Victorian+Britain

=**Victorian Britain (1830's - 1901)**=


 * 1837 : William IV died and hi niece Victoria became queen and the age of 18
 * 1839 - 1842:Britain defeats china in the opium war.Britain made china sigh treaty of Nanking.Britain was given Hong Kong.
 * 1840 : Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert.
 * 1842 : The mines act stops kids under the age of 10 from working in the mines.
 * 1842 : Assassination attempt on QueenVictoria.
 * 1843 : Charles dickens publishes “A Christmas Carol”. It sold out completely in 6 days.
 * 1851 : The first public library opened in Winchester
 * 1854 - 1856: The Creaman war against Russia VS France and Britain
 * 1856 : Britain defeats Russia
 * 1861 : Death of Prince Albert from typhoid
 * 1870 : Schools provided for 5-10 year olds
 * 1876 : Queen Victoria was crowned empress of India
 * 1901 : Queen Victoria died, her son Edward VII became king

Queen Victoria

When George IV died in 1830 William IV became king. William IV had no legitimate children to be his heir to the throne so Victoria became his heir. Victoria has very young when she came heir. William IV has very sick but was afraid to have Victoria as queen when she was under 18 for the fear of her step father Conroy being the power behind the throne. In 1837 27 days after Victoria’s birthday William IV past away and she became Queen of Britain. In 1839 she meets Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and falls in love immediately. In 1840 they become married and during the next 18 years Victoria gave birth to nine children. Prince Albert became the main influence on Victoria’s political views. Victoria and Prince Albert wanted to help preserve royal families from revolutionary groups pressing for republicanism. People attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria several times throughout her reign. Through the royal titles act of 1876 that Queen Victoria is now also the empress of India. Queen Victoria was the longest reigning Queen of England with a reign of 63 years. She died of natural causes on January 21, 1901.

Upper and middle class

 The Victorian age was an extravagant time for the middle and upper class. Many families would have up to 6 children. The rich children worked as bankers, merchants, or civil servants. Only children from wealthy families got to go to school. There was no fridge or freezer in these times so everything was fresh. Also there was no form of long distant transportation so everything was typically local with the exception of spices. For upper and middle class the meals were almost like feasts sometimes 8 courses for dinners .They prepared so many courses because they had to feed not only the parents but the six kids and the family servants as well. Everybody sat around the table for dinner and typically said grace. For clothing the females of the upper class young and old wore dresses with lots of lacy and frilly undergarment and looked very lady like. Daily wear was much more formal then it is now. For men they wore things such as a dress shirts and vest, sometime a suite. These clothing styles carry’s on to the children as well.

Lower class

For the lower class this time was a very rough and hard time. These people lived in suburbs and had up to 6 children. These children worked in very nasty and rough conditions such as industries and factories. The children had the go to work as young as 10 to meet the needs of their family. Poor children did not go to school they were not allowed nor did they have time from having to work. Meals for the lower class were not near as abundant as the upper-class. All the food was still local and fresh but not as good of quality as the upper class. Lower class people also all sat around the table for meals and typically said grace. The lower class did not dress as well as the upper class because the lower class is the working class and they don’t make enough money to afford those cloths. Most of their cloths were more casual and many times stained from wearing them to work.

 Religion

During the Victorian age the bible was taken as the absolute truth. The bible was the foundation of moral behavior to majority of society. To historians they call these action “Victorianism”. Everything was revolved around religion from text books to games. These people believed that if everybody ahd and believed these religious morals that it would end all crime and all things evil. This maintained the belief until science and evolution came along and people began to question the theories of the bible. With the Charles Darwin Publishment of the evolution of species theory even clergy began to question the beliefs of the church.



Entertainment

During the Victorian age people were changing from the belief that amusement should come from ones works to a more free and open form of entertainment. People had always been interested in paid entertainment and at this age there were enough wealth people to support hundreds of thousands of professional entertainers. The biggest forms of entertainment were music, theater, and sports. People were very limited in the music they heard in a normal everyday life. When they got a chance to go see a live musical performance it was a moment to be cherished. Hearing these sounds did not only entertain these people for the moment it inspired them to go home and try to make music themselves much gave them long term amusement. The music in the Victorian age ranged from piano symphonies, opera, even some concerts. Another place people went to for entertainment is the theater. Victorians never grew tired of the theater some people would even sit the for 2-3 plays that were sometimes 5 hours each. In the theater they performed comedies and even performed Shakespeare plays. The theater was a very fun and luxurious event for Victorian people. Sports during the time were fairly similar to sports now. The sports consisted of things like soccer, rugby, fishing hunting, horse racing, and tennis. Young people loved to play sports more then they liked to go to the theater or a musical performance. During this time it became poosible for people to become a professional athlete and this became the career for many young people.

Literature //The Jungle Book// written by Rudyard Kipling //Alice in Wonderland// written by Lewis Carrol <span style="color: #800000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">//The Pickwick Papers// written by Charles Dickens <span style="color: #800000; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">//Middlemarch// written by Mary Ann Evans

<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 32px;">Language <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;"> <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px;">The language spoken has changed significantly over the Victorian era. Most of the English has modernized and is still fairly clear to understand. That is a good indicator that the English grammar rules were established in this era. There was no longer repeating words to create emphasis, but instead similes were used throughout the writing of this time. Sarcasm was also being commonly used in this time period than any other time period before it. Charles Dickens used sarcasm and it had a huge impact on the way people would think as they were reading or talking. The English was spoken as it was written, with little slang and deep in thought. Much of the Victorian English was very proper, but very understandable.