Kathrina & Marianne
SUMMARY

The Victorian Era was marked by many improvements because Queen Victoria together with her husband Albert Ier were really supportive concerning researches in many different subjects. 

This resulted in a progress of the Victorian Medecine.

The first Victorian ideas of human physiology had a clear understanding of anatomy

Florence Nightingale, known for pioneering modern nursing played a major role in the progress of medecine through the Victorian era. She saved thousands of soldiers during the Crimean War, when she confirmed her theory on hygiene being one of the main sources of diseases. 

Death rates were high, and far worse in cities than in the countryside. Smallpox, typhus and tuberculosis were endemic, and cholera alarmingly epidemic. A large number of skilled and unskilled workers went around in search of jobs though they were very lowly paid. Children were expected to support their families. They were destined to work in dangerous places like mines, chimney sweeps for long hours and were also lowly paid.

The pharmacies we find in the Victorian Era, were very different from the ones we can find nowadays. They were full of bottles and boxes, each containing liquids and powders of all kinds of colours, all carefully labelled with their Latin names.

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Landport in 1812. His childhood was complicated, but the most defining moment was when Dickens was 12, his father was imprisoned in a debtor’s prison in 1824. Because of this, Charles Dickens had to leave school and work in a warehouse to help his family financially. This childhood left an important sociological effect. But happily, a few months later, his father was released from prison and Charles went back to school. His studies finished, he worked as a shorthand reporter in the courts and afterwards as a parliamentary and newspaper reporter.  

In 1833, A Dinner at Popular Walk was Dickens’ first published story. In 1834, he adopted a famous pseudonym Boz and wrote a collection of stories named Sketches by Boz in 1836. Then, he wrote The Posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club and with the amazing success began a full-time career as a novelist, producing a lot of novels like A Christmas Carol. 

Then, he died at home on June 1870 after suffering from a stroke. So, we can say that he lived in the early years of Victorian Era, that began in 1837 and finished in 1901.  

Furthermore, Charles Dickens was a social critic writer who tried to change things and the greatest Victorian novelist, he wrote the first Victorian novel with a child protagonist, Oliver Twist. Moreover, Dickens’s novels are autobiographical, he used a satirical and humorous style and had a creative way to developing characters and was known to be a diligent writer. In his writings, realistic and source of entertainment, he criticized the Victorian London, the social and economic problems, the cruelty and the bad conditions of children, poverty, everything is unusual, and quite shocking at first for the readers but very successful.  

Finally, Charles Dickens is very famous even today, because of the moral of his novels and the stories, actual testimonies of the beginning of the Victorian Era. Even nowadays, his novels are read by a lot of people.

Summary

Our project is about the Victorian era in Ireland aka (also known as) “Victorian Ireland”. To develop this subject, in the first place we will talk about Queen Victoria, her life, then, the relationship between Ireland and Britain, next, “Victorian Ireland” and finally we will make an opening about the consequences and Ireland after this era.

1. Queen Victoria was born in 1819 and died in 1901. She was queen from 1837 to her death. Moreover, she married a German Prince and became Empress of India in 1876.

2. At that time, England had a huge influence, power on Ireland but on the one hand, many Irish people started to ask for parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation and on the other hand, many others, more extreme, wanted to become independent by breaking the link between them and England. Thus, an Act of Union was written in 1800 to calm everyone down but it didn’t work well...

3. First, Ireland was under the control of England. During the 1840s, the majority of the people was really poor and was living on their own products of goods in their farms. The most important source of food, in Ireland, was the potato, when a potato failure happened, people started to starve and many of them died.

Then, the Corn Laws (1815-1846), or tariffs and trade restrictions on imported food and corn, was repealed during the decade of the famine.

In the beginning of the 20th Century, the population decreased from 8 million to 4.5 million due to the Great Famine.

In 1869 it was the abolition of the Irish Church: all Irish ecclesiastical properties were confiscated by the English, except churches in use.

Degueurce Marc-Antoine, Dugelay Eliot.

(Roman Masson / Marco Dbrgt / Artémon de Voogd 

 

 

In the history of the United Kingdom, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria’s reign. It took place during the Industrial Revolution and impacted all the political and economic measures during that period, (20 june 1837 until her death on 22 january 1901)

 

That period marked the story of the UK because of the Industrial Revolution which made England the most powerful country in Europe and probably of in World.

 

In addition we could talk about important numbers of political changes during this period.

 

Victoria's prime ministers​ : During Victoria’s reign, there was ten successive prime ministers from different parties who administrated the country with different ideologies. All these men became prime ministers following the failure of their predecessors because of the most important decisions that they had taken in their terms. That’s why we will analyse how their political party affected their decisions and what were the results of their economic and social decisions .

Whig party ​ : 

Ideology : This party, is opposed to the royal absolutism and takes position in favour of a strong parliament.

 

Tory party​ : 

Ideology : Takes position in favour of the royal government in addition it’s the most important royalist party, it support the aristocracy.

 

Liberal party​ : 

Ideology :  takes part in the opposition of the conservative Party also in favour of a strong parliament as the Wigh party. These two parties are indeed in coalition.

 

Conservative party​ : 

Ideology : The most important royalist party created after the Tory party with the same ideology.

 

 

 

Economic changes:

 

In 1839, William Lamb decided to ban the opium trade in China 

 

It will be the preamble to the First Opium War.

 

During his term, Robert Peel had the income tax voted and revision of British banking laws. 

 

In 1844, the Labor Act was created, limiting the working hours of children and women 

 

in factories. 

 

 

 

 

Social reforms: Important reforms included legislation on child labour, safety in mines and factories, public health, the end of slavery in the British Empire, and education (by 1880 education was compulsory for all children up to the age of 10). There was also prison reform and the establishment of the police.

 

 

 

The rise of the middle classes:Society was hierarchical, yet there was much social and geographical mobility.Self-made entrepreneurs used their new wealth to rise in society, educating their children and employing domestic servants (by the 1880s 1.25 million people were employed in domestic service).

Our subject is India during the Victorian empire. During the Victorian empire, Britain had a lot of colonies in the world: India was one of them. At the beginning of Victoria’s reign, India was controlled by the East India Company. It was a commercial entity that had a role in both trade and politics and represented the Victorian empire. But, in 1857, Indian soldiers from British troops called the Sepoys made a mutiny because they wanted to restore Indian supremacy. This rebellion lasted one year, and was finally crushed by the British army. Many persons died during that year. Consequently, in 1858, the British took back the control of the East India Company, declared unable to control this territory by the government. They sent governors and viceroys to execute British policies and maintain order in the county: it is the true beginning of the British rule or British Raj. The country was organised in two parts: the British India and the princely States, controlled by Indian princes but under an important British influence. In 1877, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.  

  

The British brought economic changes, as transport and communication improvements. At that time, it was the Industrial Revolution, so the British needed to improve the transport of raw material in India. They created more railroads, bridges, canals, steamships and they built new roads. They also established telegraphs and posts all over the country. Nevertheless, the trade with the Indians created economic difficulties in the colony because the British sold products (particularly clothes) made in british factories, at a very low price. Consequently, the Indians had difficulties to sell the products made in their own country because they were more expensive. On top of that, they generated social changes in the education system and in the indians customs. Firstly, they created schools and put an end to the “ashram” system that was based on the religion. They also popularized the english language. Moreover, the British abolished the Sati system and supported the concept of widow-remarriage.  

  

However, the British discriminated the Indians. They imposed heavy taxes for the farmers, and if they were not able to pay them, they were driven out of their land. In addition, the money from the taxes paid by the Indians wasn’t used for the country. It only filled the government treasury and contributed to the smooth running of the United-Kingdom. Then, the Indians didn’t have the same rights as the British, and they weren’t allowed to work in the administration. These inequalities created a feeling of anger among the Indians, so they started to protest. But the situation didn’t change during the Victorian era, and it will only be 46 years after the end of Victoria's reign, in 1947, that the Indians will become independants.   

The Victorian Era in the United Kingdom marks the peak of the British industrial revolution as well as that of the British Empire. Although the Victorian era may refer to the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 to 1901.

On October sixteen eighteen fivety five. Wilde was an exceptional student and showed an early interest in  literature and art. His success earned him a prestigious scholarship to the Trinity College in Dublin, receiving many awards.

Wilde married Constance Lloyd, they had two sons. Wilde put two separate collections of children’s stories. During that time he also wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Wilde continued to graduate and his poems were generally well received by critics of the time. Eighteen Eighty-one was a busy year for Oscar Wilde, who published a collection of poems and traveled to New York. 

Wilde has been in jail during two years (because he was homosexual), so his wife and sons left for Switzerland. Constance never had any suspicions of his relationship with Loord Alfred Douglas. He lived alone for the last years of his life and died in november of 1900from a meningitis infection.

CONCLUSION : Oscar Wilde marked his time with his poems or by displaying his homosexuality. Even today, Oscar Wilde is still studied in class with his works like the phantom of canterville.