A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain (44 page)

N is the Navy we keep at Spithead. It’s a sight that makes foreigners wish they were dead.

For home defence, Britain traditionally relied on the goodwill of part-time volunteers. In the wars against France from the 1790s to 1815, counties had raised units of militia (infantry) and yeomanry (cavalry), but the militia was disbanded in 1814, before the war had ended. In the year 1859, when there was a sudden fear of invasion by the French, there was a surge of recruiting for part-time rifle units, and the Volunteer officer, usually gorgeously attired but militarily inept, became a stock character in music hall and in the pages of satirical papers. Many present-day Territorial Army regiments were first raised as a direct result of this fear. The Artists’ Rifles is today an SAS unit, but its origins were very different. Founded in 1859 by painters and sculptors, its commanding officer throughout the late nineteenth century was Lord Leighton, one of the country’s most eminent artists, and President of the Royal Academy.

Such amateur bodies were expected only to defend the homeland in time of emergency and were not allowed to serve overseas. This situation changed only with the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899. Short of manpower, the War Office accepted contributions of troops from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of Greater Britain (even West Indian soldiers were used for guarding Boer prisoners), and also used short-term volunteers from the United Kingdom. This was the first time that civilians had been able to enlist for military service for the duration of a campaign, setting a precedent that would be followed on a vastly greater scale in the two World Wars.

The Yeomanries of many counties were deployed, and – most famously – the City of London raised a regiment (the CIV or City Imperial Volunteers) to serve in South Africa. These formations did much to foster respect for the Army on the part of the public, for previously soldiering had been a despised profession attracting misfits and petty criminals. The Army was sceptical and reluctant to invite civilians into its ranks, and many members of the public shared the view that amateurs would be of little value. Galsworthy’s character Timothy Forsyte expresses this attitude when he exclaims: ‘Volunteer-in’, indeed! What have we kept the Army up for – to eat their heads off in time of peace! They ought to be ashamed of themselves, comin’ on the country to help them like this! Let every man stick to his business, and we shall get on.’
¹⁴

Britain’s army would never catch up in size with those of its Continental counterparts until, in the middle of the First World War, conscription was introduced for the first time in the nation’s history. What it lacked in size, however, it made up in the breadth of its experience. When conflict broke out in 1914 and the British Expeditionary Force was dispatched to France to halt the German drive on the Channel coast, it was the army of Queen Victoria that succeeded in doing so, for many officers and men who took part in the fighting were veterans of the Boer War or the North-West Frontier. Their enemy paid grudging tribute to the accuracy of their fire and to their ability to fight effectively in small units – traits learned in numerous small-scale colonial conflicts.

The Victorian Empire was maintained – in more or less equal measure – by the pound sterling and the Martini-Henry rifle. While the entrepreneurial drive of British merchants can easily be seen by critics as ‘exploitation’, and the wielding of military might as ‘imperialism’, there was, of course, a positive aspect to British power. It created a prosperous worldwide
community of countries that preserves – as the Commonwealth of Nations – a strong sense of mutual empathy. It brought vast benefits – transport and engineering, medicine, Christianity, education – to large areas of the world, and these things are more appreciated in the countries that received them than perhaps critics of Empire are aware. Whatever the excesses of the Victorian age, and whatever the faults – individually or collectively – of Victorians, their era was one of progress, enterprise, compassion and civilization. Their achievement deserves our pride and our gratitude.

1
John Galsworthy,
The Forsyte Saga
. William Heinemann, 1950, pp. 546–9.

2
Walter Besant, in
Illustrated London News
, Diamond Jubilee number, June 1897, p. 1.

3
Carolly Erickson,
Her Little Majesty
. Simon & Schuster, 1997, p. 98.

4
George Gissing,
In the Year of Jubilee
. J. M. Dent, 1994, p.50.

5
W. R. Inge,
The Victorian Age
. Cambridge University Press, 1922, p. 9.

6
Talbot Baines Reed,
Parkhurst Sketches
. Religious Tract Society, n.d., p. 116.

7
Quoted in Randolph S. Churchill,
Winston S. Churchill
, vol. I,
Youth, 1874–1900
. Heinemann, 1966, p. 321.

8
Ibid., p. 378.

9
Quoted in John Montgomery,
1900. The End of an Era
. George Allen & Unwin, 1968, p. 133.

10
 Bernard Fergusson,
Eton Portrait
. John Miles, 1938, p.44.

1
Richard Hough,
Victoria and Albert
. Richard Cohen Books, 1996, p.32.

2
Alan Hardy,
Queen Victoria Was Amused
. John Murray, 1976, p.10.

3
Carolly Erickson,
Her Little Majesty
. Simon & Schuster, 1997, p. 62.

4
Quoted in Dormer Creston,
The Youthful Queen Victoria, A Discursive Narrative
. Macmillan, 1952, p. 347.

5
Erickson,
Little Majesty
, p. 276.

6
Quoted in Hardy,
Queen Victoria Was Amused
, p. 97.

7
Quoted in Hough,
Victoria and Albert
, p. 52.

8
Quoted ibid., p. 30.

9
Quoted ibid., p. 11.

10
Quoted ibid., p. 56.

11
Quoted in Hardy,
Queen Victoria Was Amused
, p. 37.

12
Erickson,
Little Majesty
, p. 276.

13
Quoted in Godfrey Scheele and Margaret Scheele,
The Prince Consort
. Oresko Books, 1977, p. 51.

14
Laurence Housman,
Victoria Regina
. Jonathan Cape, 1937, p. 12.

15
Scheele,
The Prince Consort
, p. 95.

16
Quoted in John Matson,
Dear Osborne
. Hamish Hamilton, 1978, p.53.

17
Quoted in Hough,
Victoria and Albert
, p. 92.

18
Quoted in Elizabeth Longford,
Victoria R.I
. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973, p.l34.

19
Quoted in Michael Paterson,
Churchill, His Military Life
. David & Charles, 2005, p. 116.

20
Hardy,
Queen Victoria Was Amused
, p. 184.

21
Quoted in James Montgomery,
1900
. George Allen & Unwin, 1968, p.188.

22
Giles St Aubyn,
Queen Victoria: A Portrait
. Sinclair-Stevenson, 1991, p. 340.

23
Housman,
Victoria Regina
, p. 12.

24
Quoted in St Aubyn,
Queen Victoria
, pp. 482–3.

25
Quoted in Hardy,
Queen Victoria Was Amused
, p. 186.

26
Quoted in Erickson,
Little Majesty
, p. 255.

27
Quoted in Hardy,
Queen Victoria Was Amused
, p. 186.

28
Daily Telegraph
, 23 January 1901, quoted in Montgomery,
1900
, p. 239.

29
Housman,
Victoria Regina
, programme notes, Lyric Theatre, London, 1937, p. 2.

1
James Greenwood,
The Seven Curses of London
. Stanley Rivers & Co., 1869.

2
James Grant,
Sketches in London
, W. S. Orr, 1838, p. 225.

3
Both extracts quoted in E. Royston Pike (ed.),
Human Documents of the Age of the Forsytes
. Victorian Book Club, 1972, p. 260.

4
Quoted ibid.

5
Clara Collett, quoted ibid., pp. 78–9.

6
General William Booth,
In Darkest England and the Way Out
. Charles Knight & Co., 1970, p. 20.

7
Quoted in Geoffrey Pearson,
Hooligan. A History of Respectable Fears
. Macmillan, 1983, p. 129.

8
Quoted ibid., p. 94.

9
Steve Jones,
Capital Punishments: Crime and Prison Conditions in the Victorian Capital
. Wicked Publications, 1992, p. 46.

1
Quoted in Reay Tannahill,
Food in History
. Eyre Methuen, 1973, p. 329.

2
Quoted in E. Royston Pike (ed.),
Human Documents of the Age of the Forsytes
. Victorian Book Club, 1972, p. 156.

3
Author’s collection.

4
‘A Member of the Aristocracy’,
Manners and Rules of Good Society
. Frederick Warne & Co., 1908 (thirty-fifth edition; originally published 1888), p. 108.

5
William Thackeray,
The Book of Snobs
. Smith Elder, 1894, pp. 213–14.

6
Quoted in Jennifer Brennan,
Curries and Bugles: A Memoir and Cookbook of the British Raj
. Penguin Books, 1990, p. 24.

7
Ibid., p. 24.

8
Ibid., p. 25.

9
Quoted in Judy Spours,
Cakes and Ale. The Golden Age of British Feasting
. The National Archives, 2006, p. 93.

10
Kate Colquhoun,
Taste: The Story of Britain through its Cooking
. Bloomsbury, 2007, pp. 305–6.

1
Arthur Schlesinger,
Saunterings in and about London
. Nathaniel Cook, 1853, pp. 3–4.

2
E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (eds),
The Works of John Ruskin
. Longmans, Green, 1904, p. 459.

3
George Augustus Sala,
Twice Round the Clock
. Richard Marsh, London, 1862, p. 188.

4
Schlesinger,
Saunterings
, p. 6.

5
Ibid.

6
Ibid., p. 7.

7
Ibid., p.10.

8
Sala,
Twice Round the Clock
, p. 81.

9
Quoted in E. Royston Pike (ed.),
Human Documents of the Age of the Forsytes
. Victorian Book Club, 1972, p. 222.

10
George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith,
Diary of a Nobody
. Collins, 1955, p. 27.

11
Quoted in Shirley Nicholson,
A Victorian Household
. Barrie and Jenkins, 1988, p. 24.

12
Charles Dickens,
Our Mutual Friend
, The Educational Book Company, 1910.

13
Sir Hugh Casson, ‘Red House, Bexleyheath, Kent, 1859’, in Edward Hollamby (ed.),
Arts and Crafts Houses
. Phaidon, 1990, vol. I, p. 4.

14
Ibid.

1
Walter Besant, in
Illustrated London News
, Diamond Jubilee number, June 1897, p. 50.

2
Illustrated London News
, quoted in Christian Wolmar,
The Subterranean Railway
. Atlantic Books, 2004, p. 27.

3
John Woodforde,
The Story of the Bicycle
. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970, p. 19.

4
Augustus Muir,
Scotland’s Road of Romance
. Methuen, 1934, pp. 195–6.

5
Quoted in Woodforde,
The Story of the Bicycle
, pp. 112–13.

6
Quoted ibid.

7
Mrs F. Harcourt Williamson, ‘The Cycle in Society’, in A. C. Pemberton,
The Complete Cyclist
. A. D. Innes, 1897, pp. 47–8.

8
Earl of Albemarle and G. Lucy Hillier,
Cycling
. Badminton Library, Longmans, Green, 1896, pp. 183–210.

9
Albemarle and Hillier,
Cycling
, pp. 183–210.

10
Williamson, ‘The Cycle in Society’, pp. 47–8.

11
Ibid.

12
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, ‘The Utility of Motor Cars’, in Lord Northcliffe (ed.)
Motors and Motor-Driving
. Badminton Library, Longmans, Green, 1902, pp. 25–7.

13
Alan Hardy,
Queen Victoria Was Amused
. John Murray, 1976, p. 131.

1
R. W. Church,
The Oxford Movement
, 1891, quoted in Clive Dewey,
The Passing of Barchester
. Hambledon Press, 1991, p. xi.

2
Quoted in Alan Warwick,
The Phoenix Suburb
. The Norwood Society, 1972, p. 129.

3
L. C. B. Seaman,
Victorian England
. Methuen, 1973, p. 13.

4
Charles Dickens,
Sketches by Boz
. Chapman & Hall, n.d., p. 20.

5
Ibid., p. 21.

6
Ernest H. Shepard,
Drawn from Memory
. Methuen, 1957, pp. 45–6.

7
Charles Dickens,
Little Dorrit
. Educational Book Company, 1910, p. 29.

8
Geoffrey Best,
Mid-Victorian Britain, 1851–75
. Fontana, 1985, p. 185.

9
Dorothy Wise (ed.),
The Diary of William Tayler, Footman, 1837
. Westminster City Archives/St Marylebone Society, 1998, p. 16.

10
Wise,
The Diary of William Tayler
, p. 20.

11
Best,
Mid-Victorian Britain
, p. 197.

12
Charles Dickens,
Sketches by Boz
. Chapman & Hall, n.d., p. 27.

13
Molly Hughes,
A Victorian Family
. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1990, p. 59.

14
Quoted in Warwick,
The Phoenix Suburb
, p. 129.