Victorian Britain: Society in 1864

Victorian Britain

To really understand a person, it is necessary to understand also the time and society in which he lived. This section explains how the world of Britain in 1864, the year of Rivers’ birth, differed greatly from that we know today focussing, focusing, due to the need for brevity, on topics most relevant to the aim of the site

At this time, Britain was at the height of its imperial power and a leader in industrial advancement. A mere fifty years after the victories at Trafalgar and Waterloo, both the army and navy commanded considerable respect abroad and were regarded as highly trained by contemporary standards.

For those in positions of authority and among the leisure classes, the future may have appeared promising; yet for the majority, social and economic realities remained largely unchanged. There was a striking dissonance between the nation’s self-image as a beacon of civilisation and the persistence of acute poverty, evident in the proximity of grand monuments to destitute neighbourhoods, such as the St Giles Rookery near the Houses of Parliament. Social stratification was pronounced: individuals were expected to adhere to prescribed roles based on gender and class, and most of the population lived precariously close to the poverty line. Women were ideally confined to domestic duties, while men and older children frequently worked for more than twelve hours each day.

In reality, a great many working-class women also worked to keep their families from starving, and the only options for anyone who couldn’t work were to rely on help from relations, friends, and the Parish, or, God forbid, the dreaded workhouse. An unemployed person, whatever the reason, was generally regarded as lazy or shirking, and this was a Great Sin . To be admitted to the Workhouse, or ‘Union’ as some of the institutions were known, was a matter of shame and risked falling into hardly less cruel conditions; families were separated, the labour was intensive, and the meals often consisted merely of thin soup and bread. Punishment for any misdemeanour would probably be as harsh as in jail

Religious observance—whether Protestant, Anglican, or Catholic—remained highly significant for many, and moral strictures were more rigorously enforced than at any time since the Puritan era, notwithstanding the recent publication of Darwin’s theories. Religion was frequently invoked as a means of compelling conformity, with moral standards and adherence to scriptural commandments emphasized, especially in matters related to sexuality and personal conduct. Sexuality, in particular, was increasingly regarded as a taboo subject, not to be referenced or discussed in the presence of women, and premarital relations were strongly condemned. Social conventions dictated that women should display no enjoyment of sexual relations, while men were permitted such pleasure under the guise of health necessity; for wives, acquiescence was framed as a duty. This moral rigidity, arguably a response to rising rates of illegitimacy and rapid population growth (the latter having tripled in the preceding century), extended to extremes of propriety, such as the prohibition against women’s ankles being visible in public or men referring to the ‘legs’ of furniture, lest such language be deemed suggestive.

Moral laxity was viewed as even more egregious—a fundamental dereliction of duty, which was the central virtue in the Victorian worldview: duty to God, Monarch, Empire and Country, family, others, and finally oneself. Ideally, individuals were inculcated from childhood to consider the broader consequences of their actions, whether this entailed a wealthy individual safeguarding the welfare of employees or a child being encouraged to share possessions. Although the working class was often expected to adhere rigidly to these ideals, members of the upper class, despite being held as exemplars, frequently had the means to circumvent such expectations with impunity. While philanthropic efforts to ameliorate the condition of the poor were undertaken—for instance, Lord Shaftesbury’s ‘Ragged Schools’—a pervasive assumption remained that the upper class was inherently justified in its actions.

Advocacy for the education of the poor—intended to improve their quality of life, even at a rudimentary level—elicited ambivalent responses. Individuals from both affluent and lower socioeconomic backgrounds expressed skepticism about the potential consequences of widespread education. Henry Mayhew, a prominent social researcher of the period, articulated a common prejudice, suggesting that ‘since crime was not caused by illiteracy, it could not be cured by education … the only certain effects being the emergence of a more skilful and sophisticated race of criminals.’* Although arguments in favor of education ultimately prevailed, disparities in educational attainment persisted as markers of both class and perceived intelligence. It would take considerable time before it was broadly recognized that social rank was not inherently correlated with intellect, morality, or capacity for learning.

The empire, meanwhile, had made many a family fortune and it was considered the responsibility of all Britons to colonise as much of the world as possible, exporting the country’s values as it went. This included Christianity (albeit a very modified version), social mores, and ‘democracy’, enforced with little regard for whether the natives of these places wanted or were even ready for such changes. Not all measures taken at the time were bad (the slave trade was abolished, for example), but in pursuit of imposing ‘justice’ and correctness at home and abroad, in the name of duty to one’s fellow man, innumerable local customs, skills and beliefs were lost forever. In a manner with little to do with real Christianity, more and more citizens were pressured into adherence to a single way of life, with intolerance to difference encouraged as a good thing.

*http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/articles/poverty.html

Living Conditions 

Living conditions in the Victorian era, through to the Great War, differed widely depending on a person’s background, wealth, and where they lived. Electricity was new and rare, and gas was mostly used for lighting. Keeping warm in winter depended on how much coal you could afford. Wealthier families could heat several rooms, but very few people could keep their whole house warm. Most poorer families only had a fire in the kitchen or living room and sometimes had to gather leftover coal from railway tracks or delivery carts.
 
In cities, houses were often very damp, and in winter, ice could form on the inside of windows. People used coats and rugs to try to keep warm at night. Families were packed in tightly—sometimes one family to a single room, several families in one house or tenement, and even several people sharing a bed, lying head-to-toe.
In the countryside, life could be a little better; although many still lived in damp, cold accommodation, there was more space and at least an amount of nature and quiet close by if the inhabitants had time to experience it. Conversely, employment could be less stable and more seasonal, particularly in agricultural communities, making life equally precarious.
 
Mortality rates were high because of poor living conditions, hard physical work, and many diseases that could not be prevented or treated as they can be today. One in five children died before reaching school age, and in some industrial areas, life expectancy* only 48 years. Injuries that are treatable today could be deadly, and if someone became unable to work, their family had to support them. If that was not possible, they often ended up in the workhouse.
 
Mental illness could lead to even worse outcomes. Laws passed during the Victorian era meant that anyone considered insane was often sent to a county asylum—a hospital for people with psychological health problems. While some asylums tried to help patients, most were harsh places with strict rules and treatments that often seemed more like punishments. People with mental health issues were often seen as shameful, and families sometimes hid their connection to inmates, leaving them isolated
 
The prevalence of shell shock among soldiers in the Great War is often attributed to the harsh conditions they faced in the trenches. Yet, it is important to remember that many of these men were already familiar with hardship—cold, squalor, overcrowding, relentless work, and frequent encounters with death were part of daily life for much of the population before the war. That so many still suffered from shell shock suggests that the trauma of trench warfare went beyond the physical conditions, revealing new and profound psychological challenges. Figures such as Rivers devoted much effort to understanding what this could be, which set the war experience apart from even the hardest civilian lives.
 
*Not this is a statistical calculation, greatly affected by high number of infant deaths as much as adult survival rates
 

Expectations of’Manliness’

Both fictional and non-fictional writing often focuses on the limitations and expectations imposed on women in Victorian and Edwardian society. Still, men were also subject to a number of expectations, some of which may have made them particularly susceptible to ‘shellshock.’

The man was regarded as the breadwinner and the ‘head’ of the family, entrusted with acting in the best interests of its members. In practice, this frequently entailed imposing his personal preferences and predilections upon each member, regardless of their justification. He was responsible for ‘providing’ sustenance and was presumed to labour the hardest, entitling him to the choicest portions at mealtimes. As the enforcer of discipline, as reflected in the familiar admonition ‘wait until your Father gets home!’, he was associated with the administration of corporal punishment—a practice that, regrettably, often extended to both wives and children. At the time, domestic abuse was neither widely condemned nor regarded as a serious social problem, and was sometimes even justified through religious doctrine. The father’s authority was considered final and absolute; any dissent was immediately construed as insubordination. In certain circumstances, a man could even have a wife or daughter institutionalized for perceived disobedience.

Contrary to what this might suggest, however, life was by no means uncomplicated for men. From early childhood, they were conditioned to embody stoicism, trained to suppress any outward display of fear, grief, or pain—even in the face of familial loss or grave danger. Furthermore, despite the increasing necessity for women and children to participate in the workforce, men were nonetheless expected to remain the principal ‘breadwinners’ within the family unit. Failure to fulfil this role was perceived as a profound source of personal and social shame.

Working-class boys were expected to work long hours from the age of 12 or 14, at physically demanding jobs for little pay, which sometimes required them to leave home, just as girls were sometimes sent into domestic service. Unlike girls, the older boys in a family were sometimes expected to leave home if there were too many mouths to feed, perhaps joining the army or navy, or occasionally ending up on the streets until they could find employment. Many boys enlisted in the Great War in search of regular food and a reliable wage to send home to families who were struggling economically, as documented by Sylvia Pankhurst in The Home Front https://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/275

In families of the upper and middle classes, although they did not face the same problems of deprivation, boys were often still sent away from home at a young age – to boarding schools. Some attended from the age of seven, with the apparent intent to encourage independence and leadership skills, but with little regard as to the feelings of the boys themselves. Whilst some of these schools were excellent and boys enjoyed attending, many, such as Winston Churchill and George Orwell, recalled cruel and harsh regimes that affected them into adulthood.

In either case, effeminate, shy, or merely quiet boys of all classes were viewed as an anomaly. Due to social conditioning, parents would look for ways to ‘toughen them up’; peers would tease or shun them, pushing them to conform to the mould society demanded. This meant that soldiers going into war in 1914, from Britain at least, were men who felt a strong adherence to stoicism and duty that led them to attempt to face all situations with reserve and acceptance – from a society that expected them to show no fear, pain or sorrow whilst doing so – or in fact, to subject themselves to it willingly.

International Relations (why did the Great War happen)

While a comprehensive examination of the causes of the Great War lies beyond the scope of this discussion, it is nonetheless useful to outline the prevailing international context behind the origins of the conflict. The present analysis will primarily focus on British involvement.

In the centuries leading up to and including the Victorian era, Britain had extended its exploration to most of the world and had laid claims to parts of the Americas, Australasia, India and Africa, generally by military means, with an army that was proclaimed the best in the world. The Americas were lost by the time Rivers was born, but the empire that had accumulated covered one-third of the globe, and children were taught of the victories of Nelson, Wellington and later Kitchener, as if to prove the country’s right to have dominion over these areas. Not all countries agreed, and some even feared further expansion. In the years leading up to the Great War, saw conflict in Africa with the Boers, whilst German claims on the continent were growing, and its navy was beginning to rival Britain’s own.

Tensions among other European powers were also escalating. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 had left a legacy of animosity, prompting both Germany and France to pursue strategic alliances: France aligned itself with Russia in an effort to contain German expansion, while Germany formed alliances with Austria-Hungary and Serbia, motivated by the prospect of a two-front conflict. Belgium was established as a neutral buffer state between the rival powers, with Britain and other nations pledging to defend its neutrality. The prospect of war became increasingly imminent, although the precise timing and who it would be between remained uncertain.