Life Victorian Times - Full Documentary

it is always difficult to pass comment on the values and achievements of a society when so many years have passed but it is true that unlike any other age the extraordinary Victorian period of British history has always excited mixed emotions in those who care to look back perhaps some find the superficial po-faced prudishness of the age faintly amusing others some modern-day politicians included believed Victorian values are something to be aspired to many remember a society where great comfort and wealth stood in stark contrast with dire poverty and child cruelty yet few could deny that the age to which Queen Victoria gave her name so incredible and monumental changes in British society there was for instance the urbanization of a country which was swept along by the Industrial Revolution whose population rose from 25 million in the early 1800s to almost 40 million people by the end of the century there were great advances in engineering education and medicine there was at least some attempt to tackle the poverty and squalor which blighted the land the era heralded the genius of Dickens and Hardy Stephenson and Brunel and the British people watched in admiration as the famous Redcoat armies marched to win an empire for their Queen and country it was a truly remarkable age a time of transition and progress it was the age of Victorian Britain [Music] [Music] I was awoke at 6 o'clock by momma who told me that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Cunningham were here and wish to see me I got out of bed and went to my sitting room only in my dressing gown and alone and saw them Lord Cunningham the Lord Chamberlain that acquainted me that my poor uncle the king was no more and had expired at 12 minutes past 2:00 this morning and that consequently I am Queen it was the early hours of 20th of June 1837 that the long reign of Queen Victoria began she would become the longest reigning monarch in British history her journal noted the moment when she learned of her ascension to the throne it is said that upon hearing Lord Cunningham utter the word Queen Victoria instinctively flung out her hand for him to kiss it was a typical spontaneous gesture which symbolized the young Victoria's acute awareness of her new position she was even now bound by the concept of Duty for the entry in her diary for that momentous day also reads I shall try to do what his fit and right Victoria was a mere 18 years old when she ascended the throne she had been a serious child with a demeanor which is best described as spirited there is no Royal Road to music princess you must practice every day and music master had pleaded to the seven-year-old Victoria the young princess had responded by shutting the piano with a loud bang and fixing the master with a cold stare dare you see there is no must about it she had replied leaving the chastened master to beg her forgiveness as a child Victoria was always acutely aware of her exalted position in life she once scolded a playmate who dared play with her toys you must not touch those they are mine and I may call you Jane but you must not call me Victoria a queen was of a diminutive stature a mere 5 feet 2 inches tall but with a presence which impressed even the most worldly of her councillors she looked very well and though so small in stature and without any pretension to beauty the gracefulness of her manner and the good expression of her countenance give her on the whole a very agreeable appearance her youth inspires an excessive interest in all who approach her however Britain in 1837 was a divided dispirited country William the 4th brief reign had seen a time of enormous political upheaval which seemed to bewilder the well-intentioned but rather timid King the first Reform Bill of 1832 example which had sought to reform the country's ludicrous system of parliamentary representation was eventually defeated in the House of Commons a result which preempted the dissolution of Parliament a bad-tempered acrimonious election followed which eventually resulted in a sensational Whig victory while no violence erupted throughout the country the great reform bill finally became law in 1832 when Williams chaotic reign ended in 1837 the reputation of the monarchy was at a low ebb with public confidence in its most reliable institution somehow shaken some had even come to despise the monarchy the new Queen Victoria came undaunted to this unhappy state of affairs and it is a testament to her personality that by the time of her death she was a figure who commanded worldwide respect and who was greatly loved by her people [Music] most of the population at that time we're living in rural areas villages small towns not in the large industrial conversations the kind of work most people did was largely agricultural a lot of women worked however they worked at home on straw patting sowing that kind of activity there was a lot of poverty as their pastor out of the century this was the rural poverty in that people either couldn't find work or unwilling to work there had been the enclosures in the earlier part of the century where common land had been enclosed and comprised in large farms and indeed some small holdings which were far more efficient so increased work was available there but there were far fewer opportunities for people who wanted to work on their own and run a small perhaps substandard smallholding which would maintain living for themselves life expectancy was about 50 years and even at that time higher in the country than it was in the towns education was fairly minimal it was available if you could pay for it however a lot of poor children obviously received very little education at all and charitable institutions did exist however sometimes the education there could be very minimal so a large number of children simply learned how to cope with life and to do the job they were put to probably the very early age various things were beginning to happen the steam engine had been invented by this time though obviously was not in general use as we know it today most transport was by horsepower there was a postal system that formed communication existed but again it depended on the speed of the horse to get it from A to B at the beginning of Victoria's reign the majority of lower-class people worked on the land Britain was still a nation of farms and farmers not yet the great manufacturing nation she would later become but the wages and conditions are an average farm worker were pitiful kept down by profiteering landowners whose best interests were considered by the government to be of crucial importance one landowner is certainly known to have employed twelve desperate men to dig a field at a mere nine pence each per day it was quite simply cheaper than hiring a horse to plow it farm workers often had to feed their large families on as little as 8 shillings per week bread cheese and tea were their staple diet sometimes if they were lucky some potatoes and milk rarely if ever did their plate see any meat the great reformer william Cobbett movingly described the privations of these poor men of the land in his classic 1830 book rural rides the book contains barbed observations upon British rural life combined with a wistful nostalgia for a plentiful past which if it ever existed had long gone a contemporary reads an extract the lower classes of farm workers we're the worst used labouring people upon the face of the earth dogs and hogs and horses are treated with more civility and as to food and lodging how glad they were the laborers changing them I really am ashamed to ride a fat horse to have a full belly and to have a clean shirt upon my back when I look at those wretched continent of mine well I actually see them reeling with weakness when I see their poor phases present me nothing but skin and bone however some other contemporaries quite clearly disagreed with Corbett's view ester Copley's cottage comfort and cottage cookery managed not only to denigrate the misery of the rural lower classes but to patronize them to the wanton misery of many families arises more from want of discretion in managing their resources than from the real scantiness of their income in 1846 the core law was repealed the Act which since 1815 had prohibited the import of cheap corn from abroad exposed landowners to the vagaries of the free market for the first time it was the central drama of what came to be known as the hungry 40s a desperate decade of utter depression in the agricultural industry although farm workers and their families lived in unimaginable poverty woe betide the man who stole from the Masters fields in an attempt to feed his wife and children heavy fines were imposed without mercy and at worst offenders were deported to the colonies it is not surprising that the hardships presented by country life saw many people move into the large cities and towns in search of a better life the urban worker had worked in the traditional industries as craftsmen tradesmen store keepers or shop owners or work had been found in domestic service as servants or footmen now in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign the Industrial Revolution was gathering pace innovations and advances of machinery and in particular communications such as those pioneered by Telford and macadam a easier access to the big cities for the raw materials which fed heavy industry people flocked of a new major industrial areas London Leeds Liverpool and Manchester it was here that the new cotton mills and factories the symbol of the Industrial Revolution had grown Industrial Development did not only take place in large towns and here where we are today at Iron Bridge is a prime example of the kind of development that took place outside of the major industrial sentence the Iron Bridge has been known as a creative the Industrial Revolution and industrial development went on here during the 17th and 18th centuries most notably in 1709 the development of smelting iron with coke instead of coal which allowed to mass production of cast iron and then of course in 1779 the building of the first were the world's first Iron Bridge but apart from that on into the 19th century there were ceramic industries here the couple China Works which have been working for some considerable while there were tile manufacturers on the other side of the river the co group dale company which was the inheritor of abraham douglas original works were producing high quality decorative cast iron work and street furniture and fireplaces and on the site where we are today which is bliss hill industry was carrying on here that was mining here there was a brick and tile works here there was a canal built through the site and there was a blast furnace also producing cast iron and into the area came to railway companies so there was a good supply of communication however is the the terrain became more difficult it's very hilly and some of it is somewhat unstable the industry here died towards the end of the century and closed down more less completely in the first part of the 20th century by the 1850s rows of terraced housing have been built to accommodate the workers in the new factories but little or no planning had gone into the design of these terrible brick buildings they had no running water and certainly no sanitary provision soon the rows and rows of dingy houses in dark smog filled streets became dangerously overcrowded by the large families of the workers before long smallpox and cholera ran rife Britain was entering a new phenomenon the city slum there are two immediate effects on the Victorian society one was the increased movement of population into the towns where the wages were higher and the second was the development of a moneyed middle-class who made their money in the industrial development and became a force in the country for that reason there are obviously a whole range of other effects as well people who disliked their wages and conditions in the country exchanged the the poverty of the country for the degradation and squalor and disease of living in town where the conditions were great variety women also were going out to work particularly in the north textile mills so they no longer worked at home structure as well the health was poor the life expectancy was lower and the educational prospects were just as bad as they always had been as late as the 1890s Joseph Ritson a Methodist minister reported that of the seven hundred families living in his London parish five hundred were living in single rooms the walls and ceilings are black with the secretions of filth which have gathered upon them through the long years of neglect it is exuding through the cracks in the board's overhead it is running down the walls it is everywhere what goes by the name of a window is half of it stuffed with rags or covered by board to keep out the wind and rain the rest is so begrimed and obscure that scarcely any light can enter or anything be seen outside [Music] [Music] during 1844 a society was formed to study the conditions of the poor in London Britain's greatest City the Society for improving the condition of the labouring classes found damning evidence of overcrowding and homelessness the Society found that one room contained no less than 50 people and this in a space no bigger than 20 feet by 16 London's parks even its bridges were to be found at night housing entire families sheltering under trees or dark recesses for these poor wretches the back-breaking hours of daylight or replaced with the misery of a dark night without a roof over their head it was in London even then a teeming metropolis which through the stark contrasts of Victorian life into sharpest relief here the poor wretches of the city looked in wonder at the wealth on display in affluent Westminster churches stood in silent witness to the struggles of the poor to the sordid scenes of vice and petty crime a whole world away from the clubs and dinner parties of the wealthy Charles Dickens perhaps Britain's greatest author and a tireless campaigner for the poor always found London a constant source of inspiration in turn fascinated revolted and angered by Britain's capital city without doubt it inspired some of his greatest work it was in his 1838 book Nicholas Nickleby the Dickens brilliantly described the two very different sides of London in this extract Nicholas at last arrives in the big city they rattled on through the noisy bustling crowded streets of London now displaying long rows of brightly burning lamps dotted here and there the chemists glaring lights and illuminating besides with a brilliant flood that's streaming from the windows of the shops where sparkling jewelry silks and Velvets and riches colors the most inviting delicacies and most sumptuous articles of luxurious ornament succeeded each other in rich and glittering profusion streams of people apparently without end poured on and on dusting each other in the crowd and hurrying forward scarcely seeming to notice the riches that surrounded them on every side while vehicles of all shapes and makes mingled up together involve moving mouths like running water let their ceaseless roar to swell the noise and tumult as they dashed by the could be changing and ever varying objects it was curious to observing what strange possession they pass before the eye emporiums of splendid dresses the materials brought from every court of the world tempting stores of everything to steal it and pamper the sated appetite and give you relish to the oft repeating feast vessels a burnished gold and silver wrought into every exquisite form of bars and dish and complete guns swords pistols and patent engines of destruction screws and ions for the crooked clothes for the newly born drugs for the sick coffins for the dent and church arts for all these jumbled each were the other and flocking side-by-side seem to flicked in multi dance like the fantastic dance groups of the old Dutch painter and with the same Stern model for the unheeding restless crowd nor where they're wanting objects in the crowd itself to give you point and purpose to the shifting scene the rags of the squalid ballad singer fluttered in the rich light that showed the blacksmith's treasures tailor who pinched up faces hovered above the windows where was tempting food wandering over the profusion guarded by one thin sheet of little glass and iron wall to them half-naked shivering figure stopped to gaze at Chinese Fords and golden stuffs of India there was a Christian part of the largest coffee makers and a funeral hatch wanton stop some great improvements in the bravest mansion life and death went hand in hand wealth and poverty stood side-by-side repletion and starvation laid them down together but it was London [Music] made infamous by Charles Dickens magnificent Oliver Twist the workhouse was a sad and brutal part of early Victorian life these joyless buildings existed in almost every parish in England the simple idea had been to provide a place of shelter and a meal for those to wretchedly poor to provide for themselves in return for this generosity the inhabitants perhaps they should be called inmates were made to do exhausting physical back-breaking work until 1834 these buildings were known as poor houses but it was in that year that a new pitiless regime determined to make life in them even harder outdoor food relief was abruptly abolished which meant that those who sought food relief would now be forced to live in the work houses by making the conditions even worse and those injured by a low-paid factory worker it was hoped to dissuade all but the desperate from seeking entry conditions and a new work houses were brutal the diet not much of our starvation level and no visitors were allowed until 1842 conversation was even forbidden at mealtimes it was to an unwed workhouse girl that Dickens great character Oliver Twist was born the book contains some of Dickens most biting social comment and is a damning indictment of a society which if it ever knew its failings for the most part never cared thankfully these appalling institutions have long since disappeared but Dickens description of Oliver Twist's early years in the workhouse are still powerful enough to chill the blood and saddened the heart a systematic course of treachery and deception he was brought up by hand the hungry and destitute situation of the infant or authorities was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities the parish authorities inquired with dignity of the workhouse authorities whether there was no female then domiciled in the house who was in a position to impart Oliver Twist the consolation and nourishment of which he stood in need the workhouse authorities replied with humility and that there was not upon this the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved that Oliver should be farmed or in other words that he should be dispatched to a branch workhouse some three miles off where twenty or thirty other offenders against the poles rolled about the floor all day without inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing under the parental guidance an elderly female who received the culprits at and for the consideration of seven pence ha'penny per head per week per week is a good round tide for a child a great deal may be God for seven pairs hate me quite enough to over know the stomach and make it uncomfortable [Music] and experience and she had an acute perception of what was good for a child and she had an accurate perception of what was good for herself so she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend for her own use and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter allowance than was originally provided for them thereby finding in the lowest depth a deeper still and proving herself a very great experimental philosopher everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who had a great theory about a donkey being able to live without eating and who demonstrated it so well that he got his donkey down to a straw and day and would have unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and rapacious animal and nothing at all if he had not died four and twenty hours before he was to have heard his first comfortable beta there unfortunately for the experimental philosophy of the female to who's protecting care Oliver Twist was delivered over a similar result usually attended the operation of her system for at the very moment when a child can try to exist on the smallest possible portion or the weakest possible food it did perversely happen in eight cases out of ten either that it sickened from wound or cold or fell into the fire from neglect or got half smothered by accident in any one of which cases the miserable being usually summoned into another world and they're gathered to the fathers that have never known in this the bitter dark black humour which Dickens so skillfully employed in his wonderful narrative and hid power to the already shocking story of course Oliver Twist was a fictional character but his miserable circumstances were not the product of the author's fertile imagination for thousands of children the horrors of the workhouse and the cruelty of child labor were all too real as Dickens story continued Oliver Twist his invented name for no one has claimed the 10-pound reward for the discovery of his real identity he's taken before the board of governors of the workhouse Oliver in his poor parish clothes stands helplessly and pathetically before them as he is treated like a petty criminal Dickens workhouse description culminates in the memorable scene in which Oliver Twist driven half mad with hunger dares to ask for more Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months at last they got so wild and voracious with hunger but one boy who was tall for his age and hadn't been used to that sort of thing his father used to run a small cook shop indeed darkly to his companions but unless he had another basin of gruel that he was afraid he might son I'd happen to eat the boy who slept next to him who happened to be a weekly youth of tender age there the wild hung the eye and they in kissably believed him accounts others health lots were cast who should walk up to the master that evening and ask for more and it fell to Oliver Twist the evening arrived the boys took their places with master in his cooks uniform staged himself at the copper his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him the girl was served out and a long grace was said over the short Commons the gruel disappeared the boys whispered to each other and wounded Oliver while his next neighbors nudged him child as he was he was desperate and hunger and reckless with misery he rose from the table and advancing to the master basin and spoon in hand said somewhat alarmed at his own temerity please sir I want some more the master was a fat healthy man but he turned very pale he gazed in stupefied astonishment on a small rebel for some seconds and then turned to support to the copper the assistants were paralyzed with Wonder the boys with fear what said the master at length in a faint voice please sir and some more their master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with a ladle pinion him in his arms and shrieked aloud to the Beadle the board were sitting in solemn Conclave when mr. bumble rushed into the room in great excitement and addressing the gentleman in the high chair said mr. mclees I beg your pardon sir Oliver Twist it off for more [Music] it was probably the middle classes which gave to posterity the popular image of Victorian stateless certainly family life could be a little restricting particularly for daughters of marrying age they were of course very carefully closeted and meticulously trained in an effort to avoid that horror of Horrors the socially unacceptable marriage prospective paramours were carefully vetted by the family elders using a well tried system of family outings tea parties and picnics once the family approval had been gained the gentleman was expected to ask the father of the bride-to-be for her hand in marriage if granted the grand formalities of Victorian engagement and marriage would follow the middle-class Victorian home was a dark rather joyless place heavy velvet curtains hung from dark pellman's covering long windows and walls were covered by heavily patterned dark-colored wallpaper rooms were illuminated by the rather odorous gas lamp of the time and they were crammed with every conceivable kind of ornament furniture was also dark usually made from mahogany or oak and was carved ornately the middle-class Victorian housewife considered her shopping trips to obtain supplies for the household to be part of her essential duties a trip into town would usually see a visit to the butcher the confectioner's perhaps the bank the candle maker sometimes the baker the housewife moved among the throng in the shops and stores probably studiously ignoring those drinking outside the public house alcohol was certainly not approved off drunkenness was considered a weakness of the lower classes in Victorian society it was the middle class which was not strictly defined for example doctors lawyers solicitors bank managers form the upper middle class shopkeepers and clerks were part of the lower middle-class Victorian businessman lacking a profession but who had earned a good living perhaps a thousand pounds per year were simply middle-class to each his place and a place for everything the class structure in Britain was extremely important to the ordered Victorian mind for their entertainment the middle classes attended lavish productions of the theater or visited the many colorful music halls which typify the age in the concert halls the music of great composers such as Brahms greed and Queen Victoria's particular favorite Mendelssohn was being played [Music] [Music] [Music] if the contrast between the hardships of the rural and urban poor and the comfort of the middle classes was not apparent enough both compared poorly to the life of the aristocracy there were perhaps 300 aristocratic families in Britain whose incomes exceeded 100,000 pounds per annum millionaire status in today's money the landed gentry on the other hand naval officers army officers members of parliament with a power behind Britain together they controlled much of the wealth of the country Victorian high society to a large extent was largely untouched by the major upheavals that were going on if you lived on a larger landed estate that was largely self-sufficient it didn't need to disturb you you might have found your staff going to the town where it was better paid work and you might have some difficulty replacing them but to a large extent you only needed to be as involved as you wish to be and to take the developments you wished for example the train system meant that you could have fresh fruit and vegetables delivered from your estate to your London townhouse every day what was an immense advantage it saved you having doing send the servants off the back in the market there were those of course who took a considerable interest particularly in the poverty and the other aspects that developed so concentratedly in the towns and of course in the towns they were far closer to the poverty and the degradation and they might otherwise be on their country estates philanthropic work by certain ladies my society ladies was very influential in the development and improved on the condition of the poor younger sons of the families winters they had always done into the army maybe summoned to the church and some into money business professions and also some of them married money whether intentionally or not I don't know but the new money that some of them married American heiresses that some of them heiresses from the the new rich in the country [Music] the Victorian era was one of major progress in all walks of life but some of the most notable advances were made in the field of transport apart from the improvements made to roads by John macadam new efficient modes of transport were invented to make travel throughout the country speedier and more comfortable by the 1850s the old stagecoaches which had served for years were being replaced by the new horse-drawn omnibus and the hansom cab by 1886 7000 hansom cabs were licensed in London alone and the streets witnessed their first taste of traffic congestion and impatient rude drivers but the real stunning progress in transport and communication came with the advent of the railways which grew to become the hallmark not to say the pride of Victorian Britain it was the corniche engineer Richard Trevithick who built the first steam engine as early as 1806 and the first passenger railway was the Stockton to Darlington railway which opened in 1825 but the most famous steam locomotion of all was the rocket built by George Stephenson and his son Robert which made its debut a town racy 14 miles an hour in 1830 it was certainly a remarkable piece of engineering which was capable of a top speed of 40 miles per hour but was amazingly furnished with no braking system those who saw the rocket could scarcely believe their eyes it was truly a wonder of the modern age its arrival rang the death knell for horse-drawn travel in Britain the contemporary suitably impressed recalled a journey made on the Manchester to Liverpool line on Stephenson's rocket a common sheet of paper is enough for love but a full scab extra can alone contain a railroad and mine ecstasy we were introduced to the little engine which was some draggers along the rails she followed me it's cute little fire horses all mares the consisted of a boiler a stove a small platform a bench and behind the bench a barrel containing enough water to prevent her being thirsty for 15 miles the rains bit and bridle of this wonderful beast is a small steel handle which applies or withdraws esteem for the legs there are all pistons so that the child might manage it the coals which I don't but under the bench this snorting animal which I felt inclined to Pat was then hands to our coach and mr. Stephenson having taken me on the bench of the engine with him we started about 10 miles an hour you can't imagine how strange it seemed to be journeying on us without any visible cause of progress other than the magical machine with the flying white breath and rhythmical and varying pace between those rocky walls I felt as if no fairytale was ever half so wonderful as what I saw the expansion of the railways system made a fortune for the railway companies of the time particularly that most famous company of all the Great Western it has been long since acknowledged that their success was in great part due to a man whose magnificent iron bridges stand to this day as monuments to his genius Isambard Kingdom Brunel a brilliant engineer Brunel also designed the first ships to be powered by screw propellers and became famous for his tunneling work including the tunnel beneath the Thames from Rada Hyde to Wapping which was opened in 1843 to universal wonder by the end of the Victorian era however even the railways had been eclipsed in the eyes of a public hungry for progress and technological advances the new novelty was the horseless carriage pioneered in Europe by the engineers Daimler and Benz however the British government seemed wary at first of his latest invention and unappreciative of its massive potential it was not until 1896 that the locomotives on highways axe raised the permitted speed limit on the roads from four to fourteen miles per hour effectively creating the climate by which the motor industry might expand in celebration of its newfound freedom the London to Brighton motorcar run was initiated by the motorcar club in the same year now called the vintage car rally the event is still staged every November to this very day throughout the Victorian years there were also major improvements to public utilities the postal system was one service revolutionized by Roland Hill who introduced the famous penny post in 1840 it was Hill's innovation and foresight which enabled the post office to grow and expand for the public could now send a letter weighing up to half an ounce anywhere in Britain for a standard charge of one penny as a consequence pillar boxes arrived in the capital in 1855 postal orders were introduced in 1881 the post office Savings Bank was opened in 1861 what had previously been an elitist and expensive service blossomed into a profitable business and a valuable public utility with the social reforms in the Victorian area one of the things that may have helped people become so aware of the problems was the high density of population in the towns the great many classes were living within close proximity and certainly the problems and certainly the smells of a bad sewer dinner with have you drifted across the town it became very apparent to everyone a lot of people became very concerned about the social conditions victory of the poor during the early part of the Victorian period Lord Shaftesbury for one is someone who devoted a great deal of time energy and his political time to trying to improve those conditions reform was slow in coming and it gathered momentum through thee through the century towards the end the main campaign to start with was to prevent the young children being made to work but it was not until the middle of the century until children under 9 and in mines under 10 were banned from working so that's really quite late in the 19th century education was another matter that is not good for those formed until late in the century the government was putting money into certain organizations to support education on a payment driver results basis from before Victoria's reign and that carried on throughout the century it was not until toward the end of the century we're talking about the 1880s when children received compulsory education till the age of 10 and the end of the century before they received compulsory education to the age of 12 this made us on extent tie in with Israelis bill that finally got through in the 1870s to limit working asked a day which may help release the children for their education but as we find and indeed in the schools around here in this in the autumn and the harvest was to you you would still lose children to go and work in the fields of that particular time of year also a small practical point you've got poor attendance on work days without mcintoshes and umbrellas we've got by going to school in the wet day was a very very work child and they were sent home health was another matter requiring considerable attention particularly the concentration of disease and bad sewage in the towns and it wasn't until after a fourth cholera epidemic in 1866 the government finally decided to take positive action about doing something to improve the sewage in the big cities [Music] in the 19th century Britain was probably a turkey as a world power although she fought no wars in Europe during Queen Victoria's reign there was almost constant British involvement in other countries affairs under the guidance of Lord Palmerston who between 1830 and 1865 held the post as prime minister or foreign secretary almost without interruption Britain sought to defend what she saw as constitutional states there were disagreements with the Chinese in 1839 but Greeks in 1850 and most famously of all the great war against Russia in defense of turkey in the Crimea in 1854 and 1855 it was during the Crimean War that the Light Brigade made its famous charge a lasting testament to the gallantry and courage of the Victorian soldier the war also introduced a new Victorian heroine in Florence Nightingale who did so much to improve the awful conditions in the field hospitals of the Crimea but the Victorian era will be forever known as the age of the Empire for during that heady period Britain ruled over the largest empire the world had yet seen proudly Britain's called it the empire on which the Sun never sets and by the end of Victoria's reign it stretched across 1/4 of the world's land mass and contained a population of something like 400 million people the famous Redcoat armies marched out before cheering crowds to win more land for their sovereign their most spectacular gains were made in Africa on the Sudan and the Gold Coast and in Missoula Wars only the resistance of the stubborn Afrikaners during the Boer Wars undermined further progress in South Africa in 1876 Disraeli bestowed upon the Queen the title Empress of India it was called the jewel in the crown of the Empire missionaries such as David Livingstone ventured out into the world's remotest regions to spread the Christian word and convert the heathen and a powerful Britain surveyed her conquests secured in the knowledge that she now had captive markets for her manufactured goods and an invaluable source of supply for essential raw materials for British foreign policy it was the best of times only the emerging German Empire clouded its golden horizon On January the 22nd 1901 Queen Victoria died at Osbourne house surrounded by her beloved children and grandchildren she was 82 years old and had reigned for 64 years England was immediately plunged into mourning as the Queen's coffin travelled through London the crowds gathered to pay their respects to Britain's one and only Queen Empress a woman who commanded the respect and love of her subjects in a way few monarchs before or since have ever done for most of course her passing marked the end of an epoch and of course it was the feelings of the country were eloquently summed up by the daily telegraph which solemnly declared the golden reign is over never never was lost like this so inward and profound that only the slow years can reveal its true reality the queen is dead [Music] in very basic terms the victorian-era are 64 years which encompass most of the 19th century and the first year of this century it was an age of immense strange immense invention immense energy immense poverty immense exploration immense dynamism throughout an age of great contrasts for some absolute misery for some considerable success and wealth essentially for me the the crucial point about it is standing where we are at the end of the 20th century is if we went back to 1837 we will be in a world that we will probably find it very hard to survive in in that we would not understand the way that world worked I have a feeling if we went back to the end of the Victorian era we will find a lot more that was familiar to us in the way that it was working and functioning in Britain had never lived through an era like the Victorian age never before had the country seen such change in all aspects of society even today the Victorian world is all around us the buildings of the era still stand the great literature and art of the period still lives and breathes truly our modern way of life is rooted in the discoveries ideas and inventions of a century ago it was a time when men dreamed and then turned their dreams to reality it was the age of Victorian Britain [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

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Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries. History, Victorian, Victoria, Queen, Queen Victoria, Industrial Revolution, British Empire, Empire, Britain, British, Reign, History, Industry, population, migration, Life, Public, Full Documentary, full documentary, full length documentaries, documentaries

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Length: 55min 42sec (3342 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 12 2019