Social changes in the 19th century
Family life:
The family members started to become more close to each other as the result of the need of privacy and individualism
People started to marry for personal happiness
Wives were still not equal to husbands, they were the property of their husbands, women were discouraged from going to work
Husband exercised his authority as the result of: political revolution from France, social revolution (caused by industrial revolution), influence of new religious movements (Methodism, Evangelicalism).
Hard life of children: strict parental control, regular beating, cruel conditions in boarding schools. Therefore, young men were unfeeling to their wives.
The rise of the middle class:
In the 19th c this class included apart from merchants, traders, small farmers, factory owners and industrialists also: those who worked in a profession(law, medicine, the Church, navy, banking, army etc.) and commercial classes.
Victorian age as the time of great social movement
Children of these factory owners often wanted to work in commerce, or banking instead of industry
Fathers : Nonconformists, Liberals; children - Anglican and Tory
Very successful people received knighthood or became lords
More and more children from middle class went to public schools, many of them educated boys as the officers
The growth of towns and cities as the result of middle class migration to the suburbs:
People migrated because to the towns because
they appointed health officers and provided proper drains and clean water that reduced the disease level
started to become less crowded (but slum areas still existed)
in towns there were also many facilities as libraries, parks, public baths etc.
generally a fast improvement of workers houses, factory conditions, public health, education
Social and economic improvements:
a drop of prices and rise of wages, more families could eat better food
gas for heating and lighting in houses
Acts of Education (1870 and 1891) - all children have to go to school (up to age of 13)
Redbrick universities in the new industrial cities - they taught more science and technology (unlike Oxford and Cambridge)
Social changes
Power moved from the shires to the towns,
The squire has almost no power
JPs lost all their local government and administrative powers in 1888, they could only make judgements in small cases. Their place took new county councils.
Weakened authority of the Church - people stopped going to churches because:
Church of England offered poor no help
It was a kind of rebellion against the ruling establishment
People were free, squire couldn't force them to go to church
Other attractive ways of spending Sundays (museum, parks, swimming pools, libraries, alehouses, pubs)
People started to travel nott only to get to work but also for pleasure (seaside holiday towns, countryside, seaside resorts)
Invention of the bicycle - socialising, taste of freedom for young ladies
Huge impact on the changes had the railway and Isambard Kingdom Brunel:
News spread much faster,
Towns had easy access to supplies of fresh food
Growth of seaside holidays resorts
Music hall stars became more popular,
Development of professional football (matches)
More and more people lived in towns
Expansion of range of jobs (engineers, work managers, etc.)