Victorian

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Images of an Era

Devotion to duty: Heads of the Sturges dynasty, Arthur and Sarah, with their sons, from left, Augustus, Arthur and James in 1890.

Derbyshire in art - A rare colour picture of the Derby County full-back, and later manager, Jimmy Methven, with his wife and family in the early 1890s.

Charles Burgess Fry (1872-1956) - an extraordinary sportsman.

The Victorian era is commonly defined as the period during which Queen Victoria ruled the United Kingdom - from 1837 to 1901.

Queen Victoria had the longest reign in British history, and the massive changes that occurred during her reign were quite remarkable.

When Victoria came to to the throne, Britain was essentially a rural land where agriculture was the main employer, but by her death it was a highly industrialised country connected by an expansive railway network.

The early decades of Victoria's reign saw a series of epidemics (typhus and cholera), crop failures and economic collapses. There were riots over enfranchisement and the repeal of the Corn Laws, which had been established to protect British agriculture during the Napoleonic Wars in the early part of the 19th century.

Discoveries by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin began to throw into question centuries of assumptions about man and the world, about science and history, and, finally, about religion and philosophy.

As the country grew increasingly connected by the growth of the railway, small, previously isolated communities were exposed and entire economies shifted as cities became more and more accessible.

The mid-Victorian period saw significant social changes: an evangelical revival happened alongside a series of legal changes in women's rights.

While women did not win the right to vote during the Victorian period, they did gain the legal right to their property on marriage through the Married Women's Property Act; the right to divorce, and the right to fight for custody of their children if they separated from their husbands.

Britain was at war every single year during the Victorian era. Towards the end of the 1800s, the policies of New Imperialism led to increasing colonial conflicts and eventually the Boer War.

In the early part of the Victorian era the House of Commons was dominated by two parties - the Whigs and the Tories.

From the late 1850s onwards, the Whigs became the Liberals.

Many prominent statesmen led one or other of the two parties, including Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, William Ewart Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Salisbury.

In 1882 Egypt became a protectorate of Great Britain after British troops occupied land surrounding the Suez Canal in order to secure the vital trade route, and the passage to India.

In 1884 the Fabian Society was founded in London by a group of middle-class intellectuals, including Quaker Edward Pease, 27, Havelock Ellis, 25, and Edith Nesbit, 26, to promote socialism. George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells would be among many famous names to later join this society.

The middle of the century saw the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World's Fair, which showcased the greatest innovations of the century. At its centre was The Crystal Palace, an enormous, modular glass and iron structure designed by Joseph Paxton who had one been Head Gardener at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.

The emergence of photography, which was showcased at the Great Exhibition, resulted in significant changes in Victorian art.

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