Queen Vicky Complet

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The Victorian age.

Argument

So , um , had to write about smth and this is some boring shot for you guys.And simply because Im a total bitch and got no sex lately, Ive decided towrite a 32-page long paper about it. Yes, I want you to suffer as well. Enjoy

your next 20 mins. Assholes. * needs bit more work.*

Introduction

In 1897 Mark Twain was visiting London during the Diamond Jubilee celebrationshonoring the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Victoria's coming to the throne."British history is two thousand years old," Twain observed, "and yet in a goodmany ways the world has moved farther ahead since the Queen was born than itmoved in all the rest of the two thousand put together." Twain's commentcaptures the sense of dizzying change that characterized the Victorian period.Perhaps most important was the shift from a way of life based on ownership ofland to a modern urban economy based on trade and manufacturing. By thebeginning of the Victorian period, the Industrial Revolution, as this shift wascalled, had created profound economic and social changes, including a massmigration of workers to industrial towns, where they lived in new urban slums.But the changes arising out of the Industrial Revolution were just one subset ofthe radical changes taking place in mid- and late-nineteenth-century Britain among others were the democratization resulting from extension of the franchise;challenges to religious faith, in part based on the advances of scientificknowledge, particularly of evolution; and changes in the role of women.

All of these issues, and the controversies attendingthem, informed Victorian literature. In part because of

the expansion of newspapers and the periodicalpress, debate about political and social issues playedan important role in the experience of the reading

public. The Victorian novel, with its emphasis on therealistic portrayal of social life, represented manyVictorian issues in the stories of its characters.Moreover, debates about political representation

involved in expansion both of the franchise and of the rights of women affectedliterary representation, as writers gave voice to those who had been voiceless.


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Queen Victoria

ictoria, the daughter of the duke of Kent and Princess Victoria ofSaxe-Coburg, was born in 1819. She inherited the throne of Great Britain at theage of eighteen, upon the death of her uncle William IV in 1837, and reigned until1901, bestowing her name upon her age. ). Only 18 when she came to the throne,Victoria oversaw England at the height of its overseas power. The British Empire

was established in her reign, and it reached its greatest expanse under her.Things did not start off smoothly, however. She married her mother's nephew,Albert (1819-1861), prince of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, in 1840, and until his death heremained the focal point of her life (she bore him nine children). Albert replacedLord Melbourne, the Whig Prime Minister who had served her as her first personaland political tutor and instructor, as Victoria's chief advisor. Albert was moralistic,conscientious and progressive, if rather priggish, sanctimonious, andintellectually shallow, and with Victoria initiated various reforms and innovations-- he organized the Great Exhibition of 1851, for example -- which wereresponsible for a great deal of the popularity later enjoyed by the Britishmonarchy. (In contrast to the Great Exhibition, housed in the Crystal Palace andviewed by proud Victorians as a monument to their own cultural andtechnological achievements, however, we may recall that the government overwhich Victoria and Albert presided had, in the midst of the potato famine of 1845,continued to permit the export of grain and cattle from Ireland to England whileover a million Irish peasants starved to death).

Sir Francis Grant's Portrait of Queen Victoria.
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After Albert's death in 1861 a desolate Victoria remained in self-imposedseclusion for ten years. Her genuine but obsessive mourning, which wouldoccupy her for the rest of her life, played an important role in the evolution ofwhat would become the Victorian mentality. Thereafter she lived at Windsor orBalmoral, travelling abroad once a year, but making few public appearances inBritain itself.

Although she maintained a careful policy of official political neutrality, she didnot get on at all well with Gladstone. Eventually, however, she succumbed to theflattery ofDisraeli, and permitted him (in an act which was both symbolic andtheatrical) to have her crowned Empress of India in 1876. (AsPunch noted at thetime, "one good turn deserves another," and Victoria reciprocated by makingDisraeli Earl of Beaconsfield.) She tended as a rule to take an active dislike ofBritish politicians who criticized the conduct of the conservative regimes ofEurope, many of which were, after all, run by her relatives. By 1870 her popularitywas at its lowest ebb (at the time the monarchy cost the nation 400,000 perannum, and many wondered whether the largely symbolic institution was worththe expense), but it increased steadily thereafter until her death. Her golden

jubilee in 1887 was a grand national celebration, as was her diamond jubilee in1897 (by then, employing the imperial "we," she had long beenKipling's "Widowof Windsor," mother of the Empire). She died, a venerable old lady, at Osborne onJanuary 22, 1901, having reigned for sixty-four years.

Education of the queen.

According to Tim Reid's article in The Times on-line, the "List Of Books Read ByPrincess Victoria," a document in her own handwriting, reveals the "formidablereading list" of 150 works she studied "between the ages of seven and 16," manyof which "would be largely impenetrable to even the most dedicated and scholarly

modern pupil."

The record, to which, begins in 1826, . . . is a mix of 20 religious texts, 27 Frenchbooks, including Voltaire's histories, 13 volumes of classical Latin and grammar,including the works of Ovid, Virgil and Horace, the great historical works of theage, the poetry of Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Shakespeare and Goldsmith, treatises inbusiness and astronomy, Blackstone's classic commentary on the laws ofEngland -- studied when 15 and compendiums on geography, natural historyand moral teachings. . . . By the age of nine, the Princess was studying 25 texts,including A Concise History of England, Markham's History of France, AnIntroduction to Astronomy, Geography and the Use of Globes, The Catechism ofthe Church of England "to be learned by Heart" Pinnock's Catechism of

Geography, and the Book of Trades.

By the time Victoria was 16 she had already read Dryden's translation of TheAneid, Pope's Iliad, Voltaire's history of Charles XII (in the original French), "andwas studying Goldsmith's History of England, Clarendon's History of theRebellion, had completed Goldsmith's histories of Greece and Rome andMagnall's Historical Questions."
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In sum, Victoria, who "enjoyed a grasp of world affairs far superior to many of the 20Prime Ministers who worked to serve her," was an extremely well educated person.

She spoke excellent French plus "some Italian [and] adequate Latin" and had "anadvanced knowledge" of subjects, such as business, still not adequately covered at

Oxford. Victoria was clearly one nineteenth-century British woman who was nothandicapped because not she did attend a major university. Can you think of other

Victorian women (outside royalty) who also achieved high learning despite theirinability to attend a university? Hint: one remains one of England's most importantnovelists, and another, a major poet and a leading scholar of post-classical Greek,was seriously suggested as Poet Laureate on the death ofWordsworth.

Queen Victoria and Victorian England - the young queen

The generally uneventful reign of George's brother, William IV(1830-37), was followed by that of Queen Victoria (1837-1901

The Great Exhibition of 1851.

Victoria's consort, Prince Albert, was the main backer of the1851 Great Exhibition. This was the first "world's fair", withexhibits from most of the world's nations. The exhibition washeld in Hyde Park, and the showpiece was the Crystal Palace,a prefabricated steel and glass structure like a giganticgreenhouse, which housed the exhibits. The Crystal Palacewas disassembled after the Exhibition and moved to

Sydenham, in south London, where it burned down in 1936.

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations was the firstinternational exhibition of manufactured goods, and it had an incalculable effect

on the course of art and design throughout the Victorian Age and beyond. It wasmodeled on successful French national exhibitions, but it was the first to open itsdoors to the world.

Prince Albert's Project. The Exhibitions chief proponent and cheerleader wasPrince Albert. The Prince Consort envisaged a self-financing event, andencouraged a reluctant government to set up a Royal Commission to oversee theexhibition, to be held in Hyde Park, London. The Commission called forarchitectural submissions for the exhibition hall, which was to cover an area ofover 700,000 square feet. Over 200 submissions were received, but theCommission rejected them all in favour of its own plan, which was universallyreviled as ugly and expensive. This latter objection proved all too true, for when

the Commission called for tenders for the materials alone, they were appalled tolearn it would cost up to 150,000 pounds.

Paxton's Crystal Palace. Then another plan surfaced, by Joseph Paxton. Initiallythe Commission rejected Paxton's plan, but he took out newspaper ads to raise

public support, and the Commissioners were forced to bow to public pressure.Paxton's innovative design called for a glass and steel structure, essentially agiant greenhouse, made of identical, interchangeable pieces, thus lowering

A youngVictoria
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materials cost considerably. Paxton's design was adopted, with the addition of adome to allow space for some very tall trees in Hyde Park.

Jump testing. Rival architects claimed that the building was unsafe, and wouldcollapse from the resonance set up by the feet of large crowds. So an experimentwas set up. A model structure was built, and workmen walked back and forth in

time and then haphazardly. Then they jumped up in the air together. No problem.As a final test, army troops were called in to march about. The test buildingpassed the trial, so work proceeded on the real thing.

The numbers.

Some quick facts and figures about Paxton's amazing creation:

The main building was 1848 feet long and 408 wide, enclosing 772,784square feet (19 acres), an area six times that of St. Paul's Cathedral

The structure contained 4000 tons of iron, 900,000 feet of glass, and 202

miles of sash bars to hold it all together.

The Exhibition.

Amazingly, the building, dubbed the "Crystal Palace", was ready on time and onbudget. In fact, due to presale of tickets, the exhibition was ensured a profitbefore it even opened on May 1, 1851. There were 17,000 exhibitors from as faraway as China, and over 6 million visitors viewed goods ranging from silks toclocks, and furniture to farm machinery. The French were the big winners in termsof awards, a fact which did not go unnoticed by the British press.

The profit from the exhibition was used to purchase land in Kensington, where

several museums were built, including the forerunner of the Victoria and AlbertMuseum, which carries on the spirit of the exhibition in its displays devoted to artand design. In fact, the road were several of these museums were built was calledExhibition Road.

As for the Crystal Palace itself, it was dismantled at the end of the exhibition andreassembled in Sydenham, South London. There it stayed as a tourist attractuionuntil it burned down in 1936. If you want to get a sense of what this amazingbuilding was like, visit the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, and take a look at thePalm House.

Late Victorian England

A tale of Two Prime Ministers. This era could be subtitled 'The Gladstone andDisraeli Show' for the two politicians who dominated it. The two men, Gladstoneand Disraeli, could not have been more dissimilar. Gladstone was liberal,humanitarian, and devout. Queen Victoria found him stuffy.


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Disraeli, on the other had, was imperialist, nationalistic, andcharming to boot. The queen enjoyed his company, for he couldmake her laugh.

The Irish Question. This was also the age of the 'Irish Question',the question being whether or not the Irish should be allowed to

rule themselves. Gladstone was a constant activist for increasedIrish autonomy, but his views were not widely supported, andIrish extremists began a campaign of terrorism, the fruits ofwhich are still with us today.

Legal reform proceeded slowly. Education was made more accessible for thelower classes, and the Ballot Act of 1872 made voting a private affair for the firsttime. The Army Regulation Bill abolished the practice of purchasing commissionsin the armed forces.

Victorian literature. In this age before TV's, computers, and Nintendo, the mostcommon form of entertainment was reading aloud (parents of the video age take

note!). Writers like Dickens, Tennyson, and Trolloppe were widely read anddiscussed. The advent of universal compulsory education after 1870 meant thatthere was now a much larger audience for literature. Disraeli himself, when hewasn't locking horns with Gladstone, was a very popular novelist.

Victoria's Empire. Much of the attention of the country was focussed abroadduring this era. In 1876 Victoria was declared Empress of India and the EnglishEmpire was constantly being expanded. The prevailing attitude in Britain was thatexpansion of British control around the globe was good for everyone.

Urbanization. On the home front the Industrial Revolution gathered steam, andaccelerated the migration of the population from country to city. The result of this

movement was the development of horrifying slums and cramped row housing inthe overcrowded cities. By 1900 80% of the population lived in cities. These citieswere 'organized' into geographical zones based on social class - the poor in theinner city, with the more fortunate living further away from the city core. This wasmade possible by the development of suburban rail transit. Some suburban railcompanies were required by law to provide cheap trains for workers to travel intothe city centre.

Seaside Resorts. The growth of rail transit also gave birth to that Victorianmainstay, the seaside resort. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, workinghours decreased, and the introduction of Bank Holidays meant that workers hadthe time to take trips away from the cities to the seaside. The seaside resorts

introduced the amusement pier to entertain visitors. Some of the more famousresorts were at Blackpool and Brighton.

The new aristocracy. The Industrial Revolution also meant that the balance ofpower shifted from the aristocracy, whose position and wealth was based on land,to the newly rich business leaders. The new aristocracy became one of wealth,not land, although titles, then as now, remained socially important in Britishsociety.

Disraeli


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In the late 18th century, running in parallel, as it were, with raging classicism, wasa school of romanticized Gothic architecture, popularized by Batty Langley's

pattern books of medieval details. This medieval style was most common indomestic building, where the classical style overwhelmingly prevailed in publicbuildings.

Victorian Art and Architecture

hat did the Victorians like? What kind of furniture, silverwork, jewelry,

wallpaper, and glass did they buy for their own homes? Even to begin to answerthat question one must put the terms "Victorian" and "Victorians" withinquotation marks twice first because the Victorian years, which lasted from 1835(or even 1830) to 1903 or a few years beyond, obviously divides into three, four, oreven five periods. Whereas the early part of Victoria's reign saw interest in amedievalor Gothick Revival in all aspects of architecture and design, much of themid- and late-Victorian period was a time of the lush, abundant, cluttered lookthatmost of us associate with the term "Victorian." Then, from the 1880s onward, aseries of reactions against High Victorian taste took place Aestheticism, ArtNouveau, Japonisme, theArts and Crafts movement, the Celtic Revivaland theLiberty style, and finally Art Deco, which reached its height much later, in the1930s and '40s. Therefore, when anyone talks about "Victorian taste," we have to

find out to which part of Victoria's reign they refer.

Second and equally important, Victorian taste varied widely according tosocial class and the not-always-closely-related matter of economic status. Tobegin with, many members of the nobility and land-owning gentry, who lived inhomes their families had occupied for centuries, found themselves surrounded byElizabethan, Jacobean, and eighteenth-century furnishings, and unless they wereself-consciously interested in contemporary taste, they were often unlikely toreplace perfectly good furniture or silver, however old and out-of-fashion, withany examples of new taste. A conservative, prosperous, but not particularlywealthy member of the squierarchy, likeRalph Carburyof Trollope's The Way WeLive Now, had no fashionable furnishings. Similarly, members of the working

classes, farm workers, and unemployed poor, who together made up far morethan half of the Victorian population, did not have the resources to furnish theirhomes with properly Victorian things.

By and large, then, questions of Victoran taste refer primarily to the middleand professional classes, to factory owners in the industrial North, such theThorntons we meet in Gaskell's North and South, and a very view wealthytrendsetters the kind of people we see made the subject of Punch's mockery.
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The Gothic Revival Architecture. In reaction to the classical style of the previouscentury, the Victorian age saw a return to traditional British styles in building,Tudor and mock-Gothic being the most popular. The Gothic Revival, as it wastermed, was part spiritual movement, part recoil from the mass producedmonotony of the Industrial Revolution. It was a romantic yearning for thetraditional, comforting past. The Gothic Revival was led by John Ruskin, who,

though not himself an architect, had huge influence as a successful writerand philosopher.

The term "Gothic Revival" (sometimes called Victorian Gothic) usually refers tothe period of mock-Gothic architecture practiced in the second half of the 19thcentury. That time frame can be a little deceiving, however, for the Gothic stylenever really died in England after the end of the medieval period. Throughout the17th and 18th centuries, when classical themes ruled the fashion-conscious worldof architecture, Gothic style can be seen, if intermittently. This is because manyarchitects were asked to remodel medieval buildings in a way that blended in withthe older styles.

One of the prime movers of a new interest in Gothic style wasHorace Walpole. Walpole's country house at Strawberry Hill,Twickenham (1750), was a fancifully romantic Gothic cottage.The style adopted by Walpole (termed, not surprisingly,"Strawberry Hill Gothic"), took many of the decorativeelements of exterior medieval Gothic and moved them to theinterior of the house. Thus, Walpole's rooms are adorned -some might say over-adorned - with touches like cuspedceilings and crocheted arches.

Little of Walpole's style is what you could call "authentic"; hemerely took decorative touches and strewed them about with abandon. The

controversial result is very much open to criticism; you either love it or hate it, butfew people are ambivalent about it.

Other architects tried their hand at Gothic style. EvenRobert Adam, the master ofneo-classical country house architecture, used Gothic elements, for example atCulzean Castle, where the exterior crenellation recalls amedieval fortress.

James Wyatt was the most prominent 18th centuryarchitect employing Gothic style in many of his buildings.His Ashridge Park (Hertfordshire), begun in 1806, is thebest surviving example of his work. At Ashridge, Wyattemployed a huge central hall, open to the roof, inconscious imitation of a medieval great hall.

Into the early years of the 19th century many architects dabbled in Gothic style,but as with Walpole, it was more the decorative touches that appealed to them;little bits of carving here, a dab of pointed arch there.

A Gothic Revivalchurch

Gothic Revival

cottage
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Most paid scant heed to authentic proportion, which is one of the most powerfulmoving forces of "real" Gothic style. Even when the shapes used by builders wereGothic, the structure was not. Columns and piers were made with iron corescovered over with plaster.

In the early 19th century Gothic was considered more suitable for church and

university buildings, where classical style was thought more appropriate forpublic and commercial buildings. Good examples of university Gothic can beseen at Cambridge, for example, the Bridge of Sighs at St. John's College (1826)and the gateway at King's College (1822-24).

It is really only after 1840 the Gothic Revival began to gathersteam, and when it did the prime movers were not architects at all,but philosophers and social critics. This is the really curiousaspect of the Victorian Gothic revival; it intertwined with deepmoral and philosophical ideals in a way that may seem hard tocomprehend in today's world. Men likeA.W. Pugin and writer JohnRuskin (The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849) sincerely believed

that the Middle Ages was a watershed in human achievement andthat Gothic architecture represented the perfect marriage of

spiritual and artistic values.

Ruskin allied himself with the Pre-Raphaelites and vocally advocated a return tothe values of craftsmanship, artistic, and spiritual beauty in architecture and thearts in general. Ruskin and his brethren declared that only those materials whichhad been available for use in the Middle Ages should be employed in GothicRevival buildings.

Even more narrow-minded than Ruskin were followers of the "ecclesiologicalmovement", which began in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Adherentsof the ecclesiological movement believed that only the Gothic style was suitablefor church architecture, but not just any Gothic style! To them, the "MiddlePointed" orDecoratedstyle prevalent in the late 13th to mid 14th century was theonly true Gothic. The bible of the movement was the monthly publication, TheEcclesiologist, which was published from 1841-1868. The publication was inessence a style-guide to proper Gothic architecture and design.

But all this theory needed some practical buildings to illustrate theideals. The greatest example of authentic Gothic Revival is thePalace of Westminster (The Houses of Parliament). The Palace ofWestminster was rebuilt by Sir Charles Barry and A.W. Pugin aftera disastrous fire destroyed the old buildings in 1834. While Barryoversaw the construction, much of the design is Pugin's, a designhe carried out in exacting Perpendicular Gothic style inside andout.

The period from 1855-1885 is known as High Victorian Gothic. In this periodarchitects like William Butterfield (Keble College Chapel, Oxford) and Sir GeorgeGilbert Scott (The Albert Memorial, London) created a profusion of buildings invarying degrees of adherence to strict Gothic style.

Gothic

Revivalwindow

WestminsterPalace
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High Victorian Gothic was applied to a dizzying variety of architectural projects,from hotels to railroad stations, schools to civic centers. Despite the stridentvoice of the Ecclesiological Society, buildings were not limited to the Decorated

period style, but embracedEarly English, Perpendicular, and even Romanesquestyles.

Were the Gothic Revivalists successful? Certainly the Victorian Gothic style iseasy to pick out from the original medieval. One of the reasons for this was a lackof trained craftsmen to carry out the necessary work. Original medieval buildingwas time-consuming and labor-intensive. Yet there was a large pool of labourer'sskilled in the necessary techniques; techniques which were handed down throughthe generations that it might take to finish a large architectural project.

Victorian Gothic builders lacked that pool of skilled labourers to draw upon, sothey were eventually forced to evolve methods of mass-producing decorativeelements. These mass-produced touches, no matter how well made, were too

polished, too perfect, and lacked the organic roughness of original medieval work.

Christopher Wren, the master of classical style, for example, added Gothicelements to several of his London churches (St. Michael, Cornhill, and St.Dunstan-in-the-East). William Kent's gatehouse at Hampton Court Palace (1723) fitin flawlessly with Cardinal Wolsey's original Tudor Gothic. When NicholasHawksmoor remodeled the west towers at Westminster Abbey (from 1723) he didso in a sympathetic Gothic style.

Major Gothic Revival buildings to see in England:Strawberry Hill, TwickenhamExeter College Chapel, OxfordScarisbrick Hall, LancashireKeble College, OxfordPalace of Westminster, London

Albert Memorial, London

Extravagant... Most popular architectural styles were throwbacks; Tudor,medieval, Italianate. Houses were often large, and terribly inconvenient to live in.The early Victorians had a predilection for overly elaborate details and decoration.Some examples of large Victorian houses are Highclere Castle (Hampshire) andKelham Hall (Nottinghamshire).

... and simple. In late Victorian times the pendulum, predictably, swung to theother extreme and the style was simpler, using traditional vernacular (folk)models such as the English farmhouse. This period is typified by the work ofNorman Shaw at 'Wispers' Midhurst, (Sussex).

Not just styles changed. The Industrial Revolution made possible the use of newmaterials such as iron and glass. The best example of the use of these new
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materials was the Crystal Palace built by Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibitionof 1851.

The Arts and Crafts movement.

Another name that has to be mentioned in the context of Victorian art andarchitecture is that of William Morris. Neither artist nor architect, he neverthelesshad enormous influence in both arenas. Morris and his artist friends Rossetti andBurne-Jones were at the forefront of the movement known as 'Arts and Crafts'.Part political manifesto, part social movement, with a large dollop of nostalgiathrown in, the Arts and Crafters wanted a return to high quality materials andhand-made excellence in all fields of art and decoration.

The cheap, mass-produced (and artistically inferior) building and decoratingmaterials then available horrified them. Morris himself, through his Morris andCo., designed furniture, textiles, wallpaper, decorative glass, and murals. Many ofMorris' designs are still popular today.

Literature in the Victorian Age

In 1897 Mark Twain was visiting London during the DiamondJubilee celebrations honoring the sixtieth anniversary ofQueen Victoria's coming to the throne. "British history is twothousand years old," Twain observed, "and yet in a good manyways the world has moved farther ahead since the Queen wasborn than it moved in all the rest of the two thousand puttogether." Twain's comment captures the sense of dizzyingchange that characterized the Victorian period. Perhaps mostimportant was the shift from a way of life based on ownershipof land to a modern urban economy based on trade andmanufacturing. By the beginning of the Victorian period, the

Industrial Revolution, as this shift was called, had createdprofound economic and social changes, including a mass migration of workers toindustrial towns, where they lived in new urban slums. But the changes arisingout of the Industrial Revolution were just one subset of the radical changes taking

place in mid- and late-nineteenth-century Britain among others were thedemocratization resulting from extension of the franchise; challenges to religiousfaith, in part based on the advances of scientific knowledge, particularly ofevolution; and changes in the role of women.


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All of these issues, and the controversies attendingthem, informed Victorian literature. In part because ofthe expansion of newspapers and the periodical

press, debate about political and social issues playedan important role in the experience of the reading

public. The Victorian novel, with its emphasis on the

realistic portrayal of social life, represented manyVictorian issues in the stories of its characters.Moreover, debates about political representation

involved in expansion both of the franchise and of the rights of women affectedliterary representation, as writers gave voice to those who had been voiceless.

The section in The Norton Anthology of EnglishLiterature entitled "Victorian Issues" (NAEL 8,2.15381606) contains texts dealing with fourcontroversies that concerned the Victorians:evolution, industrialism, what the Victorians called"The Woman Question", and Great Britain's identity

as an imperial power. Norton Topics Online providesfurther texts on three of these topics: the debateabout the benefits and evils of the Industrial Revolution, the debate about thenature and role of women, and the myriad issues that arose as British forcesworked to expand their global influence. The debates on both industrialization andwomen's roles in society reflected profound social change: the formation of a newclass of workers men, women, and children who had migrated to cities,

particularly in the industrial North, in huge numbers, to take jobs in factories, andthe growing demand for expanded liberties for women. The changes were related;the hardships that the Industrial Revolution and all its attendant socialdevelopments created put women into roles that challenged traditional ideasabout women's nature. Moreover, the rate of change the Victorians experienced,

caused to a large degree by advances in manufacturing, created newopportunities and challenges for women. They became writers, teachers, andsocial reformers, and they claimed an expanded set of rights.

In the debates aboutindustrialism and about the WomanQuestion, voices came into print that had not been heardbefore. Not only did women writers play a major role inshaping the terms of the debate about the WomanQuestion, but also women from the working classesfound opportunities to describe the conditions of theirlives. Similarly, factory workers described their workingand living conditions, in reports to parliamentary

commissions, in the encyclopedic set of interviewsjournalist Henry Mayhew later collected as London Laborand the London Poor, and in letters to the editor thatworkers themselves wrote. The world of print became

more inclusive and democratic. At the same time, novelists and even poetssought ways of representing these new voices. The novelist Elizabeth Gaskellwrote her first novel, Mary Barton, in order to give voice to Manchester's poor,and Elizabeth Barrett Browning tried to find ways in poetry of giving voice to the

poor and oppressed.
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The third section of this Web site, "The Painterly Image in Victorian Poetry,"investigates the rich connection in the Victorian period between visual art andliterature. Much Victorian aesthetic theory makes the eye the most authoritativesense and the clearest indicator of truth. Victorian poetry and the Victorian novelboth value visual description as a way of portraying their subjects. This emphasison the visual creates a particularly close connection between poetry and painting.

Books of fiction and poetry were illustrated, and the illustrations amplified andintensified the effects of the text. The texts, engravings, and paintings collectedhere provide insight into the connection between the verbal and the visual socentral to Victorian aesthetics.

Britains identity as an imperial power with considerable global influence isexplored more comprehensively in the fourth topic section. For Britain, theVictorian period witnessed a renewed interest in the empires overseas holdings.British opinions on the methods and justification of imperialist missions overseasvaried, with some like author Joseph Conrad throwing into sharp relief the brutaltactics and cold calculations involved in these missions, while others like

politician Joseph Chamberlain considered the British to be the great governing

race with a moral obligation to expand its influence around the globe. Socialevolutionists, such as Benjamin Kidd, likewise supported the British dominionthrough their beliefs about the inherent developmental inferiority of the subject

peoples, thus suggesting that Europeans had a greater capacity for rulingasuggestion that many took as complete justification of British actions overseas.Regardless of dissenting voices, British expansion pushed forward at anunprecedented rate, ushering in a new era of cultural exchange that irreversiblyaltered the British worldview.

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack thefirst is not to assail the last. (Jane Eyre preface)
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T

he Bronte Sisters

Anne Bront (1820-49)

Emily Bront (1818-48)

Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,How could I ask the empty world again? ('Remembrance' st. 8)


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Charlotte Bront (1816-55)

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack thefirst is not to assail the last. (Jane Eyre preface)

THE story of the Brontes is one of the saddest in the annals of literature. They

were the children of a father who was both cold and violent, and of a gentle, sicklymother, early lost. They were reared amid surroundings the most gloomy andunhealthful, and cursed as they grew older with a brother who brought themshame and sorrow in return for the love they lavished upon him. Their very geniusseemed a product of disease, and often their finest pages are marred by a bittersavor of its origin. Their stories deal with suffering, endurance, or rebellionagainst fate; with violence, with crime and its punishment. In treating suchsubjects, these three quiet, patient daughters of a country parson foundthemselves quite at home.

Their father was a clergyman of the Church of England, an Irishman by birth, whohad had the good sense to change his original name of Prunty to the more

pleasing appellation since made famous by his daughters.He worked so hard toperfect himself in the necessary branches that at twenty-five he was enabled toenter Cambridge University, upon leaving which, four years later, he was ordainedto a curacy in Essex. From Essex he went to Hartshead in Yorkshire, where hemarried Miss Maria Branwell, a young lady of Cornish parentage.

Three years later he removed with his wife and two little baby girls, Maria andElizabeth, to Thornton in the same county, where four other children were born,one every year. Charlotte, the most famous, was the eldest; she was born in 1816.

A son, Patrick Branwell, came next; then Emily Jane; then Anne. In 1820, the yearafter Anne's birth, the family moved to Haworth Vicarage, in the village ofHaworth, near Keighley, in Yorkshire. A year later the mother, always weak and

ailing, died, leaving her six young children to their father's care. Mr. Bronteapparently intended to do his duty to his children; but he was a hard, vain,. dullman, fond of solitude, eccentric, and possessed of many strange notions inregard to education He never cared for his children's society, desired only to havethem keep quiet and learn their lessons, allowed them no meat, required them todine upon potatoes, and ate his own dinner alone in his room. Their dress, too,had to be of the simplest. It was not forgotten in the family that a silk dress of his


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wife's which displeased him he cut into shreds; nor that some colored shoesgiven the children by a cousin he threw into the fire.

He possessed a furious temper, which he usually kept under control; butoccasionally, when he found it necessary to give some vent to his feelings, hewould fire pistols out of the back door in rapid succession. Almost his only

communication with the children was at breakfast and supper; his only method ofentertaining them was to relate, at the breakfast table, wild and horrible Irish talesof massacre, blood, and banshees. Yet the children loved him, and rendered himan obedience and devotion which much kinder and wiser parents can not alwaysobtain.

Thus the six little Brontes, motherless, and denied the intimacy andcompanionship of their father, clung to each other with a love far beyond that ofmost brothers and sisters of their age. They were wonderfully "good," poor littlethings, the boy being the only one who showed any evidences of vigor.

They spent much of their time wandering silently about the old house and thebleak moors beyond it, hand in hand, Maria, the eldest, a pale, small creature ofseven, assuming the charge of the others, and trying her best to be a mother tothem. Their surroundings were sombre and dreary. Haworth Parsonage standsupon a hill which slopes sharply down to the village in one direction, and in theother, after a slight further ascent, merges into an apparently interminableexpanse of moorland. The church and school-house stand close by, while abovethe house, and surrounding it upon three sides, lies the graveyard, crowded withupright tombstones. The parsonage itself is a low stone building, ancient,draughty, and picturesque, with heavy, flagged roof made to resist the winds thatsweep across the moor, with chilly flagged floors, old-fashioned windows withsmall, glittering panes, and a few hardy flowers, some elder and lilac bushes,growing beneath shelter of its walls.

The sounds with which the children were most familiar were the rushing andmoaning of the wind around the chimneys, the bell of the church, ringing toservice or tolling for funerals, and, whenever the house was still, the constantchip! chip! of the stone-mason who lived near the gate, cutting an epitaph uponone of the slates which he kept piled in his shed. The sights they loved were thefirelight and the broad moor. Games, like those of ordinary children, they never

played. The elder children read the papers, including the Parliamentary debates,and amused themselves by discussing, in hushed voices, the rival merits ofBonaparte and the Duke of Wellington. They had no story books. The Duke ofWellington was their hero of romance, whom they worshiped with absolutedevotion. One thing at least they enjoyed, perfect liberty, and they were happy intheir own way.

This lasted for a year; then Miss Branwell arrived, a kind and efficient, ifsomewhat fastidious little maiden aunt, who undertook to reclaim them from theirwildness and instruct them in civilized accomplishments. Submission to her rulewas not easy after such entire freedom; but she did them much good, and theysoon learned to like and respect her. They learned lessons which they recited totheir father, and the five little girls were instructed in sewing, cooking, and


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housework. Their leisure they still employed in long rambles on the moor, and intelling each other wonderful stories of heroism, adventure, or magic. One spring,they were all taken sick with a complication of measles and whooping cough, andon their recovery, Mr. Bronte thought a change of air desirable for the elder ones.In July, 1824, he sent Maria and Elizabeth to a school for clergymen's daughters atCowan's Bridge; in September they were joined by Emily and Charlotte.

To the readers of Charlotte Bronte it would be superfluous to describe this schoolthe "Lowood" of " Jane Eyre." Its miserable diet, unhealthy situation, longlessons, rigid discipline, low type of religion, and continual sermons uponhumilitynothing is there forgotten, nor is anything exaggerated. Moreover, thedescriptions of both teachers and pupils are most of them portraits. Miss Templeand Miss Scatcherd are drawn from the life; and the pathetic figure of Helen Burnsis a delineation of Maria Bronte, whose death from consumption was directly dueto the hardships she underwent at Cowan's Bridge. A single incident related toMrs. Gaskell by a fellow pupil of the Bronte girls of the way in which this studiousand sickly child was treated, shows effectually that Charlotte's picture of Lowoodis not overdrawn, and fully justifies the anguish and burning indignation with

which she always recalled her sojourn there.

In 1831 Charlotte, then fifteen, was again sent to school this time to a MissWooler of Roehead, a kind lady and an excellent teacher. At this school shebecame a favorite with the other girls, although they laughed at her odd ways, toldher how ugly she was, and found her unable to share in their amusements. Theseserious defects were counterbalanced by her scholarship, which they admired, byher obliging disposition, and by her story-telling gift, which she would exercisefor their benefit as they lay in bed at night, with such success as to frighten themall nearly out of their wits. Two of her fellow pupils especially attachedthemselves to her, and remained her life-long friends. One of them thus describedher to Mrs. Gaskell, as she appeared at this time:

"She looked like a little old woman, so short-sighted that she always appeared tobe seeking something, and moving her heed from side to side to catch a sight ofit. She was very shy and nervous, and spoke with a strong Irish accent. When abook was given her, she dropped her head over it till her nose nearly touched it,and when she was told to hold up her head, up went the book after it, still close toher nose, so that it was not possible to help laughing."

Upon returning to Haworth Charlotte at once set to work to teach her sisters allthat she had learned at school, giving them regular instruction from nine untilhalf-past twelve every day. In 1835 she returned to Miss Wooler's, this time in thecapacity of assistant teacher, accompanied by Emily as a pupil. But Emily wasobliged to return to Haworth at the end of three months, completely overcome byhomesicknessnot a mere sentimental feeling, but a longing, stoutly resisted, yetso powerful as to darken all her days, break down her health, and threaten herwith rapid decline if she did not yield. Charlotte remained behind with Anne, whocame to take Emily's place, but the work was too hard for her, and she, too, beganto fail and pine, and to be tormented besides by nervous fears, gloomyforebodings, and an irritability which she could scarcely control.


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Emily, meanwhile, had gone as a teacher to Halifax, where she was obliged tolabor from six in the morning until eleven at night, with only a half-hour ofexercise between. But, in the Christmas holidays, the three sisters again met attheir home, and discussed their hopes and prospects. About this time it was thatCharlotte first conceived the idea that her writings might have a public interest;might open to her a road of escape from the slavery to which she was

condemned. She mustered up all her courage, and sent sonic specimens of herpoetry to Southey, requesting his opinion upon their merits. The poet returned hera kind but discouraging letter, to which she replied gratefully and humbly, tellinghim that she should continue to write for her own pleasure and improvement, butthat she should never again feel ambitious to see her name in print. She asked noreply to this second letter, but Southey wrote to her again, this time mostcordially, and invited her to come and see him if ever she were near his home.She afterwards sent some of her poems to Coleridge and Wordsworth.

It is not necessary to dwell in detail upon the various occupations of the Brontegirls after Charlotte finally left Roehead. When at home they wrote, read,wandered on the moor, and pursued their household avocations. Emily remained

continuously at Haworth, but Anne and Charlotte obtained situations asgovernesses. Anne's experiences in this capacity may be divined by the readersof "Agnes Grey," her first novel; Charlotte's are indicated in "Shirley," in that

passage where Mrs. Pryor describes her early life. In speaking of this period toMrs. Gaskell, Charlotte related how, in one family, just as she was beginning togain some ascendancy over a group of children who had been perfect littlesavages when she arrived, the youngest, and to her the dearest, said to her oneday at table in a sudden burst of affection, putting his chubby hand in hers:

"I love 'ou, Miss Bronte! "Instantly the mother exclaimed, in a tone of astonishment and reproach:"Love the governess, my dear!"

It is a relief to hear, after this incident, that in the last family where she occupiedthis situation, her treatment was far different. As she herself said, they could notmake enough of her, and they remained her friends as long as she lived.But, atthe best, going out as governess did not prove remunerative, and the workovertaxed the feeble strength of both Anne and Charlotte. It was a slavery fromwhich they longed to escape, and in concert with Emily, they gradually formed the

plan of keeping a girls' boarding-school at their own home.

To this end, however, they considered a better knowledge of French and Germannecessary; and, at length, in 1842, Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels to theschool of M. and Madame Heger, in the Rue d'Isabellea happy circumstance,which gave to Charlotte the materials for what is perhaps her masterpiece, thenovel of "Villette."

Charlotte enjoyed Brussels, in her quiet way. She had Emily for company, sheentered eagerly into her lessons, she liked the oddities and imperiousness of herbrilliant teacher, M. Hegerthe original of Paul Emanuel. Her near-sighted greyeyes lost none of the characteristics of the blooming Belgian school girls by


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whom she was surrounded, with their smooth hair, their romping ways, theirdevotion to dress, and their excellent appetites.

But Emily pined for Haworth and her beloved moor. Brussels was nothing to her;M. Heger only exasperated her, although she performed her tasks faithfullyfinding, indeed, her only refuge from homesickness in labor. For his part, he

recognized at once the exceptional talents of both his reserved, oddly dressedEnglish pupils, but he considered Emily as the greater genius of the two; andindeed, her exercises were far superior to Charlotte's.

Dark days followed the return of the sisters from Brussels. Their long-cherishedscheme of the girls' boarding school was destined never to be realized. Haworthwas too remote in situation and too forbidding in aspect to attract scholars, and,in spite of the neatly printed circulars which they issued, and of the earnestefforts of their few friends, they did not succeed in securing a single pupil. Thiswas a bitter disappointment, but it was as nothing compared with a householdsorrow that had been slowly coming upon them for a long time.

Readers of "Jane Eyre " will remember the incident of Rochester's insane wifesetting his bed on fire, and of his rescue by Jane. It has been consideredextravagant, but Charlotte found the suggestion for it in her own home. One night,when the three sisters were passingalong the upper entry to their rooms, they noticed a bright light coming fromBranwell's chamber. Immediately Emily, after warning the others with a finger onher lip not to wake Mr. Bronte, who was singularly afraid of fire, darted down thestairs and soon reappeared with a pail of water in each hand. She entered theburning room; the bright flare subsided, and presently her terrified sisters sawher come out, pate, panting, and scorched, half-dragging, half-carrying in herarms her helpless brother, who was stupefied with drink.

Their great venture of the school having failed, Charlotte's thoughts once moreturned to literature. She found one day some poems of Emily's which seemed toher meritorious; Anne, finding Emily's verses approved, produced some of hers;Charlotte added her own, and the three sisters formed the bold resolution to havethe little collection printed, published, and if possible sold. It was a long anddifficult task to find a publisher; but at last they succeeded, and in 1846 theslender little volume was issued under the title of "Poems, by Currer, Ellis, and

Acton Bell;" Currer Bell being Charlotte; Ellis, Emily; and Acton, Anne. Thevolume attracted little attention, but the few reviewers who noticed it awardedhigher rank to the work of Ellis Bell than to that of her brothers, as the discerningcritics called them. The book was, however, an evident failure; it brought thesisters little reputation and less money.

But they were used to disappointments, and they met this new one bravely. Theynext tried romance. Anne wrote "Agnes Grey," Charlotte "The Professor," andEmily "Wuthering Heights." When these tales were completed, all three were sentin one parcel from publisher to publisher, only to return as often to the hands oftheir unhappy authors. Then it occurred to them to try their fate separately, andafter further waiting and discouragement, "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey"


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found a firm willing to take the risk of printing them. "The Professor" was not sofortunate.

Meanwhile, another sorrow had come into the melancholy parsonage: Mr. Brontehad begun to lose his eyesight. He could still grope his way about, but he couldnot read nor use his eyes for many of the ordinary purposes of life, and it was

evident that unless the cataract could be removed his sight would soon beentirely destroyed. So, in August of 1846, Charlotte accompanied him toManchester for the purpose of having an operation performed. Upon the very dayon which the operation was to take place, Charlotte, lonely, anxious, andmiserable, had "The Professor" once more returned to her, "declined," by somebusy publisher without even the usual thanks. She was in the room with her fatherwhile the cataract was removed, sitting breathless and quiet in a corner, and shenursed him through the illness of the following days, when he was confined to hisbed in a darkened room, hoping, but not yet certain, that his sight was restored tohim.

And it was at this time, in the midst of sorrow, suffering, anxiety, and

disappointment, alone with her invalid father in a great, black, strange cityit wasat this time, on the evening of the day of the operation, that Charlotte Bronte, herbrave spirit still undaunted, sent forth her old story for another trial, and, sittingdown in her bare, ugly little boarding-house room, wrote swiftly, and with few

pauses, the opening chapter of "Jane Eyre."

At last, after her return to Haworth, came a piece of good fortune. Messrs. Smith &Elder, to whom she had sent "The Professor" (omitting, in her innocence, even toobliterate upon the parcel the names of the publishing houses to whom it had

previously been addressed), sent her a letter in which, to be sure, the unlucky talewas once more rejected, but in which, as she afterwards declared, its merits anddemerits were discussed "so courteously, so considerately, in a spirit so rational,

with a discrimination so enlightened, that this very refusal cheered the authorbetter than a vulgarly-worded acceptance would have done." In addition, theystated that a work in three volumes from her pen would receive careful attention.She sent them "Jane Eyre."

This famous novel, begun in such gloomy circumstances, was written amiddifficulties of every kind. For long periods, sometimes for weeks, even months ata time, Charlotte would find herself unable to write; then, suddenly, the inspirationwould seize her and she would write for as long a time as her duties permitted,holding her paper close to her eyes upon a bit of board. She wrote in a cramped,minute hand, in pencil, upon loose scraps of paper, sometimes sitting before thefire at twilight, often in her own room at night, when her restless imaginationforbade her to sleep. In the day-time household affairs frequently interrupted herat the most critical moment. Tabby, the servant, who had been in the family formany years, was so old that she could not see to remove the "eyes" from the

potatoes which she peeled for dinner; yet Charlotte was unwilling to hurt herfeelings by asking the younger servant maid to look them over.

Often, therefore, while under the full force of inspiration, she would lay aside hermanuscript and gliding quietly into the kitchen, abstract the bowl of potatoes


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when Tabby was not looking, and remove the "eyes" herself. Never once did sheomit to perform a duty, nor even the smallest act of kindness or courtesy, onaccount of her literary work.

The success of " Jane Eyre" was great and immediate. Messrs. Smith & Elder hadevery reason to be glad of their connection with that "C. Bell. Esquire," to whom

they addressed their business letters under cover to Miss Bronte. C. Bell herselfwas glad and proud, in a quiet way, and thought it time to tell her father of hersuccessfor he had not been the confidante of his children in their literaryventures. One day, she went in to him in his study, taking with her a copy of hernovel and several reviews of it, one adverse, the others favorable. Mrs. Gaskellrelates the conversation that followed, as it was told to her by Charlotte.

"Papa," said the daughter, ''I've been writing a book.""Have you, my dear.""Yes, and l want you to read it.""I am afraid, it will try my eyes too much.""But it is not in manuscript; it is printed."

"My dear! you've never thought of the expense it will be! It will he almost sure tobe a loss, for how can you get a book sold? No one knows you or your name.""But, papa, l don't think it will be a loss; no more will you if you will let me readyou a review or two, and tell you more about it."

She read him the reviews and left him "Jane Eyre." When he came down thatevening to tea he said to his daughters:"Girls, do you know Charlotte has been writing a book, and it is much better thanlikely!"

It was not until after the publication of "Jane Eyre" that "Wuthering Heights" and"Agnes Gray," long as they had been in the hands of the publishers, were given to

the world. " Agnes Grey " was a carefully written study of the life of a governess,and was, perhaps, something above the average novel of the day. " WutheringHeights" was far different. It is a tale of horror, violence and crime, relieved onlyby two brief love scenes at the end, brightly and delicately drawn and novel inconception. It is a book which, once taken up, it is not easy to lay clownunfinished; which people sit up late at night to read, and which haunts them intheir sleep, bringing them evil and fantastic dreams. It is a morbid book, real in itsvery unreality, but its power is incontestable. Emily has been blamed for choosinga subject so forbidding; but remembering her gloomy and wild environment, hersolitary nature, and the drunken, desperate brother ever present in her home, wecan scarcely wonder at her choice. Besides, as has been beautifully and truly saidby Miss Robinson, a lady who has recently related the story of Emily's life with

rare truth and insight:

"From the clear spirit which inspires the end of her work, we know that the stormis over; we know that her next tragedy would be less violent."

"Agnes Gray " and "Wuthering Heights" met with little favor from the public. Annewrote one other novel, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," in which she attempted, withsome success, to depict her brother Branwell; and this work succeeded better.


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But Emily, whose genius, though widely different, was scarcely less than that ofher more famous sister Charlotte, wrote no more.

Trouble was coming again upon the patient sisters. Branwell grew worse andworse, his sufferings and paroxysms more and more terrible, until, in 1848, theend came. By a last strange exercise of will he insisted upon meeting his death

standing. He died erect upon his feet, after a struggle of twenty minutes. Emily,whose health had for some time been failing, went to his funeral and sat for thelast time in the damp, melancholy church; indeed, it was the last time that sheever left the house. She was dying of consumption.

We can imagine no sadder record than that of Emily Bronte's illness and death.Every hope of her life had been blighted. The school, which was to keep herselfand her sisters together in the home she loved, had failed her novel, into whichshe had put her heart and her ambition, had failed too; her dearly beloved brother,for whom she had dreamed of fortune and fame, had just died disgraced,despised, and miserable. Now she felt herself dying. With a last exercise of willstranger and sadder than his, with a courage and endurance almost incredible,

she refused even to own that she was not well, and went about her daily duties,pale, thin, and panting creeping slowly down the stairs with her hand against thewall in the morning, toiling at household labors throughout the day, and draggingherself painfully to her bed at night.

She refused to see a doctor; she refused to take medicine; she refused to rest;and her sisters, who did not dare to cross her, looked on with breaking hearts asshe grew weaker day by day. On the day of her death she rose as usual and satdown before the fire to comb her long, brown hair; but she was too weak, and thecomb fell from her hand and dropped into the hot ashes, where it lay for sometime giving forth the nauseous odor of burning bone. When the servant came inEmily said to her, pointing to it, " Martha, my comb's down there. I was too weak

to stoop and pick it up. "Nevertheless she finished dressing, tottered dizzily downthe stairs, and taking up a piece of work attempted to sew. Towards noon sheturned to her sisters, saying in a gasping whisper, for she could no longer speakaloud:" If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now."

But it was too late, and her sufferings rapidly increased. At two o'clock Charlotteand Anne implored her to let them get her to her room and to her bed.

"No! no!" she exclaimed, and tried to rise, leaning heavily upon the sofa. In thatact she died.

Mr. Bronte, Charlotte, and Anne, who was already dying of the same disease,followed her to the grave; and with them walked Emily's great mastiff, "Keeper,"following them even into the church, where he lay quietly throughout the services.

After the funeral he went up to Emily's room and laid himself down across thethreshold of her door, where he remained for many days, howling piteously whenthey tried to entice him away.

Charlotte's next novel was "Shirley;" the heroine of which, the gay andindependent Shirley Keeldar, is a portrait of Emily Bronte, as her loving sister


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believed she would have been had she been fortunate and happy. Many of Emily'straits, some even of the incidents of her life, are given in this book. "Keeper"figures in it as Tartar; Shirley's habit of sitting upon a rug, reading with her armabout the great dog's neck, was also Emily's; and in "Captain Keeldar," werecognize an alteration of Emily's nickname of the Major. The famous incident ofthe mad dog, too, happened to Emily as well as to Shirley, It was no fiction. But,

although Shirley is a pleasing and a noble girl, and shows Emily in a moreattractive light than ever shone upon her in real life, yet we miss some of the realEmily's most striking characteristics. We miss her patient endurance of harddrudgery, her faithful household affections, and her thoughtful kindnesses forothers. It is not easy to imagine a Shirley Keeldar rising early in the morning and

performing the hardest portion of the household labor in order to spare an agedservant; yet that was what Emily Bronte did. Excepting her early tale, "TheProfessor," which has been given to the public since her death, Charlotte wrotebut one other novel"Gillette." This work, of which the scene is laid in Belgium,is regarded by many as her best. Its incidents are less thrilling than those of"Jane Eyre," its style less fiery. Nevertheless it is not lacking in passion; and ifLucy Snowe attracts us less than Jane, who would exchange Monsieur Paul

Emanuelimperious, whimsical, extravagant, and thoroughly naturalfor suchan impossible hero as Rochester ? Ginevra Fanshawe, too, and Madame Beck, arecharacters more true and striking than any to be found in "Jane Eyre."

The public, after the publication of "Jane Eyre," became deeply interested indiscovering the identity of Currer Bell, and in discussing the question of her sex.Nor was the riddle soon solved. Miss Martineau, who was one of the earliest toknow the truth, gives an interesting account of the beginning of her acquaintancewith the unknown, yet famous author. She received one day, while residing inLondon, a parcel accompanied by a note. This parcel contained a copy of"Shirley," then just published, and the note ran as follows:

"Currer Bell offers a copy of 'Shirley' to Miss Martineau's acceptance, inacknowledgment of the pleasure and profit she (sic) he has derived from herworks. When C. B. first read 'Deerbrook' he tasted a new and keen pleasure, andexperienced a genuine benefit. In his mind, Deerbrook ranks with the writings thathave really done him good, added to his stock of ideas, and rectified his views oflife."

This masculine note did not, in Miss Martineau's eyes, determine the sex of thewriter. The half-erased "she" in it, might, to be sure, have had reference to MissMartineau herself, and the form of the sentence might have been subsequentlyaltered. Still, it left everything uncertain, and when, a little later, she received anintimation that Currer Bell would call upon her, she did not know whether to

expect a gentleman or a lady. It was, therefore, with interest and excitement thatshe awaited at the appointed hour the arrival of her distinguished visitor.

It was perhaps as high a compliment as Miss Martineau ever received, for hersociety to be thus sought by Charlotte Bronte. She was so painfully shy that,when she spoke in company at all, she would gradually wheel around in her chairuntil she was seated almost with her back toward the person whom she wasaddressing.


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Miss Bronte was always plain; she considered herself repulsively ugly. Herfeatures were indeed large and irregular, and her mouth a little crooked, but herexpression was so animated and intelligent when she talked, that her face becamemost attractive. Even in secluded Haworth she was not without admirers; she hadreceived several proposals of marriage, which she hastily but firmly declined. Atlength a curate of her father's, Mr. Nicholls, asked her hand. He had loved her for

several years. She knew him well and esteemed him deeply, and, although shehad never before thought of him as a lover, she felt as though she could becontented as his wife. Before accepting him, however, she consulted her father.Mr. Bront objected, and Charlotte quietly put aside the happiness within herreach, and gave an unfavorable answer. But Mr. Bronte gradually changed hismind, and in a year's time gave his consent to the marriage; although, withcharacteristic perversity, he refused at the last minute to go to the church andgive his daughter away.

Charlotte Bronte was married on the twenty-ninth of June, 1854. The wedding wasof the quietest, but the pale, delicate little bride was very happy as she left the oldchurch on her husband's arm, followed by the good wishes of the villagers who

had gathered to see her pass. She was dressed in soft white, with no color abouther save green leaves, looking, as one who was there told Mrs. Gaskell, like asnow-drop.

Her happy married life lasted but eight months. She died in March, 1855. Wakingafter a long delirium, she saw her husband bending above her with a face ofanguish, murmuring some broken prayer that God would spare her.

"Oh!" she whispered, looking up at him, "I am not going to die, am I ? He will notseparate us; we have been so happy."

Other aspects from the Victorian Era, directly fromthe closet :

The dark influence over society.

The Persistence of the Victorians: Things Remembered and Things Forgot

Portrait of a Victorian: AWasherwoman's Daughter

Unusually for a Victorian, she could neither read nor write because her mother, awasherwoman, kept her off school to help with the laundry. Clothes were boiled ina copper in the back yard (not an American yard but a narrow strip of concrete
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hemmed in by high brick walls). As a child her job was to work the mangle andkeep the fire stoked. Quite a lot of her time was spent looking for fuel. 'Tarryblocks' were best. Many of London's roads were paved with blocks of woodweather-proofed with tar. When they were dug up to repair the road, childrengathered from miles around to take them home. In the evening, she sold walnutsin the pubs of Camden Town, most of them are still there, not changed too much.

"A narrow strip of concrete hemmed in by high brick walls" Over the city by

railway by Gustave Dor from London: A Pilgrimage. 1872. Click on thumbnail forlarger image.

If, when adult, she earned twelve and six a week, eight shillings might go on rentfor a couple of rooms. But she said she remembered Jack the Ripper and how shewas too scared to go out at night. She claimed to have eaten pies baked bySweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street. The Relief of Mafeking duringthe Boer Warwas a living memory to her; she remembered the costermongerssinging and the crowds celebrating noisily in The Strand andTrafalgar Square.(Mafeking briefly became a verb to maffick: to rejoice publicly.) Sheremembered how she and her friend had laughed when rain, one Bank Holiday onHampstead Heath, had turned the long feathers in their hats into herring bones.

To her they really were the Good Old Days.

For a few weeks in summer when she was still young and unmarried shesometimes went hopping picking hops (which give English beer its bitter taste)in the hop fields of Kent. A shilling a bushel, sometimes, though out of that youbought and cooked your own food and paid rent for a very rough bed in a shed ofsome kind. Still, it was the Cockney holiday and whole families used to gotogether.

Her grandfather was a costermonger who sold fruit and fish (an odd combinationeven then) from a stall at the bottom of Hampstead Road. Early every morning hewent with his pony and cart to Billingsgate (for fish) orCovent Garden (for fruit) to

sell that day on the stall. At night, if he had money, he got drunk in the pubs ofCamden Town, his pony waiting patiently outside to take him home on the bed ofthe cart. Well, perhaps not home to her stable in a tumbledown mews where,however drunk he was, he unharnessed and fed her. Grooming was left for aanother day.

Her brother was nicknamed Toe because he'd lost one in the Army in someVictorian outpost ofempire long ago. Back in Blighty he seemed to give up onhimself and he ended his days begging in the streets for money for drink.
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Her husband had been a carter, though she was widowed early and had to raiseher daughter on her own, in a single room, by working literally day and night. Shecleaned middle-class houses, washed other people's clothes, and even washedbottles in a lemonade factory.

The house she lived in was shaky (it's since been demolished) from bomb

damage in the Blitz. In the 1930s the house was bought by an Italian who was, ofcourse, later interned as an enemy alien. He gave her fifty pounds to keep for himuntil the war was over. Fifty pounds was nearly a year's wages but she kept it safeuntil the day she died, though he never came back, presumably having diedsomewhere along the line.

When I met her she was very old well into her nineties and bowed doublewith osteoporosis or widow's stoop as it was called. But she was unbreakable andfearless. She still lived in a single room, with a war damaged, sagging floor, still litonly by gaslight. She died as she lived without complaint or self-pity, asking fornothing but accepting with grace whatever was given her. She has no grave. Hername was Ann Newbery.

The Enduring Mystery of Jack the Ripper London Metro Polices archives.

The name 'Jack the Ripper' has becomethe most infamous in the annals of murder.Yet, the amazing fact is that his identityremains unproven today. In the years 1888-1891 the name was regarded with terror bythe residents of London's East End, andwas known the world over. So shrouded inmyth and mystery is this story that thefacts are hard to identify at this remove intime. And it was the officers of ScotlandYard to whom the task of apprehending thefearsome killer was entrusted.

They may have failed, but they failed honourably, having made every effort andinquiry in their power to free London of the unknownterror.Over the years the mystery has deepened to thedegree that the truth is almost totally obscured.Innumerable press stories, pamphlets, books, plays,films, and even musicals have dramatised and distortedthe facts to such a degree that the fiction is publiclyaccepted more than the reality.

Suspects

Suffice to say genuine suspects are far fewer than theprolific authors of the genre would have us believe. Infact, to reduce them to only those with a genuine claim


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having been nominated by contemporary police officers, we are left with amere four. They are:

Kosminski, a poor Polish Jew resident in Whitechapel;

Montague John Druitt, a 31 year old barrister and school teacherwho committed suicide in December 1888;

Michael Ostrog, a Russian-born multi-pseudonymous thief and confidencetrickster, believed to be 55 years old in 1888, and detained in asylums onseveral occasions;

Dr Francis J. Tumblety, 56 Years old, an American 'quack' doctor, who wasarrested in November 1888 for offences of gross indecency, and fled thecountry later the same month, having obtained bail at a very high price.

The first three of these suspects were nominated by Sir Melville Macnaghten, whojoined the Metropolitan Police as Assistant Chief Constable, second in command

of the Criminal Investigation Deptment (C.I.D.) at Scotland Yard in June 1889. Theywere named in a report dated 23 February 1894, although there is no evidence ofcontemporary police suspicion against the three at the time of the murders.Indeed, Macnaghten's report contains several odd factual errors. Kosminski wascertainly favoured by the head of the C.I.D. Dr. Robert Anderson, and the officer incharge of the case, Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. Druitt appears to have beenMacnaghten's preferred candidate, whilst the fact that Ostrog was arrested andincarcerated before the report was compiled leaves the historian puzzling why hewas included as a viable suspect in the first place. The fourth suspect, Tumblety,was stated to have been "amongst the suspects" at the time of the murders and"to my mind a very likely one," by the ex-head of the Special Branch at ScotlandYard in 1888, ex-Detective Chief lnspector John George Littlechild. He confided

his thoughts in a letter dated 23 September, 1913, to the criminological journalistand author George R Sims.For a list of viable suspects they have not inspired anyuniform confidence in the minds of those well-versed in the case.

Indeed, arguments can be made against all of them being the culprit, and no hardevidence exists against any of them. What is obvious is the fact that the policewere at no stage in a position to prove a case against anyone, and it is highlyunlikely a positive case will ever be proved. If the police were in this position in1888-1891, then what hope for the enthusiastic modern investigator? To clear theconfusion for the new student of the case we have to return to factual basics. Justwho was 'Jack the Ripper,' and what were the 'Whitechapel murders'?

The crimes

What has to be understood is the fact that the 'Ripper' murders and the'Whitechapel murders' are not the same thing, although the latter does include the'Ripper' murders. So to set the scene, the list of the eleven Whitechapel murders,(all of which at some stage have been looked upon as 'Ripper' murders), was asfollows:


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Date Victim Circumstances

Tuesday 3 April 1888 Emma Elizabeth Smith Assaulted and robbed inOsborn Street, Whitechapel.

Tuesday 7 August 1888 Martha Tabram George Yard Buildings,

George Yard, Whitechapel.

Friday 31 August 1888 Mary Ann Nichols Buck's Row, Whitechapel,

Saturday 8 September1888

Annie Chapman Rear Yard at 29 HanburyStreet,Spitalfields.

Sunday 30 September1888

Elizabeth Stride Yard at side of 40 Berner Street,St Georges-in-the- East.

Sunday 30 September1888

Catherine Eddowes Mitre Square, Aldgate, City ofLondon.

Friday 9 November 1888 Mary Jane Kelly 13 Miller's Court,26 Dorset Street Spitalfields.

Thursday 20 December1888

Rose Mylett Clarke's Yard,High Street. Poplar.

Wednesday 17 July 1889 Alice McKenzie Castle Alley,Whitechapel.

Tuesday 10 September1889

Unknown female torso Found under railway arch inPinchin Street, Whitechapel,

Friday 13 February 1891 Frances Coles Under railway arch, SwallowGardens, Whitechapel.

Throat cutting attended the murders of Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes,Kelly, McKenzie and Coles. In all except the cases of Stride and Mylett therewas abdominal mutilation. In the case of Chapman the uterus was taken awayby the killer; Eddowes' uterus and left kidney were taken; and in Kelly's case,evidence suggests, the heart.

The murders were considered too much for the local Whitechapel (H) DivisionC.I.D, headed by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid, to handle alone. Assistancewas sent from the Central Office at Scotland Yard, after the Nichols murder, in the

persons of Detective Inspectors, Frederick George Abberline, Henry Moore, andWalter Andrews, together with a team of subordinate officers. Reinforcementswere drafted into the area to supplement the local men. After the Eddowes murderthe City Police, under Detective Inspector James McWilliam, were also engagedon the hunt for the killer.


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Every one of these murders remained unsolved, no person was ever convicted ofany of them. Thus It must be said that we simply do not know which of them forcertain were the work of a single killer. Over the years, mainly as a result ofMacnaghten's beliefs, the 'Ripper'-victims have been listed as : Nichols.Chapman, Stride, Eddowes and KellY.

Non-Ripper murders

Certainly the evidence indicates that Smith was murdered by a group of threeyoung hoodlums. The police investigated a suspicion that Tabram was murderedby a soldier. Mylett, who was not even murdered according to the AssistantCommissioner Robert Anderson, was probably strangled by a client.

McKenzie's wounds indicated yet a different killer.The 'Pinchin Street torso' wasundoubtedly an exercise in the disposal of a body, and Coles was possiblymurdered by a male companion, James Thomas Sadler, who was arrested and,certainly for a while, suspected of being the Ripper.

The name

Almost certainly the one single reason for the enduring appeal of this rathersordid series of prostitute murders is the name Jack the Ripper. The name is easyto explain. It was written at the end of a letter, dated 25 September, 1888, andreceived by the Central News Agency on 27 September, 1888. They, in turn,forwarded it to the Metropolitan Police on 29 September.

The letter was couched in lurid prose and began "Dear Boss......" It went on tospeak of "That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits......'' ('Leather Apron'was a John Pizer, briefly suspected at the time of the Chapman murder). "I am

down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled..."; and so on ina similar vein. The appended "trade name" of Jack the Ripper was then made

public and further excited the imagination of the populace.

The two murders of 30 September 1888 gave the letter greater importance and tounderline it the unknown correspondent again committed red ink to postcard and

posted it on 1 October. In this communication he referred to himself as 'saucyJacky...' and spoke of the "double event......." He again signed off as Jack theRipper. The status of this correspondence is still being discussed by modernhistorians.


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The message on the wall

Immediately after the Eddowes murder a piece of her bloodstained apron wasfound in a doorway in Goulston Street, Whitechapel. Above the piece of apron, onthe brick fascia in the doorway, was the legend, in chalk, "The Juwes are The menthat Will not be Blamed for nothing." A message from the murderer, or simplyanti-Semitic graffiti? Expert opinion is divided.

The hype

It was at this time that the panic was at its height and the notoriety of the murders

was becoming truly international, appearing in newspapers from Europe to theAmericas. Even at this early stage the newspapers were carrying theories as tothe identity of the killer, including doctors, slaughterers, sailors, and lunatics ofevery description.

A popular image of the killer as a 'shabby genteel' man in dark clothing, slouchhat and carrying a shiny black bag was also beginning to gain currency. The

press, especially the nascent tabloid papers, were having a field day. With noWhitechapel murders in October there was still plenty to write about. There weredozens of arrests of suspects "on suspicion" (usually followed by quick release);there was a police house to house search, handbills were circulated, andVigilance Committee members and private detectives flooded the streets.

The discovery of a female torso in the cellars of the new police building underconstruction at Whitehall added to the air of horror on 2 October, 1888. Thefloodgates to a deluge of copy cat 'Jack the Ripper' letters were opened, andadded to the problems of the police.

An unpleasant experience befell the Chairman of the Whitechapel VigilanceCommittee, builder George Lusk, on 16 October, 1888, when he received half ahuman kidney in a cardboard box through the post. With this gruesome object


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was a letter scrawled in a spidery band and addressed "from Hell ....." It finished."signed Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk." The writer claimed to have friedand ate the other half of the "kidne," which was "very nise." The shaken Lusk tookboth kidney and letter to the police. The police, and police surgeon felt it was

probably a hoax by a medical student, although others believed it was part ofEddowes' missing organ.

Inquests fuel press speculation

Popular and lengthy inquests were held by Coroner Wynne Baxter on the victimsfalling under his jurisdiction, which was the majority of them, and he fuelled the

press coverage to fever pitch. He was not grudging in dishing out his criticism ofwitnesses. By the time the murders came to an end in 1891, the proprietors of theWorking Lads' Institute had had enough of the noisy, unruly, proceedings andinformed Baxter that he could find a different venue for his next inquest.

The murder of Mary Kelly, in November 1888, was accompanied by mutilation of

such ferocity that it beggared description, and, for once, left the press short ofsuperlatives. The murder had been committed on the day of the investiture of thenew Mayor of London and the celebrations were soon overshadowed by the newsof the Ripper's latest atrocity.

The Metropolitan Commissioner of Police, Sir Charles Warren, resigned at thetime of the Kelly murder, after a long history of dispute with the Home Office, andwas replaced by James Monro.

The panic subsides

After the Kelly murder, and many more abortive arrests, the panic began to die

down a little and a more quiescent atmosphere began to reign. In early 1889lnspector Abberline left, to take on other cases, and the inquiry was handed overto Inspector Henry Moore. His last extant report on the murders is dated 1896,when another 'Jack the Ripper' letter was received. There were brief flurries of

press activity and wild suggestions that the 'Ripper' had returned on theoccasions of the subsequent murders. However, Sadler was the last serioussuspect arrested, and his seafaring activities obviated him from blame for the1888 murders.

It will be seen from the foregoing that this is a mystery, when stripped of itsfictional trappings, which provides all the raw material the imaginative writer orarmchair detective could hope for. So popular is the subject that meticulous and

scholarly research is carried out on the background of all the characters named inthe story. Detailed plans are drawn and Victorian census returns and post officedirectories are consulted. The newspapers of the time are trawled for every scrapof information. Every minor detail revealed and added is hailed as a major triumphof research, sometimes even justifying a book. There is much material to be seenin these files though probably as much again is now missing, some as a result of

petty pilfering and others were simply destroyed in past years.


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Many books have been written on the subject, and they vary in quality. Someconcern individual suspects, whilst others are aimed more for the student andresearcher, and contain most of the facts available, thus avoiding expensive andtime-consuming research.

However, the serious historian is directed to the primary Metropolitan Police

(MEPO) sources listed above, as well as the Home Office files which are alsoavailable at the Record Office.

Documents

Queen Vicky Complet