The Victorian Age: Power, Contradiction, and New Theories

The Victorian Age: Power and Contradiction

This age is characterised by the reign of Queen Victoria, during this reign England became one of the largest empires in the world, it grew economically and industrially. On the other hand it brought poverty and misery to urban centres and it was a period with a high risk of civil revolution, avoided successfully with social reforms. A lot of writers spoke about the controversy of this age and new movements developed: Realism, Naturalism, Aestheticism and Decadentism. Meanwhile the usa expanded their frontier and increased their economic importance. They experienced their first Civil War and the consequential Reconstruction phase. In this period the dominant movement was Transcendentalism, which helped the writers to find a national voice.

A Two-Faced Period of Contradictions

An age of contradictions the British Empire extended to two thirds of the world:

• one side other side industrialisation, powerful economy, optimism and faith in progress, advances in medical, scientific and technological knowledge
• poverty, social unrest, exploitation of native populations in the colonies, growing uncertainty and uneasiness caused by new ideas in philosophy and science

Queen Victoria (1814- 1901) reigned from 1837 to 1901; she is the symbol of the era, she also had a double role: wife and mother of nine children and Empress of an Empire. The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 was a way to show the industrial progress of the country and its colonial power. The coronation of Victoria as Empress of India in 1876 and her Golden and Diamond Jubilees, which celebrated 50 and 60 years of her reign, were also occasions to present the power of Great Britain. British supremacy remained unchallenged also at sea in this century. The Victorians believed in the perfection of their representative government, and they wanted to expand and export it -> throughout the British Empire. ( the process wasn't always successful or innocent) Under Queen Victoria, the only war fought on European soil was the Crimean War, at the Black Sea. Great Britain with Turkey, they wanted to stop the expansion of Russia and its development as a colonial power. For the British, this was a period of peace, but they actually simply exported its conflicts out of the European Continent, especially to Africa

New Theories in Politics, Economics, and Science

Political liberalism dominated the Victorian Age until 185: Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary, supported it against the continental absolutist and protectionist states (Austria and Russia). He opened England to political refugees of the Italian Risorgimento (Mazzini and Garibaldi), and presented the first steps of Italian unification in 1859-60 as a victory for Britain over France, Austria, Russia and the Pope. Liberalism was associated with free trade, under a free-trade policy, goods and services could be bought and sold across international borders with little or no government prohibition. 19th-century social thinking was influenced by the philosophical movement of Utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham) Utilitarianism contributed to the Victorian conviction that any problem could be solved with reason. This philosophy-> usefulness, happiness and avoidance of pain. Utilitarianism was indifferent to human and cultural values and it was attacked by many intellectuals (Charles Dickens) In this age there were a lot of studies in geology and palaeontology that helped understanding the natural world and of the life of the planet. Other advances in science were in contrast and shook Victorian religious beliefs . In "On the Origin of Species", Charles Darwin spoke about the natural origin of man and for his evolution as the result of the selection of the forms of life most able to adapt to the changing environment (natural selection). Evolution was against creationism because it denied God's role in creation and contradicted the Bible, at the time considered the most authoritative text in all fields of knowledge. The Descent of Man explained the theory that man was a descendant of apes, and so the result of accidental evolution from an inferior being. Darwin borrowed popular concepts, who had written about how human societies evolve over time. Darwin rarely commented on the social implications of his theories, but Social Darwinism emerged as the belief in the survival of the fittest', the idea that certain people become powerful in society because they are innately better: the fit inherit qualities such as industriousness and the ability to accumulate wealth, while the unfit are innately lazy and stupid. The unscientific nature of Social Darwinism, which transformed a scientific theory to part of social sciences, did not prevent it from being used as a way to justify imperialism, racism, eugenics and social inequality.

New Movements and Social Change

more freedom was given to Catholics-> Oxford Movement; its main representative was John Henry Newman (Catholic cardinal). As a reaction: The Evangelical Alliance was created in London. Evangelicalism for this movement, activism in government and social sphere were important to eliminate sin and corruption. Then the Fabian Society was founded (inspired by Marxist doctrine), socialist who used gradual reforms to obtain what they wanted.

The British Empire

Queen Victoria was the first British monarch named Empress, she ruled the largest empire in the world and it continued to grow under her control (colonies in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Indian subcontinent); the greatest expansion took place in the second half of 19th century. -> undeclared war for power against European

Anglo-Irish Relations and the Great Famine

Ireland (colony of England; economical exploited) Anglo-Irish relations were tense after Cromwell's war and the Irish Parliament in 1801 passed the Act of Union (born of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with Parliament in London). The Parliament denied them the right granted for Catholics and as a consequence the Act of Union was blocked. In the 1840s Ireland was in a bad situation, especially for the famines; the Great Famine (1846-91) was the worst famine in European history. This led to emigration to Great Britain and the USA. Charles S. Parnell, leader of the nationalist independence in this period, demanded Home Rule (independent government) for Ireland; it was twice rejected and only accepted after World War One.

India and the East India Company

The East India Company (private company trade) had traded basic commodities in the Indian Continent since 1600 Years later the company defeated Bengal in the battle of Plassey with his own army during the Seven Years' War. The victory gave the company enormous influence over the Indian subcontinent and after years it was managing the territories as part of the British Empire, from the administrative and political point of view. The Indian Mutiny, or First War of Indian Independence. in 1857 when the sepoys, native soldiers under the control of the British East India Company, mutinied against their British commanders because they had been supplied with rifle cartridges (cartucce per fucili) greased with pig and cow fat, unacceptable for both Hindu and Muslim soldiers. That same year, the East India Company was abolished, and revolts spread throughout British India. The mutiny was put down in 1858. After the suppression of the rebellion India came under the direct rule of the British government and the British Raj was established. In 1876, Queen Victoria was crowned Empress of India; with some opposition in Parliament (fear of absolutism), but Benjamin Disraeli, the Conservative Prime Minister, presented Victoria's coronation as part of the effort to link the monarchy to the country. The Queen developed an intense personal interest in India; she welcomed Indian princes to her court and often wrote to the Indian viceroy to give him suggestions on internal matters, also under the effect of her affectionate ten-year friendship with an Indian Muslim servant, Abdul.

European Colonisation of Africa

Africa The European colonisation of Africa coincided with the era of 'scientific racism' as represented by Social Darwinism, which supported the view that the technological superiority of the British "authorising" them to exploit the resources of the Africans in the name of promoting civilization. . Britain greatly expanded its control over Africa, also helped by the construction of the Suez Canal connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The canal came under the exclusive control of the British in 1875, and in 1882 Britain invaded and occupied Egypt.

• 1895: Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was created by a British politician and entrepreneur, through his British South Africa Company, which used its private army. He offered a symbolic grant to the native populations in return for control of mining resources, allowing him to control 90% of the world diamond market and become the administrator of the state that took his name.
• 1898: Sudan was placed under joint British-Egyptian rule.
• 1910: The Union of South Africa was created. It was the union of Transvaal and Orange, originally founded by the Boers and lost over time to the British. Cape Colony had come under permanent British control during the Napoleonic Wars, and after the abolition of slavery in 1834, Trekboers, Boers migrating into the interior of South Africa, had created three new independent states: Natalia, the South African Republic, and the Orange Free State. Natalia was conquered by the British in 1853, and Transvaal and Orange were both lost during the Boer War after the discovery of gold mines (discovered by Dutch people that lived there but conquered by British) in the regions made them extremely valuable to colonisers.

The Scramble for Africa

"The scramble for Africa" in an expression that summarises the process of partition of Africa by the European powers (1870-1914). In 1870 only 10% of the African Continent was under foreign domination, it wasn't part of the European trade relations. Instead in 1914 almost 90% of Africa was under foreign domination. African states and rulers tried to resist European aggression but the Industrial Revolution had provided the Europeans armies such as machine guns. In 1884 Otto von Bismar convened the Berlin Conference to work out a common policy for colonisation trade in Africa and they drawed colonial state boundaries in the official partition of Africa. By the end of these conferences the Europeans powers had divided Africa up among themselves.

The Victorian Society

The Victorian Compromise

-> a period of contrasts: wealth versus poverty and moralism (zero tolerance towards vice and illegal sex) versus vice (discreet, under control and hidden) The Victorian compromise identifies the essence of the Victorian Age itself. Example: the red-light zone in cities with houses of prostitution and gambling dens; accepted by the police and attended by respectable citizens. = central theme central to much of Victorian literature, whose writers generally acted as critical voices of this mentality.

Economy: Free Trade and Capitalism

In the Victorian Age, Britain became an industrial country. There was a Factory System, industries, concentrated around the great coalfields and organised on capitalistic lines. Owners -> provided the machines and the raw materials and paid people to work for them. Machinery then sped up production and increased capital. In 1846, the policy of free trade