Late Victorian Britain 1875-1901

In the first quarter of the 19th century the British people began to examine the previously unquestioned links between progress and prosperity, having discovered that economic growth was not automatically benign. Orthodoxies were challenged and doubts raised - many believed they were living in an era of great flux. Their responses were to prompt manifold change. This study traces the relative features of the aristocracy, the middle class and the labouring classes during this formative period. The author identifies the moral and religious beliefs which motivated late Victorians, examines their concerns about health education and the condition of the poor, and shows how, by the end of the period, more Britons were politically active - amongst them suffragettes, unionists and socialists - than ever before. He draws heavily on the recollections and literature of the people themselves to place late Victorian Britain firmly in its social and political context.

`... a well considered and well informed potrait of English society in the last quarter on the nineteenth century.' I