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The Victorian Era refers to the 64-year period when Britain obtained immense amounts of power and wealth by extending its kingdom across the globe. During this time, Britain revolutionized technology, transportation, and communication. It increased its trade across the globe and sent many British explorers on expeditions across the African and Asian continents.

The Victorian Era was a time of significant change-good and bad-but it represented what the future looked like for the rest of the world.

When was the Victorian Era or Time Period?

The Victorian Era specifically refers to the time between 1837 and 1901. This time period covers the moment when Queen Victoria ascended to the throne and became the monarch of Great Britain and Ireland in 1837, as well as Empress of India in 1877. It then ends with Queen Victoria's death in 1901.

Following Queen Victoria's death, King Edward VII took the throne. The period in which King Edward VII reigned is referred to as the Edwardian Era. The ascent of Edward VII clearly ended the Victorian Era.

Why Was It called the Victorian Era?

These 64 years in the United Kingdom were called The Victorian Era after Queen Victoria. Since she was Queen during this great revolutionary time in Great Britain, her name has been applied to describe the era. Simply, Queen Victoria's name is applied to the historical era in which she reigned.

Who were the Victorians?

Victorians are the subjects who lived under Queen Victoria's rule. Victorians are usually considered those who were born in and lived in Great Britain during Victoria's reign.

The British empire did spread into, and control places like India, but those under the rule of the British Empire are generally not referred to as Victorians. Instead, Victorians usually refers to the citizens born on the British Isles and those were not colonized by the British Empire.

Where Were They From?

The Victorians were from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland or the British Isles.

What was the Victorian Era Like?

England was changing drastically during the Victorian Era. Britain became an industrial superpower and produced significant amounts of the world's iron, steel, cotton, textiles, and coal. Due to the growth of the industry, British citizens began to move from the country to the cities to find work.

The population began to spike, but Great Britain saw a drastic rise in poverty. Working conditions in industrial cities were dangerous, and the environment was polluted by these industries. Railways grew, and so did commerce.

However, there was a rise in deep concern for social issues and reform. The British government passed acts that limited the amount of work for certain workers, and younger employees were provided with clothing and some education. Factory Acts banned children under nine from working in factories and limited the number of hours children can work.

There were great strides made in science, literature, and technology during this era. Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution in 1859. Literacy rates began to rise, and literature was more readily mass-produced. With the publication of Frankenstein in 1818 by Mary Shelley, the genre of horror was born.

In terms of technology, electric lights were installed on different London streets in 1877-78. Developments in photography slowly occurred during the end of the century, as well as new designs in steamships and trains.

This was also an era of great social mobility. While there was still poverty and a large gap between the wealthy the poor, industrialization opened opportunities for individuals to move towards a middle-class lifestyle.
Read more about Victorian Inventions
Other Interesting Facts & Information about The Victorian Era

When Queen Victoria died, the British Empire encompassed nearly 1/5 of the Earth's surface
Almost a quarter of the world's population was under Queen Victoria's rule

Death rates were high during the Victorian era and remained between 17-20 percent.

The life expectancy grew from 38 years to 48 years by the end of the Victorian Era.

Many different charitable organizations were formed to help those in need during this time period.

The British government became slightly more representative during this time, and citizens appreciated political debates between politicians.

The first operational telegraph was built between Euston station and Camden town during the Victorian Era.

Horticulture and the study of gardening were of great importance to Victorians.

Many gardens were constructed out of this important pastime.

The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew opened in 1840.

Parks in urban areas were created to bring life and beauty.

Victorians enjoyed entertainment and diversions.
New sports like croquet were created as a pastime.

P.S. If you enjoyed what you read and are a teacher or tutor needing resources for your students from kindergarten all the way up to high school senior (or even adults!), check out our partner sites KidsKonnect, SchoolHistory, and HelpTeaching for hundreds of facts, worksheets, activities, quizzes, courses, and more!

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The Victorian Era: Facts & Information for Kids - History for Kids

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The Victorian Era refers to the 64-year period when Britain obtained immense amounts of power and wealth by extending its kingdom across the globe.

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Ken Loach wins Outstanding British Film | BAFTA Film Awards 2017

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Ken Loach wins Outstanding British Film | BAFTA Film Awards 2017

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I, Daniel Blake wins Outstanding British Film | BAFTA Film Awards 2017

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- a belief in free markets and a small state. Rather than planning and regulating business and people's lives, government's job is to get out of the way.  It should be restricted to the bare essentials: defence of the realm and the currency. Everything else should be left to individuals, to exercise their own choices and take responsibility for their own lives.
- Her battle against inflation led to mass unemployment, but despite that she managed to win a second general election.
-Low taxation was a key area where Thatcherism was applied. Under the previous Labour government, there had been high levels of income tax for high-earners, but Thatcher progressively cut income tax - the basic rate of tax fell to 25%, while the higher rate was slashed from 83% to 40%.
- There was a shift away from direct taxation to indirect, for example by increasing VAT from 8% to 15%
-privatisation of state-owned industries, including British Telecom, British Gas, British Airways and electricity companies, putting them back into private hands.
- believed that Victorian family values were the way to improve society, through people bettering themselves.
from BBC
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-22079683

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Baroness Thatcher

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Nick Robinson looks back at the life of the former Conservative Prime Minister, Baroness Margaret Thatcher .

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Peter Wylie The Day that Margaret Thatcher Dies 

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Peter Wylie The Day that Margaret Thatcher Dies 

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When Margaret Thatcher dies
there will be no tears
save your sorrow for the people that she stomped for years
she tortured North of Watford with a vicious hate
so when Margaret Thatcher dies
let's celebrate
and i say
‎
Hey ho
here we go
tell everybody that we know
she's gone!
colour me with love
build a bonfire
paint the sky
come on down
i'll tell you why.
she's gone!
and nobody cries...
‎
The day that Margaret Thatcher dies
the day that Margaret Thatcher dies
‎
You wanna give her a state funeral?
Well that's just great.
ironic, cos she left us in a sorry state
I protest!
it's money wasted
build a school instead
the only reason that i'll go is to make sure she's dead...
‎
Hey ho
here we go
tell everybody that we know
she's gone!
colour me with love
build a bonfire
paint the sky
come on down
i'll tell you why.
she's gone!
and nobody cries...
‎
The day that Margaret Thatcher dies
the day that Margaret Thatcher dies
the day that Margaret Thatcher dies
the day that Margaret Thatcher dies
‎
If you say money's all that matters
then you'll pay a price
doesn't matter what you do
you'll kill to get a slice
cos the wicked witch of Westminster
left an evil curse.
now it's down to Thatcher's children
and it's getting worse!
‎
Hey ho
here we go
tell everybody that we know
she's gone!
colour me with love
build a bonfire
paint the sky
come on down
I'll tell you why
she's gone!
and nobody cries...
‎
The day that Margaret Thatcher dies
the day that Margaret Thatcher dies
the day that Margaret Thatcher dies
the day that Margaret Thatcher dies
‎
so die die die die die die
die die die die die die‎
‎
yeah die die die die die die
die die die die die die‎
‎
The day that Margaret Thatcher dies...‎

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Pete Wylie [ The Day That Margaret Thatcher Dies! ]

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Even French singer Renaud wrote a song about Margaret Thatcher !

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Even French singer Renaud wrote a song about Margaret Thatcher !

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Miss Maggie

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Margaret Thatcher and the pit strike in Yorkshire

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In Yorkshire, the mere mention of Baroness Thatcher's name is often likely to lead quickly to talk of the 1984-5 miners' strike.

With the news of her death at the age of 87, emotions remain high in Yorkshire's former pit communities about the miners' strike and the role of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

At times, that strike - lasting from 5 March 1984 to 3 March 1985 - almost seemed to be a battle of wills between the Barnsley-born leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Arthur Scargill, and the Conservative prime minister.

In 1984, when there were 170 working collieries in Britain, employing more than 190,000 people, Mr Scargill obtained a "hit list" of mines the Thatcher government was planning to close.

The ensuing strike against job losses, for which the NUM controversially never held a national ballot among its members, pitted striking miners against Mrs Thatcher's government, the police and other miners, and led to divisions in families which remain to this day.

'Vindictive acts'

The bitter year-long stand-off between Margaret Thatcher, Arthur Scargill and the NUM has come to be seen as one of the defining events of the era - not least in Yorkshire where her legacy is often remembered less than fondly.

As Chris Kitchen, Yorkshire-based NUM general secretary, said: "Unfortunately for the vindictive acts she did to myself, my comrades and my family and for the mining community, I'll not be shedding a tear at her demise."

South Yorkshire saw some of the worst violence of the dispute - most most notably at British Steel's coking plant at Orgreave on 18 June 1984.

Those clashes saw about 10,000 striking miners go head-to-head with 5,000 police, and led to 93 pickets being arrested with 51 pickets and 72 police officers injured, according to South Yorkshire Police.

'Political springboard'

Darren Vaines, a former miner at Ackton Hall colliery near Pontefract, West Yorkshire, was on strike for the entire 12 months of the dispute and was at the so-called Battle of Orgreave.

"It's a very strange emotional feeling because her death brings back a lot of memories and opens up a wound that has never really healed," said Mr Vaines.

"The cut went so deep, people have never been able to forget about it. It's something they can never get out of their system.

"She used miners as a political springboard. She knew what she was doing and it was a horrible way to go about it."

But despite the clashes at Orgreave and at other picket lines across the country, Margaret Thatcher remained steadfast in her commitment to not give in to Arthur Scargill and the strikers.

Ultimately defeated, the miners eventually returned to work in pit communities in Yorkshire and across the country on 3 March 1985, a day of parades, colourful union banners, brass bands and high emotions.

Mick Dickinson who worked at Fryston Colliery near Castleford, West Yorkshire, said Mrs Thatcher would inevitably be remembered as a great leader by many - but they were unlikely to hail from Yorkshire's former mining communities.

"She will go down in history as one of the greatest post-war prime ministers thanks to the privatisation she was driving the country into, and some of the nationalised industries did need to change," he said.

"But I think she took the miners' strike too personally and it became a personal crusade. We have hate and resentment for what she did to the industry."

Fryston pit was closed in 1985 - one of a dozen Yorkshire collieries to close that year - and has since been demolished.

'Short-term profit'

With such a strong mining tradition in Yorkshire, Mr Kitchen from the NUM said animosity to Mrs Thatcher would remain strong even after her death.

"I think you only need to go round the mining community and see the devastation that she left behind in her wake and also the nationalised industry that she ran down for the sake of short-term profit," he said.

"I think with the devastation she brought to the country she doesn't deserve any remorse or respect from me."

It was just a few days ago that the sight of hundreds of parading miners holding banners, led by a brass band, returned to the streets of a South Yorkshire mining town.

The event was to mark the end of deep coal production at Maltby Colliery 100 years after it first began there.

The Maltby Miners Welfare band led the miners' parade to the town's cemetery, where two wreaths were laid and a lump of coal buried.

As a result of Maltby's closure, only three deep coal pits now remain in the UK out of the 170 in operation in 1984.

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In Yorkshire, the mere mention of Baroness Thatcher's name is often likely to lead quickly to talk of the 1984-5 miners' strike. With the news of her death at the age of 87, emotions remain high in Yorkshire's former pit communities about the miners' strike and the role of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

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Margaret Thatcher: 20 ways that she changed Britain

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Margaret Thatcher: 20 ways that she changed Britain

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1 Transforming the City of London

Until the late 1970s, the Square Mile was a genteel all-male club dominated by pinstripe suits, public school accents and a culture of long lunches. Money was made at the Stock Exchange with effortless panache, as a coterie of licensed dealers acted on behalf of stockbroker firms with redolent names such as Quilter and Co.

The Big Bang blew the ancien regime apart. Within six months of Margaret Thatcher's election, exchange controls were lifted and foreign capital flooded into Britain. The deregulation of the Stock Exchange in 1986 was an invitation to the world's biggest beasts to enter the trading floor.

Traders began to send huge amounts of money fizzing around the world's financial networks. The towers of Canary Wharf rose silver and immaculate from the industrial desert of the former London Docklands. The capital began its journey to world financial domination.

The crash of five years ago cast a shadow on the free-for-all spirit that the Big Bang let rip. But Thatcher's deregulatory push created the new internationally focused City. For better and for worse, it hasn't looked back. At the start of this decade the financial sector was estimated to be worth £125.4bn, or 9.4%, in gross value to the UK economy.

2 Privatisation

As part of a famous television ad campaign from September 1986, an ordinary looking bloke is shown in a fictional village pub. Lost in thought, he almost knocks a passing postman from his bike. It turns out he is preoccupied with the news that he can buy shares in British Gas. After passing on the good news to the postie, he adds: "If you see Sid, tell him."

The age of Sid was not simply a PR myth. Initially there really was a popular scramble by ordinary folk to sign up to the "people's capitalism" and reap the rewards. Four million people applied for British Gas shares at 135p a pop with a minimum purchase of 100. Many then sold them almost immediately for a quick profit. In Thatcher's second term, Jaguar, British Telecom, BritOil and British Aerospace were also sold off. Later, British Steel, British Airways, BP, water and electricity would follow. Thatcher said that privatisation was a chance to give "power back to the people". In fact, as Robert Philpot, director of the Progress pressure group, wrote last week: "Now, in 2012, it's clear that the result of electricity privatisation was to take power away from the people. Small British shareholders have no influence over the overwhelmingly non-British owners of the firms that generate and distribute power in Britain."

3 The Saatchi and Saatchi effect

Saatchi and Saatchi's "Labour isn't working" political poster, apparently featuring a long dole queue (made up of actors), became perhaps the most famous in the nation's history. British electioneering was changed for ever.

4 The decline of the north

When Britain's first female prime minister was in her pomp, northern football fans travelling to away games in London would be taunted by home supporters waving wads of £10 and £20 notes. The brutal repartee of the terraces expressed a fundamental truth of the Thatcher period: the north suffered the worst of the deep recession and high unemployment of the early years; and it benefited least from the eventual boom of the late 1980s.

It would be wrong to say that Thatcher planned the decline of the north's most vital industries and sources of employment. In fact, northern England suffered precisely from the absence of a plan in Westminster.

In 1985, explaining why she believed regional planning in Britain was a non-starter, Thatcher said: "If we try to discourage development and economic growth in large parts of the south of England, in the hope that it will happen in the large cities in the north, we risk losing them altogether."

Left to its own devices, the British economy rebalanced irrevocably to the south. Employment in the manufacturing industry, vital to the north's wellbeing, slumped, falling from 7.1 million in 1979 to 4.4m in 1993. Services and the booming City eventually took up much of the economic slack, but the good times were happening in the south.

5 A diminished role for trades unions

Thatcher came to power ready to take on the the National Union of Mineworkers, which had humiliated her Tory predecessor, Edward Heath, during the 1970s.

The miners' strike of 1984-85 allowed her to destroy the power of the NUM and institute a series of legal obstacles to industrial action - which she believed had bedevilled Britain in the 70s. Meanwhile, the decline in Britain's manufacturing industry, which Thatcher's government did little to reverse, destroyed the power bases of British trades unionism.

High unemployment and recession critically weakened the unions' bargaining power in the early- to mid-1980s. Since 1980, union membership in Britain has halved.

6 Open all hours

A backlash by the Christian right meant that Thatcher's shops bill, designed to allow Sunday trading, was voted down in 1986. It was her only defeat on an entire bill in the Commons. But the road to deregulation for shops and pubs had begun.

7 Shattering the postwar political consensus

After the second world war, British politics seemed to have come to a lasting settlement on the fundamentals of running the country. Both the Conservatives and Labour cherished the "mixed economy", balanced between public and private ownership. Pragmatism was the order of the day, as union leaders such as Jack Jones and Joe Gormley enjoyed beer and sandwiches at No 10. Economic policy was forged through achieving "tripartite consensus" between employers, unions and the government of the day.

The winter of discontent sounded the knell for that way of doing things. Thatcher arrived in power armed with the free-market philosophy of Ronald Reagan's adviser, Milton Friedman. "Managers must be allowed to manage" became the mantra, and a new style of politics was born.

8 The rise of power-dressing

The rise of the City of London, and its new money-focused ethos, spawned its own style. Designer labels came of age, suited to the new aspirational spirit. Actresses such as Joan Collins, (a Thatcher admirer) in the American glamour soaps Dallas and Dynasty, patented the look for would-be female power-dressers.

Shoulder-pads and sharply tailored suits ruled. Thatcher swore by her blue skirt suit, pearls and Asprey handbag, a look that was to influence powerful women from Hillary Clinton to Condoleezza Rice.

9 The Northern Ireland peace process

Among republicans in Northern Ireland, Thatcher is loathed for her intransigence during the Maze prison hunger strike of 1981, which led to the death of Bobby Sands. But four years later she appalled unionists by signing the Anglo-Irish agreement, which gave the Republic of Ireland a say in the affairs of the north, paving the way for the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998.

10 Education reforms

Thatcher's education secretary from 1986-89, Kenneth Baker, transformed the state school system, creating a proto-market that is being enthusiastically embraced and developed by one of his successors, Michael Gove. Baker insisted that attainment levels be made public, allowing a "league table" of schools to emerge. At the same time, he instructed schools to accept all applicants, local or otherwise, unless already full.

The choice agenda was born: parents could, in theory if not always in practice, decide which school their child would go to. Local authority control of education was also much-reduced by the Education Act of 1988, which gave autonomy over budgets and appointments to heads and school governors.

Gove has deepened that autonomy with his academy programme and added the further option of free schools.

11 Changing the way we watch football

Thatcher had no interest in football, despite occasional cringeworthy photo-ops, such as the pose outside No 10 with footballers Kevin Keegan and Emlyn Hughes before the 1980 European Championships. But when one of the worst incidents of football hooliganism broke out at a Luton-Millwall match in March 1985, she acted. The Football Spectators Act was passed in 1989, controversially making ID cards compulsory for fans.

After the Hillsborough disaster that year, in which 96 Liverpool fans died, the plan was never acted upon. Lord Taylor's Hillsborough inquiry recommended all-seater stadiums in English grounds. A revolution in who watched football and how they watched it was under way.

12 Inspiring a generation of Eurosceptics

When the European Economic Community began to develop far beyond a free-trade agreement, Thatcher's strident opposition to anything beyond a single market became a hallmark of her premiership. She inspired a generation of Eurosceptics and changed the chemistry of the Tory party. In much of the nation, fed on a diet of "Up yours, Delors!" style headlines and exposés of life aboard the "Brussels gravy-train", the mood gradually shifted from one of relative indifference to antipathy towards the EU.

13 Relations with Rupert Murdoch

Murdoch's Sun switched from backing Labour to the Tories for the 1979 election that launched Thatcher. The relationship became mutually beneficial from then on as she helped him create a power base that would be threatened only 30 years later, during the hacking inquiry.

In the early 1980s Murdoch launched a bid for the Times Group newspapers, which ordinarily would have been referred to the competition authorities, given his existing media holdings. Instead the deal went through on the nod after private meetings between Thatcher and Murdoch at Chequers.

Murdoch would later revolutionise the British media, defying the print unions and moving his News International media group to Wapping in an overnight coup de theatre. Thatcher backed him. According to cabinet minister Norman Fowler, any misgivings from colleagues or supporters would be met with the response: "Why are you so opposed to Rupert? He is going to get us in."

14 The revolution in home ownership

Britain was not always a country obsessed with house prices. But the Housing Act of 1980, which allowed council house tenants to buy their own homes, changed the face of home ownership in Britain. Many former local authority tenants paid less than £10,000 for homes that would be worth 10 times that a decade later. Over the next 30 years, this radical move towards "a nation of home-owners" led to a trail of unintended consequences.

A prolonged boom in house prices took place along with a chronic shortage of affordable housing - yet to be resolved by a series of governments - and the gradual emergence of a culture of debt, incurred on the presumption that the value of property would keep rising. In the private sector, rents soared.

In the first half of 1988 alone, house prices rose by 30%. On the back of the housing boom, much of Britain mortgaged itself up to the hilt and household debt reached record levels.

15 A new prestige for the armed forces

Winning the Falklands war in 1982 transformed Thatcher's standing in the opinion polls. Fighting it put the armed forces back on the centre stage for the first time since Suez. The Falklands revived the prestige of soldiering, as huge crowds gathered to wave off and welcome home the troops in Portsmouth. Later came the Gulf, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq and the tributes to the fallen at Wootton Bassett.

16 Framing the debate

No one talks about abolishing private schools any more. Unilateral nuclear disarmament is not embraced by any of the three main political parties. In 1979, as Thatcher took power, the top rate of income tax was 83%. The ferocious battle this year over lowering the top rate of tax from 50% to 45% illustrates how far the debate on tax has shifted.

17 Transforming the Labour party

Losing three times to Thatcher led directly to the creation of New Labour and the emergence of Tony Blair as a leader who embraced her emphasis on choice, competition and an expanding role for the private sector in the economy. Following the crash of 2007, Labour under Ed Miliband has still to decide whether to make the break from that consensus.

18 The Tories and the Church of England

The observation that the Church of England amounts to "the Tory party at prayer" is thought to date to the 18th century. Thatcher's terms of office severely damaged that relationship, possibly beyond repair. The publication in 1985 of the C of E report Faith in the City, A Call to Action by Church and Nation, caused an almighty political row between the church and the Conservative party which has reverberated to the present day. Endorsed by Dr Robert Runcie, then archbishop of Canterbury, the document followed riots in Britain's inner cities. It was a cry of anguish over the dilapidated, alienated state of the inner cities, after years of recession, gloom and rising unemployment. Relations between the Tories and the established church have never truly recovered.

19 Transforming television

Thatcher saw the BBC licence fee as a tax imposed on television viewers irrespective of whether they wanted to watch BBC programmes or not. As prime minister, she believed that a leftwing bias permeated its coverage. During the Falklands war, rightwingers renamed the corporation the Stateless Persons Broadcasting Corporation - a dig at its refusal to describe British troops as "our" troops and Argentinian soldiers as "the enemy".

It was hoped that the 1990 Broadcasting Act would tame the institution, forcing it to outsource at least 25% of its production, and allowing new players into the market. But the legacy of the Thatcher era has been to drag the BBC into a perpetual culture war. And she helped create Channel 4 in 1982, probably not anticipating that it would popularise fiercely anti-establishment output.

20 Changing the world

Defeat in the Falklands war signalled the end of the road for Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri Castelli, head of Argentina's last military dictatorship. Thatcher's friendship with Mikhail Gorbachev helped hasten the cold war to its end, as the economically moribund Soviet Union collapsed. However, her refusal to back sanctions on apartheid South Africa, and description of Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist", arguably delayed the fall of that regime.

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Margaret Thatcher: 20 ways that she changed Britain

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Until the late 1970s, the Square Mile was a genteel all-male club dominated by pinstripe suits, public school accents and a culture of long lunches. Money was made at the Stock Exchange with effortless panache, as a coterie of licensed dealers acted on behalf of stockbroker firms with redolent names such as Quilter and Co.

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Regardez la bande annonce du film Pride (Pride Bande-annonce VOST). Pride, un film de Matthew Warchus

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The harsh regime of workhouses is something we associate with Victorian times. But the shocking truth about the buildings is that they continued to house families well into the 20th Century. BBC News Online speaks to a woman who grew up in one.

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The harsh regime of workhouses is something we associate with Victorian times. But the shocking truth about the buildings is that they continued to house families well into the 20th Century. BBC News Online speaks to a woman who grew up in one.

At the age of eight, Susan Swinton was shown into a room, together with her mother Joan, 10-year-old sister and brothers aged six and one.

The room was narrow - only about 18ft (5.5m) wide - and stark. Cream paint flaked from the walls. Five iron beds with thin sheets, evenly spaced, were set down one side of the room. There was not much other furniture - a table, a cooker, a small sink and a coal bucket.

At the far end were two barred windows. There were no curtains.

If you tried to look out at the world beyond, your view was blocked by a high line of hedges.

A fierce Scottish matron ran the children through a list of rules, most of which started with the words: "You must not". They were told they must never go into the orchard at the other side of the building. They must never hang their washing outside. They must never venture through the velvet-lined door - beyond it was the staff quarters.

If they were caught transgressing, the family was told they would be thrown back out on to the streets. The room, the dark passage outside and a small courtyard were to be their domain.

The sprawling, factory-like building to which Susan and her family had been brought was a Victorian workhouse - one of the first to be built in the country. The workhouses' harsh regimes, which involved subjecting the "idle and profligate" to hard, monotonous tasks such as rock-breaking, would become notorious.

But the shocking thing about Susan's case was that she and her family were not born in the times of Charles Dickens. Their life at Southwell's workhouse, in Nottinghamshire, began in 1968 and lasted until 1971.

"I used to spend hours with my little doll, looking out of those windows, thinking, 'When is somebody going to come and take us away?'"

Pauper's path

Southwell's workhouse was built in 1824 by the Rev John Beecher, with its architecture influenced by prison design. It was one of the first examples of a notoriously harsh regime, which was adopted nationally in 1834, to force vulnerable people to work in exchange for accommodation and food.

The workhouse was home to 158 inhabitants - men, women and children - who were split up and forbidden from meeting. Those judged too infirm to work were called the "blameless" and received better treatment but the rest were forced into tedious, repetitive work such as rock breaking or rope picking.

In 1948, a new welfare system saw the end of Southwell's function as a workhouse and it was used as temporary homeless accommodation until 1976. However, the National Trust, which now owns the site, says some social historians view such shelters as similar to workhouses.

At first, the workhouse provided a kind of sanctuary for Susan and her siblings.

Until then their existence had been precarious, shuffled from place to place as their dad, Brian, moved in and out of prison.

For a while the family lived in a derelict Victorian terrace in Newark, but then Brian moved in with his girlfriend, leaving his family on the street.

"My mum traipsed around to the bus station and we sat there for four hours," Susan remembers. "Eventually, the bus inspector asked us what we were doing and my mum said, 'We've nowhere else to go'. So we spent the night with the Salvation Army."

The next day, the family were taken to Southwell Workhouse - known at the time as Greet House.

In the 20th Century, workhouses became known as public assistance institutions and were intended to provide temporary accommodation for homeless people, but the stigma associated with the regime endured.

"It was a relief at first," Susan says. "My dad wasn't always belting us. He wasn't shouting and screaming at my mum."

Susan has memories of building a den in the high hedges with her brother and endless hours of reading library books.

But gradually, the institution began to grind the family down.

"The rules of the place seemed as if they had come from Victorian times," Susan recalls. "We weren't allowed to mix with anybody.

"My dad was back in prison again but it felt as if we had been sent to prison too."

Her school attendance was sporadic but, when she did go, she remembers the other children calling her a "Gypsy".

"We were stigmatised because we lived at the workhouse," she says.

The long, echoing rooms were frightening for a child, particularly at night.

"There were no lights and the bit we lived in was completely open - anybody could have come in and walked up those stairs," says Susan.

"There was a shared corridor that ran down to the toilet and I hated going there, especially at night. I used to imagine people coming up the stairs to get us."

And living on top of each other, in one small room, took its toll.

"To live in one room for so long with so many people, you just lost all of your privacy," said Susan.

"My mum gave up. She didn't care if she lived or died. She would either sit there being quiet, or cry."

With her mother, Joan, increasingly dependent on alcohol and sleeping pills, it was left to Susan to care for the family.

Each week, she used the family's social security money to buy food and a bottle of sherry for her mum, and to pay the rent to the wardens.

She also had to go to the doctor to get her mother's sleeping pills.

"It was traumatic having to do that," she says. "I was sitting in the waiting room with a begging letter from my mother and everyone knew who I was and why I was there.

"If my mother didn't get her drink or tablets, she would be in a temper. She was a really nice mum but she had been through so much.

"We got to the point where we would do without food so she could have her sherry."

It was Susan who did most of the family's cooking - tinned food, mainly - and cleaned the room, which was inspected each week.

"You had to make sure it was clean at all times - that was one of the rules," she says.

There were few toys, while second-hand clothes and shoes were provided by a charity.

"None of the shoes ever fitted properly and I didn't know what it was like to get a haircut," Susan says.

The other families at the hostel moved on after a few weeks but Susan's family were repeatedly overlooked.

"They just wouldn't give us a council house," she says.

The overall feeling was one of having been forgotten.

"We were just left to ourselves," she says. "That's what I feel so angry about now. Why did it take three years to move us out of the workhouse?"

Finally, the family were provided with a council house in Southwell and left the workhouse.

A few months after they left, the building stopped being homeless accommodation and was instead used by social services and for elderly care. Sections of it became derelict.

In 1997 the former workhouse was bought by the National Trust, which restored it. Staff and volunteers dress up as Victorians and tell visitors of the building's past life.

Among the volunteers is Susan.

"People say they are surprised I want to go back there," she said. "But I am glad people want to listen to me, because nobody wanted to listen to me at the time.

"It's important the story of the workhouse is told. When I see people lying in shop doorways, I think, 'What is your story and will anybody ever want to listen to it?'"

The room where Susan lived has been redecorated as a near-replica of what it looked like when she was there.

She says visitors are shocked when they happen upon the relatively modern furnishings amid the Victorian costumes and settings of the rest of the workhouse.

"Sometimes I think people reckon I'm in cloud cuckoo land, saying I lived here," she said.

"I have a lot of anger in me for the neglect we suffered from social services and the professionals who saw what was happening to us and did nothing to help us.

"But my volunteer work helps me deal with the anger in me."

In later years, Susan drifted apart from her siblings. Age 60, she is married with grown-up children and has just retired from her work as a shop manager.

"I felt so, so lonely the whole time we lived there. When you live in a place like that, with no neighbours, no friends, you really know what isolation feels like. It's a really deep-down thing that will always be with me."

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The harsh regime of workhouses is something we associate with Victorian times. But the shocking truth about the buildings is that they continued to house families well into the 20th Century. BBC News Online speaks to a woman who grew up in one.

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