2. Index
Health Women Workhouses
Industrial
Revolution Transport Toys
3. Health
● In early Victorian times the very young
were greatly at risk. Nationally, 50 per
cent of all recorded deaths were of
children aged five and under.
● The children were at the mercy of
diarrhoea, whooping cough, croup,
smallpox and measles, with measles
being a major killer at this time.
● People were subjected to greater
dangers at work, such as dust in the
bakeries, quarries, mills and barns, as
well a
PREVIOUS INDEX NEXT
4. The Role of
Victorian Women
● No women could vote, and this would
not change until 1918.
● There were no important female
political figures, apart from the Queen
herself and almost all the major
reforms during the nineteenth century
were carried out by men.
● Queen Victoria was also a determined
opponent of 'votes for women', which
she described a 'mad, wicked folly'.
PREVIOUS INDEX NEXT
5. The Workhouses
● Workhouses were where poor
people who had no job or home
lived. They earned their keep by
doing jobs in the workhouse.
● Also in the workhouses were
orphaned (children without
parents) and abandoned children,
the physically and mentally sick,
the disabled, the elderly and
unmarried mothers.
PREVIOUS INDEX NEXT
6. Industrial Revolution
● For a few decades in the 19th century British
manufactured goods dominated world trade.
● Most mass manufactured items were
produced more efficiently and competitively
in Britain than elsewhere.
● Britain also had the commercial, financial
and political power to edge out rivals at
home and abroad.
● In some industries, most notably textiles,
massive changes took place in technology
and in the organisation of production causing
dramatic productivity growth.
PREVIOUS INDEX NEXT
7. Means of Transport
● At the beginning of Victoria's reign,
people could wave at puffing steam
trains on the railways. By the
1860s, they rode bicycles, watched
airships, and talked excitedly of the
latest huge iron steamships.
● In the 1890s they could travel by
motor car.
Project Britain
The Victorians
PREVIOUS INDEX NEXT
8. Toys
● Poor families made their own, such as
cloth-peg dolls and paper windmills.
Children would save their pocket
money to buy marbles, a spinning top,
skipping ropes, kites or cheap wooden
toys.
● Wealthy girls played with dolls, dolls
houses full of beautifully-carved
miniature furniture and tea sets whilst
boys played with toy soldiers, rocking
horses with real horse hair manes and
marbles.
● During Victorian times, people became
fascinated by toys that made pictures
move.
PREVIOUS INDEX NEXT