Courses About Victorian Britain

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Rated 4 out of 5 by johnblakey from Volume problems I can hardly hear the speaker as the volume is too low. All of the other courses that I have taken don't have this problem.

Date published: 2025-06-16

Rated 5 out of 5 by GUNTHER from Prof. Allitt's Best Great Course Yet Prof. Allitt has done a splendid job in presenting Britain at its apex, when at the end of the 20th century it was said the sun never set on the British Empire. Although there were Anglophiles worldwide outside the British Isles, in reality, the appreciation for things British masked its obsolete technology, no longer competitive with that of America and Germany. It took the Boer War and World War I to make England’s shortcoming painfully obvious to even the most jingoistic Brit. This is a very challenging subject because there is an embarrassment of riches in terms of the quantity of source material. In the literary canon many of us are familiar with fine Victorian writers, such as Dickens, Bronte, Conan Doyle and Hardy, but not many with Mr. Anonymous, author of My Secret Life, who chronicled in eleven volumes, to an eager readership, his sexual escapades, not only in England, but throughout the continent. In general regarding his lower class catches, he finds, They’ve lost all modesty. A new lover is a treat and fresh experience for them. Prof. Allitt unearths a similarly amusing gem in Fabian Socialist George Bernard Shaw’s speech: If in spite of all you cannot resist the temptation to be virtuous, go drown yourself, before you have the time to waste the lives of all around you. The central character of this lecture series, of course, is Queen Victoria herself, and her motivations are presented vividly. When she came to the throne as a teenager, she was acutely aware that any one of the children of Henry IV, her biological half-siblings, would have had precedence before her—if they weren’t all illegitimate! In a way, her lifetime concern with maintaining virtue and propriety was therefore an understandable reaction to the circumstgances of her accession to the throne. We also see her passionate nature, which reveals itself in the extensive index of her letters, including the one detailing when she sets eyes on her cousin Albert for the first time—and will subsequently decide to propose marriage to him. I have also taken Prof. Allitt’s Industrial Revolution course, which was excellent, but Victorian Britain was truly entertaining.

Date published: 2023-10-05

Rated 5 out of 5 by GuntherG from PROF. ALLITT'S BEST BREAT COURSE YET Prof. Allitt has done a splendid job in presenting Britain at its apex, when at the end of the 20th century it was said the sun never set on the British Empire. Although Anglophiles worldwide smercantile grip, in reality, masked its obsolete technology, no longer competitive with that of America and Germany. It took the Boer War and World War I to make this shortcoming painfully obvious to even the most jingoistic Brit. This is a very challenging subject because there is an embarrassment of riches in terms of source material. In the literary canon many of us are familiar with fine Victorian writers, such as Dickens, Bronte, Conan Doyle and Hardy, but not many with Mr. Anonymous, author of My Secret Life, who chronicled in eleven volumes, to an eager readership, his sexual escapades, not only in England, but throughout the continent. In genera,l regarding his lower class catches, he finds, They’ve lost all modesty. A new lover is a treat and fresh experience for them. Prof. Allitt unearths a similarly amusing gem in Fabian Socialist George Bernard Shaw’s speech: If in spite of all you cannot resist the temptation to be virtuous, go drown yourself, before you have the time to waste the lives of all around you. The central character of this lecture series, of course, is Queen Victoria herself, and her motivations are presented vividly. When she came to the throne as a teenager, she was acutely aware that any one of the children of Henry IV, her biological half-siblings, would have had precedence before her—if they weren’t all illegitimate! In a way, her lifetime concern with maintaining virtue and propriety was therefore an understandable reaction to her accession to the throne. We also see her passionate nature, which reveals itself in the extensive index of her letters, including the one deatailing when she sets eyes on her cousin Albert for the first time—and will subsequently decide to propose marriage to him. I have also taken Prof. Allitt’s Industrial Revolution course, which was excellent, but Victorian Britain was truly entertaining.

Date published: 2023-10-05

Rated 5 out of 5 by Walter B from Outstanding lecturer This lecturer is very thorough, and manages to throw in a lot of interesting and useful information, while still maintaining a good sense of balance and humor.

Date published: 2023-04-18

Rated 5 out of 5 by kacx from Excellent Overview of Victorian Britain Just like Victoria's reign, this is a long course. It is very detailed and covers every subject you might think of. I have not found a way to tell when these courses were made. But, this appears to be a bit older and so I will note that there are a few comments made that, in my opinion, seem somewhat dated. Otherwise, an excellent course and I would recommend it.

Date published: 2022-10-13

Rated 5 out of 5 by elenairene from So entertaining and instructive I am sure this will be in my smaller pile of courses that I will definitely watch again my childhood love of Victorian novels made the teachers knowledge and humor especially enriching

Date published: 2022-08-03

Rated 4 out of 5 by 60s Pat from New insight! This series gave Me new insight into the Victorian era including human suffering, expansionism of the empire, and the horrors of war. I learned quite a bit about Queen Victoria, her rule and the nation during that time.

Date published: 2022-06-14

Rated 4 out of 5 by GRRACINE from Great information, but dated technology. I like Allitt. He knows his stuff, presents well, and has a sense of humour. The Victorian era was a special time for Britain and the progress made and associated problems are articulated well. I did find that the presentation is shy on good presentation graphics. The prof relies on his text rather than pictures or videos which could have been added easily. I have the streaming version, and frequently the audio goes out of synch with the video and I have to reset.

Date published: 2022-06-01

01: The Victorian Paradox

Britain during the age of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) is a society very close to us in many ways, and one of the first to embody the characteristic modern paradoxes with which we still deal. This makes it especially worthwhile to study....

32 min

02: Victoria's Early Reign-1837-61

The teenage girl who ascended the throne upon her uncle's death had never expected to become queen. She was crowned at a time when the monarchy was at a low ebb, yet her authority and assurance would help make her name the byword for an age....

30 min

03: The Industrial Revolution-1750-1830

Political stability and improved farming methods helped make Britain the world's first industrial country. Wealth and squalor were both much in evidence as factories, steam engines, and time clocks imposed a new order on human life....

30 min

04: Railways and Steamships

Where were the first railways in Britain-and hence the world-built? What was the "parent" technology from which they were derived? And what other advances in transport did they help lead to?...

31 min

05: Parliamentary Reform and Chartism

In 1830, only 1 in 20 Britons had the vote. There was no secret ballot, and Parliament was riddled with "rotten boroughs." The Reform Act of 1832 abolished many old constituencies, created new ones, and cautiously expanded the franchise. Chartists pushed for much more....

31 min

06: The Upper and Middle Class Woman

Courtship, marriage, and motherhood were central for women from the higher classes. Those eager for higher learning and careers faced many obstacles, but a determined few such as Florence Nightingale and George Eliot showed what could be done....

30 min

07: The Working-Class Woman

The stark contrasts in Victorian life are apparent in the lives of the poorer majority of women who had to work, almost always at difficult, low-paid, and unhealthy jobs....

31 min

08: The State Church and Evangelical Revival

Britain's established church, the Anglican Church or Church of England, felt currents of reform and evangelical revival even as it faced diverse challenges from new ideas and social conditions....

31 min

09: The Oxford Movement and Catholicism

In the 1830s and '40s, the Oxford Movement stressed the supernatural aspects of the Church of England. Two of its luminaries, Henry Manning and John Henry Newman, would become leaders of Roman Catholics in Britain....

31 min

10: Work and Working-Class Life

The Industrial Revolution did not sweep Britain evenly or all at once, though for most the mills, mines, and shops with their clocks, whistles, and machines meant a whole new-and not always welcome-way of thinking about labor and the use of time....

31 min

11: Poverty and the "Hungry Forties"

Industry and city life made poverty more visible and shocking. Utilitarianism, evangelicalism, and works of writers like Charles Dickens roused the conscience as never before. Private philanthropy strove to fill the gaps left by the New Poor Law and its system of dreaded workhouses....

30 min

12: Ireland, Famine, and Robert Peel

On "John Bull's Other Island," the potato blight that first struck in 1846 threw millions into near or absolute starvation; sparked mass migration to England, Canada, and the United States; and set off shock waves that crippled England's ruling Tory party for decades....

30 min

13: Scotland and Wales

Britain's "Celtic fringes" began to resemble England in crucial ways, witnessing the growth of industrial cities. At the same time, both the Scots and the Welsh showed a penchant for elaborate and sometimes fanciful national traditions....

30 min

14: Progress and Optimism

The Great Exhibition of 1851 and its centerpiece, the Crystal Palace, typified the Victorians' belief in improvement of all kinds, material and moral. So did Saltaire, the model workers' town built by the Yorkshire entrepreneur Titus Salt....

31 min

15: China and the Opium War

When the Manchu Dynasty barred British merchants from selling illegal but popular opium in China, the merchants called on British arms to force the trade between 1839 and 1842....

28 min

16: The Crimean War-1854-1856

Britain's first European war since Waterloo saw many "firsts." Get the inside story on the charge of the Light Brigade, the pioneering medical work of Florence Nightingale, and the investigative reporting of the London Times's W. H. Russell....

32 min

17: The Indian Mutiny-1857

In the mid-19th century, fewer than 50,000 British colonial troops and officials ruled 200 million Indians. What caused the famous sepoy rebellion? How did the British put it down? How did it change their policies toward India?...

31 min

18: Victorian Britain and the American Civil War

The war pulled Britain several ways. Economic and diplomatic interests suggested alliance with the Confederacy, but religious and humanitarian feeling backed the Union, especially after the Emancipation Proclamation....

31 min

19: The British in Africa-1840-1880

Famous explorers such as Richard Burton and David Livingstone criss-crossed Africa seeking variously to increase knowledge, preach the Christian gospel, suppress the Arab slave traders, and develop economic opportunities....

30 min

20: Victorian Literature I

Several of the greatest and best-loved writers in the history of the English language were Victorians, including Dickens, George Eliot, Trollope, and the Brontë sisters. Their works gives us a vivid picture of Victorian life....

30 min

21: Art and Music

Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the great critics John Ruskin and Walter Pater, and the immortal Gilbert and Sullivan-whose gently satirical operettas are splendid windows on the age-are among the characters you will meet in this lecture....

31 min

22: Science

The prestige of science and technology grew, even as the works of geologist Charles Lyell and the biologist Charles Darwin stirred intense debates over the relationship between scientific research and religious belief....

31 min

23: Medicine and Public Health

The Victorian era was a time when death at any age was a common phenomenon. Medical advances were substantial, however, with doctors becoming professionals and anesthesia, sterile procedures, and public-sanitation measures pointing the way....

31 min

24: Architecture

How did Victorian architecture-so many examples of which can still be seen around the British Isles today-reflect Victorian life and the Victorian mind? Who were the great Victorian architects, and where can you see their masterpieces?...

30 min

25: Education

Improved schooling was among the Victorians' great accomplishments: In 1830, more than half of all Britons could not read or write. By 1900, nearly everyone had at least some elementary literacy....

31 min

26: Trade Unions and the Labour Party

British workers felt a strong class solidarity out of which sprang unions and later the Labour Party, founded in 1900. Eight years earlier, unionists' votes had made Keir Hardie the first working-class MP....

32 min

27: Crime and Punishment

Crime was a grave problem for the Victorians. To deal with it, they founded the first modern police forces and prisons, and enacted reforms such as abolishing public executions and the jailing of debtors....

31 min

28: Gladstone and Disraeli-1865-1881

These two colossal figures bestrode the world of politics, setting the benchmark for all future prime ministers. Their skills enabled Britain to adjust to rapid change without the unrest that tore at other Western countries....

31 min

29: Ireland and Home Rule

Among the consequences of democratic political reforms was the rise of the Irish Home Rule Party and its charismatic leader, Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell fell in an 1890 divorce scandal and died in 1891, but the Irish Question did not go away....

31 min

30: Democracy and Its Discontents

Gladstone and Lord Salisbury, Disraeli's successor, continued to handle Britain's growing democratization with skill. Meanwhile, the Empire grew apace, but its splendor masked underlying economic and other weaknesses....

31 min

31: The British in Africa-1880-1901

What drove Britain to become deeply involved politically from one end of the continent to the other? What did the Empire's difficult struggles with the Boer settlers of southern Africa presage?...

32 min

32: Later Victorian Literature

The late Victorian years boasted an intense concentration of brilliant authors and a series of lively, even bitter, debates about the meaning of literary art and the place of morality in it....

31 min

33: Leisure

Among other things, this talk explains why informed reflection on cricket and seaside holidays is essential if one wants to understand the Victorian soul. By their pastimes shall ye know them....

31 min

34: Domestic Servants

Domestic service employed many men, and was the commonest type of job for women in Victorian Britain. What was it like to be "downstairs," and why did late Victorians so often lament that "you can't find good help nowadays?"...

31 min

35: Victoria After Albert-1861-1901

The Queen's sorrow over losing her husband never left her. Yet she endured, and her golden (1887) and diamond (1897) jubilee celebrations occasioned great public celebrations and a festive, imperial mood in London....

30 min

36: The Victorian Legacy

Looking back at the whole period, what are some of the most striking things that leap out at us? What does reflecting on them tell us about the past, about our own day and age, and about the nature of historical understanding itself?...

31 min

Overview Course No. 8490

This series of 36 fascinating lectures is a chronological journey into the story of Victorian Britain, from the unexpected ascension to the throne of teenaged Princess Victoria in 1837 to her death in 1901 as the Boer War neared its end.

Presented with all of Victoria's strengths and foibles left intact by an award-winning teacher and author, the lectures invite you to reflect on both the positive and negative aspects of her reign. You'll discover the lives of Victorian women; the situation facing working people and the rise of trade unionism; Victorian achievements in art, literature, architecture, and music; and what Leonard Woolf called "the seriousness of games," and of leisure-time activities as windows on Victorian life.

You'll discuss the important role played by Christianity as a force for both principled adherence to tradition and principled pursuit of change; and the influence of science and the debates over its impact that animated the Victorians.

And you'll learn what the Victorians believed about education; the questions raised by Britain's rule over its empire, the problems of poverty and crime; the discoveries of Victorian explorers in Africa; and much more in this remarkable rendering of a remarkable age.

About

Patrick N. Allitt

We live in a world that has created many new incentives for us to become lifelong learners. Luckily, lifelong learning is a pleasure.

ALMA MATER

University of California, Berkeley

INSTITUTION

Emory University

Patrick N. Allitt is Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University, where he has taught since 1988. He received his PhD in American History from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and Princeton University. He is a widely published author whose books include A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism; The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities throughout American History; and Religion in America since 1945: A History.