The Victorian Age saw the rapid expansion of the British Empire to its largest extent through colonization of Asia, Africa and Oceania. Britain's economy grew through industrialization and international trade, making it the wealthiest nation. However, many workers lived in poverty and squalor. The Chartist movement advocated for political reforms like universal male suffrage, but its demands took decades to be implemented. Technological innovations like railroads and factories symbolized Britain's power but brought different realities for workers, who faced low wages, high costs of living, and poor living conditions. The Empire continued growing to protect trade routes, though colonies were often exploited for resources with little consideration for local populations.

1. The Victorian Age
The Age of Empire

2. Economy and society
economical and territorial
rapid expansion
Portions of the working classes
Incorporated into society
through reforms and
progressive policies
No consideration of
material exploitation of colonies
and low paid workers
Free trade:
dominant economical princple.
Without changes to the political
and social structure.
Modern urban economy
of manufacturing industry and
international trade
Queen Victoria
(1837-1901)
longest reign
Britain: the wealthiest
and most powerful nation.

4. The pressure for reform
Working class
Chartist Movement:
-votes for all men
-annualy elected parliaments
-secret voting
-abolition of property
qualification
-establishment of
electoral districts
equal in populationThe People’s Charter (1838)
was rejected three times
over a period of ten years.
Movement’s leaders arrested -
deaths of 24 protesters.
The movement died, its ideas
continued to circulate.
Between 1860 and 1914
almost all their demands
became law.
Gradually the vote
to working classes
was extended.
1918 – right to vote to all
men.
1928 – right to vote to all
women.
Working classes were excluded
in the Parliament and mercantilist
middle classes were limited
represented.

6. Technological innovations
Invention of
Steam-powered machinery
(revolution in industry
and transport).
Development of railways
(faster and more efficient)
Great Exhibition (1851) in London.
Symbol of Britain’s dominant
position as industrial and imperial
trading power
More efficient mail service.
Invention of the telephone.
Printing became cheaper
(proliferation of novel,
serialised in magazines).
Feeling of optimism.
Socially progressive
society for educated
Victorians.
Different reality
for many people.

8. The cost of living
and the Poor Laws
To reduce production costs
workers’wages fell
dramatically.
The cost of living was
kept artificially high by the
Corn Laws which mantained
the price of corn artificially high
by taxing imported corn.
The result was a widespread
starvation among workers and
Could not feed their children.
Children were sent
to work in parish-run
workhouses and
in return they received
enough food
to survive.
Poverty was a moral problem,
something like crime,
managed through repressive
measures and not through
redistribution
of resources.
The poor were forced to live
into overcrowded slums whose
appalling sanitation led to
epidemics of cholera and other
diseas.

10. The Empire
Massive expansion of
Britain’s empire all over
The world (Asia, Africa,
Central America, Oceania).
Need to protect trade routes
to and from India, the ‘Jewel
In the Crown’ of Empire.
Trade with India included
tea, spices, silk and cotton so
the routes had to be secured.
So Britain ‘annexed’ South Africa
(Cape of Good Hope), Egypt (Suez Canal),
Burma, Malaysia and Afghanistan
(main land route to India).
A more indipendent part of
the Empire was Oceania, which
at first served as a prison
colony for undesirable elements
of British society as criminals
and political agitators.

11. The Victorian compromise
Victorians were progressive
in theory but very often
the opposite in practice.
The imbalance in society
remained and grew.
The urban workers continued
to live in very poor conditions
while being exploited by
their rich employers.
Modern hospitals were built
to clean up towns by epidemics.
The Metropolitan Police
was established especially
to control the masses
of urban poor, considered by
rich Victorians as dirty, dangerous
and immoral species.
The Victorian values of church,
family, the home and the sanctity
of childhood were applied only to
Those few who could afford them.
Middle-class women had to
conform to a submissive and
domestic role, the so-called
angel in the home.
The category of ‘fallen’ women
was condemned by the hypocritical
and moralistic establishment.