5 things you (probably) didn't know about Victorian Britain

Admittedly, the first scheduled steam-hauled passenger service had chugged along the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, seven years before Victoria took the throne. However, the great surge of routes spreading throughout Britain, linking every part of the nation, was primarily a Victorian phenomenon.

Trams and buses also proliferated after earlier tentative starts, and the world’s first underground train line – the Metropolitan Railway, running between Paddington and Farringdon – opened in London in 1863. With these new technologies came new ways of living: commuting to work from homes in the suburbs, the standardisation of time and clocks, even the idea of going on holiday. Movement became the new normal.

Education and literacy boomed

Education was a hot topic at the start of Victoria’s reign, when about half of the population of Britain had no schooling at all. The Victorians set their collective sights on improving both those basic numbers and the quality of education across the social spectrum. It would prove to be a long, hard slog, but one that shifted Britain into a new phase of development.

Diverse groups of people got in on the act, albeit in a rather piecemeal fashion, setting up schools for the blind, schools for the ragged poor, schools for nonconformist churchgoers and schools for misbehaving boys. Notably, schools for girls opened across the land. By 1860, these concerted efforts were having an effect: 70 per cent of boys and
60 per cent of girls could now read and write as they entered the world of full-time employment.

But it was only when politicians decided the state should get involved that a true step change occurred. The Elementary Education Act of 1870 introduced a framework for the provision of universal education for children aged between 5 and 12 in England and Wales, although parents still had to pay fees in most cases. Then, to make education truly universal, a further act in 1891 mandated government money being given directly to schools, and banned elementary schools from charging fees. Free mass education had arrived, and by 1901 pretty much the entire population of Britain was literate.

Britain’s food supply became truly global

For centuries, sailing ships had brought luxury foodstuffs to Britain from around the world: sugar, tea and spices were desirable imports – and commensurately expensive. But the proliferation of steamships – faster and boasting vastly more space for cargo – made the importation of more basic staples commercially viable. From the 1870s, wheat from Canada and the US, beef from Argentina and lamb from New Zealand began to arrive in vast quantities.

In Britain, food prices fell dramatically as supplies of such imported goods soared. More food fed more mouths and raised the living standards of the urban poor. It also pushed British agriculture into a steep decline, driving down the living standards of the rural poor and forcing vast numbers of people off the land.

Communication became fast and cheap

The start of the Victorian age coincided with a huge reduction in the cost of communication and a massive rise in its speed. In 1837, two things changed. The first commercial electrical telegraph system was demonstrated, enabling the near-in- stant transmission of messages, which became known as telegrams. At almost the same moment, Sir Rowland Hill was campaigning for the introduction of a system of affordable, pre-paid postage – the stamp.

The introduction of the Penny Post in 1840 saved a fortune in administration, and made sending letters much more affordable. The Post Office boomed, offering two deliveries a day in most areas and four a day in central London. It was possible in the business districts to have a full back-and-forth conversation in a single day – much like email today. Then, in 1878, the telephone arrived in Britain – Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated it to the queen herself on 14 January – and communication sped up further still.

The nation’s health got a major fillip

When Victoria became queen in 1837, life expectancy in Britain was about 38 years. By the end of her reign in 1901, it had risen to around 48. Though both of these numbers seem low to us now, this nonetheless represented an enormous improvement in the health of the nation.

The key to that change was an acceptance – albeit initially grudging – of germ theory, the idea that sickness is caused by tiny living creatures such as bacteria and viruses. That knowledge brought with it the realisation that such causes of disease can be killed or at least kept away from people by the use of stringent hygiene. That meant improvements in water supplies, disposal of human waste, cleanliness of food production and the hygiene of our homes and bodies.
During the Victorian era, wholesale campaigns aimed to provide the entire population with safe drinking water and efficient drains. Accompanied by fundamental leaps forward in medical science, these resulted in major health gains across the land.

Ruth Goodman is a social and domestic historian and broadcaster. Her books include How to Be a Victorian (Penguin, 2013)

Ruth Goodman is a historian of the social and domestic life of Britain. She has advised the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Globe Theatre and presented a number of BBC television series, including Victorian Farm