I was browsing in the Victoria and Albert Museum and I came across Life in Victorian Britain by the appropriately-named Michael St John Parker for Pitkin Guides. I found it intriguing because it is clearly aimed at children or early adolescent and its view of the Victorian era in Britain is (to my eyes) startlingly conservative. For example:

A servant’s life might well have been described as rigorous and limited but, in general terms, domestic service offered security, respectability, and valued employment and training to the vast majority of those involved

Or take this:

In once sense the workplace horrors of the Industrial Revolution cannot be overstated, but in another sense they should be looked at in perspective. The vast majority of people in pre-industrial society lived in poverty, squalor, discomfort and danger. The workers who joined the new factories were fleeing an existence as agricultural labourers which was even harsher…

These would be controversial claims if developed at length but they are just stuck in in passing alongside a lengthly paean to the technological progress and Imperial greatness of the Victorian era. And my guess is that the kids reading this stuff won’t have the grounding in the detailed history to judge it properly or see what it omits. It is being taught at schools using texts similar to this one (which was published in 1999) that have stuck me with an abiding faith in the virtues of the British Empire even though intellectually I am now at the very least ambivalent about it!

P.S. For a more balanced view with copious references to original archive material you could do worse than consult The Learning Curve from the (UK) National Archives.

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