A powerful trading nation
During the reign of Queen Victoria Britain emerged as the most powerful trading nation in the world, provoking a social and economic revolution whose effects are still being felt today. Since the latter part of the eighteenth century the process of industrialisation had built a firm foundation for nineteenth century growth and expansion. At the heart of this was the successful development and application of steam technology. Before 1800 brilliant engineers and entrepreneurs such as James Watt and Matthew Boulton had made steam power a practical reality that had radically improved Britain's core industries, namely the mining of coal, minerals and other raw materials and the production of iron, textiles and manufactured goods. With its advanced industrial technologies Britain was able to attack a huge and rapidly expanding international market.
Between 1809 and 1839 exports grew from £25.4 to £76 million. Ten years later the figure was £124.5 million, with the major export markets being Europe, India and Asia and, increasingly, the United States. At the start of Queen Victoria's reign, Britain's standing as a global industrial and trading power was already unrivalled. The complex structures of international trade developed by the Victorians and the maintenance of the process of wealth generation derived from them were dependent upon efficient means of communication. In many ways, the Victorians owe their unique place in history to their imaginative and successful exploitation of three new communication technologies, the steamship, the railway and the electric telegraph.
'During the reign of Queen Victoria Britain emerged as the most powerful trading nation in the world...'
The steamship has a long, pre-Victorian ancestry, dating back at least to 1783 when the Marquis de Jouffray d'Abbans steamed his little boat, the Pyroscaphe, across the Seine. The first steam-assisted crossing of the Atlantic took place in 1819 when the Savannah sailed from Georgia to Liverpool in 633 hours. By 1833 the Atlantic crossing had been reduced to 22 days and steam ships had begun to operate on the major Imperial and trade routes to India, South Africa and Australia. The 1830s were also marked by the founding of three major shipping lines, the British and American Steam Navigation Company, the Great Western Steamship Company and the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company. The first two concentrated their efforts on the Atlantic and their rivalry launched the period of frenetic competition on that route that was to continue throughout the Victorian period and well into the twentieth century.
In April 1838 the Great Western sailed from Bristol to New York in 14 days and 12 hours, establishing the modern steamship era and the famous Blue Riband contest for the fastest transatlantic passage by passenger ships. Competition was intensified by the setting up by Samuel Cunard of a new shipping line. In July 1840 his first ship, the Britannia, crossed the Atlantic in 11 days and 4 hours. By 1901 the German liner the Deutschland could cross the Atlantic in under 5 days.
Published: 2001-09-01
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