viking

It's not too much to claim that the three tier class system came into being in the Victorian era. Before that the aristocracy controlled much of the means of production. The Civil War was fought by people such as Cromwell who were yeomen, smaller landowners.
With the factory system came a true working class, factory fodder if you like. Then means of production shifted from a strong agricultural base to a manufacturing base and the aristocracy created a barrier to preclude themselves from "trade". They felt they still had the real focus of true power which was the Anglican Church, the Armed Forces and Land. Among "self made men" there was a feeling of the possibility of upward mobility even if the aristocracy had created their own barriers to certain professions. For some, the control of the Anglican Church meant a barrier had to be broken and so there was a natural turn towards non conformists, the people's religion. It is noticeable that much of the northern working towns and Welsh coal mining areas were "chapel".
It was concentration of population that produced a strong middle class. I mentioned earlier the growth of towns demanded equally a growth of infrastructure. This in turn demanded a growing support system of small business.
With growth came problems. Some social, some economic and the middle class had constantly to adjust or face the prospect of becoming working class. One was was to create a pattern of behaviour. A fear of being seen as "common." So the almost excessive outward face of respectability became the norm.

SirOrmondeWinter

A mixture in some ways, the age of empire, the industrial revolution and tremmendous social and technological advance, made us and the world what we are today. But at the same time one cannot forget the suffering of the poor, legal cocaine and child prostitutes etc

PM96

The Victorian era, from a historian's point of view, is of course a major chapter in both British history and world history (New Imperialism). This was the era in which the United Kingdom was "the empire where the sun never sets". Whether supportive or opposing of increasing global British influence at the time, this was a significant era.

In modern times though, the American public sees Victorian Britain as the source of all their stereotypes about British people. In the former British colonies, people will either love or hate the Brits for what they did there. In Britain, people are divided over whether this was a "golden age when the world prospered" or a "time of evil wrongs we did to others".

viking

Couple of points I'd like to add are first the London School Board and the Elementary Education Act of 1880 which brought in compulsory education. I went to one as a child and it still had gas lighting just after WW II. Some of the buildings still exist although some have been converted into up market flats. The second is the growth of the Mechanics's Institutes. These were best described as self learning centres where people could go and get an education outside of working hours., Mechanics' Institutes later transformed themselves into public libraries. It was this growing awareness of the value of education among workers that underpinned a lot of what you have listed above.

Iolo

Right. And how wonderful to hear from someone else who remembers gas! In the Rhondda well after the War we spend many a social hour under the gaslamps in Llanfair Road.

Black Dog

I still remember clearly in school (during the 70's) being told one week that the Victorian period was the "Golden age of British industry" and being told the next that the average life expectancy amongst the poor in Manchester was something like 28 years. I saw the discrepancy then, and still see it, and it amazes me how few others do, too

Iolo: one of our local pubs, following a makeover to make it look like it used to a long time ago, reinstated gas lamps in some of the rooms and outside. Pubs must have been pure magic with no damned TVs, no Jukeboxes, you were allowed to smoke and a roaring fire and those lovely, warm looking gas lights.

viking

Iolo, ah the old nostalgia! Where I lived in Bermondsey (near Tower Bridge) the street lamps even after the war (for young' uns that's WW II. For old codgers like us --THE War) were gas and, yes, a lamp lighter came round each evening to light them.
Blackdog, dunno what they were like up in the Rhondda but where I lived they had managed to get electrickery. They also had beer, not the chemical collision of wind and water you drink now but real stuff from the wooden barrel. As a kid I used to be outside the pub with a glass of lemonade and a packet of Smiths Crisps complete with salt in a twist of blue paper. Somehow pub lemonade tasted better. Better stop me now before I get too wound up.

srb7677

A lot of it has to do with the prudery of Queen Victoria herself, and how this percolated down through society.

Victoria was quite prudish in her attitudes to sexuality, for example refusing to believe that lesbianism even existed. She encouraged those around her to share in such sensibilities, and in that much more deferential age, many of the people around her were happy to ape her ideals. This had a tremendous effect in influencing the mores of the upper classes, and also the middle classes who consciously aped them. All this combined with a reaction against some of the excesses of earlier times to create a society where the upper and middle echelons developed quite a marked sense of sexual repressiveness.

It is doubtful how much of this excessive prudery filtered down to the lower orders. By all accounts, the drinking places of the working classes were quite morally loose places, and prostitution was rife, actually much more widespread than today.

But our image of the Victorian era tends not to be shaped by the morality of the poor: it is the morality of the middle and upper classes that gets paraded in literature and television drama.

shivfan

For the non-white minority, it was a difficult time, compared to nowadays. However, in the context of the times, black Americans found it easier living in the UK in Victorian times than in the US.

d'artanian

I thought this series (in 3 parts ) was well done. It was as the narrator says, "the best of times, the worst of times" This is part 1, you can find the other parts on the uploaders channel:


This one, not done quite as well, did provide some insight on the conditions of the poor: