Victorian life - Briti ajalugu (0)

15. Victorian times

Life and conditions of Victorian people

Children were expected to help towards the family budget. They often worked long hours in dangerous jobs and in difficult situations for a very little wage . For example, there were the climbing boys employed by the chimney sweeps; boys and girls working down the coal mines, crawling through tunnels too narrow and low to take an adult. Some children worked as errand boys, crossing sweepers, shoe blacks, and they sold matches, flowers and other cheap goods .
During the Victorian era, the population grew immensely. At the end of 19th century the population had grown three times bigger in Great Britain ! That made wages much lower , because more people were looking for jobs. Many people couldn't afford places to live and had to live on the streets. Slums started appearing in bigger towns. Crime rate was also rising because of this: many homeless children lived by stealing and respectable Victorians started seeing poor people as a threat to society. That is one of the reasons why workhouses were made.

Workhouses

Workhouses were supposed to solve the problem of poverty, because wealthy people believed that poor people were poor only because they were lazy (actual causes were overpopulation, unemployment and high prices). So in 1834 a law was passed in the Parliament that resulted in building workhouses to accommodate and give jobs to people who couldn't support themselves financially. Also in the workhouses were orphaned (children without parents) and abandoned children, the physically and mentally sick, the disabled, the elderly and unmarried mothers. The idea of workhouses was kind of good , but in reality , there were several problems with them . The government , terrified of encouraging 'idlers' (lazy people), made sure that people feared the workhouse and would do anything to keep out of it.
The problems included poor education system for children(teachers uninspired and low paid , children weren't taught reading and writing), physically demanding jobs(breaking rocks and so on; very detrimental to health) and long, 10-hour workdays; women , children and men had different living and working areas in the workhouse, so families were split up. To make things even worse they could be punished if they even tried to speak to one another ! The food was tasteless and the same day after day. Children could also find themselves 'hired out' (sold) to work in factories or mines. At the end of 19th century, people started realizing that workhouses are terrible places and they were improved greatly (better healthcare, different rules to working and people who are accomodated)

Life of women

Women were supposed to stay at home and look after the children and house. Women didn't have many rights that they do nowadays . They couldn't:

• own property
  
• sue people
  
• vote
  

At the same time, women participated in the paid workforce in increasing numbers after the Industrial Revolution. Feminist ideas started to spread and the suffragette movement gained momentum.

Suffragettes

Suffragettes were members of women's organization (right to vote) movements in the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the United Kingdom and United States. Suffragist is a more general term for members of suffrage movements, whether radical or conservative, male or female.
Women's suffragists in the United Kingdom was a national movement that began in 1872. Women were prohibited from voting in the United Kingdom until the 1832 Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act. Both before and after 1832, establishing women's suffrage on some level was a political topic, although it would not be until 1872 that it would become a national movement with the formation of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and later the more influential National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Little victory was achieved in this constitutional campaign in its earlier years up to around 1905. It was at this point that the militant campaign began with the formation of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).
The WSPU was quite radical in their behaviour, as they wanted to get the right to vote as quickly as possible. To illustrate their more militant stance, they adopted the slogan "Deeds, not words ".
Many of the suffragettes were imprisoned for their violent and vandalizing actions . In prison , they started a hunger strike and were force fed by the guards. The authorities' policy of force feeding won the suffragettes great sympathy from the public. The government passed a law that allowed the release of prisoners who were about to die from malnourishment.
A new suffrage bill was introduced in 1910, but growing impatient, the WSPU launched a heightened campaign of protest in 1912 on the basis of targeting property and avoiding violence against any person . Initially this involved smashing shop windows , but ultimately escalated to burning stately homes and bombing public buildings including Westminster Abbey. It also famously led to the death of Emily Davison as she was trampled by the King 's horse, Anmer, (over which she was attempting to drape a suffragette banner) at the Epsom Derby in 1913.
In 1928, women got the same voting rights as men(voting age 21).