Victorian

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.

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’.

Alan Crawford looks back over twenty-five years of The Victorian Society.

The 'terrible majesty' of the Matterhorn was finally conquered in 1865 by Edward Whymper and his party, but tragedy followed on the descent, as Gordon T Stewart explains.

F.M.L. Thompson looks at the public reception of the artist George Elgar Hicks.

Rudyard Kipling’s imperialism was more complex than the line, ‘Oh, East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.’

November 5th had traditionally provided an outlet for the expression of popular attitudes towards religion in the city of Exeter. In this article Roger Swift examines the particular fervour of the celebrations during the Victorian period despite efforts by the authorities to control them.

Taking the waters became a Victorian passion and spa towns flourished. In this article the first prize winner in History Today's Essay Competition Pamela Steen, a student at the Open University, describes the pleasure and the pains of this fashion.

Ziggi Alexander and Audrey Dewjee consider the life of a remarkable Victorian woman.

Ian Bradley shows that the characters and plots of Gilbert and Sullivan's operas reveal much that is of interest to the historian about certain individuals and institutions of the Victorian era.