Voters concerns

But it is a very safe rule in politics to assume that no population is ever disturbed by wholly imaginary grievances. In such cases, unquestionably, where there is smoke there is fire. Man is by far too lazy an animal to trouble himself much with agitation about purely unreal & non-existing wrongs


Justin McCarthy: A History of Our Time 1880

Prime Ministers & retirement

Gladstone - like many famous prima donnas - did not know when it was time to retire


Lord Groschen & his friends

October/November 1881: That enchanting new marvel, a telephone, has been put up, whereby Hawarden Castle & Rectory converse ad libitum. Uncle William [Gladstone], who is in some respects the greatest Tory out, will have nothing to do with it

The Diaries of Lady Frederick Cavendish

Investment bubbles

... one of those ever recurring gales in which long suspense & needless delay in the application & extension of scientific invention, has been followed by enthusiastic entertainment of new & novel enterprises, terminating in a wild & general mania

D Morier Evans: Facts, Failures & Frauds 1859

Censorship

Thomas Bowdler has shewn the truth of the old saw, that the nicest person has the nastiest ideas, & has omitted many phrases as containing indelicacies which we cannot see


Contemporary review of The Family Shakespeare

Terrorist chic

Garibaldi is in England, which fact makes everyone stand on their heads; & I suppose all young ladies will shortly appear in red shirts, which, to my disgust, have come into fashion

The Diaries of Lady Frederick Cavendish 8 April 1864

Material world

In an age in which material success in every branch of life & in none more than politics, is worshipped to idolatry

Vanity Fair 1872

Elite universities

A high degree from the first university in Europe [Oxford] is not a certificate of genius

Vanity Fair 1872

Beards

Beards are often supposed to indicate an inclination towards revolutionary & democratic sentiment. This is because beards are generally supposed to be cultivated as a sort of natural right by lovers of natural rights, the men who like all signs of Manhood (with a large M) & who are to think a well-grown beard the true qualification for the Suffrage.

Possibly there is a party who would justify their dislike to woman suffrage, secretly to their own hearts, on the ground that women have no beards ... but if it be thus obviously a hasty & false impression which associates beards in general with revolutionary, democratic or even Fenian sympathies


The Spectator 26 October 1867

Science

The great danger which besets all men of large speculative faculty, is the temptation to deal with the accepted statements of fact in natural science, as if they were not only correct but exhaustive; as if they might be dealt with deductively, in the same way as the propositions of Euclid may be dealt with



In reality, every such statement, however true it may be, is true only relatively to the means of observation & the point of view of those who have enunciated it. So far it may be depended upon. But whether it will bear every speculative conclusion that may be logically deduced from it, is quite another question


TH Huxley

Fatherhood

The Expressions of Emotions shows how closely Charles Darwin watched his children; it was characteristic of him that (as I have heard him tell), although he was so anxious to observe accurately the expression of a crying child, his sympathy with the grief spoiled his observation

Francis Darwin

Childhood

Another characteristic of his treatment of children was his respect for their liberty, & for their personality. Even as quite a little girl, I remember rejoicing in this sense of freedom. Our father & mother would not even wish to know what we were doing or thinking unless we wished to tell. He always made us feel that we were each of us creatures whose opinions & thoughts were valuable to him, so that whatever there was best in us came out in the sunshine of his presence

Reminiscence of Charles Darwin by one of his daughters

Elders & betters

Lord Macaulay treated all as his equal. To me, a young girl, he would say 'Don’t you remember?' as if I had 1/10th the information he possessed in his little finger. If I said I did not he would quote title of book, number of page & line, advising me to read some work I had never heard of. He told me to trust memory - not to make notes. As a very young child I learned Lays of Ancient Rome to please him

Janet Ross: Early Days Recalled

Teacher training

It is odd enough that in England instructors of the well-to-do classes never receive any training in the art of teaching, while this is required of the masters & mistresses in our elementary schools


F Leveson Gower: Bygone Years

Irish Americans

This Irish-American influence on Irish affairs is very powerful & may, for all practical purposes, be considered permanent & must be taken into account as a constant element in the Irish problem

EL Godwin: A Lawyers Objections to Home Rule 1887

Ireland

Because of Ireland & Home Rule for a long period after 1885 leaders of the Liberal Party were not welcomed at social gatherings in Conservative houses


Earl of Midleton: Records & Reactions 1856-1939

Keeping up with technology

The telephone is a deadly disadvantage; it minces time into fragments & frays the spirit

Sir Edward Grey

Too much mail

The Penny Post has already begun to make a change adverse to reading by consuming a vast amount of time in correspondence that is unnecessary, trivial or irksome


Sir Edward Grey

Power of computers

The only calculating machine in the Paris Exhibition worthy of notice is that by CX Thomas of France. It multiplies 8 figures by 8 in 24 seconds. Price £20



It is to be regretted that none of the extremely ingenious & beautiful machines of Messrs Scheutz of Stockholm is in the Exhibition. One of these machines is in the office of the Registrar General in London where it is performing very useful work. It not only calculates to 16 places of figures but simultaneously prints the results


Illustrated London News 5 October 1867

Advanced communications in the Third World

It is astonishing to observe how soon telegraphs are run up in India. The atmosphere being so dry, no precautions are necessary for insulation. A pole of fir is stuck in the ground & remains there till it is rotted by the white ants, the wire is coiled loosely round the top, & thus the telegraph is carried on in the rear of the troops almost as fast as they can march, provided the wire is to be had in sufficient quantities

William Russell: My Diary in India in the Year 1858-59

Improving productivity

Sir Edward Watkin claimed the credit for first using shorthand in business practice. In 1853, as general manager of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway, he required that all his apprentice clerks learn Pitmans shorthand



Watkin pointed out that whereas he had once half killed himself with work, writing his own business correspondence in longhand or dictating to clerks who took down his words in longhand, he could now get through the same amount of work in a fraction of the time by having his clerks write in shorthand


Transactions of the 1st International Shorthand Congress Held in London, 1888

Smoking

The discovery of a cigarette case in his effects strengthened the impression of French lubricity, because in the 1850s cigarettes were still notoriously the preference of affected persons from Latin nations, in contrast to the honest cigars & pipes smoked by trueborn Britons


Richard Altick: Victorian Studies in Scarlet

Drugs

There are many other articles to grow to which I hope the attention of the colonists will be turned. I would suggest opium as likely to succeed, & yield a large profit; tobacco also, if we can get the duty reduced in England on the colonial product, would be found advantageous


R Montgomery Martin: History of the British Colonies 1834

Security checks

I hope Grotes gum & petroleum pills are keeping your seasickness down. You would be taken up for carrying about such pills here, now there is so much Fenianising by chemicals which are being prohibited


Sir Charles Adderley to Lord Lyttleton 1867

Judicial appointments

The appointment of Baron Parke to the Bench in 1828 was the inaugurating of a new practice, that of selecting men for the performance of judicial functions while yet in the full strength of body & intellect & not waiting until they were only fit to be laid up in lavender

Robert Walton: Random Recollections of the Midland Circuit 1869

Examination standards

It was towards the end of the year 1859 that, fresh from Marlborough, I distinguished myself by gaining the first place in a competition held by the Civil Service Commissioners for a clerkship in the Privy Council Office

Frankness compels me to admit that the other two nominees (required by the regulations to make up the prescribed number of 3) may possibly have been the special couple known as the Treasury Idiots, who could never pass anything, & were sent again & again to give a walk-over to any Ministers protege able to reach the standard of minimum qualifications. At any rate, they could barely read or write, & so I found myself entitled to a desk in Downing St

H Preston Thomas: The Work & Play of a Government Inspector

Hunting

Riding to hounds makes me hellishly excited for a few days, it is the greatest physical pleasure which I know



Friedrich Engels



There are those who look forward to a time when the love of field sports inherited from our Norman or Saxon ancestors will have ceased to be a characteristic of English country life


The Times 2 Jan 1867

Hospital outcomes

In the outset, I am bound to express my regret, that the riches of our great hospitals are rendered so little available for enquiries like the present, that these noble institutions, which should be storehouses of exact observations, made on a large scale, and for which accurate ideas should be disseminated throughout the land, are almost completely without the means of fulfilling this very important object



Benjamin Philips Esq FRS, Surgeon to the Marylebone Infirmary

Journal of the Statistical Society 1838; Mortality of amputation

Compensation culture

The railways seemed, at least in popular imagination, even more potent instruments of destruction than the curricles that bowled along the turnpike roads, & they tempted plaintiffs with the prospect of still wealthier defendants


CHS Fifoot

Globalisation

In Tenerife, the Spanish people dressed in the latest London or Paris fashions & danced to the most popular music of Rossini … The whole world is tending to assume the same appearance, stupid & rather melancholy & vulgar

Victor Jacquemont: Letters from India 1834

Financial regulation

The experience of the past shows that it is impossible, even through the attempted exercise of prophecy, to regulate the future

Select Committee on the Bank Acts 1858

Euro-scepticism

Americans who live on the Continent … have declared with assurance that the continental nations have ceased to care a straw for what England thinks, that her traditional prestige is completely extinct and that the affairs of Europe will be settled quite independently of her action and still more of her inaction. England will do nothing, will risk nothing; there is no cause bad enough for her not to find a selfish interest in it - there is no cause good enough for her to fight about it. Poor old England is defunct; it is about time she should seek the most decent burial possible

Henry James: London at Midsummer 1877

National statistics

Those who make it their business to look into blue books & parliamentary papers are often impeded, if not quite baffled, in their endeavours to compare statistically one part of the United Kingdom with another

Manchester Guardian 1 January 1867

Expert witnesses

There is probably no department of human inquiry in which the art of cooking statistics is unknown, & there are sceptics who have substituted 'statistics' for 'expert witness' in the well known saying about classes of false statements

Sir Edward Cook : Life of Florence Nightingale 1913

Notting Hill

Bayswater - Ladbroke Gardens near St Johns & St Peters churches. CORNER FAMILY RESIDENCE, high & dry, & overlooking beautiful pleasure gardens, to be LET, furnished or unfurnished. Six capital bedrooms, bathroom, 5 reception rooms, large hall & spacious light & dry basement with housekeepers room, butlers pantry & accommodation for a first class family. Held, unfurnished, at the very low rent of £125 until March 1869, £135 afterwards


Advertisement in The Times, 1867

Crisis of masculinity

During a 'decade of crisis' from the mid-1850s to the mid-1860s middle class men experienced anxiety that Britain was transforming itself into a wealthy but unmanly society. By the 1860s these anxieties were translated into more aggressive forms of middle class gentlemanly culture such as mountaineering in the Alps

Peter Hansen

Gun control

The murderous use of revolvers must be put down at any cost. The experience of America shows how rapidly it may spread & to what lengths it may be carried. If England is to avoid the need for gun control laws we must spare no expense to bring to justice any ruffian who fires a pistol in the streets


The Times: 24 October 1867

Wimmin

Miss Lydia Becker was a formidable campaigner for womens rights in 19th Century Manchester



During the 1860s there was mounting concern about extravagance & inefficiency in the way that the City Council used ratepayers money



At a public meeting to discuss these issues Miss Becker rose to object to the use of the word mismanagement to describe these failings



She thought the word would encourage people to think that this would be the style of management the city could expect were they to be governed by unmarried ladies



Freelance, the Manchester satirical magazine

War on terror

The Fenian conspirators are trying to carry us back a whole century. We have gradually discarded a number of customs designed as a terror to evil-doers or for protection to honest men in times when deeds of violence were rife. We travel without arms because we have no fear of highwaymen

The Times 1 Oct 1867

Freedom of thought

The most capital advantage an enlightened people can enjoy, is the liberty of discussing every subject which can fall within the compass of the human mind



… To render the magistrate a judge of truth, & engage his authority in the suppression of opinions, shows an inattention to the nature & design of political society. When a nation forms a government, it is not wisdom but power which they place in the hand of the magistrate; from whence it follows his concern is only with those objects which power can operate on



… Administration of justice, … protection of property & the defence of every member of the community from violence & outrage fall naturally within the province of the civil ruler, for these may all be accomplished by power; but an attempt to distinguish truth from error, & to countenance one out of many opinions to the prejudice of another, is to apply power in a manner mischievous & absurd


Robert Hall:

Centralised control

Local self-government is extolled as a great English principle & privilege, & yet in every department it is being systematically overborne. Government interference is foisted into the most paltry matters

Edward Herford 1877

Global warming

The extraordinary heat of the summer of 1857 was attributed to an approaching comet, which, however, never appeared. Considerable alarm was excited by a report that it would collide with our world & smash it

Janet Ross: Early Days Recalled