FRANCESCO FLORITTO VB

                                                        THE VICTORIAN AGE

The Victorian Age lasted 64 years, from 1837 to 1901, the period of Queen Victoria’s reign; she had a very important script code of behaviour and was loved by the British population. The first years of her reign were characterised by rapid industrialization, material progress, imperial expansion and the growth of the political system. Queen Victoria reigned constitutionally, without overruling the Parliament. During this period, the liberals and the conservatives alternated in government. The radicals created the chartist movement, which wanted to give the right, devote to all male citizens, to introduce further social reforms but all its demands were rejected by the government, and the movement slowly died. This is also the period of imperialistic wars such as the opium war against China and the Crimean war.

From a cultural and social point of view, Queen Victoria’s reign was a time of great changes:

1. The development of new printing methods, the expanded offer of basic education and the growth of journalism helped the exchange of ideas;
2. The increasing industrialization leads to the rise of the middle classes, but also to appalling social condition for lower classes who lived in new industrial slums were diseases like those that tuberculosis and high infant mortality flourished.

Two lodging houses acts were passed to prevent the worst squalor but their effects were very slow. Professional medical organization were founded for medical resources and modern hospitals were built.

Water, gas, lightning and paved roads were introduced, places of entertainment, shops, prisons, schools and police stations were built and the metropolitan police was established (Bobbies).