Victorian

Agricultural Gangs

'Rude, rough and lawless' was one view of the women and children employed on the land in Victorian England. But was theirs a harsher fate than work in the factory system?

Mr Punch and the Iron Duke

The Duke of Wellington proved a gift to the cartoonists of 'Punch' - he was a figure the magazine's readership would recognise, and he did not look unlike Mr Punch himself.

A Royal Gentleman of Colour

Ben Shephard looks at the career of Peter Lobengula, the African ‘Prince’ who tantalised the British press and public and died in poverty in Salford in 1913, highlighting Victorian attitudes towards race, colour and sex.

1883 Cup Final: 'Patricians' v 'Plebians'

Until 1883, the Football Association Cup was won every year by former public schoolboys. As Christopher Andrew shows here, at the Cup Final that May, a working-class team from Lancashire snatched the honours from the Old Etonians.

Victorian History Men: Archives and Sources

Although there has always been a public eager to read or hear the narration of past events, the 'History Men' - scholars writing professional history based on original sources - are a relatively new breed.

The Victorian Shaftesbury

Although Anthony Ashley Cooper, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was often described as the ‘Prince of Philanthropists’, he himself was aware of the paradoxes of his responses to the ‘Condition of England question’.