50 Fun Facts About Victorian Era

In which year did Queen Victoria come to the throne?

She succeeded her uncle William IV on 20 June and reigned until January 1901.

Which era came immediately before the Victorian era?

The Edwardian era followed it, and its later decades overlap with continental Europe's Belle Époque.

Which uncle did Victoria succeed in 1837?

Her eldest son Edward VII succeeded her in turn; her reign of 63 years and seven months beat every predecessor.

How many children did Victoria and Albert have?

Their marriages into the courts of Europe earned Victoria the nickname 'grandmother of Europe'.

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

Her seclusion from 1861 fed republican sentiment until she began reappearing in 1871.

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

Two of Albert's cousins had died of the same disease within days of each other the previous month.

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

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

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

The 700-man unit took 278 casualties; the same day gave English the phrase 'thin red line'.

Which Times correspondent coined the 'thin red streak topped with steel'?

His dispatches from Crimea made him arguably the first modern war correspondent; Fenton took the photographs.

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

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

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

It sat on the Asian side of the Bosporus opposite Constantinople, in what is now Üsküdar, Istanbul.

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

She had £45,000 from the public Nightingale Fund to found it, laying the basis of professional nursing.

Nightingale is famous for pioneering which kind of statistical chart?

Her 'rose diagram' showed that disease, not wounds, killed most soldiers; she became the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society in 1859.

Where was the Great Exhibition of 1851 held?

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

Who designed the Crystal Palace?

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

About how many people visited the Great Exhibition?

That was a third of the population of England and Wales; the profits founded the V&A, Science and Natural History museums.

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

The 'Mountain of Light' was then the largest known diamond in the world; it is now in the Crown Jewels.

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

It stood there from 1854 until a fire destroyed it on 30 November 1936; the area still carries its name.

In which summer did the Great Stink hit London?

Parliament soaked its riverside curtains in chloride of lime and finally funded a proper sewer system.

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

His scheme also gave the city the Victoria, Chelsea and Albert Embankments, with the sewers running inside them.

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

Rowland Hill had proposed prepaid stamps in 1837; the Two Penny Blue followed a week later.

Who proposed the adhesive stamp as proof of prepaid postage?

He put the idea, plus a prepaid envelope, to a government inquiry on 13 February 1837.

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

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

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

The Metropolitan Railway ran gas-lit wooden carriages behind steam locomotives from Paddington toward the City.

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

He believed the wide track gave smoother high-speed running; the GWR spent decades converting it back.

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

He sketched it while recovering from an injury; riots in Bristol halted work and it opened in 1864, five years after his death.

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

Each of the three real ships was the largest in the world when launched.

Who invented the first telegraph system in 1837?

It spread to every British town and post office; Bell's telephone followed in 1876.

Who coined the word 'scientist' in 1833?

Before that, researchers were 'natural philosophers'; the Royal Society admitted only professionals from 1847.

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

Alfred Russel Wallace's 1858 essay describing the same idea had forced Darwin to rush it into print.

Where was Charles Darwin buried?

He had expected the village churchyard at Downe; colleagues petitioned for the Abbey, near Newton and Herschel.

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

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

Which Dickens serial of 1836 became his first publishing phenomenon?

Sales took off when the Cockney servant Sam Weller appeared in the fourth instalment.

Dickens survived which rail crash in 1865?

He was returning from Paris with Ellen Ternan; he died five years to the day after the accident.

Which prime minister's founding of the Metropolitan Police gave officers the nickname 'bobbies'?

He set it up in 1829 as Home Secretary, based at Scotland Yard; 'peelers' was the less affectionate version.

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

The Irish Famine pushed him to drop the grain tariffs with Whig and Radical votes, 327 to 229.

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

A million more emigrated, and the island's population fell by 20-25% between 1841 and 1871.

Which organism caused the potato blight behind the Famine?

Before it arrived, only two main potato diseases had ever been identified.

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

It discouraged 'outdoor relief' for the able-bodied: all cases were to be 'offered the house' and nothing else.

Who is the only British prime minister born into a Jewish family?

He also bought Britain a major stake in the Suez Canal and arranged Victoria's title of Empress of India.

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

Supporters called him the Grand Old Man; rivals turned GOM into 'God's Only Mistake'.

The Third Reform Act of 1884 introduced which general principle?

Even so, all women and a large minority of men stayed outside the system into the 20th century.

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

It was the first step toward state schools in England and Wales; attendance became compulsory only in the 1880s.

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

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

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

The 'From Hell' letter instead went to a vigilance committee, with half a preserved human kidney enclosed.

Oscar Wilde was convicted in 1895 of which offence?

His own libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry collapsed and the evidence was turned against him.

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of which Oxford mathematician?

Alice Liddell, the Dean's daughter, is usually named as the inspiration for Alice, though Carroll denied it.

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

It marked 60 years since her accession; the Golden Jubilee had come ten years earlier.

In the 1901 census, what share of Britons were classed as living in urban areas?

A century earlier it had been one in five; a historian called Britain 'the most urbanized country in the West'.

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

Over 100,000 were interned; starvation and disease did the killing, and the scandal reached Parliament.