49 Fun Facts About Victorian Era

In which year did Queen Victoria come to the throne?

Victoria became queen on 20 June 1837, aged 18, and reigned until her death in January 1901.

Which era came immediately before the Victorian era?

The Georgian era, named for the four King Georges, ran from 1714 until Victoria's accession; the Edwardian era followed her reign.

How many children did Victoria and Albert have?

Victoria and Albert had nine children, born between 1840 and 1857; their marriages into Europe's royal houses earned her the nickname 'grandmother of Europe'.

For roughly how many years did Victoria withdraw from public life after Albert's death?

She withdrew for about ten years after Albert's death in 1861; the February 1872 thanksgiving for the Prince of Wales's recovery marked her full return to public ceremony.

What disease did his physician diagnose in Prince Albert in December 1861?

Dr William Jenner diagnosed typhoid fever; Albert's Portuguese cousins King Pedro V and Prince Ferdinand had both died of typhoid in November 1861.

The only war Britain fought against another great power in the era was which?

The 1815-1914 stretch is called the Pax Britannica; Crimea (1853-56) was the one clash with a major rival, Russia.

The Charge of the Light Brigade took place during which 1854 battle?

The charge came at Balaclava on 25 October 1854; the same battle produced the 93rd Highlanders' stand that became the 'thin red line'.

Which Times correspondent coined the 'thin red streak tipped with a line of steel'?

William Howard Russell of The Times described the 93rd Highlanders at Balaclava as a 'thin red streak tipped with a line of steel'; Roger Fenton took the photographs.

The 1856 treaty that ended the war in Crimea was signed in which city?

It was signed on 30 March 1856 after the Congress of Paris.

The military hospital where Florence Nightingale made her name was at which place?

The Barrack Hospital at Scutari sat across the Bosporus from Constantinople, in today's Üsküdar, Istanbul; Nightingale arrived there in November 1854.

At which London hospital did Nightingale open her nursing school in 1860?

The Nightingale Training School opened at St Thomas' Hospital in 1860, paid for by the roughly £45,000 raised by the public Nightingale Fund.

Nightingale is famous for pioneering which kind of statistical chart?

Her polar area diagram, often called the rose diagram, showed that disease rather than wounds killed most Crimean soldiers and helped force army sanitary reform.

Where was the Great Exhibition of 1851 held?

It ran in Hyde Park from 1 May to 15 October 1851, in a temporary glass hall the press nicknamed the Crystal Palace.

Who designed the Crystal Palace?

Joseph Paxton, a gardener by trade, drew on the greenhouses he had built for the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth.

About how many people visited the Great Exhibition?

About six million people visited, roughly a third of the population of England and Wales; the profits helped found the V&A, Science and Natural History museums.

Which famous diamond was a star attraction of the Exhibition's India display?

The Koh-i-Noor, the 'Mountain of Light', was surrendered to Britain after the 1849 annexation of the Punjab and shown in the Indian court; Albert had it recut in 1852.

After 1851 the Crystal Palace was rebuilt near which South London hill?

The rebuilt palace opened at Sydenham Hill in 1854 and stood until fire destroyed it on 30 November 1936; the district took the name Crystal Palace.

In which summer did the Great Stink hit London?

In the hot summer of 1858 Parliament soaked its riverside curtains in chloride of lime and finally funded a proper sewer system for London.

Which engineer's plan moved London's sewage eastwards through new intercepting sewers?

Joseph Bazalgette's scheme also gave the city the Victoria, Chelsea and Albert Embankments, with the intercepting sewers running inside them.

What was the world's first adhesive postage stamp, issued in 1840?

The Penny Black went on sale on 1 May 1840 and was valid from 6 May; the Two Penny Blue followed two days later.

Who proposed the adhesive stamp as proof of prepaid postage?

Rowland Hill put the adhesive stamp, plus a prepaid envelope, to the Post Office inquiry on 13 February 1837 and published the scheme as 'Post Office Reform'.

The first commercial Christmas card was commissioned in 1843 by whom?

Cole, later the force behind the V&A, had artist John Callcott Horsley design it.

The world's first underground passenger railway opened in London in which year?

The Metropolitan Railway opened on 10 January 1863, running gas-lit wooden carriages behind steam locomotives from Paddington to Farringdon.

Brunel's Great Western Railway used a controversial broad gauge of what width?

Brunel's 7 ft ¼ in broad gauge, he believed, gave smoother high-speed running; the GWR converted its last broad-gauge track to standard gauge in May 1892.

Which bridge did Brunel design but not live to see completed?

Brunel designed the Clifton Suspension Bridge while recovering from his Thames Tunnel injuries; the 1831 Bristol riots halted work and it opened in 1864, five years after his death.

Which of these was NOT one of Brunel's record-breaking steamships?

SS Great Northern never existed; the Great Western (1837), Great Britain (1843) and Great Eastern (1858) were each the world's largest ship when launched.

Which pair patented Britain's first electric telegraph in 1837?

Cooke and Wheatstone patented their needle telegraph in June 1837 and demonstrated it between Euston and Camden Town that July; Bell's telephone followed in 1876.

Who coined the word 'scientist' in 1833?

William Whewell coined 'scientist' at the 1833 British Association meeting in Cambridge, by analogy with 'artist'; before that researchers were called natural philosophers.

In which year was Darwin's On the Origin of Species published?

On the Origin of Species appeared on 24 November 1859; Alfred Russel Wallace's 1858 essay describing the same idea had forced Darwin to rush it into print.

Where was Charles Darwin buried?

He had expected the village churchyard at Downe, but colleagues petitioned for Westminster Abbey, where he was buried on 26 April 1882 near Newton and Herschel.

Dickens left school at 12 to work in what kind of factory?

His father was in the Marshalsea debtors' prison; the boy pasted labels for six shillings a week.

Which Dickens serial of 1836 became his first publishing phenomenon?

The Pickwick Papers took off when the Cockney servant Sam Weller appeared in the fourth monthly instalment; sales climbed to about 40,000 copies a number.

Dickens survived which rail crash in 1865?

The Staplehurst crash on 9 June 1865 caught Dickens returning from France with Ellen Ternan; he died five years to the day after the accident.

Which future prime minister founded the Metropolitan Police in 1829 as Home Secretary?

Robert Peel set up the Metropolitan Police in 1829 as Home Secretary, based at Scotland Yard; officers were nicknamed 'bobbies' and 'peelers' after him.

The 1846 repeal that split the Conservatives and ended Peel's premiership concerned what?

Famine in Ireland pushed Peel to repeal the Corn Laws, the grain tariffs, with Whig and Radical votes, 327 to 229 in the Commons; his party split and he fell in June 1846.

Roughly how many people died in Ireland's Great Famine?

About one million people died; a million more emigrated, and Ireland's population fell by 20-25% between the 1841 and 1851 censuses.

Which organism caused the potato blight behind the Famine?

Phytophthora infestans, a water mould rather than a true fungus, reached Ireland in 1845 and destroyed most of the potato crop in 1846.

The Poor Law Amendment Act that created the harsh new workhouse system passed in which year?

The 1834 Act discouraged 'outdoor relief' for the able-bodied: paupers were to be 'offered the house' and nothing else, under a central Poor Law Commission.

Which Victorian prime minister was born into a Jewish family?

Benjamin Disraeli, born Jewish and baptised at 12, was prime minister twice; he bought Britain's Suez Canal shares in 1875 and made Victoria Empress of India in 1876.

Which statesman served as prime minister four separate times between 1868 and 1894?

William Gladstone led four Liberal governments, formed in 1868, 1880, 1886 and 1892; supporters called him the Grand Old Man and rivals turned GOM into 'God's Only Mistake'.

The Third Reform Act of 1884 extended which voting principle to the counties?

It extended one vote per household, the borough franchise of 1867, to county voters, roughly doubling the electorate; all women and a large minority of men stayed outside the system.

Forster's Education Act of 1870 set a schooling framework for children of what ages?

The 1870 Act set a framework for schooling children aged 5 to 12 in England and Wales, filling gaps with elected school boards; attendance became compulsory only in 1880.

In which East End district did Jack the Ripper kill in 1888?

Five of the eleven 'Whitechapel murders' — the canonical five — are generally attributed to him.

The name 'Jack the Ripper' came from which letter sent to the press?

The 'Dear Boss' letter, sent to the Central News Agency in September 1888, was the first signed 'Jack the Ripper'; the 'From Hell' letter went instead to George Lusk's vigilance committee with half a kidney.

Oscar Wilde was convicted in 1895 of which offence?

Wilde was convicted of gross indecency under the 1885 Labouchere Amendment after his own libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry collapsed and the evidence was turned against him.

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of which Oxford mathematician?

Charles Dodgson, a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church, first told the story on a boat trip on 4 July 1862 to Alice Liddell, daughter of the college's Dean.

Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was officially celebrated on 22 June of which year?

The Diamond Jubilee on 22 June 1897 marked 60 years since her accession; the thanksgiving service was held on the steps of St Paul's so the Queen could stay in her carriage.

Which Victorian industrial city was nicknamed 'Cottonopolis'?

Manchester's mills and its Royal Exchange made it 'Cottonopolis'; by the 1850s it was the world's centre of cotton spinning and trading.

During the Boer War, roughly how many Boer civilians died in British concentration camps?

About 26,000 Boer civilians, most of them children, died of the 100,000-plus interned; measles, typhoid and hunger did the killing, and Emily Hobhouse's report took the scandal to Parliament.