Victorian

Robert E. Zegger describes the alarming dip in Anglo-French relations, half way through the reign of Napoleon III.

A secret ballot at general elections had been a reformers’ demand since the seventeenth century. It was achieved two hundred years later, writes Robert Woodall, after much experience of bribery.

In housing management and the preservation of the countryside, writes Alan S. Watts, Octavia Hill was a Victorian pioneer.

Eynon Smart describes how, during the second half of the nineteenth century, few politicians had a wider range of personal accomplishments than John Lubbock, the author of the Bank Holidays Bill.

Poet Laureate from 1850, writes Joanna Richardson, Tennyson became an acknowledged interpreter of Victorian morals and politics.

Joanna Richardson describes how, in 1865, Miss Buss told a School Enquiry Commission: 'I am sure that the girls can learn anything they are taught in an interesting manner.’

Victorian Methodists, writes Stuart Andrews, carried on the keen interest in scientific subjects that had once been shown by John Wesley.

Franz Xaver Winterhalter's romantic representations of royal and noble personages, writes Joanna Richardson, have an unquestionable charm for those who live in a more pedestrian age.

William Verity describes how Haldane and Asquith were close political friends and colleagues from 1882 until Haldane was abruptly dropped from office in 1915.

If there are turning points in history, the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and the adoption of Free Trade, represented such a moment in Britain. By peaceful means, writes W.H. Chaloner, the new industrial forces in the nation had triumphed over the old landed interests.