Short History Of... - The Victorians, Part 2 of 2

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

The Victorian era transformed Britain into the world’s foremost industrial and imperial power. The rise of factories saw the expansion of sprawling cities, inhabited by a working class trapped in grinding poverty. But while the ever-growing ranks of impoverished residents were dogged by dangerous conditions, slums and the perpetual fear of the workhouse, industrialists became rich on the back of their labour.   As Britain continued its march forward, advancements in science, technology, and machinery began to expose the dark underbelly of the empire. Victorians grappled with the consequences of their own progress, as moral and religious ideals collided with a rapidly changing world. But in what way did these new ideologies of gender, power, and class challenge society? And how would this epic, nation-defining era finally come to an end?   This is A Short History Of The Victorians, Part Two. A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Dr Amy Milne-Smith, Professor of History at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, and Dr Onyeka Nubia, a British historian, writer and presenter. Written by Sean Coleman | Produced by Kate Simants | Assistant Producer: Nicole Edmunds | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Oliver Sanders | Assembly edit by Dorry Macaulay, Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Get every episode of Short History Of… a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did you lock the front door? Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection,

and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web? Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit tellus.com slash total security to learn more. Conditions apply. It is early morning in Canton, China in 1851. The air is thick with smoke and gunpowder.

A young British soldier, no older than 20, crouches behind a broken wall, gripping his rifle tightly. His hands are slick with sweat, and his red woolen coat clings to his back. It's weight unbearable in the stifling heat. his division is here in Canton to force China to open its ports and allow the British to push through cargoes of opium, silk and tea, forcing trade without regard for the cost to the soldiers fighting this war. Amid the crumbling walls of the city, the Chinese forces fight on.

The British soldier can hear the shouts of his comrades and the guttural yells of the enemy, mingling with the sporadic thunder of cannon fire. The world around him is chaos, and the ground trembles underfoot as artillery rains down. Nervously, he scans the space ahead of him, but the smoke makes it impossible to see clearly. He wipes a hand across his brow. How much longer before they break through, and how many more of them will make it to the end. A soldier to his left falls, clutching his chest, blood blooming across his uniform. The young man instinctively flinches, but there is no time to mourn.

He forces himself to focus, steadying his shaking hands to level a shot of the Chinese defender high on the wall. It is killed or be killed. This is not the heroism he had imagined a soldier's life to be. Less a brave and noble war for the empire, more just a fight for survival. His commander's voice, sharp and powerful, now rises above the din, ordering them to charge. The young soldier steals himself, willing his feet into motion. There is no time to think.

All he can do is run headlong into the chaos of fire, smoke and blood. For Britain, for Empire, for Queen Victoria. The Victorian era transformed Britain from a nation struggling with the legacy of war and poverty into the world's foremost industrial and imperial power. The rise of factories manufacturing the cotton, rubber and silk extracted from a vast colonial empire saw the expansion of sprawling cities inhabited by a working class trapped in grinding poverty. But while the ever-growing ranks of impoverished residents were dogged by dangerous conditions,

slums and the perpetual fear of the workhouse, industrialists became rich on the back of their labour. These newly affluent elites formed a powerful middle class. ready to challenge the old aristocracy for equal rights. As Britain continued its march forward, those advancements in science, technology and machinery began to expose the dark underbelly of the empire. Victorians grappled with the consequences of their own progress as moral and religious ideals collided with a rapidly changing world.

But in what way did these new ideologies of gender, power, and class challenge society? How long could Britannia keep ruling the waves, with their empire cracking under the weight of rebellion and resistance? And how would this epic, nation-defining era finally come to an end? I'm John Hopkins from the Noysa Podcast Network. This is part two of a special two-part short history of the Victorians. The Victorian era marks the pinnacle of British imperialism, with the empire expanding its reach across several continents. The famous adage, the sun never sets on the British Empire, speaks to its vast territorial expanse,

from Africa to India, the Caribbean to the Americas. Dr. Onyika Nubia is a British historian, writer and presenter. By the 19th century, the nature of British imperialism meant that British colonialism was particularly effective. It was strikingly effective in its capacity to be able to shape British identity and to shape global power. This colonialism enabled Britain to be be the most powerful nation in the world, and it enabled Britain to be able to utilize a vast quantity of resources that actually helped to build Britain. For a young man heading out to the colonies to make his fortune, much of what he'll find

is strangely familiar. The cutlery on his table in India is made in Sheffield, the train that carries him across the Cape Colony in South Africa is built in crew, and even the people he encounters speak English, often learned with regional accents. Meanwhile, back at home, the produce of empire touches almost every corner of British life. Dr. Amy Milne-Smith is professor of history at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada. So even people who have never been outside their parish, the empire did come home to them, whether it was the sugar on their tea table, or it was their neighbor who told stories of the lands of elephants. Empire always mattered,

and I think for many working class people, it gave them an enormous sense of pride and superiority, racial superiority, because no matter how low you were in the hierarchy of Britain, you were always a step above, in theory, colonized peoples. At its core, the empire is driven by the extraction of resources, gold, sugar, spices, cotton, rubber, tea, and more. But there is also a profound sense of duty and purpose that accompanies the expansion. Deeply ingrained in the Victorian mindset is the belief that spreading British values and its way of life to the colonies is not just a profitable act, but a noble and necessary one.

This idea is woven into the very fabric of the empire. The British colonize the world because they want things from it, obviously, but they also believe they have something to give. And this is difficult for us to understand, because obviously they want to go to, in India to get spices, they want furs from North America and fish, and they want sugar from the West Indies. That is easy to understand. Economic imperialism makes sense. But we also have to accept they genuinely believed they could benefit colonized people,

that it was a mutually beneficial, hierarchical situation. Because, of course, they're coming out of a hierarchical society themselves. And they absolutely believed that their culture, their religion, their way of life was better. The Victorians see themselves as bearers of civilization, bringing progress to what are considered uncivilized parts of the world. This deeply rooted sense of British superiority shapes both the policies and the everyday attitudes towards those living. in the colonies. Raja Kippen said that you must understand that you have been born an Englishman and that as such you have been born with the first prize in the race for life.

This concept of being the best, being the first, was really strong amongst ordinary British people. As the 19th century presses on, Britain relentlessly exploits its colonies for their full worth, forcing foreign subjects into grueling labour in service of the Queen. Britain had become very, very effective at making the wealth from its empire. So what had just been a project before now became an established mechanism and methodology for making wealth. This system depends on the exploitation of workers, many of whom have only recently been freed

from the bonds of slavery. While Britain formally abolished the practice in 1815, The treatment of its indentured labourers in India, the Caribbean, and elsewhere is slavery in all but name. The key thing about empire is that even though it may have its protestations of equality and justice, it is primarily built on inequality. And those aspects of inequality will rise to the circuit without authority. People will begin to question. Gradually, this belief in British superiority begins to fray. Rumors of atrocities, brutality and oppression of the local populations within the colonies make their way back home, bringing uncomfortable questions about the integrity of the empire.

As harsh governance results in widespread suffering, from famines exacerbated by colonial policies in India to the destruction of native cultures in North America, Australia, and South Africa. The devastating impact of imperial rule becomes undeniable. But they really believed that they were better. And that's why when there are moments of crisis where the empire is shown to be dark, it causes actual moral reflection. It causes frustration because we are supposed to be the good guys. And we are supposed to be mutually beneficial empire.

And so information that comes in that doesn't fulfill that stereotype is difficult to process. With these contradictions growing ever more apparent, resistance emerges across the colonies. What begins as rebellion becomes the birth of nationalism, with India, Ireland and Africa increasingly rejecting British control. In India, the seapoy mutiny of 1857 erupts in a violent challenge to British rule under the East India Company, which has effectively controlled much of India's political and economic life since the 18th century. In Ireland, the independence movement grows, while in Africa violent confrontations between the British and native groups threatened the stability of British holdings. But even with trouble brewing, the British double down on asserting

their dominance, and the mechanisms of imperial control grow ever more insidious. Mechanisms like the opium trade. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you as our trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the Power powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and vary by race. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca.

slash Y Amex. Fly Air Transat Seven Time winners Champions again. Fly the seven-time world's best leisure airline champions, Air Transat. In the mid-19th century, the opium trade performs a vital role in the economic welfare of the empire. British merchants, most notably through the East India Company, begin smuggling vast quantities of opium from India into China, deliberately creating a market by fostering a dependency on the drug.

As the British pump more opium into the country, exchanging it for highly prized goods like tea, silk and porcelain, the once thriving, highly disciplined Chinese population quickly becomes ensnared in addiction. As entire regions of China are consumed by the effects, its government tries to curb the trade. The British respond by sending in the big guns. The so-called opium wars finally force a defeated China to keep their ports open, and to cede the port of Hong Kong to Britain, marking the beginning of China's so-called century of humiliation. The episode exemplifies how British imperial power is exerted through manipulation and backed up by brute force. It also highlights the deep contradiction of an empire built on exploitation, being run by a society that enforces evangelical Christian values,

yet engaged in practices that directly contradict those ideals. And nowhere is the paradox exemplified more clearly than with the Queen herself. cherished as a symbol of virtue, modesty, and kindness, she also presides over an empire which some argue shows few of those things. But in truth, her role in all of this empire building is much more symbolic than political. This is not an era where the monarch is supposed to be involving themselves. This is really the constitutional monarchy coming into its full form, where we are gone from the era of kings and queens setting politics.

setting important decisions of the nation that really they are going to be at the will of the political leaders and act as more of a symbol of the nation. And Victoria and Albert do very well as symbolic heads of the nation. By the 1860s, Victoria and Albert have been married for over 20 years and our parents to nine children. Albert, though Prince's consort rather than king, has increasingly taken on a guiding role. in running the affairs of the country. Victoria relies on his intellect and administrative skills to manage much of her political and diplomatic work. Their partnership has been one of stability and unity,

a cornerstone of her monarchy. But all of that is about to be shattered. It is December the 14th, 1861. The winter air brings a summer. The winter air brings a solemn chill to the grounds of Windsor Castle near London, but the atmosphere within the castle is more sombre yet. Inside, Princess Alice, Queen Victoria's teenage daughter, hastens along a corridor to find her mother imploring her to hurry to her husband's side. They rush back to the blue room, a small parlour named for its bright silk wall coverings and matching curtains, which has been transformed into Prince Albert's sea. He has been suffering from typhoid fever, and his condition in the past couple of days has become critical.

As Victoria enters the room, the hubbub of physicians and attendants subsides, sloping away into the background, leaving just the Queen, Alice, and some of her siblings gathered by their father's bedside. On the bed, Prince Albert himself, pale as alabaster, lies still, his breath seeping from him in ragged gasps punctuated by a roomy cough. His wife gently takes his hand in hers, and nobody dares speak. Finally, a little before 11 o'clock, Prince Albert takes his final breath. Queen Victoria's own breath catches. and she squeezes his hand tighter as though willing life back into him. But it is not to be. She stands, quaking, kisses his forehead, and then clapses to the floor, sobbing.

As she is gently lifted and escorted from the room, her bell begins a solemn, mournful toll, telling the world that Prince Albert, the queen's consort is dead. With Albert's death, Queen Victoria falls into a deep and extended period of mourning that will perhaps come to define her reign. The public shares in her sorrow, and memorials to Prince Albert, like the one in Kensington Gardens, cement his place in the nation's collective memory. But as months turn into years, the Queen's Queen's reclusiveness becomes more pronounced and public opinion begins to shift. Some view her seclusion as a symbol of a loving widow's devotion, while others question her

ability to lead whilst so completely removed from public life. In this era, the way individuals, especially women, conduct themselves is of utmost importance, and the Queen is the flag-bearer for the Victorian's obsession with propriety and decency. This is a time when religious fervor, especially from the rising middle class, begins to dominate British society. Though Christianity has long shaped Britain, earlier periods like the Restoration and Regency were more tolerant of excess and indulgence. Not so the Victorians. Rapid social changes, urbanization and class tensions have all contributed to an evangelical Christian. which seeks to exert control with strict codes of behavior, particularly around sexuality and family life.

This moral obsession becomes a defining feature of the era, driven by the desire for stability in a confusing, changing world. So if Victoria cannot show the nation, the empire, how to behave properly and with decorum, even in times of extreme distress, Who knows where the rot might end? This Victorian obsession with moral purity is largely about maintaining social order and is rooted in the fear of what might happen if standards are allowed to slip. These fears are about what society may turn into

if the working classes, if the ordinary people aren't controlled. But they are also genuine concern about how demonstrable. democracy will work, how the distribution of wealth will work. So while the empire spreads its influence across the globe, back home, the focus of Victorian morality is on maintaining an idealized vision of behavior. They very much are asking society to do better, to be better, to be a model for the rest of the world.

It is a middle class movement that they then impose in many ways on the working classes that influences government, that influences policies. Some members of the aristocracy embody some of these values, but this is a value system that is born in the middle classes and spreads down. And in an age where reputation is everything, even the smallest perceived lapse in propriety can lead to scandal. For instance, a lady's reputation could be ruined by something as innocent as her ankle being glimpsed in public. A gentleman caller could cause terrible offence by hanging his hat rather than holding onto it during a visit, since hanging it was a declaration of feeling at home in another's house.

It all does come back to this kind of circular moral logic. Middle class evangelicalism has an outsized influence in Victorian Britain. You can see it in everything from Sabbath laws to obscenity legislation. The Victorian moralists kind of put everybody in a bind, because if you don't agree with them, then you are sinful. Once they set things in these moral black and whites, you want to be on their side. Social codes are enforced to the point of absurdity, even down to the proper way to address a letter or sit at a dining table or what to wear while riding a bicycle. Yet this rigid adherence to these restrictive codes, especially around personal conduct, often creates a sharp divide between the public and private lives of Victorians.

While Victorian evangelicalism and moralism is a very strong value, it is perhaps matched by Victorian's love of privacy and reputation. It was one thing to go against the norms of Victorian values, but if nobody knew about it and it was kept private, it could be overlooked. But if something came into the public sphere, then it became a scandal. The Victorians loved a scandal. Gambling, infidelity, and other private vices are often overlooked behind closed doors. But when exposed to the public eye, they can ruin reputations in an instant.

One such scandal, which strikes particularly close to home for Victoria, involves her son, and heir to the throne, the Prince of Wales. He becomes embroiled in a notorious affair in the 1870s after he is said to have run up a sizable gambling debt at the card tables. The public revelation of his reckless behavior sends shockwaves through society, damaging his standing and tarnishing the royal family's image. The Prince of Wales had to be called to testify in court because the scandal had gotten so out of hand

that we couldn't keep it behind private doors anymore. It's being called out as this ungentlemanly behavior, and we cannot protect it anymore, so we have to air it, because the moralist demanded. While indiscretions like these are often swept under the rug to avoid such scandals, there are other salacious aspects of Victorian society that are not simply tolerated, but actually regulated,

like prostitution. Victorian women are generally expected to remain chaste until marriage, and to be modest in all things, especially in the middle and upper classes. But the reality for the poor is once again far more complicated. As populations grow and cities swell, prostitution flourishes, with many poorer women forced into the trade to earn their rent. But far from being condemned, the practice is so deeply entrenched in Victorian society that the moral code is simply adjusted to make it acceptable, for the men, at least.

The idea of prostitution is centered on Victorian gender beliefs, very strict gender ideology, that a woman who has sex outside of marriage makes no sense to them because they believed women had no sexuality, that they had no sexual desires, whereas there was a lot of leeway for men who had these natural urges that they couldn't sully their wives with. Prostitution, again, was something that was accepted that most young men turned to prostitutes, but it wasn't spoken about. And all of the critiques, the legislation, the policy, the moral panic was around the women and not their clients. And that moral panic is further fueled by the way a prostitute is defined in Victorian society.

You will get these incredibly outlandish figures, sometimes thrown around by Victorian moralists, where they were say, well, one out of six houses in London is a brothel. But if you read how they define prostitution, some of these moralists and some doctors even define prostitution as a woman who has sex outside of marriage. So a woman who has a common law husband, and only one common law husband, and they live together for 20 years, but they never get married, they would define her as a prostitute. So that's the only way the math makes sense. Inflated statistics notwithstanding, by the late 19th century, the sheer number of sex workers, coupled with the prevalence of men, particularly soldiers, using their services, brings the

issue into the spotlight. This leads to the rise of reform movements advocating for better working conditions for the women involved. Yet, while reforms focus on those women in the streets, those women considered respectable still find themselves bound by an even stricter set of expectations. It will be some years yet before the battles for their rights begin to take shape. Until then, they are kept in place by the moral framework of scripture and the powerful influence of the church. You cannot underestimate the role of religion in Victorian society. Most people, vast majority of people, are Christian. Whether they go to church or not, they are rooted in Christian values. They have a Bible in their home. They believe that their moral code is shaped by their

interpretations of Christianity. The Church of England is the nation's dominant institution, spreading to the furthest reaches of the empire. Its influence guides missionary work in the effort to bring what it considers to be civilization to the colonies. At home, the Sunday Sabbath laws, which have been in place since the early 19th century, mean that all public life slows to a halt. shops, clothes, and work is largely suspended, with the day reserved for rest, worship and reflection. Initially intended to enforce religious observance, these laws become stricter under the growing influence of evangelism. By mid-century, they become more heavy-handed, used to ensure uniform standards of conduct and maintain social order.

As a result, religion regulates everything, from behaviour to social. gatherings and ensures that public and private life remains strictly governed. I think when people imagine Victorians or you see a photograph of Victorians looking very dour and very serious and very buttoned up, in many ways it encapsulates what we think of as Victorian values. And these are the ones we are thinking of, restraint, self-control, denial, sexual purity, all of these things are showing shaped by the evangelical movement. Yet, even as religion tightens its grip on behavior, shifts in thinking begin to occur.

There is an increasing amount of secularism that is spreading amongst ordinary people. People adopting a more secular approach and maybe still attending church, but adopting a secular notion of thing. An increasing amount of intellectualism meant that people may be Christian in name, but may adopt a more scientific approach to the way they see the world. By the 1850s, doubts about traditional beliefs are guided by the intellectual shifts of the Enlightenment and the rise of scientific thinking. Figures like Charles Darwin with his groundbreaking work on the origin of species and Thomas Huxley

with his advocacy for evolution now spark debates between faith and reason. like Charles Darwin became household names and the things that they discovered in inverted commerce became the things that ordinary people would read about in their newspapers and pamphlets and as literacy was increasing amongst the upper middle classes and even the upper working classes there was an increasing number of people who were genuinely interested these intellectual shifts are mirrored by growing skepticism as a society once once dominated by faith, starts to embrace science as the key to understanding human progress. The changes that were taking place within British society were also being shaped by the success

of empire. The increasing secularism, where you had an increasing number of people now who relied on science rather than religion to make sense of the world, many of these people began to believe that the scientific method was the most effective way to fight answers to human problems. Britain became therefore a haven for intellectual pursuits and had a sponsor of intellectual activity. The whole of the 19th century is a period of rapid scientific and technological progress. Advances in medicine, like the development of antiseptic surgery,

by Joseph Lister, or the discovery of anesthesia by William Morton, improve the quality of care and reduce mortality rates. Inventions like the telegraph, the steam engine, the electric light bulb, and machines that weave, cut, or print, transform everything from communication to industry. Over the course of the 19th century, Britain transformed from what was still an agricultural nation to a modern industrial nation. And even if you continue to be a small-scale farmer in a rural part of the world, things are going to impact your lives that are the result of industrialization,

things like improved roads and canals and then railroads. And the world is going to get smaller for you. Modern sanitation develops, and cities like London get the first sewer systems, which significantly reduce the spread of disease and improve overall living conditions. conditions. Meanwhile, in the home, newfangled contraptions like the washing machine, vacuum cleaner and the gas stove start making domestic life easier, or at least less time consuming

for those women who can afford them. According to the old saying, the devil makes work for idle hands. But far from idling away their newfound freedom, middle-class women use their time to carve out new roles and rights in this shifting society. The nature of British society met the women were expected to play a part in the private sphere, but not the public sphere of society. They wanted out to vote. There was a question over them owning property and inheriting in the way in which men inherited. There were many questions over status and authority and position.

Traditionally, Victorian women have been expected to embody ideals of purity, domesticity, and submission, to be both domestic goddesses and moral guides for the family. This is especially true for middle and upper class women, whose lives are largely confined to the private sphere. Here, many find their purpose in the home and in social gatherings, content to stay within these bounds. You get the valorization of women in the 19th century to far higher degrees than in previous periods,

because there wasn't a butt, there wasn't a caveat, It was, no, women are better than men. There was a belief that in their nature they were more moral, they were more religious, they were pure, they were good, and what the Victorians construct is a golden cage. But even before the Victorian era began, intellectuals like Mary Wollstonecraft were already challenging traditional gender roles. In her 1792 pamphlet, a vindication of the rights of women, Wollstonecraft had directly confronted the idea that women were inferior to men by arguing for women's education and independence. In the very early 19th century, her daughter, Mary Shelley, picked up this thread, using her own work, most notably the novel Frankenstein, to explore the roles of women

in a male-dominated world. And now, by the mid-Victorian era, they are followed by poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning and author Mary Ann Evans. The latter not only challenges expectations with her strong female characters, but by using the male pseudonym George Elliot, also subtly critiques the barriers restricting women from gaining intellectual respect. So you have, I'm sure, some women who are blissfully happy in their gilded cages

and who want nothing more than to come home and read novels with their husband and discuss his life and his work, art, music, passions that are shared. But you also have couple of, where there is abuse, where there is neglect, where you have, even without physical abuse, a woman who perhaps is very intelligent and self-educated

and wants to pursue that and be a part of a bigger, broader world who is not satisfied with the domestic life. There isn't a lot of space for her. And that's where you get women's suffrage, the fight for women's rights coming from, is women who can acknowledge the cage is beautiful, but they don't want to live in a cage. These cages take many forms.

Under the principle of coverture, a married woman has no legal existence independent of her husband. Even if a woman does own property, once she is married, it passes to her husband. And legally, everything from her claim on her own children to decisions about her own body are ultimately subject to his will. But now, this growing intellectual movement lays the foundation for a new wave of activism,

with women petitioning the government for change. The woman questioned was this notion that women should not be allowed to play a part in society because religion had said that women were the ringers of original sin. Women intellectual, writing in the 19th century, questioned that. wet-handed and with that was the beginning of the development of a movement, mostly of women from high class, from middle classes, so it included women who had the money and the wealth to go from town or city to city and campaign for the rights of women. Early questions about women's role in society are challenged by the likes of the healthcare

pioneer Florence Nightingale. But later, more political figures like Emily and Pankhurst start to champion equal rights for women, including education, financial independence, and most importantly, the right to vote. So I think what's interesting is the suffragettes don't come out of nowhere. So the evolution of women's rights, the discourse around women's rights, starts as far back as you can go, and every generation has their own version. It's a discourse and a struggle that will outlast the Victorian era, becoming more militant in the early 20th century. But the seeds of change in the way society

views women are planted here, and Victoria, for one, is unhappy about the development. She firmly believes that women's place is within the home and views the suffragists' demands for political rights as an affront to the natural order and the sacred role of motherhood. Yet, while these As women are gently fighting for their right to be heard, there is another section of society being silenced in an entirely different way. It is November 1888. A woman wakes in a cold room to the sound of her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Her head feels heavy, her mind a fog. Opening her eyes, she struggles to focus. The light is so harsh it hurts.

But as she forces herself to look, to understand where she is, she tries to move her arms to sit up and discovers that she can't. Thick, leather, straps bind her to the hard mattress. She struggles against them, but they don't give an inch. From the shadows, a man looms into sight. His eyes glint in the cold light and her fear turns to panic. She's heard the stories of a man they call Jack the Ripper, praying on women in London. Has he taken her?

Is that why she's here? The man leans in closer, carrying with him a chemical smell. She opens her mouth to scream, but her dry throat allows no sound to pass. She jumps as a hand touches her shoulder from the side. And when she looks across, she finds a woman standing there. Her uniform is familiar. And with a crash, reality comes flooding back in.

The woman is a nurse, the man at the end of the bed, a doctor. And she is in a madhouse, bedlam. but she's not mad she knows she isn't she has been sent here shoved into the darkness because her husband doesn't want the scandal of a divorce for a moment as he leans over her the doctor's face takes on the cold steel of her husband's stare she looks to the nurse pleading with her in a voice scratched horse by screaming but the nurse is just a cold. The doctor leans in, a cup in his hand. She knows what's coming and she knows there is nothing she can do to stop it. She thrashes against the restraints, but the nurse holds

her face tight, pressing her mouth open while the doctor tips in the foul, bitter concoction from the cup, forcing her to swallow. As they step back, she feels it slide down her throat, worming its way through her thoughts until the world recedes to a pinprick and she is left in the dark listening to the distant screams of her fellow inmates all of them prisoners in their own minds

the the Victorian understanding of mental illness is limited and those who are considered mad in the common parlance are often treated with cruelty. Women in particular are at risk of being diagnosed with conditions like hysteria, often for reasons as trivial as being considered unruly or difficult.

But the notion of madhouse is filled with largely sane but misunderstood women is not necessarily accurate. There were not more women in madhouses than men in the 19th century. We have the idea of the madwoman in the attic, I think as the icon of mental illness of the 19th century. And Victorians did understand women's madness as something they were particularly vulnerable to, largely because they understood mental illness

to be rooted in the body, and women's bodies went through many more obvious changes than men, and Victorian medical profession, frankly, saw women's bodies as just problematic. Many who do end up in asylums aren't formally committed, but are sent there by husbands or families, often for failing to behave as society dictates and conform to social norms. And yet, in some cases, rather than the asylum being simply a punishment to correct improper behavior, there is a genuine hope of treatment or even a cure, especially if the sufferer might otherwise make a decent contribution to the family coffers. So a family is going to save money and spend money to send a man to an asylum for the hope of a cure because it might be worth the expenditure because the private asylums were hundreds of pounds a year.

The private asylums, in fact, were like country houses where you could be prescribed six glasses of champagne per day, actual prescription. And men's mental illness was in many ways more threatening because it potentially undermined the family unit in terms of lost income, but also in terms of violence. There was much more fear of male violence under paroxysms of madness than women's. The reason perhaps that statistics show more women than men in Victorian asylums

is because, once committed to an institution like that, women tended to live longer. Men died. So if you just look at the numbers of people in asylums, there will be more women than men. But if you look at when they were committed, it is equal or sometimes men more so. And doctors at the time explained this because men were more likely to be exposed to things that would trigger mental illness, according to Victorian ideas. So head injuries, more likely to happen to men than women.

That was seen as a big trigger. Also, alcohol abuse was seen as another trigger. And they didn't exactly understand how in the 19th century, but they understood. understood that sexual diseases could also trigger insanity. What is probably tertiary syphilis, which is also why the death rate of men was higher than women. And with such a lack of understanding of its causes, the treatment of the mentally ill is usually barbaric. The use of strong restraints or electroshock therapy is common, as is the practice of lobotomy, where doctors would cut into the brain in an attempt to cure mental illness.

Bleeding is also frequently used, in the belief that draining the body's blood could help restore balance. Despite this, the period also sees the birth of modern psychology, with figures like the Austrian Sigmund Freud beginning to challenge traditional views on mental illness and insanity. Yet the stigma surrounding mental health remains pervasive. When viewed through the kaleidoscopic lens of Victorian morality, it is mostly seen as just another failure of character. And that question of failure in regards to mental health travels all the way up to the Queen herself. As the 19th century ends and the 20th begins, Queen Victoria's emotional well-being has been

the subject of public scrutiny for nearly four decades. Since the death of her beloved Albert, she has withdrawn from public life, retreating into morning and spending most of her time at her private residence. Her occasional appearances, at her Jubilee celebration, or as the newly crowned Empress of India, are rare. And as her health deteriorates, her waning power is mirrored in her empire. Once the strongest in the world, Britain's imperial might is fading fast. All colonies are already pushing for independence, with Ireland in particular seeing the rise

of nationalist movements. In South Africa, tensions are escalating with the Boers, which will culminate in the Second Boer War, and in Asia, India's calls for self-rule are growing louder. Yet, even as her world closes in, Victoria holds on to the belief in family as a unifying diplomatic force for Europe. By now, she has married most of her children off to other leading European royal house. seeking to form alliances, all in the name of a united monarchy. Queen Victoria regarded herself as the first monarch amongst the nations of monarch.

And she was certainly treated in that way by the heads of the European States. And there was a kind of deference shown to Queen Victoria, a deference about her position as Estenia was perhaps the most seen member of European royalty, and she wielded that authority in power in a particularly matriarchal way. However, no amount of authority can stave off the ravages of time. On January the 22nd, 1901, Queen Victoria dies of a stroke. She is 81 years old.

And while her death marks the official end of the historical period, there is one final chapter that truly brings the era to a close. As the matriarch of Europe's royal families, Queen Victoria's death leaves a power vacuum among her children and grandchildren. Kaiser Wilhelm II, her eldest grandchild, seeks to assert his own power, clashing with his cousin, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, while attempting to solidify his dominance in Europe. The family rivalry, combined with complex police political tensions sets the stage for the outbreak of World War I. It wasn't just that the Kaiser and Nicholas II were part of her family, it is also that

she was the senior member of that family and they regarded her as such. To such an extent that some commentators have suggested that the First World War would never have happened if she'd been a lie at the time. The horrors of the war finally dismantled the Victorian worldview that placed such emphasis on superiority, progress and social stability. As the immense human cost of the conflict becomes clear, the illusions of British exceptionalism begin to fade. The suffering and loss of so many highlights inequalities that have been ignored for decades.

It also creates fertile ground for movements like the suffragettes and labor reformers to challenge the old systems of power. demanding better rights for those who put their lives on the line for the country. And though the British Empire, as it was known, is no more. Its successor, the Commonwealth, continues to exist today. Countries, once colonized by Victorian Britain, from India to the Caribbean, still maintain ties to the British crown, albeit in a vastly different context. But while the decline of the empire, the rise of modernism,

and the disillusionment brought by war, accompany the close of the Victorian period. The people of the era leave behind a world irrevocably changed. Their relentless innovation brought us the electric light bulb, the motor car, the telegraph and the phonograph, transforming the way we travel, work and live. The Victorians also left us with the first skyscrapers, great strides forward in medicine and psychology, and a passion for the arts that led to iconic works in literature, music and theatre. Yet for all their programme, the Victorians also created a society marked by inequality, stifling moralism, and the exploitation of both people and resources around the globe.

And though more than a century has passed since the last Victorian was born, so much of their legacy, the dark and the dazzling, remains stubbornly present in modern society. It's the best example of every historian's favorite quotation. The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. because even when the Victorians seem like us, and they're so on the cusp of seeming like us, we need to always remember that they have a very different approach to the world. If we can understand what happened in the Victorian era,

we could perhaps understand ourselves more. By understanding what Britain was like, what it meant in the 19th century, we could begin to question some of the falsity that people claim about Britain, about the empire, about Britain, about the empire, the empire about British identity in the 21st century. And I hope that people take the time to do more research on British history, on the Victorian era, and really to discover voices, diverse voices, different voices, so that they might understand

this period far better, so that they might understand the period that they are now living far better. Next time on short history, I will bring you a short history of the White House. The White House is the physical manifestation of American democracy, and it means an incredible amount to the American people because of what it symbolizes. It's such a physical manifestation of everything that the United States stands for. That's next time. If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noyser Plus.

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