Discussion Post: The Second Stain
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sherlock60This week, the canon story we’re looking at is The Second Stain and the chosen topic is Politics.
A few facts:
👥 At the beginning of Victoria's reign, about a fifth of adult males were entitled to vote. That proportion increased, through parliamentary reform acts passed in 1867 and 1884, to one-third and two-thirds respectively.
No women could legally vote in parliamentary elections until almost 18 years after Victoria's death - and the queen herself was no suffragist. Women did, however, play an increasingly influential role both in locally-elected school and poor law boards and in local government from the 1870s onwards. [Eric Evans]
👥 In local government elections, single women ratepayers received the right to vote in the Municipal Franchise Act 1869. This right was confirmed in the Local Government Act 1894 and extended to include some married women. By 1900, more than 1 million single women were registered to vote in local government elections in England. [Wikipedia]
👥 ...women were not granted [parliamentary] voting rights until the Act of 1918, which enfranchised all men over 21 and women over thirty. This last bit of discrimination was eliminated 10 years later (in 1928) by the Equal Franchise Act. [Glenn Everett]
👥 Chartism was a working class movement, which emerged in 1836 and was most active between 1838 and 1848. The aim of the Chartists was to gain political rights and influence for the working classes. Chartism got its name from the formal petition, or People’s Charter, that listed the six main aims of the movement. These were:
1. a vote for all men (over 21)
2. the secret ballot
3. no property qualification to become an MP
4. payment for MPs
5. electoral districts of equal size
6. annual elections for Parliament
Some opponents of the movement feared that Chartists were not just interested in changing the way Parliament was elected, but really wanted to turn society upside down by starting a revolution… lthough the Chartist movement ended without achieving its aims, the fear of civil unrest remained. Later in the century, many Chartist ideas were included in the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884. [National Archives]
👥 The Chartists demanded universal suffrage for men only and the main leaders were all male, but despite this, women played an important, often overlooked, role in furthering their cause. Some campaigned in support of The People’s Charter in its current form, while others such as Anne Knight campaigned to change the Charter itself to include the enfranchisement of women… [British Library]
👥 The dominant political parties changed over Victoria’s reign. When she took the throne in 1837, her first prime minister was the Whig politician Viscount Melbourne [William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne (Lord Melbourne)], and although the Whigs continued to influence British politics up to the 1860s, they were increasingly sidelined by the Liberal Party. The last Whig prime minister was Edward Smith Stanley, who resigned in 1868, and after that the politics of Victorian England were dominated by the Liberals and the Conservative Party. [Rita Kennedy]
👥 The new queen had a tendency towards favouritism in her politics, preferring ‘Uncle Melbourne’ (her first prime minister) and the Whigs to the rival Tories. After her marriage in 1840, however, Prince Albert tempered the queen’s partisanship. [English Heritage]
👥 Melbourne’s replacement, Sir Robert Peel, was a Tory, but also the son of a northern manufacturer. He embodied the broadening social background of the Tories, and their acceptance of the need for (conservative) reform... [English Heritage]
👥 In many ways the tone and composition of government remained heavily aristocratic for much of the reign… A new politics was taking shape, however, springing up in the manufacturing cities of the midlands and north. In response, from the late 1850s onwards Whiggism morphed into Liberalism. This was personified by Liverpool-born William Gladstone, who joined the Liberals in 1859. [English Heritage]
👥 In the 1860s the Conservatives recovered thanks to the inspired leadership of Benjamin Disraeli… The tussle for power between Disraeli and Gladstone, the two great politicians of the age, saw the appearance of modern two-party politics in a recognisable form… [English Heritage]
👥 In 1886 the issue of Irish home rule, championed by Gladstone, split the Liberals, allowing the Conservatives to dominate as the 19th century drew to an end. [English Heritage]
👥 Following the Act of Union in 1801, Ireland was an integral part of the United Kingdom throughout the Victorian era and periodically dominated political headlines… The Irish Home Rule movement grew stronger toward the end of the Victorian era, but Parliamentary bills to grant Ireland a measure of self-government were defeated in both 1886 and 1893. [Rita Kennedy]
👥 The election of James Keir Hardie, first MP for the Labour Representation Committee (precursor of the Labour Party), in 1900, presaged the decline of liberalism and the politics of a new age. [English Heritage]
👥 Victorian politicians increasingly learned how to 'trust the people'... Britain managed to modernize its political system without succumbing to the political revolutions that afflicted virtually all of its European competitors. [Eric Evans]
👥 During the Victorian era... the United Kingdom could plausibly be considered as the world's superpower. However, Germany and the United States had already begun to surpass its industrial capacity and Germany's naval build-up would shortly present a powerful challenge to long-held British supremacy.
On the home front, the nation was only beginning to get to grips with widespread poverty while considerably more than half the adult population remained without a vote… [Eric Evans]
👥 The main aims of British foreign policy were:
1. To maintain the balance of power in Europe and to prevent one country or group of countries becoming too powerful. Traditionally France was seen as the main threat in this regard e.g. Napoleon.
2. To protect its naval superiority over any other European country…
3. To protect and expand her colonial Empire. France was traditionally her rival.
4. To defend the sea routes to India (Suez canal and South Africa) and to prevent landward encroachment towards the subcontinent by Russia.
5. To prevent Turkey from collapsing and Russia expanding her influence in the Balkans at Turkey’s expense. [Stephen Tonge]
👥 During the 1880s and 1890s Britain had pursued a policy of avoiding alliances that involved any sort of military commitments. This policy was known as “Splendid Isolation” and it was most associated with the figure of Lord Salisbury, prime-minister for most of this period.
However the Boer War (1899-1902) had exposed Britain’s lack of a reliable ally and proved she had very few friends. This allied to the growing might of Germany, caused Britain to abandon her policy of isolation. [Stephen Tonge]
Some useful resources:
History: Politics By Eric Evans, Emeritus Professor of Modern History at Lancaster University. On the BBC website.
Victorians: Power & Politics On English Heritage.
Politics of Victorian England By Rita Kennedy, on Synonym.
The Victorian Woman and Politics On Welcome to 1876 Victorian England.
Victorian Socialism. An Introduction By Dr Andrzej Diniejko, D. Litt., on The Victorian Web.
Chartists On The National Archives website.
Chartism On Wikipedia.
The People's Charter On The British Library website.
Female Chartists On The British Library website.
The Reform Acts By Glenn Everett, Associate Professor of English, University of Tennessee at Martin. On The Victorian Web.
The campaign for suffrage - a historical background On The British Library website.
Friends, family and rivals: Queen Victoria and the European empires By John Van der Kiste, on HistoryExtra.
European History/Age Of Revolutions On Wikibooks.
European History/European Imperialism and Nationalism On Wikibooks.
British Foreign Policy 1815-65 By Dr. Marjorie Bloy, on A Web of English History.
Reform in Britain 1870-1914 By Stephen Tonge, on A Web of English History. Includes ‘British Foreign Policy 1870 - 1914: A Summary’.
Victorian Political History: An Overview An index of articles on The Victorian Web.
Victorian Political History: Sitemap Index of articles, on The Victorian Web.
Victorian Legislation: a Timeline By Marjie Bloy, Ph.D. Senior Research Fellow, National University of Singapore. On The Victorian Web.
British Prime Ministers 1760-1901 By Marjie Bloy, Ph. D., Senior Research Fellow, on The Victorian Web.
Prime Ministers and Politics Timeline On the BBC website.
Great Victorians: Politics On The Victorian School.
Victorian Period 1837 – 1901 Includes a useful timeline for which government was in power when and who the leaders of the parties were. On Intriguing History.
The Subjects of Punch Cartoons and Caricatures: The British Political Scene An index of links to the various cartoons, on The Victorian Web.
Kyd’s political cartoons on the Disraeli-Gladstone rivalry from ‘Fun’ An index of links to the various cartoons, on The Victorian Web.
Victorian Era Cartoons On the Punch website.
Punch On The British Empire. Small collection of Victorian Punch cartoons, with commentaries.
Pigs, Paddies, prams and petticoats: Irish Home Rule and the British comic press, 1886–93 By Michael de Nie, Assistant Professor of History at the State University of West Georgia, Carrollton. On History Ireland.
Victorian cartoons depict 'brutal' 1880 election campaign By Robin Markwell, on the BBC website.
Social Class By David Cody, Associate Professor of English, Hartwick College. On The Victorian Web.
Review of Elizabeth T. Hurren's Protesting about Pauperism: Poverty, Politics and Poor Relief in Late-Victorian England, 1870-1900 By Alannah Tomkins, Reader in History, Keele University, on The Victorian Web.
William Blake's radical politics By Andrew Lincoln, Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London. On the British Library.
MP of the Month Articles tagged ‘MP of the Month’ on The Victorian Commons blog.
Rise to Power - Victorians By Ben Johnson, on Historic UK.
Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration By Panikos Panayi, on the Independent website.
The Refugee Question in mid-Victorian Politics Review of the book by Bernard Porter. Review by R.J. Morris.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
A few facts:
👥 At the beginning of Victoria's reign, about a fifth of adult males were entitled to vote. That proportion increased, through parliamentary reform acts passed in 1867 and 1884, to one-third and two-thirds respectively.
No women could legally vote in parliamentary elections until almost 18 years after Victoria's death - and the queen herself was no suffragist. Women did, however, play an increasingly influential role both in locally-elected school and poor law boards and in local government from the 1870s onwards. [Eric Evans]
👥 In local government elections, single women ratepayers received the right to vote in the Municipal Franchise Act 1869. This right was confirmed in the Local Government Act 1894 and extended to include some married women. By 1900, more than 1 million single women were registered to vote in local government elections in England. [Wikipedia]
👥 ...women were not granted [parliamentary] voting rights until the Act of 1918, which enfranchised all men over 21 and women over thirty. This last bit of discrimination was eliminated 10 years later (in 1928) by the Equal Franchise Act. [Glenn Everett]
👥 Chartism was a working class movement, which emerged in 1836 and was most active between 1838 and 1848. The aim of the Chartists was to gain political rights and influence for the working classes. Chartism got its name from the formal petition, or People’s Charter, that listed the six main aims of the movement. These were:
1. a vote for all men (over 21)
2. the secret ballot
3. no property qualification to become an MP
4. payment for MPs
5. electoral districts of equal size
6. annual elections for Parliament
Some opponents of the movement feared that Chartists were not just interested in changing the way Parliament was elected, but really wanted to turn society upside down by starting a revolution… lthough the Chartist movement ended without achieving its aims, the fear of civil unrest remained. Later in the century, many Chartist ideas were included in the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884. [National Archives]
👥 The Chartists demanded universal suffrage for men only and the main leaders were all male, but despite this, women played an important, often overlooked, role in furthering their cause. Some campaigned in support of The People’s Charter in its current form, while others such as Anne Knight campaigned to change the Charter itself to include the enfranchisement of women… [British Library]
👥 The dominant political parties changed over Victoria’s reign. When she took the throne in 1837, her first prime minister was the Whig politician Viscount Melbourne [William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne (Lord Melbourne)], and although the Whigs continued to influence British politics up to the 1860s, they were increasingly sidelined by the Liberal Party. The last Whig prime minister was Edward Smith Stanley, who resigned in 1868, and after that the politics of Victorian England were dominated by the Liberals and the Conservative Party. [Rita Kennedy]
👥 The new queen had a tendency towards favouritism in her politics, preferring ‘Uncle Melbourne’ (her first prime minister) and the Whigs to the rival Tories. After her marriage in 1840, however, Prince Albert tempered the queen’s partisanship. [English Heritage]
👥 Melbourne’s replacement, Sir Robert Peel, was a Tory, but also the son of a northern manufacturer. He embodied the broadening social background of the Tories, and their acceptance of the need for (conservative) reform... [English Heritage]
👥 In many ways the tone and composition of government remained heavily aristocratic for much of the reign… A new politics was taking shape, however, springing up in the manufacturing cities of the midlands and north. In response, from the late 1850s onwards Whiggism morphed into Liberalism. This was personified by Liverpool-born William Gladstone, who joined the Liberals in 1859. [English Heritage]
👥 In the 1860s the Conservatives recovered thanks to the inspired leadership of Benjamin Disraeli… The tussle for power between Disraeli and Gladstone, the two great politicians of the age, saw the appearance of modern two-party politics in a recognisable form… [English Heritage]
👥 In 1886 the issue of Irish home rule, championed by Gladstone, split the Liberals, allowing the Conservatives to dominate as the 19th century drew to an end. [English Heritage]
👥 Following the Act of Union in 1801, Ireland was an integral part of the United Kingdom throughout the Victorian era and periodically dominated political headlines… The Irish Home Rule movement grew stronger toward the end of the Victorian era, but Parliamentary bills to grant Ireland a measure of self-government were defeated in both 1886 and 1893. [Rita Kennedy]
👥 The election of James Keir Hardie, first MP for the Labour Representation Committee (precursor of the Labour Party), in 1900, presaged the decline of liberalism and the politics of a new age. [English Heritage]
👥 Victorian politicians increasingly learned how to 'trust the people'... Britain managed to modernize its political system without succumbing to the political revolutions that afflicted virtually all of its European competitors. [Eric Evans]
👥 During the Victorian era... the United Kingdom could plausibly be considered as the world's superpower. However, Germany and the United States had already begun to surpass its industrial capacity and Germany's naval build-up would shortly present a powerful challenge to long-held British supremacy.
On the home front, the nation was only beginning to get to grips with widespread poverty while considerably more than half the adult population remained without a vote… [Eric Evans]
👥 The main aims of British foreign policy were:
1. To maintain the balance of power in Europe and to prevent one country or group of countries becoming too powerful. Traditionally France was seen as the main threat in this regard e.g. Napoleon.
2. To protect its naval superiority over any other European country…
3. To protect and expand her colonial Empire. France was traditionally her rival.
4. To defend the sea routes to India (Suez canal and South Africa) and to prevent landward encroachment towards the subcontinent by Russia.
5. To prevent Turkey from collapsing and Russia expanding her influence in the Balkans at Turkey’s expense. [Stephen Tonge]
👥 During the 1880s and 1890s Britain had pursued a policy of avoiding alliances that involved any sort of military commitments. This policy was known as “Splendid Isolation” and it was most associated with the figure of Lord Salisbury, prime-minister for most of this period.
However the Boer War (1899-1902) had exposed Britain’s lack of a reliable ally and proved she had very few friends. This allied to the growing might of Germany, caused Britain to abandon her policy of isolation. [Stephen Tonge]
Some useful resources:
History: Politics By Eric Evans, Emeritus Professor of Modern History at Lancaster University. On the BBC website.
Victorians: Power & Politics On English Heritage.
Politics of Victorian England By Rita Kennedy, on Synonym.
The Victorian Woman and Politics On Welcome to 1876 Victorian England.
Victorian Socialism. An Introduction By Dr Andrzej Diniejko, D. Litt., on The Victorian Web.
Chartists On The National Archives website.
Chartism On Wikipedia.
The People's Charter On The British Library website.
Female Chartists On The British Library website.
The Reform Acts By Glenn Everett, Associate Professor of English, University of Tennessee at Martin. On The Victorian Web.
The campaign for suffrage - a historical background On The British Library website.
Friends, family and rivals: Queen Victoria and the European empires By John Van der Kiste, on HistoryExtra.
European History/Age Of Revolutions On Wikibooks.
European History/European Imperialism and Nationalism On Wikibooks.
British Foreign Policy 1815-65 By Dr. Marjorie Bloy, on A Web of English History.
Reform in Britain 1870-1914 By Stephen Tonge, on A Web of English History. Includes ‘British Foreign Policy 1870 - 1914: A Summary’.
Victorian Political History: An Overview An index of articles on The Victorian Web.
Victorian Political History: Sitemap Index of articles, on The Victorian Web.
Victorian Legislation: a Timeline By Marjie Bloy, Ph.D. Senior Research Fellow, National University of Singapore. On The Victorian Web.
British Prime Ministers 1760-1901 By Marjie Bloy, Ph. D., Senior Research Fellow, on The Victorian Web.
Prime Ministers and Politics Timeline On the BBC website.
Great Victorians: Politics On The Victorian School.
Victorian Period 1837 – 1901 Includes a useful timeline for which government was in power when and who the leaders of the parties were. On Intriguing History.
The Subjects of Punch Cartoons and Caricatures: The British Political Scene An index of links to the various cartoons, on The Victorian Web.
Kyd’s political cartoons on the Disraeli-Gladstone rivalry from ‘Fun’ An index of links to the various cartoons, on The Victorian Web.
Victorian Era Cartoons On the Punch website.
Punch On The British Empire. Small collection of Victorian Punch cartoons, with commentaries.
Pigs, Paddies, prams and petticoats: Irish Home Rule and the British comic press, 1886–93 By Michael de Nie, Assistant Professor of History at the State University of West Georgia, Carrollton. On History Ireland.
Victorian cartoons depict 'brutal' 1880 election campaign By Robin Markwell, on the BBC website.
Social Class By David Cody, Associate Professor of English, Hartwick College. On The Victorian Web.
Review of Elizabeth T. Hurren's Protesting about Pauperism: Poverty, Politics and Poor Relief in Late-Victorian England, 1870-1900 By Alannah Tomkins, Reader in History, Keele University, on The Victorian Web.
William Blake's radical politics By Andrew Lincoln, Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London. On the British Library.
MP of the Month Articles tagged ‘MP of the Month’ on The Victorian Commons blog.
Rise to Power - Victorians By Ben Johnson, on Historic UK.
Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration By Panikos Panayi, on the Independent website.
The Refugee Question in mid-Victorian Politics Review of the book by Bernard Porter. Review by R.J. Morris.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
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