Queen Victoria

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Queen Victoria the Victorians
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FOUR MOMENTS

• Pre-Victorians (1811 1837)
• The Early Victorians (1837-1848)
• The High Victorians (1848-1888)
• The Late Victorians (1888-1901)
• The Edwardians
• (1901-1910)

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1848 Revolution does not strike Britain Why?

• Britain has a very odd political system a
  divided executive an active parliament
• AND Britain is undergoing mass and wrenching
  and industrialization

Paris, 1848
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1848 REVOLUTION IN EUROPE!But not in Britain

• Why?
• British elites grudgingly accept reform
• British reformers work through institutions
• Institutions are flexible enough to change (1832
  Great Reform)
• Irish rebels either dead of famine or in exile
  in America
• Monarch not only defends elites but has genuine
  sense of common good

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POLITICS the system works

• 1835-41 Melbourne (Whig)
• 1841-46 Peel (Tory)
• 1846-52 Russell (Liberal)
• 1852-55 Derby Aberdeen (Tories)
• 1855-58 Palmerston (Liberal)
• 1858 Derby (Tory)
• 1859-65 Palmerston (Liberal)

Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston
(1784-1865) turns old Whigs into modern,
mass, LIBERAL PARTY
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POLITICS the system works

• 1866-68 Derby (Tory)
• Power changes peacefully
• V. endures series of generally able politicians

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POLITICS the system worksDISRAELI GLADSTONE

• The High Victorian era is led by two remarkably
  able politicians
• 1868-1885 Disraeli Gladstone

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BENJAMIN DISRAELI (1804-1881)

• TORY but democratic tory
• Jewish heritage
• Novelist
• 1868 First Govt
• 1874 Second Govt
• IMPERIALISM abroad
• DEMOCRATIC REFORM at home (2ND Reform Bill)

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WILLIAM GLADSTONE (1809-1898)

• THE Liberal Conscience
• 1868-74 1st Govt
• 1880-85 2ndt Govt
• 1886 3rd Govt
• 1892-94 4th Govt
• Anti-Imperialism abroad
• Democratic Reform at home

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Patterns of High Victorianism

• DEMOCRATIC REFORM AT HOME

• AGGRESSIVE EXPANSION OVERSEAS

Expanded voting rights Expanded public concerns
(education, housing, health care, pensions)
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1854-1856 Crimean War

• THE EASTERN QUESTION how to manage to collapse
  of the Ottoman Empire
• Russia threatens Turks
• Britain, France, Turkey v. Russia
• Humiliating Russian defeat

Florence Nightingale
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THE EASTERN QUESTION how to manage the slow
collapse of the Ottoman empire Russia tries to
replace Turks in the Balkans, all around the
Black Sea 1854-56 CRIMEAN WAR (British,
French, halt Russian expansion)
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1857 Sepoy Mutiny reorganizing Indian Empire

• Since 1700s, private company, the BRITISH EAST
  INDIA COMPANY, rules large parts of India
• 1857 Indian revolt
• BEIC dismantled Britain takes direct control
• Victoria as Empress of India
• Height of British power in India

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1867 British North American Act

• Canada becomes a self-governing dominion
• Democratizing the Empire w/o violent revolution
  (like what happened in 1775 in America)
• (But Irish Problem remains unsolved)

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1867 Second Reform Bill

• Some democracy in the Empire (Canada Dominion
  idea)
• Catholic emancipation
• 1832 Great Reform (middle class men)
• 1867 to selected working men
• SPONSORED BY DISRAELI TORIES

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Disraelis Tory Democracy

• CONSERVATIVES
• Defend Tradition, Property, Monarchy, Aristocracy
• But must not just be the party of the rich!
• Conservative reform (a) spread
  property-ownership (b) side with workers against
  liberal entrepreneurs (c) stress noblesse
  oblige ethic among wealthy

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1875 Disraeli buys control of the Suez Canal
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1884 Third Reform Bill

• GLADSTONE and Liberals compete with Tories for
  mass support
• 1884 reform extends vote to most working class
  men
• MORE AND MORE PEOPLE HAVE A STAKE IN THE SYSTEM
  A LIBERAL REFORM (more democracy) WITH
  CONSERVATIVE CONSEQUENCES (stabilizes the
  political system)

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ECONOMICS BRITAIN IS THE WORLDS ONLY
HIGH-TECH. INDUSTRIAL POWER

• 1851 Crystal Palace a PROSPEROUS society
• 1875 Trade Union Act Public Health Act a
  SOCIAL prosperity

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CULTURE A Vibrant World of Ideas

• 1845 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN converts to Catholicism
• Newman is THE Victorian religious intellectual
• Conservative (traditional Christianity)
• Liberal (defense of basic human rights)

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CULTURE A Vibrant World of Ideas

• The great age of the realist novel
• William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63), Vanity
  Fair (1848)
• Charles Dickens (1812-1870), David Copperfield
  (1850)
• Anthony Trollope (1815-82), Barchester Towers
  (1857)

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CULTURE A Vibrant World of Ideas

• Yet also a world of romance sentiment
• 1850, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61),
  Sonnets from the Portuguese
• Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), Idylls of the King
  (1856 ?)

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VICTORIAN LOVE OF GOTHIC ROMANCE
Alfred Tennyson
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CULTURE A Vibrant World of Ideas

• 1859 Charles Darwin, On the Origin of the
  Species
• Evolution by Natural Selection
• Triumph of Science?
• Dangerous attack on faith?

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CULTURE A Vibrant World of Ideas

• 1859 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
• Classic defense of libertarian society world
  with maximum personal freedom
• 1869, On the Subjection of Women

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A Culture of Powerful Debates

• DARWIN
• Does the merciless law of Evolution by Natural
  Selection apply to us?

• MILL
• Are humans really free

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Victoria, 1848-1888(29-69)

• Nine Children
• 1861 Disaster - death of Prince Albert (at 42)
• 1860s? grandmother of the nation

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High Victorianism (1848-88) A Society that
Worked?
OR A SOCIETY WITH SEVERE
FLAWS?