refused by Parliament,
many advocated the widespread use of force
as the only means of attaining their aims;
• Several outbreaks of violence ensued, leading
to several arrests and trials.
• In 1842, workers went on strike in the
Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and parts of
Scotland in favour of Chartist principles;
• Mounted cavalry and armed troops were
employed to deal with the strikers;
• Several Chartist leaders, were arrested, along
with nearly 1,500 others.
• 79 people were sentenced, with sentences
ranging from 7 to 21 years, transportation to
Australia and even death.
• The movement disappeared towards the
middle of the century without achieving its
objectives;
• workers and labourers had to wait until:
• 1867 (2nd Reform Bill) to obtain the right to
vote.
• 1871(Trade Union Act) they saw their Trade
Unions legalised.
Other important historical events
1. the 1845 Famine in Ireland;
caused by a failure of the potato crop on which the poor
depended for their survival. It brought about thousands of
deaths for starvation and a mass migration to the USA.
2. the 1846 Abolition of the Corn Laws;
a. the Tory Party broke up and lost power in Parliament
which passed to the Whigs (the Liberals);
b. there was a reduction of the bread price;
Other important historical events
3. Introduction of new farming techniques
(improvement of the agricultural production and prosperity for farmers);
NB: the reduction in the price of bread and the growth in the agricultural
production – had a positive effect on the living conditions of the lower classes,
as well.
4. Political troubles in Ireland
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Catholics in Ireland did not have the same civil and political rights as the Irish
Protestants.
Since the beginning of the XIX century the Irish Catholics had been asking for
reforms and equal civil rights.
Political troubles in Ireland
• The Catholics’ peaceful requests were not
satisfied by the English Parliament;
• Much discontent among the Catholics
• Riots, violent protests and eventually terrorist
attacks.
• The Liberals with Gladstone tried to solve the
Irish question in 1886 and 1893 proposing Bills
in Parliament in favour of Ireland’s Home Rule.
• the Parliament rejected the bills.
Political troubles in Ireland
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This gave rise to the “Sinn Fein” (“ Ourselves
Alone”) , an extreme nationalistic movement that
demanded and fought for an independent republic.
“Sinn Fein” still exists nowadays and struggles for
the unification of the two Irelands.
Origins of the conflict between Catholics
and Protestants in Ireland
• Saint Patrick (born ? – died AD 461 or AD 493) and other
Christian missionaries arrived in Ireland in the 5th century.
• By the year 600 Ireland had become Christian.
• The coming of Anglo-Norman mercenaries in 1169 marked
the beginning of more than 800 years of direct English
involvement in Ireland.
• The English crown did not begin asserting full control of the
island until after the English Reformation, when a series of
military campaigns was launched between 1534 and 1691.
• This period was also marked by an official English policy of
plantation which led to the arrival of thousands of English and
Scottish Protestant settlers. From this period on, sectarian
conflict became a recurrent theme in Irish history.
the second half of the XIX century
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a number of reforms were introduced :
the Mines Act of 1862
the 2nd reform bill of 1867
the Elementary Education Act of 1870
the Trade Union Act of 1871
the Public Health Act of 1875
the 3rd Reform bill of 1884
all these reforms were made while the Liberals were
in power
• positive influence of the political philosopher John
Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873) on the Liberals
John Stuart Mill
• J. S. Mill had accepted the basic principles of
Utilitarianism formulated by Jeremy Bentham but
with a few corrections.
• Mill’s famous formulation of Utilitarianism is known
as the "greatest happiness principle”.
• It holds that one must always act so as to produce
the greatest happiness for the greatest number of
people, but….
• Mills recognized that if the individual was left
completely alone in the pursuit of happiness,
the weak and the powerless would inevitably
be exploited and oppressed by the powerful,
therefore…
• some rules had to be made in order to
regulate the laissez-faire economic policy,
(which put the utilitarian principles into
practice) and limit its negative consequences
on the population.
The last three decades of
the XIX century
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Economic situation
economic depression
social tensions
the economic depression was mainly due to …
the increased competition from other industrial
countries, in particular Germany and USA.
tariff barriers to protect their domestic industries.
English economy strongly depended on foreign
export so …
it was deeply affected by these protectionist policies.
The last three decades of
the XIX century
Political situation
• England had become a more democratic
country.
• In 1884 and in 1888 two more Reform bills
had extended the right to vote to the to
agricultural workers and miners.
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transformation of the electoral basis of
the House of commons – the real centre of
the legislative power.
Utilitarianism
• Ethical doctrine according to which the moral worth of an
action is determined by its outcome — i.e. the ends justify
the means.
• Utility — the good to be maximized — has been defined by
various thinkers as happiness or pleasure (versus suffering or
pain).
• the origins of Utilitarianism, as a specific school of thought,
are generally credited to the philosopher and social reformer
Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832).
• Bentham found pain and pleasure to be the only essential
values in the world: "nature has placed mankind under the
governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."
• From this he derived the rule of utility, that the good is
whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest
number of people.