Queen Victoria

The history of England in the reign of Queen Victoria is “political history”, with fewer major wars, international complications, or startling public events. The great Victorian epoch started in June 1837, when William IV died.

When Victoria, the niece of King William I and the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, ascended the throne, she was only 18 years old. Her youthful sincerity and dignity soon won respect and affection. Her marriage to Prince Albert enabled her to increase her influence. They had nine children. Albert's death in 1861 was naturally a great shock to his wife. For some years Queen Victoria lived a retired life though she still kept in close touch with the affairs of her Government.

She was persuaded to open Parliament in person in 1866 and 1867, but she was widely criticised for living in seclusion and quite a strong republican movement developed.

Seven attempts were made on Victoria's life, between 1840 and 1882 - her courageous attitude towards these attacks greatly strengthened her popularity.

In foreign policy, the Queen's influence during the middle years of her reign was generally used to support peace and reconciliation. In 1864 Victoria pressed her ministers not to intervene on the Prussia-Austria-Denmark war. On the Eastern question in the 1870-s – the issue of Britain's policy towards the declining Turkish Empire in Europe – Victoria believed that Britain ought to uphold Turkish hegemony as a bulwark of stability against Russia. In her later years she became the symbol of a long and successful reign.

The unparalleled expansion of British manufactures and commerce between
1848 and 1866 was no doubt due, to a great extent, to the removal of protective duties on food and raw materials. Transport became four times quicker and cheaper. Britain was the first country to create a railway system. It also started to build railways in countries all over the world, which proved to be very profitable business.

The size of farms increased considerably due to the greater application of capital to agriculture. The period of prosperity on agriculture lasted till the end of the short boom which followed the Franco-Prussian war. It then ended abruptly and a long depression set in with the arrival of American wheat and Australian wool in bulk. The improvement in the conditions of workers ended much earlier when the rise in prices produced by the influx of Californian and Australian gold brought about a steady decline in real wages.

THE CRIMEAN WAR (1853-1856)

The fifties celebrated the triumph of British prosperity in the Great Exhibition. With all this went powerful activity – intellectual, literary and religious, but not military. Yet England was about to become involved in European war for the first time in almost forty years.

Tsar Nicholas I of Russia wished to profit from what he felt to be the imminent disintegration of the Turkish Empire. In 1853 he attempted to gain territory in the Balkans from the declining Ottoman Empire. The Tsar thus hoped to gain an outlet to the Mediterranean Sea. Fearing Russian Expansion onto the Balkan Peninsula, Great Britain, France and Austria joined the Ottomans in a war against Russia.

England entered this war between Russia and Turkey on the side of the Turks because Russia was seeking to control the Dardanelles and thus threatened England's Mediterranean sea routes.

Bad planning and incompetent leadership on all sides characterized the war, leading to large numbers of casualties. The army's problems were made public by the first real war correspondent, William Russel of the London “Times”. The enemy killed fewer

British soldiers than starvation and cholera. The exposure led to reform. Florence Nightingale worked in British field hospitals and exposed the wretched and unsanitary conditions she found there. As a result of her efforts to provide better medical care for wounded soldiers, she became renowned as the founder of modern nursing.

Overwhelmed by the western European powers, Russia admitted defeat in 1856. Under terms established at the peace conference, Russia lost her influence in the Balkans. Otherwise, few territorial changes resulted from the Crimean War.