The nineteenth century

Not long before this century began, Britain had lost its most important American colonies in a war of independence. When the century began, the country was locked in a war with France, during which an invasion by a France army was a real possibility. Soon after the end of the century, Britain controlled the biggest empire the world had ever seen.

One section of this empire was Ireland. It was during this century that the British culture and way of life came to predominate in Ireland. In the 1840s, the potato crop failed two years in a row and there was a terrible famine. Millions of peasants, those with Irish Gaelic language and customs, either died or emigrated. By the end of the century almost the whole of the remaining population were using English as their first language.

Another part of the empire was made up of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These countries had complete internal self-government but recognized the overall authority of the British government. Another was India, an enormous country with a culture more ancient that Britain’s. Tens of thousands of British civil servants and troops were used to govern it. At the head of this administration was a viceroy (governor) whose position within the country was similar to the monarch’s in Britain itself. Because India was so far away, and the journey from Britain took so long, these British officials spent most of their working lives there and so developed a distinctly Anglo-Indian way of life. Large parts of Africa also belonged to the empire.

As well as these areas (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Africa), the empire included numerous smaller areas and islands.

The British came to see themselves as having a duty to spread this culture and civilization around the world. Being the rulers of an empire was therefore a matter of moral obligation.

There were great changes in social structure. Most people now lived in towns and cities. They depended on the owners of industries. These factory owners held the real power in the country. As they established their power, so they established a set of values which emphasized hard work, thrift, religious observance, family life, an awareness of one’s duty, absolute honesty in public life and extreme respectability in sexual matters. This is the set of values which we now call Victorian.

Middle-class religious conviction, together with a conscious belief that reform was better than revolution, allowed reforms in political and public life to take place. Slavery and the laws against people on the basis of religion were abolished, and laws were made to protect workers from some of the worst forms of exploitation. Public services such as the police force were set up.

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The eighteenth century	\|	The twentieth century

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