afford • between • carriages • chance • charged • companies • cricket • day • decades • excursions • introduced • leisure • length • shops • society • sporting • stopping • take • ticket • walks

The first railway was opened in 1825 (1) ………… Stockton and Darlington. Over the following (2) ………… iron trains ran on iron tracks the (3) ………… and breadth of the country and the railways changed English (4) ………… dramatically.

Thomas Cook started his business in 1841, but the Great Exhibition (London 1851) gave him his big (5) …………. He booked trains from all over Britain to (6) ………… people to the Great Exhibition and (7) ………… them a fixed price for the return trip and the entry (8) ………… Overnight he had invented the 'Day Out'. As Cook's business grew he began to offer (9) ………… to more and more places, including trips to other European countries.

At first, railway (10) ………… tried to avoid catering for the masses and preferred to run trains that only offered second and first class (11) ………… They also tried to avoid (12) ………… their trains at every station. But in 1844 the Railways Act stated that at least one train a (13) ………… must stop at every station and include third class carriages. Now large numbers of Victorians could (14) ………… to travel.

The railways were to make a huge difference to the (15) ………… activities of the Victorians. Not only were opportunities for holidays and day trips increased, (16) ………… events also grew in popularity. Special trains and trips were run to take people to the races, (17) ………… matches or the FA Cup Final, which was held for the first time in 1872.

In 1871 Bank Holidays were (18) ………… and so began the great British tradition of the day at the seaside, along with sticks of rock, candy-floss, (19) ………… along the pier, fun-fair rides and fish and chips. The first fish and chip (20) ………… appeared in the 1860s.

 

1. Victorian families were usually large.   _____

2. Parents would play a lot with their children.  _____

3. Middle-class children had a strict education.  _____

4. To the age of six they would spend all day with their mothers.  _____

5. At the age of six both boys and girls were sent to school.  _____

6. Most middle class families had no servants.  _____

7. In rich families servants were treated as part of the household.  _____

8. Most working class families lived in the workhouse.  _____

9. Infant mortality was high in poor families.  _____

10. For poor girls working as housemaid was a great achievement.  _____

 

Families were very important to Victorians. They were usually large: in 1870 the average family had five or six children. Most upper and middle class families lived in big, comfortable houses.

The father was the head of the household. He was often strict and was obeyed by all without question. The children were taught to respect their father and always spoke politely to him calling him 'Sir'. Very few children would dare to be cheeky to their father or answer him back. When he wanted a little peace and quiet he would retire to his study and the rest of the family were not allowed to enter without his special permission.

The mother would often spend her time planning dinner parties, visiting her dressmaker or calling on friends, she did not do jobs like washing clothes or cooking and cleaning. Both 'papa and mama' saw the upbringing of their children as an important responsibility. They believed a child must be taught the difference between right and wrong if he was to grow into a good and thoughtful adult. If a child did something wrong he would be punished for his own good. 'Spare the rod and spoil the child' was a saying Victorians firmly believed in.

The children in a middle class family would spend most of their time in the nursery and would be brought up by their nanny. Victorian children were expected to rise early, because lying in bed was thought to be lazy and sinful. The nanny would wash, dress and watch over them, take them out and teach them how to behave. Some children would only see their parents once a day. In the evening, clean and tidy they were allowed downstairs for an hour before they went to bed. Some mothers taught their children to read and write and sometimes fathers taught their sons Latin.

As the children grew older, tutors and governesses were often employed and boys were sometimes sent away to school. When they grew up, only the boys were expected to work. The daughters stayed at home with their mother and were expected only to marry as soon as possible.

Life was much worse for poorer working-class families. Their greatest fear was ending up in the workhouse, where thousands of homeless and penniless families were forced to live. After the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 anybody who wanted help had to go into the workhouse and the conditions there were worse than anything that people might find outside. This could happen to a family if father were taken ill and unable to work. If your family was taken into the workhouse you would be split up, dressed in uniform, and have your hair cut short.

Moreover, lots of children in poor families died of diseases like scarlet fever, measles, polio and TB which are curable today. These were spread by foul drinking water, open drains and lack of proper toilets. In overcrowded rooms if one person caught a disease it spread quickly through the rest.

Most middle class households had servants to do their day to day work. Rich people usually had servants who lived in the same house. They carried out all the domestic tasks that the master and mistress were not expected to undertake. Servants stayed for years and strong bonds developed between a family and their servants. They were usually treated as part of the family community.

However, life above and below stairs was very different. Servants slept on the top floor of the house or in the attic. Their rooms were often cold in the winter and stuffy in the summer. The kitchen and the surrounding rooms, including the servants’ hall where the servants took their meals and spent their rest-time, was the main working area below stairs. A servant’s day usually went from 5.30 a.m. to 10.00 p.m.

Girls as young as twelve worked as maids. They often came from a background of hunger, cold and hard life and for them it was a great step up in the world. They were clothed, fed, and given a roof over their heads. Housemaids cleaned the rooms and footmen did the heavy work.

Senior servants such as the butler, the housekeeper, the cook, etc. had better pay and higher consideration, as well as ‘special’ ones such as the valet and the lady’s maid, who were the master’s and mistress’s personal servants, in charge of their appearance and general comfort both at home and when travelling.

 

 

 

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• husbands • incomes • involved • largest • novelists • numbers • opponent • opportunities • political • regarded • rights • role • society • suitable • textile.

 

Around 30-40 per cent of women from working class families contributed significantly to household (1) ………… in the mid-Victorian years. This might have been even higher during the industrial revolution (2) …………

Domestic service of all kinds was the single (3) ………… employer of women (40 per cent of female occupationsstated in the census of 1851 in provincial cities and 50 per cent in London). The (4) ………… and clothing sectors came a close second and the cotton and woollen industries of Lancashire and Yorkshire (5) ………… large numbers of women. Women were also found in large (6) ………… in metalwares and pottery and in a variety of petty trades, especially in towns: confectionery, brewing and other provisioning, seamstressing, laundry work, cleaning and retailing.

Middle class women usually did not work. Their (7) ………… in the family was to supervise the household and support their husbands. The traditional view of Victorian women is that they were little (8) ………… in business or enterprise and that their lives were largely devoted to the private sphere of domestic and family life.

However, the stereotype of the middle class woman as the (9) ………… in the house can easily be overplayed. Widows and spinsters were rarely in a position to rest on their laurels or be ladies of leisure. Many of the former carried on family businesses after the death of their (10) ………… whilst the significant surplus of spinsters in Victorian (11) ………… found work as governessesor in trades which were regarded as (12) ………… for women such as millinery, inn-keeping, and grocery retailing. Both widows and spinsters were prominent in property ownership and in financing businesses as sleeping partners. The typical firm in the 19^th century was a small family partnership. Because of this many (13) ………… existed for wives and daughters to be closely involved. There is (14) ………… of their important roles, especially behind the scenes: in retailing, book keeping, correspondence, dealing with clients, arranging deals.

In many different ways women were (15) ………… as second class. No women could vote, and this would not change until 1918. There were no important female (16) ………… 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 (17) ………… of 'votes for women', which she described a 'mad, wicked folly'. Women's legal (18) ………… were also restricted. In 1851 a woman could not even be the legal guardian of her own children and could not retain her own property after marriage. This led to unscrupulous men trying to run away with rich heiresses and take their (19) ………….

But, despite all of these disadvantages, there were signs that women were beginning to demand and achieve some forms of equality. Many of the leading (20) ………… of the first half of the nineteenth century were women. In the field of medicine, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Blackwell and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson all made important breakthroughs. In the second half of the century women began to demand the vote and the leaders of the suffrage movements were all female. The first leader was Lydia Becker, but the most famous was Emmeline Pankhurst.