Essie Curtis

1. #1Londonselective

   Keys: London

   During the 19th century, London grew enormously to become a global city of immense importance. It was the world's largest port, and the heart of international finance and trade. Railways connecting London to the rest of Britain, as well as the London Underground, were built, as were roads, a modern sewer system and many famous sites. London was the world's largest city and capital of the British Empire. In 1897, the population of "Greater London" was estimated at 6.292 million. It was larger by one quarter than the world's second most populous city, Beijing, two-thirds larger than Paris, and five times larger than New York City.

2. #2Irish immigrantsselective

   Keys: Irish, immigrant, poor, slum

   A large Irish population settled in the city during the Victorian era, with many of the newcomers refugees from the Great Famine (1845–1849). At one point, Irish immigrants made up about 20% of London's population.

3. #3Jewish immigrantsselective

   Keys: jew, immigrant, poor, rich, East End, Houndsditch, Whitechapel, Aldgate, Spitalfields, Rag Fair, Dalston, Hackney, Stoke Newington, Stamford Hill, Islington

   In the 1880s and 1890s tens of thousands of Jews escaping persecution and poverty in Eastern Europe came to London and settled largely in the East End around Houndsditch, Whitechapel, Aldgate, and parts of Spitalfields. Many came to be work in the sweatshops and markets of the rag trade, refashioning and re-selling clothing, which itself was centered around Petticoat Lane Market and the "Rag Fair" in Houndsditch, London's largest second-hand clothing market. As members of the Jewish community prospered in the latter part of the century, many left the East End and settled in the immediate suburbs of Dalston, Hackney, Stoke Newington, Stamford Hill, and parts of Islington.

4. #4Italian immigrantsselective

   Keys: italian, immigrant, Saffron Hill, Farringdon Road, Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell Road, Clerkenwell

   An Italian community coalesced in Soho and in Clerkenwell, centered along Saffron Hill, Farringdon Road, Rosebery Avenue, and Clerkenwell Road. Out of the 11,500 Italians living in London in 1900, Soho accounted for 6,000, and Clerkenwell 4,000. Most of these were young men, engaged in occupations like organ grinding or selling street food (2,000 Italians were classed as "ice cream, salt, and walnut vendors" in 1900).

5. #5Indian immigrantselective

   Keys: Lascar, lascar, indian, immigrant, poor, destitute

   London had a small Indian population consisting largely of transitory sailors known as lascars. A lascar was a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, British Somaliland or other lands east of the Cape of Good Hope who was employed on European ships. Lascar was also used to refer to Indian servants, typically engaged by British military officers. Many were abandoned and fell into poverty due to quotas on how many lascars could serve on a single ship. Lascars sometimes lived in Christian charity homes, boarding houses and barracks.

6. #6Chinese immigrantselective

   Keys: Chinese, immigrant, Chinatown, Limehouse, opium

   After the Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders opened on West India Dock Road in 1856, a small population of Chinese sailors began to settle in Limehouse, around Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields. These men married and opened shops and boarding houses which catered to the transient population of "Chinese firemen, seamen, stewards, cooks and carpenters who serve on board the steamers plying between Germany and the port of London". London's first Chinatown, as this area of Limehouse became known, was depicted in novels like Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray as a sinister quarter of crime and opium dens.

7. #7The West India Docksselective

   Keys: docks, trade, ship, shipping, smuggling

   The West India Docks lie on the Isle of Dogs. Situated 6 miles east of London Bridge. The three West India Docks were self-contained and accessed from the river via a system of locks and basins, offering an unprecedented level of security. The new warehouses surrounding the docks could accommodate close to a million tons of storage, with the Import and Export basins able to moor almost 400 ships at a time.

8. #8The Regent's Canalselective

   Keys: Limehouse, Grand Union Canal, Regent's Canal, canal, Thames, shipping, trade, smuggling

   The docks were integrated into the national canal system via the extension of the Grand Union Canal to Limehouse. The Regent's Canal, as this branch between Paddington and Limehouse became known, was the only canal link to the Thames, connecting a vital shipping outlet with the great industrial cities of The Midlands.

9. #9Smaller docksselective

   Keys: East India Docks, Blackwall, London Docks, Wapping, Greenland Dock, Rotherhithe, Grand Surrey Canal, timber, shipping

   The East India Docks lie just northeast in Blackwall. The London Docks lie in Wapping. The St Katharine Docks were built just east of the Tower of London and later joined with the London Docks (in 1869). In Rotherhithe, where the Greenland Dock was operating at the beginning of the century, new docks, ponds and the Grand Surrey Canal were added in the early 19th century by several small companies. The area became known for specializing in commerce from the Baltic, Scandinavia, and North America, especially for its large timber ponds and grain imports from North America. In 1864 the various companies amalgamated to form the Surrey Commercial Docks Company, which by 1878 constituted 13 docks and ponds.

10. #10call-on workersselective

    Keys: call-on, dock worker, shipping, poor, warehouse worker, the Great Strike

    Shipping in the Port of London supported a vast army of transport and warehouse workers, who characteristically attended the "call-on" each morning at the entrances to the docks to be assigned work for the day. This type of work was low-paid and highly unstable, drying up depending on the season and the vagaries of world trade. The poverty of the dock workers and growing trade union activism coalesced into the Great Strike of 1889, an estimated 130,000 workers went on strike between 14 August and 16 September. The strike paralysed the port and led the dock owners to concede all of the demands of the strike committee, including a number of fairer working arrangements, the reduction of the "call-on", and higher hourly and overtime wages.

11. #11The Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Companyselective

    Keys: Thames Ironworks, HMS Warrior, HMS Black Prince, shipbuilding

    The shipbuilding industry on the Thames was highly innovative and produced some of the most technologically advanced vessels in the world. In the last decades of the 19th century the industry experienced a precipitous decline that would leave only one large firm, the Thames Ironworks, in existence by the mid-1890s. The largest shipbuilder on the Thames, the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, produced the revolutionary broadside ironclad HMS Warrior (1860), the largest warship in the world and the first iron-hulled, armour plated vessel, alongside its sister HMS Black Prince (1861). The Thames Ironworks was employed not just in shipbuilding, but in civil engineering works around London like Blackfriars Railway Bridge, Hammersmith Bridge, and the construction of the iron-girded roofs of Alexandra Palace and the 1862 International Exhibition building.

12. #12Financial sectorselective

    Keys: financial, trade, shipping, exchange, import, bank, Bank of England, merchant

    The City of London's importance as a financial centre increased substantially over the course of the 19th century. The city was also the headquarters of most of Britain's shipping firms, trading houses, exchanges and commercial firms like railway companies and import houses. The Industrial Revolution fuelled a demand for capital investment in railroads, shipping, industry and agriculture, leading to the growth of financial services in the city. The 1862 Bradshaw's Guide to London listed 83 banks, 336 stockbroking firms, 37 currency brokers, 248 ship and insurance brokerages, and 1500 different merchants in the city, selling wares of every conceivable variety. At the centre of this nexus of private capital and commerce lay the Bank of England, which by the end of the century contained £20 million worth of gold reserves. It employed over 900 people and printed 15,000 new banknotes each day by 1896, doing some £2 million worth of business each day.

13. #13Suburbsselective

    Keys: suburb, housing, middle class, lower-middle class

    The growth of transport in London in this period fuelled the outward expansion of suburbs, as did a cultural impetus to escape the inner city, allowing the worlds of 'work' and 'life' to be separate. Suburbs varied enormously in character and in the relative wealth of their inhabitants, with some being for the very wealthy, and others being for the lower-middle classes. The Victorian era saw a wide array of suburban housing built in London. Terraced, semi-detached and detached housing all developed in a multitude of styles and typologies, with an almost endless variation in the layout of streets, gardens, homes, and decorative elements.

14. #14St. Gilesselective

    Keys: St. Giles, poor, destitute, slum, rookery, New Oxford Street, Little Ireland, the Rookery, poverty

    There was a huge underclass of desperately poor Londoners within a short range of the more affluent areas. In Central London, the single most notorious slum was St. Giles, a name which by the 19th century had passed into common parlance as a byword for extreme poverty. St. Giles was defined by its prostitutes, gin shops, secret alleyways where criminals could hide, and horribly overcrowded tenements. At the heart of this area, occupied by New Oxford Street and Centre Point, was "The Rookery", a particularly dense warren of houses along George Street and Church Lane, overpacked, squalid buildings with open sewers. The poverty worsened with the massive influx of poor Irish immigrants, giving the area the name "Little Ireland", or "The Holy Land". New Oxford Street was built right through the heart of "The Rookery" in 1847, eliminating the worst part of the area, but many of the evicted inhabitants simply moved to neighbouring streets, which remained stubbornly mired in poverty.

15. #15The East Endselective

    Keys: poverty, east end, crime, destitute, brothel, Whitechapel, dock worker, poor, slum, rookery

    The East End of London, with an economy oriented around the Docklands and the polluting industries clustered along the Thames and the River Lea, had long been an area of working poor. It had a sinister reputation for crime, overcrowding and poverty. The 1881 census counted over 1 million inhabitants in the East End, a third of whom lived in poverty. Prostitution was rife, with one official report in 1888 recording 62 brothels and 1,200 prostitutes in Whitechapel alone. The extreme population density made for unsanitary conditions and resulting epidemics of disease. The child mortality rate in the East End stood at 20%, while the estimated life expectancy of an East End labourer was only 19 years.

16. #16Omnibusesselective

    Keys: omnibus, transport, bus, passenger

    With the great railway terminals developing to connect London with its suburbs and beyond, mass transport was becoming ever more important within the city as its population increased. The first horse-drawn omnibuses entered service in London in 1829. By 1854 there were 3,000 of them in service, painted in bright reds, greens, and blues, and each carrying an average of 300 passengers per day.

17. #17Hansom cabselective

    Keys: cab, hansom cab, hackney carriage

    The two-wheeled hansom cab, first seen in 1834, was the most common type of cab on London's roads throughout the Victorian era, but there were many types, like the four-wheeled Hackney carriage, in addition to the coaches, private carriages, coal-wagons, and tradesmen's vehicles which crowded the roads.

18. #18Tramsselective

    Keys: tram, public transport, Aldgate, Blackfriars Bridge, Borough, Moorgate, King's Cross, Euston Road, Holborn, Shepherd's Bush, Victoria, Westminster Bridge

    Londoners also had access to a developing tram network which accessed Central London and provided local transport in the suburbs. The first horse-drawn tramways were installed in 1860 along the Bayswater Road at the northern edge of Hyde Park, Victoria Street in Westminster, and Kennington Street in South London. Trams were restricted to operating in the suburbs of London, but they accessed the major transport hubs of the City and the West End, conveying passengers into and away from the suburbs. Trams could be accessed in Central London from Aldgate, Blackfriars Bridge, Borough, Moorgate, King's Cross, Euston Road, Holborn, Shepherd's Bush, Victoria, and Westminster Bridge.

19. #19Railwaysselective

    Keys: railway, train, train station, terminus, Euston, Paddington, Fenchurch Street, Waterloo, King's Cross, St Pancras

    London was transformed by the coming of the railways. A new network of metropolitan railways allowed the development of suburbs in neighbouring counties from which middle-class and wealthy people could commute to the centre. While this spurred the massive outward growth of the city, London's growth also exacerbated the class divide, as the wealthier classes emigrated to the suburbs, leaving the poor to inhabit the inner city areas. The rail termini in the city that linked London to every corner of Britain included Euston (1837), Paddington (1838), Fenchurch Street (1841), Waterloo (1848), King's Cross (1852),[88] and St Pancras (1868).

20. #20London Undergroundselective

    Keys: subway, underground, train, tunnels, Metropolitan Railway, Metropolitan District Line, City and South London Railway, Farringdon, Paddington, tube

    The Metropolitan Railway inaugurated the world's oldest mass transit system, the London Underground. The Metropolitan initially ran from Farringdon in the east to Paddington in the west. The open wooden passenger cars were propelled by a coke-fuelled steam locomotive and lit with gas lamps to provide illumination in the tunnels. An extension to the western suburb of Hammersmith was built and opened in 1868. In 1884 the Metropolitan was linked with the Metropolitan District Line at Aldgate to form an inner circle encompassing Central London, with a short stretch running from Aldgate to Whitechapel. In 1880 an extension line to the north-west was opened from Baker Street tube station to the village of Harrow, via Swiss Cottage and St. John's Wood. Metropolitan District Line, opened in 1865. This line extended along the Thames from Westminster to South Kensington at first, but by 1889 it had been extended eastwards to Blackfriars, and south-west all the way to Wimbledon. The City and South London Railway, opened in 1890. It was London's first underground line with electric locomotives, and the first to extend south of the river. Electrification allowed the tunnels to be dug deep below ground level, as ventilation for smoke and steam was no longer necessary.

21. #21the Thames Tunnelselective

    Keys: tunnel, Thames, railway

    London was the site of unprecedented engineering marvels. One of these was the Thames Tunnel, declared the "Eighth Wonder of the World" when it opened in 1843. In 1865 it was purchased by the East London Railway and converted for railway use.

22. #22Embankmentsselective

    Keys: the Victoria Embankment, the Albert Embankment, the Chelsea Embankment

    There were three different sections: the Victoria Embankment, the Albert Embankment and the Chelsea Embankment. The embankments protected low-lying areas along the Thames from flooding, provided a more attractive prospect of the river compared to the mudflats and boatyards which abounded previously, and created prime reclaimed land for development. The Victoria Embankment was the most ambitious: it concealed a massive interceptor sewage tunnel, which channelled waste from a network of smaller tunnels away from the River Thames and out of Central London, towards the Northern Outfall Sewer at Beckton in East London. The Victoria Embankment also allowed a broad east–west boulevard to be built and a series of public gardens. All three sections of the Thames Embankment are faced in grey granite, mounted with handsome cast iron lamps, and lined with London plane trees. In 1878, the lamps of the Victoria Embankment were converted from gas to electric light, making it the first street in Britain to be electrically illuminated.

23. #23Bridgesselective

    Keys: bridge, traffic, road

    In 1800 there were only three bridges connecting Westminster and the city to the south bank: Westminster Bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, and the ancient London Bridge. The four stone bridges grew progressively more decrepit as traffic increased. Several new bridges for road, pedestrian, and railway traffic were built: Southwark Bridge (1819), Waterloo Bridge (1817), Hungerford Bridge (opened in 1845 as a footbridge, and converted in 1859 into a combination footbridge/railway bridge for Charing Cross Station), and Tower Bridge (1894). Further upriver, the new bridges included Lambeth Bridge (1862), which replaced a centuries-old cross-river ferry service, Vauxhall Bridge (opened 1816), Victoria Bridge (opened in 1858 and later renamed Chelsea Bridge), and Wandsworth Bridge (1873).

24. #24Lightingselective

    Keys: gaslight, street light, electric light

    The first gaslight in London was installed in the Lyceum Theatre. Gaslight was quickly adopted for shop window displays because it enabled owners to better display their wares, but it was slower to be adopted in private homes. Gas light made streets safer, allowed shops to stay open well after dark, and even improved literacy because of the brighter interiors gas facilitated. In the last decades of the 19th century, electric lighting was introduced sporadically, but was slow to supersede gas. In 1879, electric arc lamps were installed along the Victoria Embankment. The same year, Siemens installed electric light in the Royal Albert Hall and along Waterloo Bridge, while the first large power station in the metropolis opened at Deptford.

25. #25Museumsselective

    Keys: museum

    Several major museums were founded or constructed during the 19th century, including the British Museum (1852), The National Gallery (1838), the National Portrait Gallery (1856), and the National Gallery of British Art (1897).

26. #26Theatreselective

    Keys: theatre, music hall, Free and Easies, Song and supper, pub

    Popular entertainment proliferated throughout the city. By 1899 there were 61 theatres across London, 38 of which were in the West End. The music hall was a form of live entertainment which developed gradually during the first half of the 19th century. By the 1830s many hybrid pub/performance venues, known as "Free and Easies", existed where customers could enjoy live entertainment from amateur singers. These were disreputable establishments, which led some public houses to offer Song and supper rooms as a respectable middle-class alternative. Song and Supper Rooms of the 1830s and 40s offered patrons, for a surcharge, the opportunity to dine and drink while enjoying live musical acts of a higher caliber than the "Free and Easies". By 1875 there were 375 music halls across the city, with the greatest number concentrated in the East End. Music halls became an integral part of cockney popular culture.

27. #27Sanitationselective

    Keys: sewerage, sanitation

    When the London sewerage system was completed, the death toll in London dropped dramatically, and epidemics were curtailed. While the problems of disposal of sewage and human waste were much improved by the late 19th century, there also remained problems of sanitation on the streets of London. With some 300,000 horses in use in the city by the 1890s, 1,000 tons of dung were being dropped on London's streets each day. Boys between 12 and 14 were employed to collect horse waste from the streets. In the poorer areas of London, rotting food, excrement and mud accumulated on the streets, where drains were few and far between and there were no supplies of water to flush them clean.

28. #28Fogselective

    Keys: fog, pea soup, mist

    Atmospheric pollution caused by burning cheap soft coal created the city's notorious pea soup fog. The population explosion and industrialisation of the 19th century aggravated both the severity of the fogs. The fogs were at their worst in the month of November, but occurred frequently throughout the autumn and winter. Sulphur dioxide and soot emitted from chimneys mixed with the natural vapour of the Thames Valley to form a layer of greasy, acrid mist that shrouded the city up to 240 feet (75 metres) above street level. Its most common colour was a greenish-yellow "pea soup", but it could also be brown, black, orange, or grey. There were increases in crimes like theft, rape, and assault on London streets because of the cover provided by the fog.

29. #29Buckingham Palaceselective

    Keys: royal, buckingham, Buckingham, Westminster

    Buckingham Palace is a royal residence in London, and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality.

30. #30Trafalgar Squareselective

    Keys: Trafalgar, Westminster, Nelson

    Trafalgar Square is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, established in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. The square's name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, the British naval victory in the Napoleonic Wars over France and Spain.

31. #31Nelson's Columnselective

    Keys: Nelson, Trafalgar, column, Westminster

    Nelson's Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, Central London, built to commemorate Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's decisive victory at the Battle of Trafalgar over the combined French and Spanish navies, during which he lost his life, killed by a French sniper.

32. #32Big Benselective

    Keys: Big Ben, Westminster

    Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, and by extension, for the clock tower itself, which stands at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England.

33. #33Palace of Westminsterselective

    Keys: Parliament, Westminster, big ben, Big Ben, Government, House of Commons, House of Lords

    The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is commonly called the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two legislative chambers which occupy the building. The palace is the centre of political life in the United Kingdom; "Westminster" has become a metonym for the UK Parliament and the British v, and the Westminster system of government commemorates the name of the palace. The clock bell in the Big Ben Tower of the palace, nicknamed Big Ben, is a landmark of London and the United Kingdom in general.

34. #34Royal Albert Hallselective

    Keys: concert hall, South Kensington, stage

    The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres have appeared on its stage.

35. #35Albert Memorialselective

    Keys: Albert Memorial, Kensington, pavilion

    The Albert Memorial, directly north of the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington Gardens, London, was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband Prince Albert, who died in 1861. Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the Gothic Revival style, it takes the form of an ornate canopy or pavilion 176 feet (54 m) tall, in the style of a Gothic ciborium over the high altar of a church, sheltering a statue of the prince facing south.

36. #36Tower Bridgeselective

    Keys: Bridge, Tower Bridge, Thames, Tower of London

    Tower Bridge is a combined bascule, suspension, and cantilever bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones and engineered by John Wolfe Barry with the help of Henry Marc Brunel. It crosses the River Thames close to the Tower of London and is one of five London bridges owned and maintained by the City Bridge Foundation, a charitable trust founded in 1282.

37. #37Wellington Archselective

    Keys: Green Park Arch, Wellington Arch, Hyde Park, Green Park

    The Wellington Arch, also known as the Green Park Arch, is a triumphal arch by Decimus Burton that forms a centrepiece of Hyde Park Corner in central London, between the corner where Hyde Park meets Green Park. The Arch stands on a large green-space traffic island with crossings for pedestrian access.

38. #38Marble Archselective

    Keys: Marble Arch, Hyde Park

    The Marble Arch is a white marble-faced triumphal arch in London, England. The structure was designed by John Nash in 1827 as the state entrance to the cour d'honneur of Buckingham Palace; it stood near the site of what is today the three-bayed, central projection of the palace containing the well-known balcony. In 1851, on the initiative of architect and urban planner Decimus Burton, a one-time pupil of John Nash, the arch was relocated to its current site, near the northeast corner of Hyde Park, so that expansion of Buckingham Palace could proceed.

39. #39British Museumselective

    Keys: British Museum, museum, history

    The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. The British Museum was the first public national museum to cover all fields of knowledge.

40. #40Natural History Museumselective

    Keys: Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology, zoology, dinosaur

    The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. The Natural History Museum's main frontage is on Cromwell Road. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens within five main collections: botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology. The museum is a centre of research specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Charles Darwin. The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons and ornate architecture.

41. #41National Galleryselective

    Keys: National Gallery, art, paintings, Trafalgar Square, Westminster

    The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of paintings dating from the mid-13th century to modern times. Its collection belongs to the government on behalf of the British public, and entry to the main collection is free of charge.

42. #42Victoria and Albert Museumselective

    Keys: V&A, Victoria and Albert Museum, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Kensington, Albertopolis

    The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The V&A is located in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in an area known as "Albertopolis" because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial, and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated.

43. #43Colonial Officeselective

    Keys: Colonial Office, department, colonial secretary, Foreign Office, India Office

    The Colonial Office was a separate department under the colonial secretary. Despite its name, the Colonial Office was responsible for much, but not all, of Britain's Imperial territories; the protectorates fell under the purview of the Foreign Office, and the British Presidencies in India were ruled by the East India Company until 1858, when the India Office was formed to oversee the administration of the new Viceroyalty of India (the Crown ruled India directly through a Viceroy after the Indian Rebellion).

44. #44Genderselective

    Keys: man, woman, he, she, gender, men, women, husband, wife

    Victorian gender ideology was premised on the “doctrine of separate spheres.” This stated that men and women were different and meant for different things. Men were physically strong, while women were weak. For men sex was central, and for women reproduction was central. Men were independent, while women were dependent. Men belonged in the public sphere, while women belonged in the private sphere. Men were meant to participate in politics and in paid work, while women were meant to run households and raise families. Women were also thought to be naturally more religious and morally finer than men (who were distracted by sexual passions by which women supposedly were untroubled).

45. #45The working classselective

    Keys: poor, destitute, worker, commoner, people, working class, income, wage

    The working class, about 70 to 80 percent of the population, got its income from wages, with family incomes usually under £100 per annum.

46. #46The middle classselective

    Keys: The middle class, people, income, ordinary, wage

    The middle class, which got its income (of £100 to £1,000 per annum) from salaries and profit, grew rapidly during the 19th century, from 15 to over 25 percent of the population. During the 19th century, members of the middle class were the moral leaders of society (they also achieved some political power).

47. #47The upper classselective

    Keys: upper class, people, income, wage, noble, Sir, wealthy

    The very small and very wealthy upper class got its income (of £1,000 per annum or often much more) from property, rent, and interest. The upper class had titles, wealth, land, or all three; owned most of the land in Britain; and controlled local, national, and imperial politics.

48. #48The Anglican churchselective

    Keys: religion, Anglican, church, Christian, God, faith

    Most Victorian Britons were Christian. The Anglican churches of England, Wales, and Ireland were the state churches (of which the monarch was the nominal head) and dominated the religious landscape (even though the majority of Welsh and Irish people were members of other churches).

49. #49Scienceselective

    Keys: science, Darwin, evolution, eugenics, theory

    Victorians made and appreciated developments in science. The best-known Victorian scientific development is that of the theory of evolution. It is typically credited to Charles Darwin, but versions of it were developed by earlier thinkers as well, and the pseudoscience of eugenics was an ugly outgrowth of Victorian evolutionary theory. Victorians were also fascinated by the emerging discipline of psychology and by the physics of energy.

50. #50The political systemselective

    Keys: politics, monarchy, Parliament, House of Commons, House of Lords, Queen, Victoria, MPs, members of Parliament, Liberal Party, Conservative Party, Tory

    The formal political system was a constitutional monarchy. It was in practice dominated by aristocratic men. At the national level, government consisted of the monarch and the two houses of Parliament, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The monarch during this period was Queen Victoria (1837–1901). During the Victorian period, the House of Commons became the centre of government, the House of Lords lost power (though it remained influential). The House of Commons consisted of about 600 men called members of Parliament (MPs), who were elected to represent the counties and boroughs of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. The upper house, the House of Lords, was populated principally by several hundred noblemen who had life tenures. Members of both houses were wealthy men. Formal national politics was dominated by two major parties, the Liberal Party and the Conservative (or Tory) Party.

Showing 50 of 53

1 file

• .pngpng_cardspec 2.0rebuilt

  1.3 MB1000×1000first seen Aug 22, 2024600045915637611a

  version main

  Download