During Queen Victoria's reign from 1837-1901, Britain saw advances in engineering, medicine, science and industry that made it a global economic powerhouse. However, the poor living and working conditions of the working class drew increasing concern from the growing middle class. Middle class people did "clean" mental work as professionals, clerks and shopkeepers, distinguishing them from the aristocracy, though some grew quite wealthy. To address the needs of the poor, a system of workhouses was developed where those unable to work received aid and those able received indoor or outdoor relief through work.

1. Did Victorians Care

2. Queen Victoria
 Queen Victoria’s reign 1837-1901
 Marked the beginning of the modern
age in England
 Advances made in engineering,
medicine, discovery, and science, in
turn made Britain the World’s
workshop

3. What happen in the 19th
century
 The image of the 19th century as a period of great
opportunity for men of energy and skill is one that
has been long establish.
 in the past, historians have argued that middle-class.
 But the middle-class people became more aware of
the conditions in which the poor worked and lived.
 They become more scared

4. Middle Class
 The middle class really came to the fore in Victorian
England
 What distinguished middle class people from the
aristocracy was that they did not have titles, though
they might be very rich, therefore, they were not
aristocracy
 The aristocracy looked down on anyone “in trade”
regardless of whether that person owned a large
company and was richer than any aristocrat

5.  A junior clerk in a city firm might have earned less
than

6. The workhouse
 Before the Victorians period, each parish had dto
look after its own poor.
 No one could leave their own parish to seek wor
elsewhere without the written permission of the
local Justice of the Peace.
 Those who could not work were give small sums of
money
 People who were fit to work were
given either
‘indoor relief’ or ‘outdoor relief’

7. Middle class men
 Middle class men did mental or “clean” work.
 Men who practiced a profession were naturally
middle class; doctors, lawyers, architects, etc, were
middle class
 Some people made further distinctions and classed
head teacher, journalist, shopkeepers is low middle
class, but generally these and clerks counted as
middle class

8.  Most middle class people earned a salary, monthly
or annually
 But the working class who
earned weekly wages

9. Middle class woman
 Middle class women whose husband’s were
shopkeeper's might work in the family business
 But if the woman is married, she did not work and
that is part of the rule
 The only suitable work for a single middle class
single woman was a governess schoolmistress, or
lady’s companion
 If a woman is married all of her property will
become her husband property

10.  The wife could not make a will, buy property, or
sign a contract
 She had no right to any money.
 Married Woman’s Property in 1870 altered their
position somewhat, although it was not until the
late the twentieth century that it
was made illegal.