MLU Halle-Wittenberg

“Daily Life in Mid-Victorian England: The Middle Class and its Values” 

by

Julia Schubert

4. Semester

SS 2002

Table of Contents

I. Introduction 2

II. Historical Context of the Victorian Society 3

III. Class Distinction 5

3.1 Aristocracy 5
3.2 Middle Class 6
3.3 Working Class 7

IV. Victorian Values 7

4.1 The Family 8
4.2 The Middle-Class Man and Husband 9
4.3 The „Angel in the House“ 11
4.4 Self-Help 12
4.5 Respectability 13

V. Conclusion 14

VI. References 15

VII. Appendixes 17

I. Introduction

The Victorian age in England is generally defined by the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. Since the queen´s rulership was for such a long time, it is not possible to discuss the whole period as one homogen part. There were so many changes during the different phases of Victorias´s reign that the 64 years of her rulership may be seperated into 3 different periods: the first period which lastet until 1851 is a period of growth; England´s manufacturing and trading forces grew more and more. In 1851 the Great Exhibition in London started the second and for this paper most important period. Now England was the leading industrial country in the world; the period of supremacy had begun.The late Victorian period covers the last quarter of the century. During this phase England lost its supremacy and the society had a more critical look on the earlier periods.¹

The Victorian values which were developed by the middle class were most influential during the second third of Victoria´s reign. During this time the middle class grew significantly and became very important (for example through the Reform Bills which enlarged the voting population as well as through their growing wealth). Because of their new role in society middle-class opinions, behavior and values were adopted by the other classes above and below.² Therefore, it can be said that from its beginning onwards the mid-Victorian era was and is of a special influence on the British society in past and present: “The opening of the Great Exhibition was also the opening of the Golden Age of Victorianism,...”.³ This “Golden Age” even has been recognized at the end of the 20th century when the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stated: “Victorian Values were the values when our country became great.”⁴ Therefore, this term paper will discuss the famous “Victorian Values” which were developed in one class and later characterized a whole society.

How did the people of the middle class live in the middle of the 19th century? How did they practise their morals and values? What were their morals and ideals?

To answer these questions it is necessary to clarify the historical circumstances of the Victorian society and to define this society itself. Which were the classes that constituted this society? This knowledge will be a good basis for the final discussion of the values themselves.

II. Historical Context

When Victoria was set on the English throne in 1837 the shape of the country and its society differed very much from that her son Edward would reign 64 years later.

During the 19th century the population⁵ grew from 8,9 million in 1801 to 17,2 million in 1851 up to approximately 26 million people in 1881.⁶ Before the Victorian era the majority of the people lived in the countryside, foods and messages were transported by horses, people cooked over an open fireplace, little more than half of the population could read and write, children had to work hard and long in coal mines and factories and the political and legal power was in the hands of those who held the property; that was, in fact, a small minority.⁷ In the reign of Victoria many things changed. Only some of the final results were: city dwellers, subway trains, electric streetlights in London, telegraph messages, steamships, busy transatlantic trade, compulsary education, improved legal and political status of women and much more.⁸

[...]

1 David Thomson, England in the Nineteenth Century: 1815-1914 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1991) 221-224.

2 Gottfried Niedhart, Geschichte Englands im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, 3 Bände (München: Verlag C.H. Beck 1987) 39-49.

3 Thomson, England 19th Century, 100.

4 Asa Briggs, A Social History of England, 2nd edition (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994) 249.

5 Look in appendixes (1) for a table of population growth in England and Wales.

6 G. Kitson Clark, The Making of Victorian England, 7th edition (London: Routledge 1994) 66.

7 Sally Mitchell, Daily Life in Victorian England (Westport, Conneticut and London: Greenwood Press 1996) XIII-XV.

8 Ibid.