BBC.a.history.of.Britain.13of15.Victoria.and.Her.sisters

7/30/2019 BBC.a.history.of.Britain.13of15.Victoria.and.Her.sisters

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100:00:14,575 --> 00:00:21,811Spring 1851. The word "Victorian"enters the English language

200:00:21,975 --> 00:00:26,924and a very small womanenters a very big building.

300:00:27,135 --> 00:00:30,650She's four foot eleven,yet somehow she fills it.

400:00:32,215 --> 00:00:37,050The moment,so pregnant for the future, seems holy.

500:00:37,135 --> 00:00:42,892Victoria is herself floodedwith religious awe.

600:00:43,055 --> 00:00:45,808One felt filled with devotion,

700:00:45,975 --> 00:00:50,412more so than by any serviceI have ever heard.

800:00:50,575 --> 00:00:52,964Neither she nor anyone else

900:00:53,135 --> 00:00:56,571has ever seen anything like thisbuilding before,

1000:00:56,735 --> 00:01:01,331a greenhouse the size of a palace,with the difference that this is,

1100:01:01,495 --> 00:01:04,248

from the beginning,a people's palace.

1200:01:04,415 --> 00:01:08,966A popular magazine calls itthe Crystal Palace.

1300:01:09,135 --> 00:01:13,651


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Its grandest spaces are fillednot with courtiers and flunkeys,

1400:01:13,815 --> 00:01:16,010but steam pumps and locomotives,

1500:01:16,175 --> 00:01:20,373a huge showcase for Britain'sindustrial empire.

1600:01:20,535 --> 00:01:24,084Just three years before, in 1848,

1700:01:24,255 --> 00:01:27,213Europe had been torn apartby revolutions.

1800:01:27,375 --> 00:01:31,414The government had feared

the same would happen here.

1900:01:33,535 --> 00:01:37,926As it turned out, other countrieshad war and revolution,

2000:01:38,095 --> 00:01:40,689we had the Great Exhibition.

2100:01:40,855 --> 00:01:43,449

Other countries had barricades,

2200:01:43,615 --> 00:01:46,971we had the cheerful queuefor the turnstiles.

2300:01:47,135 --> 00:01:51,048In an era hauntedby fears of overpopulation,

24

00:01:51,215 --> 00:01:54,969this was one of the greatestmass movements of people

2500:01:55,135 --> 00:01:57,603in all of European history.

2600:01:57,775 --> 00:02:01,814


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Six million came to seethe show of shows.

2700:02:04,335 --> 00:02:07,964In 1848, industrial machineryhad seemed to be

2800:02:08,135 --> 00:02:10,490the enemy of ordinary men and women,

2900:02:10,655 --> 00:02:15,126the gaping mechanical jawsinto which countless lives were fed,

3000:02:15,295 --> 00:02:19,129to be spat out againas cotton cloth or nails.

3100:02:19,935 --> 00:02:22,972

Technology, the prophets of doomhad warned,

3200:02:23,135 --> 00:02:25,603was an engine of inhumanity,

3300:02:25,775 --> 00:02:29,848driving working peopleto desperation or revolt.

34

00:02:30,855 --> 00:02:33,210But inside the glittering glasshouse,

3500:02:33,375 --> 00:02:37,687someone seemed to have waveda magic wand over the mechanical brutes,

3600:02:37,855 --> 00:02:41,689turning them from ogresto busy, friendly giants,

3700:02:41,855 --> 00:02:45,564happy to be gazed aton a family outing -

3800:02:46,535 --> 00:02:49,254not least by the first familyof the land,


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3900:02:49,415 --> 00:02:52,293assembled amidst the hardware.

4000:02:53,615 --> 00:02:58,131After all, Papa, Prince Albert,the moving force behind the exhibition,

4100:02:58,295 --> 00:03:00,604was the first princein European history

4200:03:00,775 --> 00:03:03,733to wear his connectionwith the world of business

4300:03:03,895 --> 00:03:06,932as a badge of pride, not shame.

44

00:03:10,415 --> 00:03:12,292But what about Mama?

4500:03:12,455 --> 00:03:15,413As the motherof a rapidly expanding family,

4600:03:15,575 --> 00:03:19,648Victoria might have been expectedto know that if the cult of progress

4700:03:19,815 --> 00:03:23,888was to make Britain not justa great nation, but a good one,

4800:03:24,055 --> 00:03:26,808be a home maker, not a home breaker,

4900:03:27,015 --> 00:03:29,324it would fall to our womento see us through

5000:03:29,535 --> 00:03:35,405the painful changeto an industrial society safe and sound.

5100:03:43,335 --> 00:03:46,566But, of course,hers was no ordinary family,


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5200:03:46,735 --> 00:03:51,934and, despite the family photos,Queen Victoria was not exactly Mrs Average.

5300:03:52,095 --> 00:03:53,926The age which would bear her name

5400:03:54,095 --> 00:03:56,609would see transformationsin women's lives

5500:03:56,775 --> 00:03:59,130which Victoriacould never have imagined

5600:03:59,295 --> 00:04:01,968in the dazzling springtimeof her reign.

5700:04:02,135 --> 00:04:05,810Whether she'd welcome them,whether she'd even understand them,

5800:04:05,975 --> 00:04:08,887whether they'd sweeppast her and her glass palace,

5900:04:09,055 --> 00:04:11,615

well, that remained to be seen.

6000:05:06,055 --> 00:05:12,767In 1837, when she became queen,Victoria was only 18.

6100:05:14,775 --> 00:05:19,053She was as pure as a rosebud,which seemed a welcome change

62

00:05:19,215 --> 00:05:25,893from the decidedly impure reignsof her uncles George IV and William IV,

6300:05:26,055 --> 00:05:29,843addicted to the pleasuresof the bed and the table,

64


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00:05:30,015 --> 00:05:36,363and indifferent to the hardshipsendured by the mass of their subjects.

6500:05:40,175 --> 00:05:43,406Unlike the uncles,Victoria had been brought up

6600:05:43,575 --> 00:05:47,932a model of virginal moderationand self denial.

6700:05:48,095 --> 00:05:50,768No Regency pampering for her.

6800:05:50,935 --> 00:05:54,405At one point, she and her mother,the Duchess of Kent,

69

00:05:54,575 --> 00:05:58,853were forced to move outof Kensington Palace to save money.

7000:06:01,055 --> 00:06:03,728So, Victoria's nursery yearswere spent

7100:06:03,895 --> 00:06:09,765at bracingly ordinary placeslike Ramsgate and Sidmouth.

7200:06:13,495 --> 00:06:15,725Much later in life, for some reason,

7300:06:15,895 --> 00:06:21,128Victoria looked back on her childhoodas a time of sadness and loneliness.

7400:06:21,295 --> 00:06:25,004It's true that, like many middle-class

and aristocratic children,

7500:06:25,175 --> 00:06:28,565she was subjectedto an evangelical regime

7600:06:28,735 --> 00:06:32,284of prayers


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and constant self examination.

7700:06:32,455 --> 00:06:38,644She kept a behaviour book,full of solemn and self-critical entries.

7800:06:38,815 --> 00:06:41,648This one, for August 1832, reads:

7900:06:41,815 --> 00:06:48,926"Very, very, very" - underlined -"terribly" - underlined - "naughty".

8000:06:51,975 --> 00:06:56,605But could Christian betterment,the driving force of her generation,

8100:06:56,775 --> 00:07:01,895be taken from self improvement

to bettering the life of her people?

8200:07:02,055 --> 00:07:04,364That was the question.

8300:07:07,775 --> 00:07:12,769On her first excursionin England's heart of industrial darkness,

8400:07:12,935 --> 00:07:16,723

the teenage princesswould see what she was up against.

8500:07:16,895 --> 00:07:19,125Near Birmingham,she travelled through

8600:07:19,295 --> 00:07:24,415the landscape of a British inferno -sooty and sulphurous.

8700:07:25,415 --> 00:07:30,773The men, women, children,country and houses are all black.

8800:07:30,935 --> 00:07:33,927The country is very desolateeverywhere.


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8900:07:34,095 --> 00:07:38,532There are coals about and the grassis quite blasted and black.

9000:07:38,735 --> 00:07:43,570I just now see an extraordinarybuilding flaming with fire,

9100:07:43,735 --> 00:07:46,010smoking and burning coal heaps

9200:07:46,175 --> 00:07:51,727intermingled with wretched hutsand carts and little ragged children.

9300:07:53,855 --> 00:07:57,643But the view from the coachwas the closest Victoria got

9400:07:57,815 --> 00:08:02,047to the bleak realityof smokestack Britain.

9500:08:03,655 --> 00:08:07,045In any case, there wassomething else on her mind -

9600:08:07,215 --> 00:08:10,287her upcoming date with history.

9700:08:10,455 --> 00:08:16,610All those tombs, crowns and thrones,was she ready?

9800:08:18,895 --> 00:08:25,846The moment would arrive all too soon,in the small hours of June 20, 1837,

9900:08:26,015 --> 00:08:28,813

the teenage princessin her nightgown,

10000:08:28,975 --> 00:08:31,853woken by the arrivalof the Lord Chamberlain

10100:08:32,015 --> 00:08:35,246


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and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

10200:08:36,055 --> 00:08:40,128Who acquainted me that my poor unclethe King was no more,

10300:08:40,295 --> 00:08:43,173and consequently that I am Queen.

10400:08:44,255 --> 00:08:46,815I am very young,and perhaps in many,

10500:08:46,975 --> 00:08:50,411though not in all things,inexperienced.

10600:08:50,575 --> 00:08:53,965But I am sure that very few

have more real goodwill

10700:08:54,135 --> 00:08:59,528and more real desire to dowhat is fit and right than I have.

10800:09:04,055 --> 00:09:08,094At her coronation, on June 28, 1838,

10900:09:08,255 --> 00:09:11,770

the young queenshowed what she was made of...

11000:09:12,935 --> 00:09:17,406carrying the immense weight ofthe robes and regalia with aplomb.

11100:09:18,135 --> 00:09:22,333But she also managed somethingmore important than dignity -

11200:09:22,535 --> 00:09:25,095a glimpse of humanity.

11300:09:26,015 --> 00:09:28,768When the 87-year-old Lord Rolle

11400:09:28,935 --> 00:09:33,770


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tottered as he tried to mountthe steps of the throne to do homage,

11500:09:33,935 --> 00:09:37,974Victoria's kind-hearted instinctwas to rise

11600:09:38,135 --> 00:09:40,968and go down the steps to meet him.

11700:09:41,775 --> 00:09:44,164Everyone noticed.

11800:09:46,335 --> 00:09:49,088She was young, but not precocious.

11900:09:49,255 --> 00:09:53,009She knew she needed helpand was wise enough to ask for it

12000:09:53,175 --> 00:09:56,053from someonesuperbly able to give it -

12100:09:56,215 --> 00:09:59,252the Whig Prime Minister,Lord Melbourne.

12200:10:03,895 --> 00:10:07,968

He won Victoria's confidenceby the simple but inspired tactic

12300:10:08,135 --> 00:10:10,649of never, ever talking down to her,

12400:10:10,815 --> 00:10:13,966never treating her like a childin need of protection.

125

00:10:14,135 --> 00:10:16,729Instead, he treated herlike an adult,

12600:10:16,895 --> 00:10:20,331sophisticated enoughto enjoy his worldly wisdom,

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00:10:20,495 --> 00:10:24,249his political gossipand even his off-colour jokes.

12800:10:26,295 --> 00:10:27,887Under his guidance,

12900:10:28,055 --> 00:10:32,492Victoria's confidenceand her public persona blossomed.

13000:10:36,095 --> 00:10:39,531She was, of course,the most desirable catch in Europe.

13100:10:42,175 --> 00:10:45,565Victoria's motherhad thrown banquets and balls

132

00:10:45,735 --> 00:10:49,091to ensure Victoriamet the most eligible princes...

13300:10:50,455 --> 00:10:56,530...including her Saxe-Coburg cousins,Ernest and Albert.

13400:11:00,375 --> 00:11:02,764It may well have beenher uncle Leopold

13500:11:02,935 --> 00:11:07,326who, in the spring of 1839,first made the suggestion to Victoria

13600:11:07,495 --> 00:11:11,374that she might like to marryPrince Albert of Saxe-Coburg.

13700:11:11,535 --> 00:11:12,854

Like all young women,

13800:11:13,015 --> 00:11:16,894she probably initially foundthe subject a bit embarrassing,

13900:11:17,095 --> 00:11:18,926but once she had got used to it,


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14000:11:19,095 --> 00:11:23,885helped by that handsome,or as she put it, "angelic German head",

14100:11:24,095 --> 00:11:25,892she pretty much ran the show,

14200:11:26,055 --> 00:11:29,570virtually grabbing holdof her curly-haired intended

14300:11:29,735 --> 00:11:32,772and sprinting for the altar.

14400:11:35,455 --> 00:11:37,889It was Victoriawho supplied the ring...

14500:11:38,855 --> 00:11:41,130asked Albertfor a lock of his hair...

14600:11:42,135 --> 00:11:45,525and wallowedin the kissing sessions.

14700:11:49,135 --> 00:11:51,330But if she sometimes

seemed determined

14800:11:51,495 --> 00:11:53,565to wear the trousers in the marriage,

14900:11:53,735 --> 00:11:55,327there were also other times,

15000:11:55,495 --> 00:11:59,727especially right after the wedding,

when Victoria simply melted away

15100:11:59,895 --> 00:12:03,524into the amazed blissof conjugal love.

15200:12:06,215 --> 00:12:09,366When day dawned -


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for we did not sleep much -

15300:12:09,535 --> 00:12:13,767and I beheld that beautiful angelicface by my side,

15400:12:13,935 --> 00:12:16,733it was more than I can express.

15500:12:16,895 --> 00:12:20,171He does look so beautifulin his shirt only,

15600:12:20,335 --> 00:12:23,008with his beautiful throat seen.

15700:12:23,975 --> 00:12:27,251Already, the second daysince our marriage,

15800:12:27,415 --> 00:12:31,613his love and gentlenessis beyond everything,

15900:12:31,775 --> 00:12:34,448and to kiss that dear soft cheek,

16000:12:34,615 --> 00:12:38,847to press my lips to his,

is heavenly bliss.

16100:12:41,415 --> 00:12:45,169My dearest Albertput on my stockings for me.

16200:12:45,335 --> 00:12:48,247I went in and saw him shave.

16300:12:49,255 --> 00:12:51,485

A great delight for me.

16400:12:56,055 --> 00:12:58,853Victoria and Albert'spassion for each other

16500:12:59,015 --> 00:13:01,006was a strictly private matter.


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16600:13:05,015 --> 00:13:07,483But for countless numbers of Britons

16700:13:07,655 --> 00:13:12,490in the suffocatingly overcrowdedindustrial cities, like Manchester,

16800:13:12,655 --> 00:13:16,773bedroom privacywas an unimaginable luxury.

16900:13:18,615 --> 00:13:21,607Manchester was the very bestand the very worst

17000:13:21,815 --> 00:13:24,454taken to terrifying extremes;

17100:13:24,615 --> 00:13:26,765a new kind of city in the world,

17200:13:26,935 --> 00:13:31,850the chimneys of industrial suburbsgreeting you with columns of smoke.

17300:13:32,015 --> 00:13:36,247200,000 drones packed into the hive

17400:13:36,415 --> 00:13:40,647to make moneyfor the lords of Cottonopolis.

17500:13:41,695 --> 00:13:47,213An American visitor, takento Manchester's black spots, saw:

17600:13:47,375 --> 00:13:52,768Wretched, defrauded, oppressed,

crushed human nature

17700:13:52,935 --> 00:13:56,371lying in bleeding fragments.

17800:13:57,415 --> 00:14:02,808And thanked God for not havingbeen born poor in England.


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17900:14:10,615 --> 00:14:15,166The cotton mills were brutallydemanding task masters.

18000:14:17,855 --> 00:14:21,211Whole families spent almostall of their working hours

18100:14:21,375 --> 00:14:24,094tending to the machinery.

18200:14:29,575 --> 00:14:33,329Children were given menialbut dangerous jobs,

18300:14:33,495 --> 00:14:38,728like scavenging cotton flufffrom beneath the moving machinery.

18400:14:42,895 --> 00:14:47,730As bad as all this was, it was even worsewhen there were no jobs at all.

18500:14:48,455 --> 00:14:51,208In the first yearsof Victoria's reign,

18600:14:51,375 --> 00:14:56,449

hands were being laid offin tens of thousands.

18700:14:58,335 --> 00:15:01,054It would be a woman,Elizabeth Gaskell,

18800:15:01,215 --> 00:15:03,251who would be the whistle blower,

189

00:15:03,415 --> 00:15:07,533the first of Victoria's sistersto stick her neck out.

19000:15:07,695 --> 00:15:13,213Amazingly, her blazing protesttook the genteel form of a novel.

191


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00:15:13,375 --> 00:15:15,252But what a book.

19200:15:15,415 --> 00:15:18,248When "Mary Barton"was published in 1848,

19300:15:18,415 --> 00:15:22,693nobody, not even Charles Dickens,had gone as far as Gaskell

19400:15:22,855 --> 00:15:28,771in looking dead-on at the grimreality of industrial misery.

19500:15:31,575 --> 00:15:35,363The middle-class wifeof a Unitarian preacher,

196

00:15:35,535 --> 00:15:39,210Gaskell took herself rightinto the lower depths of the city,

19700:15:39,375 --> 00:15:43,971to the gin palaces and open sewers,dark reeking alleys,

19800:15:44,135 --> 00:15:48,651where skin-and-bones childrenplayed among the rats.

19900:15:48,815 --> 00:15:54,208In "Mary Barton" you didn't just see,you heard working-class Manchester

20000:15:54,375 --> 00:15:58,812in the pages of literaturefor the very first time.

20100:15:58,975 --> 00:16:00,374

To most of her readers,

20200:16:00,535 --> 00:16:05,450it must have been a languagemore foreign than French or German.

20300:16:10,695 --> 00:16:16,133(MAN) We donnot want dainties,


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we want bellyfuls.

20400:16:16,295 --> 00:16:19,093We donnot want their grand houses,

20500:16:19,255 --> 00:16:23,965we want a roof to cover usfrom the rain, the snow and the storm.

20600:16:24,975 --> 00:16:28,092Ay, and not alone to covers us,

20700:16:28,255 --> 00:16:31,770but the helpless ones that clingto us in the keen wind

20800:16:31,935 --> 00:16:33,846and ask us with their eyes

20900:16:34,015 --> 00:16:37,803why we brought 'eminto th' world to suffer.

21000:16:42,255 --> 00:16:44,564By the time you'd finished"Mary Barton",

21100:16:44,735 --> 00:16:47,932one word, struck like a hammer

over and over again,

21200:16:48,095 --> 00:16:50,131would have lodged in your memory.

21300:16:50,295 --> 00:16:52,934That word was "clemmed" - starved.

21400:16:53,095 --> 00:16:56,451You say it, and you call up

the entire knife-edge world

21500:16:56,615 --> 00:17:01,564of struggling to survivethat Elizabeth Gaskell had created.

21600:17:04,695 --> 00:17:09,211Elizabeth Gaskell believed


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that honest graphic social reporting

21700:17:09,375 --> 00:17:11,366could make a difference.

21800:17:11,535 --> 00:17:13,014She wrote to her cousin:

21900:17:13,215 --> 00:17:17,003My poor "Mary Barton" is stirringall sorts of angry feelings

22000:17:17,175 --> 00:17:18,847against me in Manchester.

22100:17:20,055 --> 00:17:21,534But those best acquainted

222

00:17:21,695 --> 00:17:25,734with the way the poor think and feelacknowledge its truth,

22300:17:25,895 --> 00:17:29,012which is the acknowledgementI most of all desire,

22400:17:29,175 --> 00:17:34,613because evils being once recognised,are halfway on towards their remedy.

22500:17:35,575 --> 00:17:39,807One of Gaskell's fans, the socialphilosopher Thomas Carlyle,

22600:17:39,975 --> 00:17:42,648thought it was pointlessto try and improve

22700:17:42,815 --> 00:17:47,684

a system so fundamentally inhumanas industrialisation.

22800:17:50,735 --> 00:17:55,968Nothing is now done by hand.All is by rule and calculated contrivance.

22900:17:56,135 --> 00:17:59,764


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On every hand, the living artisanis driven from his workshop

23000:17:59,935 --> 00:18:03,644to make roomfor a speedier inanimate one.

23100:18:03,815 --> 00:18:06,488The shuttle dropsfrom the fingers of the weaver

23200:18:06,655 --> 00:18:09,886and falls into iron fingersthat ply it faster.

23300:18:13,255 --> 00:18:16,406There is no end to machinery.

23400:18:26,495 --> 00:18:30,283

For Carlyle, there was only one routeto salvation:

23500:18:30,455 --> 00:18:33,845Britain must turn asidefrom the machine, and summon up

23600:18:34,015 --> 00:18:37,485the spirit of the Christian centuriesof the Middle Ages,

23700:18:37,655 --> 00:18:40,567the last time we'd taken it for granted

23800:18:40,735 --> 00:18:45,172that faith was more important than money.

23900:18:46,975 --> 00:18:51,014To bring about this great conversionfrom Babylon to Jerusalem,

24000:18:51,175 --> 00:18:56,203nothing less would do thana Christian revolution in building.

24100:18:56,375 --> 00:18:58,491And no one was more convinced of this

242


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00:18:58,655 --> 00:19:01,806than the greatestof the Gothic revivalists -

24300:19:01,975 --> 00:19:05,809Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.

24400:19:05,975 --> 00:19:09,126A new generation of churcheswould be in the front line

24500:19:09,295 --> 00:19:13,049in the war to save Victorian souls.

24600:19:16,775 --> 00:19:19,892Pugin was never happyjust to sound off, though.

24700:19:19,975 --> 00:19:22,773

He believed, with all the fervourof the old faith,

24800:19:22,935 --> 00:19:26,689that a properly beautified churchwas the very face of Heaven.

24900:19:30,055 --> 00:19:35,049And before he died, brutally early,at the age of 40, he made sure,

25000:19:35,215 --> 00:19:40,335especially here at the Churchof St Giles in Cheadle, Staffordshire,

25100:19:40,495 --> 00:19:46,525to let some people seehow gloriously colourful it could be.

25200:19:54,295 --> 00:19:57,605But however spiritually nourishing

this might have been,

25300:19:57,775 --> 00:20:02,007it wasn't going to put breadon the tables of the needy millions.

25400:20:02,175 --> 00:20:04,245Victoria's first decade as queen


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25500:20:04,415 --> 00:20:08,966was also a time of economic hardshipfor many of her subjects.

25600:20:09,135 --> 00:20:13,970A slump in foreign trade had ledto mass layoffs in industrial cities.

25700:20:14,135 --> 00:20:17,730Bread was an unaffordable luxuryfor the unemployed,

25800:20:17,895 --> 00:20:23,015who blamed the corn laws for keepingcheap imported wheat out of Britain.

25900:20:24,375 --> 00:20:29,449Working-class anger and desperation

was close to boiling point.

26000:20:29,975 --> 00:20:32,853For middle-class reformers,the answer was easy -

26100:20:33,015 --> 00:20:38,248all we need to do is get ridof the corn laws and all will be well.

262

00:20:39,855 --> 00:20:44,087But the militant spokesmenof the working people weren't convinced.

26300:20:44,255 --> 00:20:45,813They wanted more.

26400:20:45,975 --> 00:20:49,604Only a truly popular government,a democracy in fact,

26500:20:49,775 --> 00:20:53,165would do somethingabout their distress.

26600:20:54,975 --> 00:20:57,967They set out their demandsin a people's charter,


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26700:20:58,135 --> 00:21:01,605a new Magna Carta for the modern age.

26800:21:01,775 --> 00:21:05,734It demanded the right to votefor all men,

26900:21:05,895 --> 00:21:09,171secret ballots, annual parliaments.

27000:21:11,775 --> 00:21:18,408How to get them? Moral force if we may,physical force if we must.

27100:21:21,015 --> 00:21:23,006In the climate of fear and hatred,

27200:21:23,175 --> 00:21:26,690

people had to decidejust where their loyalty lay.

27300:21:26,855 --> 00:21:29,210If you were on the right sideof the tracks,

27400:21:29,375 --> 00:21:31,969if you ownedone of the great spinning mills,

27500:21:32,135 --> 00:21:33,853like this one in Ancoats,

27600:21:34,015 --> 00:21:38,805you would think the Chartists werejust a mob, misled by demagogues.

27700:21:38,975 --> 00:21:42,490Besides, whoever saidcapitalism was a funfair?

27800:21:42,655 --> 00:21:45,215As long as you kept your handsoff the market,

27900:21:45,375 --> 00:21:48,606well, the market, sooner or later,would right itself.


23/60

28000:21:48,775 --> 00:21:52,768And the poor, the peoplewho worked here, who were hungry now,

28100:21:52,935 --> 00:21:56,848would be feeding offthe fat of the land tomorrow.

28200:22:00,975 --> 00:22:05,366On April 10, 1848,a monster Chartist petition,

28300:22:05,535 --> 00:22:08,208signed by nearly two millionmen and women,

28400:22:08,375 --> 00:22:12,653so huge it would take two hackney cabs

to get it to parliament,

28500:22:12,815 --> 00:22:14,806was brought to London.

28600:22:16,815 --> 00:22:23,368Around 150,000 Chartists with bannersand green, red and white rosettes

28700:22:23,535 --> 00:22:25,651

converged on Kennington Common

28800:22:25,815 --> 00:22:29,808for the biggest political rallyin British history.

28900:22:32,095 --> 00:22:34,290The government was ready for them.

29000:22:34,455 --> 00:22:39,210

London was turned into a huge armedcamp, with mounted guards, guns

29100:22:39,375 --> 00:22:42,412and even cannonposted at critical sites

29200:22:42,575 --> 00:22:45,487


24/60

like the Tower of Londonand the Bank of England.

29300:22:45,655 --> 00:22:50,012Soldiers were posted on The Mallto prevent access to Buckingham Palace,

29400:22:50,175 --> 00:22:54,088but the royal familyhad fled to the Isle of Wight.

29500:22:55,815 --> 00:22:59,444Faced with this immense displayof strong armed force,

29600:22:59,615 --> 00:23:05,645the leader, newspaper owner and MP,Fergus O'Connor, had no choice.

297

00:23:05,815 --> 00:23:10,172He gave orders that nobody shouldprovoke the troops, however goaded,

29800:23:10,335 --> 00:23:13,884for the resultwould have been a bloodbath.

29900:23:14,055 --> 00:23:18,651Some of the younger firebrandsthought it was a sell-out.

30000:23:19,975 --> 00:23:22,967But what was Fergus O'Connorsupposed to have done?

30100:23:23,135 --> 00:23:26,127Unleashed his people's armyon the queen's soldiers,

30200:23:26,295 --> 00:23:28,411

only to get them mown down?

30300:23:28,575 --> 00:23:30,566And what good would that have done

30400:23:30,735 --> 00:23:33,613the cause of the working peopleof Britain?


25/60

30500:23:35,735 --> 00:23:39,933Besides, just look at this photographof the meeting on the common.

30600:23:41,815 --> 00:23:45,091The very first political photographin our history.

30700:23:47,455 --> 00:23:52,245Not exactly about to stormthe barricades, are they?

30800:23:56,455 --> 00:24:00,243It may have ended for the momentthe threat of the kind of revolution

30900:24:00,415 --> 00:24:06,126that had spread through European

capitals in 1848 happening here, too.

31000:24:06,295 --> 00:24:09,173But the dreamof so many working people

31100:24:09,335 --> 00:24:12,532for somewhere decent to live,enough to eat,

312

00:24:12,695 --> 00:24:17,485for a share in the Victorian bonanza,was as urgent as ever.

31300:24:18,295 --> 00:24:21,207If they weren't going to get itby armed revolt,

31400:24:21,375 --> 00:24:26,893they would get it in the British way -in small but decisive steps,

31500:24:27,055 --> 00:24:31,287by coming togetherin self-sufficient communities.

31600:24:34,735 --> 00:24:38,444This is all that survives intactof those little pipedreams -


26/60

31700:24:38,615 --> 00:24:42,051one of the cottages of the ChartistLand Company settlement

31800:24:42,215 --> 00:24:44,604at Great Dodford in Worcestershire.

31900:24:47,175 --> 00:24:50,053Founded in 1845, the Land Company

32000:24:50,215 --> 00:24:55,005was the brainchild of none otherthan Fergus O'Connor.

32100:24:55,175 --> 00:24:59,532It bought land, which it dividedamong its members into smallholdings,

32200:24:59,695 --> 00:25:02,687meant to take peopleout of the industrial slums

32300:25:02,855 --> 00:25:07,565and back to the rural worldof their forefathers.

32400:25:08,575 --> 00:25:13,774They'd get a few acres to grow

their own food and make a small living.

32500:25:15,415 --> 00:25:18,452"Do or Die" was the mottoof the incoming settlers

32600:25:18,615 --> 00:25:22,733to places like Great Dodford,and their work was no picnic -

327

00:25:22,895 --> 00:25:28,765breaking soil, planting hedges,making roads, with no certain outcome.

32800:25:32,775 --> 00:25:37,690But some of them were determinedto make a go of it, especially women.

329


27/60

00:25:37,855 --> 00:25:41,973Ann Wood, for example, who livedin a cottage very much like this one,

33000:25:42,135 --> 00:25:44,126was just an Edinburgh charlady,

33100:25:44,295 --> 00:25:47,207but one with enough Scottish thriftand determination

33200:25:47,375 --> 00:25:52,972to save up 150 to put downfor a lot at Great Dodford.

33300:25:54,095 --> 00:25:56,484That gave her the pick of the crop.

33400:25:56,655 --> 00:26:01,126

And, after settling at number 36,along with her two daughters,

33500:26:01,295 --> 00:26:08,212Ann did well enough at any rateto lead a long life, dying at 86.

33600:26:10,015 --> 00:26:13,087So, when all the sound and furyhad ebbed away,

33700:26:13,255 --> 00:26:18,124what seemed to count for mostwas making a home, not a revolution.

33800:26:19,415 --> 00:26:21,929Prince Albert himselfunderstood this.

33900:26:22,095 --> 00:26:24,131In the year of the Great Exhibition,

34000:26:24,295 --> 00:26:28,971he commissioned and had builtmodel lodgings for the working class.

34100:26:29,135 --> 00:26:32,207Later they were rebuilt atKennington,


28/60

34200:26:32,375 --> 00:26:37,244on the very siteof the Chartist revolution that wasn't.

34300:26:37,415 --> 00:26:41,613And, as the boom years of the 1850sreplaced the hungry 40s,

34400:26:41,775 --> 00:26:47,372Britain had never seemedso middle-class, starting with the monarchy.

34500:26:51,535 --> 00:26:55,494The many photographic visiting cardscirculating the country

34600:26:55,695 --> 00:27:00,211showed the queen and Prince Albert,

not on their aristocratic high horse,

34700:27:00,375 --> 00:27:04,493but acting out the ritualsof middle-class life.

34800:27:04,655 --> 00:27:09,570Respectable,reliable, even a little boring.

349

00:27:11,135 --> 00:27:14,252Queen Victoria was to havenine children in all,

35000:27:14,415 --> 00:27:17,885and never had Britain had a monarchwho went to such lengths

35100:27:18,055 --> 00:27:22,367to advertise her domestic pleasuresto the nation.

35200:27:25,655 --> 00:27:27,646The stroll in the park.

35300:27:30,855 --> 00:27:33,574The romp with the children.

354


29/60

00:27:36,135 --> 00:27:39,969The sing-song round the treeat Christmas.

35500:27:47,415 --> 00:27:53,445And, on the Isle of Wight, a modestseaside getaway, Osborne House.

35600:27:55,975 --> 00:27:58,773Designed by Albertand relished by Victoria

35700:27:58,935 --> 00:28:03,213as an idyllic retreatfrom the pressures of rule.

35800:28:09,695 --> 00:28:15,292It was here at last that Albert, who'd beenkept from meaningful public work,

35900:28:15,455 --> 00:28:18,891got his desk sitting beside hers,

36000:28:19,055 --> 00:28:21,615from which he could direct his campaign

36100:28:21,775 --> 00:28:26,007to make industrial Britaina better as well as a richer place.

36200:28:29,015 --> 00:28:31,404To see them together beavering away,

36300:28:31,575 --> 00:28:34,373you'd suppose it wasa perfect partnership.

36400:28:35,855 --> 00:28:37,971But not so perfect that this couple,

36500:28:38,135 --> 00:28:43,687in every other respect so mutuallydevoted, were spared all arguments.

36600:28:43,855 --> 00:28:47,006They had their spats,just like the rest of us.


30/60

36700:28:49,455 --> 00:28:51,844Victoria is too hasty and passionate

36800:28:52,015 --> 00:28:55,644for me to be able oftento speak of my difficulties.

36900:28:56,335 --> 00:28:58,803She will not hear me out,but flies into a rage

37000:28:58,975 --> 00:29:02,172and overwhelms mewith reproaches and suspiciousness,

37100:29:02,335 --> 00:29:05,452want of trust, ambition, envy.

372

00:29:07,815 --> 00:29:11,410For her part, too,Victoria wasn't above letting rip

37300:29:11,575 --> 00:29:13,725when she got too worked up.

37400:29:13,895 --> 00:29:16,853Single people,she'd occasionally let it be known,

37500:29:17,015 --> 00:29:21,372were often much better offthan unhappily married couples,

37600:29:21,535 --> 00:29:24,732forced to stay togetherby convention.

37700:29:26,775 --> 00:29:29,414All marriage is such a lottery.

37800:29:29,575 --> 00:29:34,649The happiness is always an exchange,although it may be a very happy one.

37900:29:34,855 --> 00:29:39,645Still the poor woman is bodilyand morally the husband's slave.


31/60

38000:29:41,375 --> 00:29:44,128That always sticks in my throat.

38100:29:46,615 --> 00:29:49,732Astonishingly, this echoedexactly the kind of thing

38200:29:49,895 --> 00:29:53,410coming from the mouth and penof two of the most daring critics

38300:29:53,575 --> 00:29:56,373of the Victorian conventionsof marriage -

38400:29:56,535 --> 00:30:01,086John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor,husband and wife for seven years,

38500:30:01,255 --> 00:30:05,453tortured lovers in a peculiarVictorian way for a lot longer,

38600:30:05,615 --> 00:30:08,891and the joint authorsof "On the Subjection of Women".

38700:30:12,575 --> 00:30:16,045

This was, don't forget,an age in which a woman's property

38800:30:16,215 --> 00:30:20,652automatically passed to her husbandwhen they got married.

38900:30:20,815 --> 00:30:23,249Husbands had the rightto beat their wives,

39000:30:23,415 --> 00:30:27,533as long as the cane was no thickerthan their thumb,

39100:30:27,695 --> 00:30:31,324and to lock them up for refusing sex.

392


32/60

00:30:41,215 --> 00:30:44,685In 1830, the philosopherJohn Stuart Mill

39300:30:44,855 --> 00:30:49,292went to a dinner partywhich changed his life forever.

39400:30:50,295 --> 00:30:57,770He was struck dumb by the visionof a swan throat and dark enormous eyes.

39500:30:57,975 --> 00:31:00,808They belonged to Harriet Taylor,

39600:31:00,975 --> 00:31:05,093writer, poetand unhappily married wife.

397

00:31:07,415 --> 00:31:09,167Between the soup and the port,

39800:31:09,335 --> 00:31:13,214John and Harriet were swept awayby an instantaneous knowledge

39900:31:13,375 --> 00:31:16,924that they'd foundtheir true soul mates.

40000:31:19,255 --> 00:31:23,726But being two serious intellectuals,Mill and Taylor's forbidden love

40100:31:23,895 --> 00:31:26,887couldn't just bea selfish private passion.

40200:31:27,055 --> 00:31:30,650It had to be thought out loud

as a public issue.

40300:31:31,655 --> 00:31:34,965Their situation made only too clear

40400:31:35,135 --> 00:31:39,208the hypocrisy of the lovelessVictorian marriage.


33/60

40500:31:40,655 --> 00:31:43,692(MAN) In some slave codes, the slave could,

40600:31:43,855 --> 00:31:46,289under certain circumstancesof ill-usage,

40700:31:46,455 --> 00:31:49,413legally compel the masterto sell him.

40800:31:49,575 --> 00:31:53,488But no amount of ill-usagewithout adultery super-added

40900:31:53,655 --> 00:31:57,534will, in England, free a wifefrom her tormentor.

41000:31:58,735 --> 00:32:02,523Surely there was another way outthan adultery

41100:32:02,695 --> 00:32:05,528or suffering misery in silence.

41200:32:07,455 --> 00:32:10,333What had to be done

was to expose marriages

41300:32:10,495 --> 00:32:14,044as the property transactionthey often were,

41400:32:14,215 --> 00:32:20,484and then use education and lawto enlighten and protect women.

415

00:32:22,615 --> 00:32:26,369Taylor and Millwould have to wait 19 years

41600:32:26,535 --> 00:32:29,971for a chance to practisewhat they preached.

417


34/60

00:32:33,215 --> 00:32:38,005In 1849, Harriet's unloved husbandfinally died,

41800:32:38,175 --> 00:32:42,407freeing the way for herto marry John Stuart Mill.

41900:32:42,575 --> 00:32:47,774But not before he formally renouncedall the rights the law gave him

42000:32:47,935 --> 00:32:51,245over his wife's property and person.

42100:32:54,215 --> 00:32:56,888Their happiness was short-lived.

42200:32:57,935 --> 00:33:01,848

Harriet Taylor died of TBin November 1858.

42300:33:02,015 --> 00:33:04,370But there would be an epitaph.

42400:33:04,535 --> 00:33:09,051All their ideas pouredinto "On the Subjection of Women",

425

00:33:09,215 --> 00:33:13,606their book,that Mill published in 1869.

42600:33:16,095 --> 00:33:20,008Happy and equal marriageswere no longer its only concern.

42700:33:20,175 --> 00:33:23,531Women, who made uphalf the workforce of Britain,

42800:33:23,695 --> 00:33:26,926should have pay equalto their labour.

42900:33:27,095 --> 00:33:31,771And, most breathtakingly of all,they should have the vote.


35/60

43000:33:33,895 --> 00:33:35,487It was a book whose ideals

43100:33:35,655 --> 00:33:40,365gave powerful momentumto the Women's Movement.

43200:33:41,375 --> 00:33:44,572After the Second Reform Act in 1867,

43300:33:44,735 --> 00:33:48,045almost all male householdershad the vote,

43400:33:48,215 --> 00:33:51,446which made the factthat female householders hadn't

43500:33:51,615 --> 00:33:53,731seem glaringly unfair.

43600:33:54,735 --> 00:33:58,205Mill, himself an MP,had tried to argue their case,

43700:33:58,375 --> 00:34:03,130and even won the supportof 73 other MPs.

43800:34:03,295 --> 00:34:07,652The vote was lost, of course,but the words had been spoken,

43900:34:07,815 --> 00:34:12,366and they were heard especially loudlyin Mrs Gaskell's Manchester.

44000:34:12,535 --> 00:34:14,685

The breakthrough had been made,

44100:34:14,855 --> 00:34:19,531a democracy worth the namecould not be just for men.

44200:34:25,295 --> 00:34:28,890Queen Victoria may have had her doubts


36/60


37/60

00:35:21,095 --> 00:35:24,451Florence Nightingale may well havegarnered the reputation,

45600:35:24,615 --> 00:35:29,325back in Britain, among civilians,as the Angel of Mercy in the Crimea,

45700:35:29,495 --> 00:35:32,805but the woman whomsurviving soldiers most adored,

45800:35:32,975 --> 00:35:36,524and for the very good reasonthat she saw them through the worst,

45900:35:36,695 --> 00:35:41,132was the most forgottenand the most unlikely of Victoria's sisters.

46000:35:41,295 --> 00:35:44,571And her name was Mary Seacole.

46100:35:45,895 --> 00:35:48,534Mary Seacole was West Indian,

46200:35:48,695 --> 00:35:51,846the daughter of a Scotsmanand a Jamaican woman.

46300:35:52,015 --> 00:35:55,769Largely self-taught, her Caribbeanremedies became famous

46400:35:55,935 --> 00:35:59,007after they'd been shownto stop violent dysentery

46500:35:59,175 --> 00:36:04,613and to bring yellow fever and cholera

victims back from death's door.

46600:36:08,695 --> 00:36:11,528When Britain joined the Crimean Warin 1854,

46700:36:11,695 --> 00:36:15,483she tried to volunteer her services


38/60

at the front.

46800:36:17,255 --> 00:36:22,124But Mary didn't exactly fitthe profile of middle-class nurses.

46900:36:22,295 --> 00:36:26,288She was turned downby the likes of Nurse Nightingale.

47000:36:29,655 --> 00:36:34,285So Mary got herself to the Crimeaunder her own steam and with her own funds.

47100:36:34,455 --> 00:36:38,573And once there, she didsomething truly extraordinary.

47200:36:40,255 --> 00:36:44,771

Mary Seacole built her"British Hotel" right on the front line,

47300:36:44,935 --> 00:36:50,214and it doubled both as a refectory,feeding the boys going into action,

47400:36:50,375 --> 00:36:54,254and a recovery stationfor the sick and wounded.

47500:36:56,375 --> 00:37:01,847Every morning, she'd make great vatsof nutritious food, like rice pudding,

47600:37:02,015 --> 00:37:06,372saddle up a pair of mulesand ride into the heart of the action

47700:37:06,535 --> 00:37:12,326looking for wounded, to whom

she'd dole out food, hot tea, medicine,

47800:37:12,495 --> 00:37:15,726but most of all, motherly love.

47900:37:19,255 --> 00:37:24,773Mortars would whiz past the big old womantrundling along the lines.


39/60

48000:37:26,335 --> 00:37:29,372Upon these occasions,those around would cry out. ;

48100:37:29,535 --> 00:37:32,129"Lie down, Mother, lie down!"

48200:37:33,135 --> 00:37:36,252And with very undignifiedand unladylike haste,

48300:37:36,415 --> 00:37:39,134I had to embrace the earth.

48400:37:40,735 --> 00:37:46,287After the war was over, the soldiersfted her at a charity gala.

48500:37:47,615 --> 00:37:52,086She'd become, briefly,an "Eminent Victorian".

48600:37:55,255 --> 00:37:58,372Suppose, though,that women drawn to help the sick

48700:37:58,535 --> 00:38:02,005went one stage further

and dreamed of being a doctor?

48800:38:02,135 --> 00:38:04,251That was a different story.

48900:38:08,175 --> 00:38:10,643In 1860, Elizabeth Garrett

49000:38:10,815 --> 00:38:14,490enrolled as a surgical nurse

at Middlesex Hospital,

49100:38:14,655 --> 00:38:17,249but her sights were set higher.

49200:38:17,415 --> 00:38:19,724In between the swabs and the bedpans,


40/60

49300:38:19,895 --> 00:38:23,331she was looking carefullyat surgical operations,

49400:38:23,495 --> 00:38:27,932and she was also cutting upbody parts in her bedroom.

49500:38:30,175 --> 00:38:33,053This improvised educationmade her bold enough

49600:38:33,215 --> 00:38:37,128to take the hospital's medical,not nursing exams,

49700:38:37,295 --> 00:38:44,053and when the time came to publishthe results, one E Garrett had come top.

49800:38:46,095 --> 00:38:50,213Ordered to keep the outrage secret,she went public instead.

49900:38:50,375 --> 00:38:53,811Nine years later,the French gave her an MD.

50000:38:53,975 --> 00:38:58,253

And in 1874, the first medicalcollege expressly for women

50100:38:58,415 --> 00:39:01,009was set up in London.

50200:39:02,695 --> 00:39:06,893For Victoria, the mere ideaof slips of girls looking at,

503

00:39:07,055 --> 00:39:10,570much less cutting upthe naked bodies of dead men

50400:39:10,735 --> 00:39:13,932was an unthinkable indecency.

50500:39:15,095 --> 00:39:21,045


41/60

But no doctor was of any help to herin the greatest crisis of her life.

50600:39:21,215 --> 00:39:23,934For in 1861, the same year

50700:39:24,095 --> 00:39:28,054that Elizabeth Garrettcut her way into medicine,

50800:39:28,215 --> 00:39:30,934Albert contracted typhoid,

50900:39:31,095 --> 00:39:35,850which, after a few monthsof horrifyingly swift deterioration,

51000:39:36,015 --> 00:39:39,690ended in his death in December.

51100:39:42,415 --> 00:39:44,167Everything in those last weeks

51200:39:44,335 --> 00:39:48,328became suddenly investedwith an almost religious significance.

51300:39:48,495 --> 00:39:51,567Here, for example,

is the last book read to Albert,

51400:39:51,735 --> 00:39:56,684Scott's "Peveril of the Peak",and on the flyleaf the queen has written:

51500:39:56,855 --> 00:40:02,088"This book was read up to the markon page 81 to my beloved husband

516

00:40:02,255 --> 00:40:04,928"during his fatal illness

51700:40:05,095 --> 00:40:09,566"and within three daysof its terrible termination."

51800:40:11,095 --> 00:40:14,690


42/60

You turn to page 81and here's how it reads:

51900:40:14,855 --> 00:40:16,891"He heard the sound of voices,

52000:40:17,055 --> 00:40:20,650"but they ceased to conveyany impression to his understanding;

52100:40:20,815 --> 00:40:23,773"and in a few minutes,he was faster asleep

52200:40:23,935 --> 00:40:27,928"than he'd ever beenin the whole course of his life."

52300:40:32,335 --> 00:40:37,011

Victoria buried her beloved Albertin the Italianate mausoleum

52400:40:37,175 --> 00:40:42,044she built here at Frogmorein Windsor Great Park.

52500:40:50,935 --> 00:40:56,612Albert's death threw Victoriainto a paroxysm of grief.

52600:40:56,775 --> 00:41:01,929Not for her the stoical acceptanceof the inscrutable will of the Almighty.

52700:41:02,095 --> 00:41:06,532She had lost not only her co-ruler,but her helpmate,

52800:41:06,695 --> 00:41:09,368and vanished, too,

was her domestic idyll.

52900:41:09,535 --> 00:41:11,014At the abyss of her misery,

53000:41:11,215 --> 00:41:16,448she must have thought that all chanceof contentment had gone.


43/60

53100:41:18,335 --> 00:41:21,486My life as a happy one is ended.

53200:41:21,655 --> 00:41:24,328The world is gone for me.

53300:41:24,495 --> 00:41:29,250If I must live on, and I will donothing to make me worse than I am,

53400:41:29,415 --> 00:41:33,090it is henceforthfor our poor fatherless children,

53500:41:33,255 --> 00:41:38,329for my unhappy country,which has lost all in losing him.

53600:41:43,655 --> 00:41:47,853Death was an immense presencein Victorian life,

53700:41:48,015 --> 00:41:50,893perhaps becauseit was the one conquest

53800:41:51,055 --> 00:41:55,970denied to the soldiers and engineers

and captains of industry

53900:41:56,135 --> 00:42:00,048who seemed to be ableto conquer everything else.

54000:42:00,215 --> 00:42:04,254If they couldn't stop their lovedones from going to their graves,

541

00:42:04,415 --> 00:42:08,488they could at least create the illusionin marble and photographs

54200:42:08,655 --> 00:42:13,729that they were still alongsidethose who mourned them.

543


44/60

00:42:13,895 --> 00:42:20,846This, in her distraught, inconsolablegrief, Victoria knew how to do.

54400:42:21,855 --> 00:42:27,566With religious devotion, she set outAlbert's shaving equipment every morning...

54500:42:28,575 --> 00:42:33,365and fresh evening clothesand a clean towel every evening.

54600:42:35,855 --> 00:42:37,652Missing his physical presence,

54700:42:37,815 --> 00:42:41,603she slept with his nightgownby her side.

548

00:42:45,095 --> 00:42:50,249The exuberant headstrong young womanshrank into the hard shell

54900:42:50,415 --> 00:42:56,650of the forbidding inconsolable widow,for whom the least sign of merriment

55000:42:56,815 --> 00:43:00,854was a betrayalof Albert's sainted memory.

55100:43:01,895 --> 00:43:05,934She seemed, in a way which no oneaccustomed to the strong-minded queen

55200:43:06,095 --> 00:43:07,687could ever have imagined,

55300:43:07,855 --> 00:43:13,851somehow no longer in charge

of either herself or of the country.

55400:43:15,175 --> 00:43:17,769Victoria's sense of moral calling,

55500:43:17,935 --> 00:43:20,369so strong from the beginningof her reign,


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55600:43:20,535 --> 00:43:24,210had become so dependenton Albert the Good's judgement

55700:43:24,375 --> 00:43:27,606that now that he was gone,she seemed at a loss

55800:43:27,775 --> 00:43:30,812about how and where to exercise it.

55900:43:30,975 --> 00:43:36,129It never occurred to her that womenalone, either as widows or spinsters,

56000:43:36,295 --> 00:43:39,412might be able to do goodby themselves,

56100:43:39,575 --> 00:43:43,648to make a life, even a career,on their own.

56200:43:48,495 --> 00:43:51,328If she wanted to seehow this could be done,

56300:43:51,495 --> 00:43:55,044

all she needed to dowas to take her pony trap

56400:43:55,215 --> 00:43:58,491a mile or two down the roadfrom Osborne to Freshwater,

56500:43:58,655 --> 00:44:02,443to visit someone who,though neither widow nor spinster,

56600:44:02,615 --> 00:44:05,652was very much her own woman.

56700:44:08,815 --> 00:44:12,364The photographerJulia Margaret Cameron.

568


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00:44:14,255 --> 00:44:17,884Since Victoria was herselfan avid collector of photographs,

56900:44:18,055 --> 00:44:19,886she might have been curious

57000:44:20,055 --> 00:44:24,970about this eccentric half-Frenchwoman's notorious dark room.

57100:44:27,695 --> 00:44:32,564For Julia Cameron, photographywas not just an amateur hobby.

57200:44:33,575 --> 00:44:35,930The poetic lyricismof her photographs

573

00:44:36,095 --> 00:44:40,247disguises the hard need she hadto make some money.

57400:44:43,735 --> 00:44:49,844Worse, she seemed perversely to gloryin the male mess of camera work.

57500:44:51,055 --> 00:44:54,889Flouncing around in a convertedhen house that was her studio,

57600:44:55,055 --> 00:44:58,684her dresses and handsstained with black silver nitrate,

57700:44:58,855 --> 00:45:03,007conscripting men and women modelslike a recruiting sergeant major

57800:45:03,175 --> 00:45:08,772

and bellowing terrifyingly at themif they moved before they were told.

57900:45:10,575 --> 00:45:14,488Needless to say, the men who ranthe Royal Photographic Society

58000:45:14,655 --> 00:45:17,408


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refused to take her seriously.

58100:45:18,455 --> 00:45:21,492Admiring the enthusiasmof Mrs Cameron,

58200:45:21,655 --> 00:45:25,330the Committee regrets they cannotconcur with the lavish praise

58300:45:25,495 --> 00:45:29,693which was bestowed on her productionsby the non-photographic press,

58400:45:29,855 --> 00:45:32,449feeling convincedthat she will herself adopt

58500:45:32,615 --> 00:45:36,085

an entirely different modeof representing her poetic ideas

58600:45:36,255 --> 00:45:41,045when she has made herself acquaintedwith the capabilities of the art.

58700:45:42,615 --> 00:45:45,846What they meant, of course,was that a soft woman

58800:45:46,015 --> 00:45:49,974couldn't be expectedto master machinery, chemicals,

58900:45:50,135 --> 00:45:52,285the hard technology of the job,

59000:45:52,455 --> 00:45:55,288let alone makea professional career out of it,

59100:45:55,455 --> 00:45:59,892despite Julia's obvious successat both.

59200:46:00,535 --> 00:46:05,768But some of the most powerfuland intelligent of the great and good -


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59300:46:05,935 --> 00:46:07,653Tennyson...

59400:46:07,815 --> 00:46:09,646Carlyle...

59500:46:09,815 --> 00:46:14,286and the astronomer Sir John Herschel,who had obediently posed,

59600:46:14,455 --> 00:46:18,164were not deceivedby the poetic light of her work.

59700:46:19,495 --> 00:46:24,125They embraced heras the greatest portraitist of her age.

59800:46:29,775 --> 00:46:33,211Julia's triumph in makinga profession as an artist

59900:46:33,375 --> 00:46:38,210must have been noticed by allthe young women of the 1870s and '80s

60000:46:38,375 --> 00:46:43,813who wanted more for themselves

than just a destiny as wife and mother.

60100:46:51,055 --> 00:46:54,570After Girton College,the first Oxbridge college for women,

60200:46:54,735 --> 00:46:58,774opened its doorsnear Cambridge in 1873,

603

00:46:58,935 --> 00:47:03,247they had, for the first time,somewhere that would educate them,

60400:47:03,415 --> 00:47:08,045liberate them, if they chose,from middle-class domesticity.

605


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00:47:10,175 --> 00:47:14,134But even as they drank in knowledgebehind the red walls of Girton,

60600:47:14,295 --> 00:47:19,085some of those young womenlonged to get beyond the cloister.

60700:47:22,135 --> 00:47:25,923The old ways of women's useful work -teaching, preaching, nursing -

60800:47:26,095 --> 00:47:28,404were no longer enough.

60900:47:28,575 --> 00:47:34,013Nor was just being an educateddesigner of the House Beautiful.

610

00:47:35,615 --> 00:47:40,325They were drawn instead,as Elizabeth Gaskell was a generation earlier,

61100:47:40,535 --> 00:47:42,366to the ugliness everywhere

61200:47:42,535 --> 00:47:48,167in a Britain feeling once morethe strain of economic crisis.

61300:47:49,175 --> 00:47:52,212Some of them even decidedto make that new home

61400:47:52,375 --> 00:47:56,971in the places most shockingto their parents' generation -

61500:47:57,135 --> 00:48:00,605in the slums

of the industrial cities,

61600:48:00,775 --> 00:48:07,248to steep themselves in the dirtand anger of their poor abused sisters...

61700:48:09,135 --> 00:48:11,808to face up to harsh truths,


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61800:48:11,975 --> 00:48:17,845the kind spelled outby the young George Bernard Shaw.

61900:48:18,695 --> 00:48:22,768Your slaves are beyond caringfor your cries.

62000:48:22,935 --> 00:48:28,692They breed like rabbits and theirpoverty breeds filth, ugliness,

62100:48:28,855 --> 00:48:35,203dishonesty, disease,obscenity, drunkenness and murder.

62200:48:37,295 --> 00:48:40,287The bravest of this new generation

62300:48:40,455 --> 00:48:45,006could even face head-onthe most unpalatable truths,

62400:48:45,175 --> 00:48:49,566like that linkbetween breeding and destitution.

62500:48:50,335 --> 00:48:53,850

Annie Besant was the kindof do-gooder clergyman's wife

62600:48:54,015 --> 00:48:56,654unthinkable a generation earlier,

62700:48:56,815 --> 00:48:59,773and still unthinkableto the likes of the queen.

628

00:48:59,935 --> 00:49:02,403Annie Besanthad scandalised the country

62900:49:02,575 --> 00:49:07,365by publishing contraception advicefor working people.

630


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00:49:07,535 --> 00:49:11,005Such impertinencewould not go unpunished, however,

63100:49:11,175 --> 00:49:14,850and Annie found herselfthe victim of a court order.

63200:49:15,015 --> 00:49:19,008She lost custody of her daughterto her former husband,

63300:49:19,175 --> 00:49:23,691an unforgiving time for womenjudged as unfit mothers.

63400:49:23,855 --> 00:49:27,211But nothing would stop her crusading.

635

00:49:28,615 --> 00:49:30,731Searching round for a woman's cause,

63600:49:30,895 --> 00:49:33,363Annie found onein the teenage match girls

63700:49:33,535 --> 00:49:38,484who worked amidst phosphorus fumesfor Bryant and May in East London.

63800:49:38,655 --> 00:49:42,443They were paid just betweenfour and ten shillings a week,

63900:49:42,615 --> 00:49:46,733and if they had dirty feetor an untidy bench they were fined,

64000:49:46,895 --> 00:49:51,207taking more money

out of their already pathetic wages.

64100:49:52,615 --> 00:49:56,688Most horrifying of all,the girls ran the constant risk

64200:49:56,855 --> 00:50:01,770of contracting the hideously


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disfiguring "phossy" jaw,

64300:50:01,935 --> 00:50:06,008since Bryant and May persistedin the use of phosphorus,

64400:50:06,175 --> 00:50:09,372which other match companieshad given up.

64500:50:11,095 --> 00:50:12,733At the same time, the company

64600:50:12,895 --> 00:50:15,534was paying huge dividendsto its shareholders,

64700:50:15,695 --> 00:50:17,845a disproportionate number of whom,

64800:50:18,015 --> 00:50:21,644Annie enjoyed revealing,were the clergy.

64900:50:22,855 --> 00:50:26,052Annie wrote an articleabout the plight of the match girls

65000:50:26,215 --> 00:50:29,730

for her campaigning newspaper,The Link.

65100:50:29,895 --> 00:50:33,683And together with fellow socialistcampaigner Herbert Burrows,

65200:50:33,855 --> 00:50:38,326she distributed copies of itat the gates of the factory.

65300:50:38,495 --> 00:50:41,293The owners of Bryant and Maythreatened the girls

65400:50:41,455 --> 00:50:44,686with instant dismissalif they didn't sign a document


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65500:50:44,855 --> 00:50:48,609repudiating the articleand the journalists.

65600:50:49,495 --> 00:50:52,328But, instead of signing,the girls went en masse

65700:50:52,495 --> 00:50:56,454to Annie and Burrowswith their story. They told her:

65800:50:56,615 --> 00:51:00,813You had spoken up for us.We weren't going back on you.

65900:51:02,375 --> 00:51:04,093A strike committee was formed.

66000:51:04,255 --> 00:51:06,689Besant and Burrowspromised to pay the wages

66100:51:06,855 --> 00:51:09,494of any girldismissed for their action.

66200:51:09,655 --> 00:51:14,365George Bernard Shaw volunteered

as the cashier of the strike fund.

66300:51:14,535 --> 00:51:18,8471,400 girls came out.The company eventually settled

66400:51:19,015 --> 00:51:22,849and Annie Besantand the girls were triumphant.

665

00:51:24,895 --> 00:51:27,409She was hailedas the working girls' champion

66600:51:27,575 --> 00:51:29,406and was immediately sought after

66700:51:29,575 --> 00:51:33,807


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by all sorts of other womenaggrieved at their treatment.

66800:51:35,895 --> 00:51:38,648In 1888,Annie campaigned for election

66900:51:38,815 --> 00:51:45,129to the Tower Hamlets School Boardin a dogcart festooned with red ribbons.

67000:51:45,295 --> 00:51:50,733She won, in a landslide victory,polling 15,000 votes.

67100:51:50,895 --> 00:51:52,533Even before they had the vote,

67200:51:52,695 --> 00:51:57,564

women showed they could,and would, win local elections.

67300:52:02,775 --> 00:52:06,768Queen Victoria was not, in fact,blind to the miseries

67400:52:06,935 --> 00:52:13,454which so appalled the young womensocial workers of the 1880s and 1890s.

67500:52:14,415 --> 00:52:19,773Shaken by some of the revelationsin "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London",

67600:52:19,935 --> 00:52:22,529she actually pressedGladstone's government

67700:52:22,695 --> 00:52:25,368to spend more of its time

on the problem of housing,

67800:52:25,535 --> 00:52:29,608and her insistenceproduced a Royal Commission.

67900:52:31,215 --> 00:52:34,491But, whether she wanted to see it


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or could have seen it,

68000:52:34,655 --> 00:52:40,412there were, in the warm Jubileesummer of 1887, two Britains.

68100:52:40,575 --> 00:52:44,454Nearly a third of able-bodied menwere unemployed.

68200:52:44,615 --> 00:52:48,403Now, thousands of the joblesswere also homeless,

68300:52:48,575 --> 00:52:53,933sleeping rough in parks or squares,some of them even in open coffins -

68400:52:54,095 --> 00:52:57,610

the undead of underclass Albion.

68500:53:00,895 --> 00:53:05,685But, of course, the queen was keptwell away from all that.

68600:53:05,855 --> 00:53:10,531What she saw were 30,000poor schoolchildren in Hyde Park,

687

00:53:10,695 --> 00:53:14,927who each got a meat pie,a piece of cake and an orange

68800:53:15,095 --> 00:53:18,770to celebrate the great dayof her Jubilee.

68900:53:19,975 --> 00:53:26,608The children sang "God Savethe Queen" somewhat out of tune.

69000:53:28,495 --> 00:53:32,568It was the kind of thingwhich brought a smile - yes, a smile -

69100:53:32,735 --> 00:53:35,693on the face of the old queen.


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69200:53:39,215 --> 00:53:42,048It would be like thisfor the rest of her life -

69300:53:42,215 --> 00:53:44,968the countrybathed in summer evening light,

69400:53:45,135 --> 00:53:49,048the faces well-scrubbed and dutiful.

69500:53:49,215 --> 00:53:54,687The old lady, at last, somethinglike the contented matriarch,

69600:53:54,855 --> 00:53:57,289the grandmother of the Empire,

697

00:53:57,455 --> 00:54:01,414the thrones of Europefilled with her offspring.

69800:54:02,575 --> 00:54:07,285There was, of course, someone missingfrom this national family photo.

69900:54:07,455 --> 00:54:10,049In the Abbey,amidst all the splendour,

70000:54:10,215 --> 00:54:13,412Victoria suddenly felt a pang.

70100:54:14,335 --> 00:54:20,649I sat alone,oh, without my beloved husband,

70200:54:20,815 --> 00:54:24,330for whom this would have been

such a proud day.

70300:54:25,695 --> 00:54:30,723Victoria would have to waitanother 14 years, until 1901,

70400:54:30,895 --> 00:54:34,444before she would be


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reunited with him:

70500:54:35,455 --> 00:54:39,414To whom the nation and I owe so much.

70600:54:40,575 --> 00:54:43,567Her long-suffering secretary,Frederick Ponsonby,

70700:54:43,735 --> 00:54:49,014said there was nothing Victoriaenjoyed so much as arranging funerals

70800:54:49,175 --> 00:54:51,973and her own was no exception.

70900:54:58,655 --> 00:55:04,332She ordered a white lying-in-stateand funeral for herself.

71000:55:07,495 --> 00:55:10,726In her hands was a silver crucifix,

71100:55:10,895 --> 00:55:16,572her white dress decoratedwith cheerful sprays of spring flowers.

71200:55:18,535 --> 00:55:21,174There was a touch

of Miss Havisham about this,

71300:55:21,335 --> 00:55:25,248the 80-year-oldflower-bedecked virgin bride.

71400:55:25,415 --> 00:55:30,535But not jilted by her beloved,going to join him.

715

00:55:32,855 --> 00:55:35,528When Albert's memorial effigyhad been ordered

71600:55:35,695 --> 00:55:38,846from the sculptor Marochetti in 1862,

71700:55:39,015 --> 00:55:43,293


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Victoria insisted on hersbeing made at the same time,

71800:55:43,455 --> 00:55:47,892and with her appearance as it waswhen he had been taken from her,

71900:55:48,055 --> 00:55:53,049so that they would be reunited,at least in marble, at the same age,

72000:55:53,215 --> 00:55:56,207in the glowing prime of their union.

72100:56:00,055 --> 00:56:02,410The trouble was,no one could remember

72200:56:02,575 --> 00:56:06,045

where they'd put the statuemade 40 years before.

72300:56:06,215 --> 00:56:08,331It had, in fact, been walled up

72400:56:08,495 --> 00:56:13,444in one of the cavitiesof a renovated room in Windsor Castle.

725

00:56:15,295 --> 00:56:17,968Eventually, it was foundand laid next to Albert

72600:56:18,135 --> 00:56:20,365as per the queen's orders.

72700:56:20,535 --> 00:56:23,095And there she is,as if the clocks had stopped

72800:56:23,255 --> 00:56:26,531along with the heartof the Prince Consort.

72900:56:28,295 --> 00:56:30,251But they hadn't, of course.

730


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00:56:30,415 --> 00:56:35,330Victoria might lie by her beloveddressed as a medieval princess,

73100:56:35,495 --> 00:56:39,773but he, of all people,had known it had been progress

73200:56:39,935 --> 00:56:42,608which had beenthe mainspring of her reign.

73300:56:43,895 --> 00:56:46,409Albert had done his best to see

73400:56:46,575 --> 00:56:50,454that it had been a force for goodnessas well as greatness,

735

00:56:50,615 --> 00:56:53,254that the surging movementof the machine age

73600:56:53,415 --> 00:56:58,648would be held in check by the moralanchorage of the Victorian home.

73700:57:02,415 --> 00:57:05,771The women of Britain,Victoria's sisters and daughters,

73800:57:05,935 --> 00:57:08,130were supposedto be grateful for this,

73900:57:08,295 --> 00:57:11,526to bask in the warmthof the hearth they tended.

74000:57:12,095 --> 00:57:14,893

But those cosy fireskindled yearnings

74100:57:15,055 --> 00:57:18,684that couldn't be containedby a placid domesticity.

74200:57:18,855 --> 00:57:24,487


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