Victorian Age Historical Essay Example

The Victorian age is the period during which queen Victoria ruled over Great Britain. This period was marked by great advances in all fields of science and technology, improvements in standards of living and the expansion of the British Empire.

In 1837, when Victoria ascended to the throne, Britain was the most powerful and advanced nation in Europe, thanks to the many resources that were available to it from its colonies across the Atlantic Ocean; Britain also engaged in many conflicts across the globe, which led to the annexation of India, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Because of these factors, productivity in Britain skyrocketed and many people moved from the countryside to the cities to seek better job opportunities; as a matter of fact, it was during this period that for the very first-time urban population exceeded the rural in Britain’s history. Because of this sudden increase of population in big cities like London and Manchester, living conditions for the lower classes were abysmal and unhygienic, and most people worked in factories and mines, which required long shifts and had little safety regulations. In 1832 parliament approved the Reform Bill, which granted voting rights to male members of the middle class, but not those from the working class.

This sparked outrage from the working-class population, which lead to the birth of the Chartist Movement. The Chartist Movement pressured parliament to expand the voting right to male members of the working class as well; while the movement was unsuccessful at first, it eventually led to the Reform Bills of the late 1800s, which effectively granted voting rights to all males, the Factory Act, which regulated working hours, and the Education Act, which made elementary education compulsory. During the Victorian age the two main political parties in Britain, the Whigs and Tories became respectively the Liberal and the Conservative party, each led by their representative Gladstone and Disraeli, who were responsible for passing many bills from this century, along with the Trade Union Act, which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party.

As stated above, the Victorian age was a time of great scientific progress: the steam locomotive had been just invented, along with the first underground railway and the telegraph, which allowed fast communications across great distances; a new sewage system in London was now able to discretely get rid of waste produced by the city, and light, water and gas gradually made it to the homes of Londoners. All this culminated in the Great Exhibit of 1851, hosted inside the Crystal Palace, which showcased all of the newest technological and scientific advancements of the British Empire. All this fascination towards progress and science can be easily explained by then revolutionary theories of Charles Darwin, whom in his Origin of Species claimed that the world was ruled by the law of nature.

Because of this theory, many would come to believe that either wealth and poverty were the result of one’s sole own actions: this led society to hypocrisy and alcoholism, and while it improved the living conditions of the middle class, it completely neglected the needs of the working class. This thinly veiled hypocrisy was quickly picked up by authors like Stevenson (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) and Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray), who exposed the contradictions in society.