William Wordsworth - Jeremy Paxman TV - Jeremy Clarkson TV - TV - Empires: Queen Victoria's Empire TV - Jeremy Paxman TV - Michael Buerk TV - Wellington: The Iron Duke Unmasked TV -
50,127. - An inventive Age
Has wrought, if not with speed of magic, yet
To most strange issues. I have lived to mark
A new and unforeseen creation rise
From out the labours of a peaceful Land
Wielding her potent enginery to frame
And to produce, with rests not night or day,
Industrious to destroy! (Manufacturing & Factory & Industrial Revolution & Great Britain & England) William Wordsworth, The Manufacturing Spirit
50,128. black the cloth
In heavy wreaths folds over every Nation: cruel Works
Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic,
Moving by compulsion each other; not as those in Eden, which,
Wheel within wheel, in freedom revolve, in harmony and peace. (Manufacturing & Industry & Factory & Engineering & Industrial Revolution & Great Britain & England) William Wordsworth, A Vision of Albion (Selections from Jerusalem)
31,160. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. The Victorian age was one of soaring ambition. Technological wonder. And awesome grandeur. As well as ugliness. Squallor. And misery on an unprecedented scale. The Victorians knew life was changing faster than ever before. And they recorded that change in paintings that were the cinema of their day. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) Jeremy Paxman, The Victorians I: Painting the Town: Their Story in Pictures
31,161. They had invented the modern city. (England & Great Britain & City & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,162. At the end of a hard day’s labour a bowl of gruel. (England & Great Britain & Food & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,163. The Thames became an open sewer. The newspapers dubbed the crisis the Great Stink. (England & Great Britain & Thames & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,164. Six million houses were built during Victoria’s reign. (England & Great Britain & Housing & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,165. The Suburb was a brilliant invention. (England & Great Britain & Housing & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,166. Victoria and Albert’s was a genuine loving marriage. (England & Great Britain & Victoria & Art) Jeremy Paxman, The Victorians II: Home Sweet Home
31,167. Keeping a mistress wasn’t unusual. In William Holman Hunt’s scandalous picture The Awakening Conscious a man canoodles with his mistress in their love nest. (England & Great Britain & Affairs & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,168. In London in 1857 it is estimated there is one prostitute for every twenty-five men. And many of their clients were married. Sexually transmitted diseases were rife. (England & Great Britain & Prostitute & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,169. Sherry, Sir: William Powell Frith. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid. painting of content servants
31,170. There were some whose place would never be comfortable. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,171. The Governess: Richard Redgrave. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid. painting of sad servant
31,172. An Anxious Hour: Fanny Farmer. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid. painting of dying child
31,173. Young Frederick Asleep At Last: George Elgar Hicks. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,174. The Doctor: Luke Fildes. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid. doctor by bed of dying child
31,175. Hushed: Frank Holl. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,176. In reality children had never been more vulnerable. This was the great age of epidemic: tuberculosis, scarlet fever and typhoid killed thousands of children every year. No amount of money or prayer could keep death from the door. (England & Great Britain & Disease & Children & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,177. She was what the Victorians called a baby farmer ... In the case of Amelia Dyer she never kept. Over the space of thirty years she took in more than fifty babies and she killed them all. (England & Great Britain & Murder: Dyer & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,178. Found Drowned by G F Watts is an almost religion vision of the fallen woman. Stretched out like a martyr to Victorian morality ... Her body is bathed in a warm light. Set against a cold uncaring world. A single light shines down on her ... It’s title was taken from a regular column in The Times newspaper which listed the number of women who had thrown themselves into the Thames. (England & Great Britain & Art & Suicide & Victorian) ibid.
31,179. The Outcast. Richard Redgrave. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,180. In Past And Present Augustus Leopold Egg shows a wife prostrated before her husband begging for forgiveness ... In his hand he holds a letter he has intercepted from his wife’s lover. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,181. Two more paintings accompany the main picture ... The sins of the mother have been visited on the next generation. In the final painting the destitute mother lies huddled alone under an arch cradling the illegitimate child that is the product of her affair. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,182. For a woman it was all too often a prison. Painters showed the Victorian wife bound by law, by convention, by religious teaching. Even by the clothes she wore. (England & Great Britain & Woman & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,183. May 1st 1851 ... Hyde Park London: from the Earth rose a vast glittering Crystal Palace made of glass and cast iron ... It took the world’s breath away ... One picture captured the significance of that day: The First of May 1851 Franz Winterhalter. (England & Great Britain & Building & Art & Victorian) Jeremy Paxman, The Victorians III: Having It All
31,184. Sheffield was Steel City. At the time of the Great Exhibition it produced half the quantity of steel produced in the entire world ... Five million tons in 1900. (England & Great Britain & Steel & Industrial Revolution & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,185. Industry of the Tyne: William Bell Scott. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,186. His factory on the Tyne became Britain’s largest manufacturer of guns and warships. With the profits of war Armstrong built his very own stately home ... In 1887 he became Baron Armstrong. (England & Great Britain & Manufacturing & Factory & Arms & Victorian) ibid.
31,187. Just six hundred men charged into the valley against five thousand Russian soldiers and their artillary. (England & Great Britain & Crimean War & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,188. The Roll Call: Lady Elizabeth Butler. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,189. One foreign minister described his government’s policy in the 1870s as 'Fortify Occupy Grab and Brag'. (England & Great Britain & Foreign Relations UK & Empire UK & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,190. Hard Times. Hubert von Herkomer. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,191. The Emigrants’ Departure. Paul Falconer Poole. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,192. The Emigrant Ship. C J Staniland. (England & Great Britain & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,193. The London Docks may have been the gateway to the wealth of empire but the men who worked here were some of the poorest in Britain ... They were paid little and only by the hour. On average a doctor worked three hours a day. Resentment ran high. But all this was about to change. On August 12th 1889 the London dockers fought back ... Within a week 30,000 men were on strike ... For the strikers the suffering was intense; but not only for the dockers, for their families too ... In London the dock strike took to the streets. Thousand of dockers and their families marched carrying huge banners, their children holding signs saying please feed us. (England & Great Britain & Industrial Action & Dockers & Strike & Solidarity & Demonstration & Art & Victorian) ibid.
31,194. On Strike. Hubert von Herkomer. (England & Great Britain & Art & Strike & Victorian) ibid.