Poverty and the poor in Victorian Britain 1837 -1901

Abstract

This thesis is an attempt to analyze the dimensions of poverty and living standards of the working-class masses in Britain during the heyday of industrial capitalism, the age of Queen Victoria between 1837 and 1901, with reference to primary sources-contemporary studies, memoirs and reports of correspondents-and secondary sources on the subject. Even though there was a huge accumulation of wealth within the new capitalist society during this period, the living standards of the common people rapidly deteriorated both in the rural and urban areas of Britain. On the other hand a small minority who were composed of the landed aristocracy and the bourgeoisie became the sole beneficiaries of the fruits of this tremendous economic development as poverty became more and more widespread and dramatic in the lives of the working classes. However, the impact of poverty and misery upon the living and working conditions of the masses has always been overshadowed by the splendour and peacefulness of the period especially during the second half of the nineteenth century. There was certainly a strong effort by the contemporary authorities to cover up the real extent of poverty in the society but above all poverty was used as a vehicle for the passivization and manipulation of the masses by the upper and middle classes during the Victorian age. This situation can be explained not only with the wealthy classes' fear of revolution but also with the creation of an artificial and effective environment of poverty by the ruling nobility and rising middle-class businessmen who on the one hand struggled for power and on the other collaborated for the easy exploitation of the working classes.