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Introduction
The Victorian age has often been called 'The Age of Reform' and much of the legislation that passed through Parliament at the time, successful or unsuccessful, was aimed at reform, including bills relating to Parliament itself.
Distinctions came to be drawn between constitutional, political, economic and social reform bills. The last of these categories dealt with what were conceived of as 'social problems' or 'social abuses', many of which were associated with the growth of population and the development of capitalist industry, including health and factory acts. Initial reform bills were concerned with the hours and condition of factory children and women. One bitterly contested economic reform, the repeal of the corn laws in 1846, involved and affected the balance of social forces in the country - rural versus urban, agricultural versus industrial - but within a few years of repeal, the opposition to it had dwindled away.
Structures and processes changed. Early in Victoria's reign organised political parties were beginning to take shape, and there was no totally independent civil service. Yet, by the end of the reign, 'democracy' was no longer a bogey word, political parties had a constituency as well as a Parliamentary base, and competition to enter the civil service (by examination) was taken for granted. The pattern of communications, physical and social, had also changed with the rise of a railway system. A new geography had effectively been created, and there was a different kind of popular Press. Long before the launching of the Daily Mail in 1896, press circulation had begun to increase after the abolition of stamp duties on newspapers in 1855, the result of sustained agitation. The National Education Act had also been passed, belatedly, in 1870, creating elementary schools financed from local rates. Attendance was made compulsory ten years later.
Published: 2001-02-01
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