I suppose most of us have photographs of Victorian ancestors tucked away somewhere- in a trunk, in the attic, chilled by the winter winds, little visited, often neither remembered nor understood. Who were they all, these doleful, serious faced people, resolutely staring out at us from the great vast and abysm of the nineteenth century? What did they think, and what did they feel? How did they spend their time? In my childhood, Britain was doing its best to obliterate the Victorians- their soot encrusted, wedding cake architecture was crumbling under the wrecking ball, the vast sets of novels produced by Dickens, Thackery, et al littering junk shops like rows of tombstones; and yet I’ve always felt close to them- my four grandparents were all Victorian, living in Victorian houses, carrying Victorian souls into the late twentieth century. As I write this it’s January- twelfth night tomorrow, cold, 4 degrees this evening, windy, and dark, very dark indeed- hard glinting stars seem further away than usual in the firmament; it’s a time the Victorians, like the ones who lived in my house, would have filled with activity, in their dark, busy, close quartered lives. This short lecture is an attempt to explore some of what we made Victorian society what it was, produced during lockdown when teaching was remote, and I’ll be delighted if it encourages anyone to explore the period a bit further- its art, its architecture, its social reformers, its music- and of course its literature...
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