Progress and the Railways

The Victorian Era is often seen as a period of great progress and certainly material developments continued through the Queen's reign. Progress, however, always carries with it a social cost. As Great Britain became increasingly urban, it was the steam locomotive which came to be seen by many as the symbol of the age. The building of the British railways in the nineteenth century was, as E. L. Woodward has so aptly described it, “the greatest physical achievement carried out by the human race within a comparatively short space of time.” The coming of the railways, with their adjuncts, the railway bridge and the railway hotel, brought about revolutions in domestic travel, transport of freight and accommodation for travellers.

The railways appealed to many Victorians. They were fast and efficient. They linked Great Britain into a network which allowed the transportation of goods in great volume over considerable distances at comparatively low costs. Aside from the obvious demand they created for iron for rails and coal, both for fuel and the smelting of the iron, they created a host of new demands by permitting perishables to be shipped greater distances to markets. In the process, the railways broke down the former isolation of the countryside bringing a host of new products and new ideas into what had previously been rural isolation.

In 1841, Thomas Cook started his travel firm, and by 1844 trains were transporting the poorest classes of Victorian Britain for a penny a mile. A measure of their impact may be seen in the number of people transported and the costs involved. In its first year, the line from Liverpool to Manchester more than doubled the number of travellers previously carried by coach and carried them for half the price in half the time. By mid-century, rail lines extended from Plymouth to Aberdeen and in 1865 the railways carried more than 250 million passengers. There is something uniquely Victorian about steam locomotives pulling carriages full of overdressed working folk on day excursions and of Holmes and Watson checking train schedules in Bradshaw’s Railway Guide while the latter yearns for a typical middle-class Victorian holiday in the glades of New Forest or at Southsea.

Not all of Victoria’s subjects approved of the steam-belching noisy behemoths. Landowners in particular despised the locomotives which crossed their land, affecting their hunting, frightening their horses and livestock and bringing a more disreputable element to their midst. The trains, by the middle of the century, were not only being used for the genteel types of tours run by Thomas Cook, but were used extensively in the attempts of supporters of pugilism to outwit the local constabulary. Some lines even went so far as to arrange special excursions to public hangings.

Despite the growth of domestic travel, the railways were not particularly safe. Accidents were frequent and, not uncommonly, fatal to innocent passengers. In the mid-1830s, the noise in the Box Tunnel on the London to Bristol line was said to be so great that “no passenger would be induced to go twice”. Derailments were frequent, causing, at best, delay and inconvenience to the travelling public and bringing in their wake, at worst, injury and death. But all progress, Victorians would have reminded us, carried with it some risk, whether to capital or to one’s very existence.

To see a photograph of a mid-nineteenth century train, click here.

Christmas Cards and Christmas Mail

Christmas, as we know it today, is very much a product of nineteenth century England and particularly the Victorian era. Certainly Victorians enjoyed the holiday looking both backward to the maintenance of old traditions and forward with the development of new ways of celebrating. In some respects, Christmas represented the ambivalence of Victorian Society in general. On the one hand, it was a society which constantly looked for the new and more powerful. It was the age of steam, and more importantly it was the age in which steam was harnessed, bringing Great Britain out of it’s medieval past and into what can be legitimately described as the modern age. Yet, at the same time, it was a backward looking society. The great fascination with the middle ages, a movement in art called, interestingly, the pre-Raphaelites, the urge to reach out to heaven seen in the neo-gothic movement yet tied to the modernism of the railway station and hotel as, for example, at St Pancras. It was out of this fascination with both the new and the old that the modern, Victorian Christmas was born. It was a Victorian invention which was to shape the celebration of the holiday around the world.

The earliest Christmas card was commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in 1843 and designed by John Calcott Horsley. Cole had the inspired idea that rather than write letters at the festive season to his wide circle of friends, he would send them a card. The card is designed as a triptych with the centre panel showing a family party drinking wine from goblets. The sides contained images of the feeding and clothing of the poor. A thousand cards were sold to the public at one shilling each. The following years saw more and more cards being created and sold.

A popular image from mid-century on was that of the Robin red-breast, a symbol of peace. Its popularity probably arose because of the association of the red breast with the blood of Christ and the story that it was red because it had picked the thorns from the crucified Christ’s crown of thorns. Cards could be serious or funny. Some reflected some rather strange facets of the Victorian sense of humour. Mr Pooter received an insulting Christmas card and was more than a little annoyed, writing in his diary, “I am a poor man, but I would gladly give ten shillings to find out who sent me the insulting Christmas card I received this morning.” Sadly he does not describe the card and we are left with no idea as to what it was that he found so insulting.

By the last quarter of the century Kate Greenaway’s illustrations were very popular on Christmas cards as were cards containing elegant perfumed sachets. As the new century approached, mechanical cards had something of a vogue. Cards in which you turned a handle or pulled a string in order to create some kind of movement on the card were popular as were pop-up cards and those that folded out into three dimensional images.

It was with the introduction of the penny-post in 1840 that the postal service came into its own; a phenomenon which undoubtedly contributed to greater communication during the holiday season. For one penny a ½ ounce letter would be delivered anywhere in England. Deliveries were frequent with from six to twelve deliveries a day although one writer to The Times complained bitterly about the slowness of deliveries.

I posted a letter in the Gray's Inn post office on Saturday at half-past 1 o'clock, addressed to a person living close to Westminster Abbey, which was not delivered till 9 o'clock the same evening; and I posted another letter in the same post office, addressed to the same place, which was not delivered till past 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Now, Sir, why is this? If there is any good reason why letters should not be delivered in less than eight hours after their postage, let the state of the case be understood: but the belief that one can communicate with another person in two or three hours whereas in reality the time required is eight or nine, may be productive of the most disastrous consequences.

By the last years of the old Queen's reign, the amount of mail had increased so greatly during the Christmas season that hundreds of extra staff were put on to ensure its prompt delivery. Correspondents were asked to make sure that their missives to be delivered on Christmas Day were posted no later than the 24th of December. Aside from one delivery on the morning of Christmas day, there was no postal activity. And then, even as now, the Post Office requested those mailing gifts, especially food parcels such as mince-pies, to make sure that they were securely packed so as to avoid damage in shipping.

To see an image of the first Christmas card and read a bit more about it, click here.

Walking and Walking Tours

The primary means of transportation, particularly for the lower and labouring classes during the bulk of Victoria’s reign, was walking. “To go afoot,” Victorians might be reminded, “has ever been deemed the extreme of poverty or folly, and has accordingly been marked with deserved contempt,” but it was typical of middle-class Victorians that they would make a virtue of necessity; especially if their virtue was a poorer person’s necessity.

Middle class optimism--at least in relation to walking-- emphasised the simple pleasures and the joys that no amount of money could buy. In 1838, Albert Smith, the man whose name was to be identified in the middle years of Victoria’s reign with the climbing of Mont Blanc, went, as a young student, on a five week walking tour of the Alps. Smith and a friend accomplished their vacation on an expenditure of twelve pounds per man. “If there is anything more delightful,” Smith later wrote of the experience, “than travelling with plenty of money, it is certainly making a journey of pleasure with very little.”

“The walking party,” London Society noted in 1879, “is certainly the cheapest, and, if properly managed, may be the healthiest and most enjoyable of summer holiday excursions.” Cheap indeed, for the middle and upper class excursionist, but still well out of the reach of the labouring man for whom walking was an everyday fact of life.

For the pedestrian with either limited time or limited funds, there were dozens of attractive walks close to the cities or, as the railways continued through the century to make their inroads into rural areas, near suburban and nearby country stations. Some of Victorian England’s loveliest scenery could be found in Kent, Surrey, Middlesex and Essex. Indeed, one could walk a delightful seven miles starting at Lower Sydenham Station and “keeping down the lane to Southend, walk to Bromley through Boyd’s Park, and on to Chislehurst by way of Scott’s Park and Bonner’s Park.” Yet this walk was accessible to even the most metropolitan of the Queen’s subjects, the Londoners.

For the more serious walker, travelling greater distances, every day was something new and different. The walker might be awakened in a new village or a new market-town by “a different chambermaid, with her sweet, ‘if you please, sir, the hot water is at the door’” Following a good wash, the wanderer would dress in walking gear and stout boots and after nothing more than “a glass of creaming milk, mildly mixed with spirits or sherry,” he would be on his way. A good two or three hours of walking was usually more than sufficient to bring on an appetite that could be assuaged at a country inn.

The breakfast, served in a parlour hung with coloured coaching prints, is by no means to be despised. There are honest chops of Southdown mutton, rather bigger, perhaps than altogether desirable, but tasting of the wild thyme on the neighbouring downs. There are fresh-laid eggs forming a symphony in white and gold with the slices of frizzled bacon; and there is golden butter too, with home-baked bread, and coffee of which the short-comings are covered by the cream.

It was the freedom to go “off the beaten track” that appealed to so many young Victorians. Theirs were middle-class lives already mapped out. Their education was carefully selected, their futures secured to the greatest degree within the power of their families. Much of life was, for them a ritual of controlled behaviour with the constraints of convention. So to be free, really free, to wander where one would, was the greatest joy. When Albert Smith remembered his wanderings of 1838, he noted how he and his companion left the beaten track and “not being bound by any conventional laws of travelling, you are more independent to wander wherever you please. And in the mid ‘80s, James Purves commented that “the greatest virtue a walking tour has is its freedom.”

A man can live unto himself; for the remainder of the year he lives to his family . … So long as a man is not a cripple has a few sovereigns and a knapsack, he need never be miserable.

Walking was, as another writer noted, “the true life of travel.” Going on foot allowed one “to see, hear and feel – to gather thoughts and pictures.” It meant that the Victorian heart could be filled “with images of beauty, … with impulses of love and truthfulness.” Walking “set the soul in its fitting sphere of contemplation and worship.”

Robert Louis Stevenson's 1878 memoir of a 12-day walking tour through the Cévennes of France's Massif Central with a donkey can be read by clicking here.

Punch and Judy

One of the most popular forms of English amusement throughout the Nineteenth Century was the Punch and Judy show. Punch, an evil, hooknosed, humpbacked figure was the main character in the glove puppet presentation. By the middle years of the nineteenth century the Punch and Judy show had entered its golden age. Punchmen performed wherever they thought they might draw a paying audience including country fairs and seaside resorts as well as London and the other population centres in England.

Punch himself is based on the Commedia dell'arte character, Pulcinella or Punchinello, to whom has been added many of the characteristics of the medieval English fool or jester. In the play, which is often coarse and satirical, Punch first kills his infant child when the baby will not stop crying. He then beats his wife to death. The story rambles on with Punch meeting, arguing with and finally beating--often to death--a series of characters. He outwits the hangman who hangs himself and finally vanquishes the devil through either trickery or through combat.

Although the plots vary from one version to the next, the nineteenth century play usually included, in addition to Punch and Judy, Judy’s ghost, the baby, Toby the Dog, the Beadle, the black servant, the Hangman and the Devil. With the exception of Toby these were puppets, but by the nineteenth century it had become a common, if not universal practice, to have a real dog playing the role of Toby. Indeed, some Punchmen even taught their dog to sit and hold a pipe in its mouth.

Punch’s voice, high pitched and squeaky is produced through the use of a swazzle or squeaker. Henry Mayhew interviewed one Punchman who refered to it as a "call" and said,

they ain’t whistles, but calls, or unknown tongues, as we sometimes names ‘em, because with them in the mouth we can pronounce each word as plain as any parson. We have two or three kinds--one for out-of-doors, one for in-doors, one for speaking and for singing, and another for selling.

These devices were made by the Punchmen themselves and were a closely guarded secret. They were tuned to a musical instrument and were apparently fairly difficult to learn to use properly.

Victoria’s reign was one in which the streets of the Metropolis were alive with activity. Steetsellers, beggars and entertainers vied with one another for space and among the most popular of the street performers were the Punchmen who, behind the green baize in their rickety frames, presented the story of Punch and Judy. A century later, largely unchanged, they are one of the few reminders we have of the sights and sounds of street, seaside and fair entertainment in the nineteenth century.

To see a photograph of a late nineteenth century Punch and Judy show, click here.

State Involvement in Public Education before the 1870 Education Act

There is a tendency to believe that education came to England with the 1870 Education Act. In fact, the state had been involved since at least the 1830s and the debate over education for the the poor had been going for many many years prior to that. In Scotland every parish had had a school since the seventeenth century and as early as 1807 a bill was introduced in England's Parliament which would have replicated that system. The bill was passed in the Commons but defeated in the House of Lords where it was argued that the interests of the Established Church were not protected.

Less than a decade later, a parliamentary committee to inquire into education in London for the "lower orders" was established at the instigation of Lord Brougham. Despite his encouragement of education (which would have been controlled by the Church of England but limited in religious teaching to the bible and a non- denominational catechism)no progress of note was made until 1833 when parliament made its first limited grant to education. The grant itself was small and went to religious bodies which used it to build schools. Its significance was that it was the first acceptance by the government of any financial responsibility for the education of the poor.

It is difficult to know what percentage of the labouring classes' children attended school. Estimates suggest that it ranged from about one-third to one-half in the first few years of Victoria's reign. The most common schools were Sunday Schools where children could go if they were not working and could learn to "read" the bible. What schooling there was was sporadic and its primary function was to fit people for their place in the social order. To say that schools in the early Victorian years were simply instruments of social control is simplistic, but that they filled this role more clearly than others is unquestionable. Even a cursory glance at the reports of the Central Society of Education (1837-39) bring this into clear focus.

Of greater interest to Victorianists would be the many and varied philanthropic movements concerned with education. Among the most important were the National and the British and Foreign Schools Societies. These were founded on the Monitorial Principles of Joseph Lancaster and Andrew Bell and were proclaimed the STEAM ENGINE OF THE MORAL WORLD. In fact, by using older children to teach the younger, and by carrying on education in one large room, it was possible to justify fewer teachers and lower building costs. In the words of G D H Cole and Raymond Postgate (The Common People, 308), "It is a notable example of the gullibility of the historian that this probably retrograde step is still frequently referred to as an advance."

The years of Victoria's reign were years of educational ferment. In perspective, however, it should be noted that it was not until 1899 and the establishment of the National Board of Education that free public education was available to all children in England. And it was not until 1902, after Victoria's death, that public secondary education was available. In that same year, the school boards were abolished and the responsibility for education was placed in the hands of local government. But that's another story, and one that falls outside our time frame.

For comments on Ragged Schools from the Illustrated London News (1846)click here.