Condition of England I-II. Preceding period 1810-1837: Regency period Regency rakes vs squalor of industrialism; Disraeli: Sybil, or Two Nations (1845;

Condition of EnglandI-II

Preceding period

• 1810-1837: Regency period• Regency rakes vs squalor of industrialism; • Disraeli: Sybil, or Two Nations (1845; the

rich and the poor)• Social crises• Luddites (machine breakers): 1811-1816

– Textile industry– Technical innovations: spinning frames, power

looms

Progress

• 1830-1848: 5000 miles of railways

• By 1889: 15,000 miles of railways

• Steam engine

• Train terminals

• 1842-1870: market value of goods quadrupled

• 1851-1881: GDP doubled

• 1801-1901: population quadrupled

Reform Acts

• 1832: a ten pound property qualification; pay to stand for election

• 1867: vote to every male adult householder living in the towns; male lodgers paying £10

• 1872: Secret Ballot Act

• 1884: vote to the poor (farmers and labourers)

Chartist movement (1838-1858)

• A vote for every man twenty-one years of age, of sound mind, and not undergoing punishment for a crime.

• The Secret Ballot• No Property Qualification for Members of Parliament• Payment of Members, thus enabling everyone to serve a

constituency• Equal Constituencies, securing the same amount of

representation for the same number of electors• Annual Parliament Elections as the most effectual check

to bribery and intimidation

• Mr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings as spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as was lawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby, and if they had set up a great-grandfather, he would have come home in matting from the Pantechnicon, without a scratch upon him, French polished to the crown of his head.

• For, in the Veneering establishment, from the hall-chairs with the new coat of arms, to the grand pianoforte with the new action, and upstairs again to the new fire-escape, all things were in a state of high varnish and polish. And what was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Veneerings--the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky.

(from Dickens, Our Mutual Friend)

Poverty

• Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (workhouse)

• Debtors’ prison

• Child labour

William Blake: The Chimney-Sweeper

• When my mother died I was very young,And my father sold me while yet my tongueCould scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said,"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet; and that very night,As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, - That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

William Blake: The Chimney-Sweeper

• And by came an angel who had a bright key,And he opened the coffins and set them all free;Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,And got with our bags and our brushes to work.Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

William Blake: The Chimney-Sweeper

• A little black thing among the snow,Crying! 'weep! weep!' in notes of woe!'Where are thy father and mother? Say!' -'They are both gone up to the church to pray.

• 'Because I was happy upon the heath,And smiled among the winter's snow,They clothed me in the clothes of death,And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

• 'And because I am happy and dance and sing,They think they have done me no injury,And are gone to praise God and His priest and king,Who made up a heaven of our misery.'

Elizabeth Barrett BrowningThe Cry of the Children (1842)

• "Pheu pheu, ti prosderkesthe m ommasin, tekna;" [[Alas, alas, why do you gaze at me with your eyes, my children.]]—

Medea.• Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, •       Ere the sorrow comes with years ? • They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, — •       And that cannot stop their tears. • The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ; •    The young birds are chirping in the nest ; • The young fawns are playing with the shadows ; •    The young flowers are blowing toward the west— • But the young, young children, O my brothers, •       They are weeping bitterly ! • They are weeping in the playtime of the others, •       In the country of the free.

• Do you question the young children in the sorrow, •       Why their tears are falling so ? • The old man may weep for his to-morrow •       Which is lost in Long Ago — • The old tree is leafless in the forest — •    The old year is ending in the frost — • The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest — •    The old hope is hardest to be lost : • But the young, young children, O my brothers, •       Do you ask them why they stand • Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, •       In our happy Fatherland ?

•

• They look up with their pale and sunken faces, •       And their looks are sad to see, • For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses •       Down the cheeks of infancy — • "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;" •    "Our young feet," they say, "are very weak !" • Few paces have we taken, yet are weary— •    Our grave-rest is very far to seek ! • Ask the old why they weep, and not the children, •       For the outside earth is cold — • And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, •       And the graves are for the old !"

•

• "True," say the children, "it may happen •       That we die before our time ! • Little Alice died last year her grave is shapen •       Like a snowball, in the rime. • We looked into the pit prepared to take her — •    Was no room for any work in the close clay : • From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her, •    Crying, 'Get up, little Alice ! it is day.' • If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, •    With your ear down, little Alice never cries ; • Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her, •    For the smile has time for growing in her eyes ,— • And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in •       The shroud, by the kirk-chime ! • It is good when it happens," say the children, •       "That we die before our time !"

• Alas, the wretched children ! they are seeking •       Death in life, as best to have ! • They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, •       With a cerement from the grave. • Go out, children, from the mine and from the city — •    Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do — • Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty •    Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through ! • But they answer, " Are your cowslips of the meadows •       Like our weeds anear the mine ? • Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows, •       From your pleasures fair and fine!

• "For oh," say the children, "we are weary, •       And we cannot run or leap — • If we cared for any meadows, it were merely •       To drop down in them and sleep. • Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping — •    We fall upon our faces, trying to go ; • And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, •    The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. • For, all day, we drag our burden tiring, •       Through the coal-dark, underground — • Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron •       In the factories, round and round.

• "For all day, the wheels are droning, turning, — •       Their wind comes in our faces, — • Till our hearts turn, — our heads, with pulses burning, •       And the walls turn in their places • Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling — •    Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall, — • Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling — •    All are turning, all the day, and we with all ! — • And all day, the iron wheels are droning ; •       And sometimes we could pray, • 'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning) •       'Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' "

• Ay ! be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing •       For a moment, mouth to mouth — • Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing •       Of their tender human youth ! • Let them feel that this cold metallic motion •    Is not all the life God fashions or reveals — • Let them prove their inward souls against the notion •    That they live in you, or under you, O wheels ! — • Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, •       As if Fate in each were stark ; • And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, •       Spin on blindly in the dark.

• Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, •       To look up to Him and pray — • So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others, •       Will bless them another day. • They answer, " Who is God that He should hear us, •    While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ? • When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us •    Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word ! • And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) •       Strangers speaking at the door : • Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him, •       Hears our weeping any more ?

• " Two words, indeed, of praying we remember ; •       And at midnight's hour of harm, — • 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, •       We say softly for a charm. • We know no other words, except 'Our Father,' •    And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, • God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, •    And hold both within His right hand which is strong. • 'Our Father !' If He heard us, He would surely •       (For they call Him good and mild) • Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, •       'Come and rest with me, my child.'

• "But, no !" say the children, weeping faster, •       " He is speechless as a stone ; • And they tell us, of His image is the master •       Who commands us to work on. • Go to ! " say the children,—"up in Heaven, •    Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find ! • Do not mock us ; grief has made us unbelieving — •    We look up for God, but tears have made us blind." • Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving, •       O my brothers, what ye preach ? • For God's possible is taught by His world's loving — •       And the children doubt of each.

• And well may the children weep before you ; •       They are weary ere they run ; • They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory •       Which is brighter than the sun : • They know the grief of man, without its wisdom ; •    They sink in the despair, without its calm — • Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, — •    Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm, — • Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly •       No dear remembrance keep,— • Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly : •       Let them weep ! let them weep !

• They look up, with their pale and sunken faces, •       And their look is dread to see, • For they think you see their angels in their places, •       With eyes meant for Deity ;— • "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, •    Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, — • Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, •    And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ? • Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants, •       And your purple shews your path ; • But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence •       Than the strong man in his wrath !"

Factory Acts• Factory Act of 1833:

– disallowed night work under the age of 18; – Limiting the No. of hours fo child work

• 1842: Act of 1833 extended to mines• Factory Act of 1847:

– ten hours’ workday– Outlaws children’s work under the age of 10

• work age: gradually increased from 10 to 13• By the 1870s: half a day off on Saturday

Education

• 1870 Education Act (W.E. Forster) • By 1874 over 5,000 new schools • 1880 education compulsory up to the age of 10

(raised to 12 in 1899) • 1891: free education• 1902 the Education Act (Balfour Act) • 1907: a scholarship scheme • 1914: a well-organised system of education

Social Welfare

• Public Health Act of 1872

• the Artisans’ Dwelling Act of 1875

• 1888: local governments

Social theories

• Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations (1776)

• Benthamite/ Jeremy Bentham

• Thomas Malthus: Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)

• Herbert Spencer: social Darwinism

Contemporary sociological-political writing

• James Phillips Kay-Shuttleworth: The Moral and Physical Conditions of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester (1832)

• Thomas Carlyle:‘The Condition of England Question’ (1840)

• Edwin Chadwick: Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population in Great Britain (1842)

• Benjamin Disraeli: Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845) – novel

• Friedrich Engels: The Condition of the Working Class in England (1844)

Religion• Evangelicalism

– Piety– Reforms– Pressure group: Bowdlerism

• Oxford Movement (Catholicism)• Low Church (Puritanism)• Broad Church (Latitudinarism; rationality)• Act of Emancipation (1832)

– 1661: Corporation Act [public offices: Holy Communion in the Church of England)]

– Dissenting Churches (Unitarian, Methodist, Quaker, Clapham Sect, etc.)

– Catholics

• Jews: 1858; atheists: 1886

Filth

• Julia Kristeva: Powers of Horror (abjection)

Condition of England Novels

• Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist• Charles Dickens: Hard Times• Elizabeth Gaskell: North and South• Elizabeth Gaskell: Mary Barton• Charlotte Bronte: Shirley• Frances Trollope: The Life and Adventures of

Michael Armstrong, Factory Boy