Lesson 1: Great Britain during the early Victorian period

Lesson structure:

1)    Lesson organization (2-3 minutes)

2)    Review of the previous material (5-7 minutes)

3)    New studies (15-20 minutes)

      4)   Practical training (15 minutes)

      5)   Homework (1-2 minutes)

Part 3 can be started with the quick reading and translation of the short text about the accession of Queen Victoria. The example of the text is following:

       “In 1837 William IV died and a new reign began. As he had no children the crown went to Victoria, the eighteen-years-old only daughter of his next young brother, the duke of Kent. Her reign was destined to be the longest in English history, grave questions were impending, parties were much embittered against one another, and difficult descisions would have to be made from the beginning to the end of the reign. At this time she was entirely unknown to her people, as she had been brought up in much seclusion; but her education and training had been good and her subjects soon learned to recognize her clear judgement, her moderation, her perception of the true position of the sovereign in the English system of government, and the thorough goodness of her character.

       In 1840 she married her cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who came to live in England but was given no recognized position in the government. In private he was, on the whole, a wise and impartial adviser of his wife, and his influence with her and with others was thoroughly good for England. By his refined tastes and intellectual interests he gave encouragement to the arts and to literature at a time when they received but scant recognition, and many public measures of usefulness received his steady and intelligent support.”

        Various aspects of the British life during the early Victorian period and the so-called “Mid-Victorian Prosperity” can be studied during an audition exercises. For example, pupils should be allowed to listen to the following text, pronounced by a native speaker, and then requested to make a summary of the text and to talk about it (both solely and in form of dialogs):

       “Between 1845 and 1866 the United Kingdom experienced the unparalleled expansion of manufacturers and commerce. No doubts, that phenomenon took place due, to a great extent, to the removal of protective duties on food and raw materials, but not entirely. Other important changes took place simultaneously and helped it on. The above years comprise the discovery and working of the Californian and Australian goldfields which increased so immensely the circulating medium of the world. The final victory of steam-powered means of transportation in Britain occured, with railroads taking the first place on land and steam vessels doing so on the ocean. In general, transportation became four times quicker and four times cheaper.

       In 1838 the “Anti-Corn-Law League” was formed at Manchester in the center of the manufacturing district, and an active movement was instituted to induce parliament to remove the taxes from grain (imposed by the so-called “Corn Law” of 1815, which was the direct result of Napoleonic Wars). Richard Cobden and John Bright rose to fame in connection with the work of the league. They were both merchants, both gifted with great ability as speakers; both were strongly convinced in the injustice of the corn laws, and believed that benefit would come to English workingmen if their food could be made cheap. With these men and others as leaders, newspapers devoted to the subject were showered over the country, lecturers were trained and sent into every town to explain the principles of what had long been called “free trade”. “To buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest” was laid down as a general right and a general principle of action, and a condition of the law under which this could be done was treated as the ideal to which legislation should approach.

       A great part of the people were gradually converted to these principles and to the belief that the old system of duties ought to be abolished. But not so much impression was made on parliament. Every year some advocate would introduce a measure for the repeal of the duties, but it was always voted down by a majority that it seemed impossible to overcome. Eventually Cobden and Bright became members of parliament and pleaded for their views there, others took up the cause, one by one prominent members of the Liberal party and even some of the Conservatives accepted their principles, and it began to seem that at some time or other the Corn Law would be abolished.

       In 1846 Sir Robert Peel, the Conservative prime minister, introduced and against much opposition carried through a measure for the abolition of the duties on wheat and other grain. This action allowed the principal food of the people to be brought into England, Ireland, and Scotland far more cheaply than before, reduced the price of the grain that was grown at home, and made bread cheap for the working classes.

       With the Corn Laws gone the principles of free trade were introduced, and many forms of protection were removed. The high duties on sugar imposed for the benefit of the sugar-growing British West Indies were reduced the same year that the corn laws were swept away. The Navigation Acts which had come down from the seventeenth century as a means of preserving English commerce to English ships were abolished in 1849, the vessels of all other nations being now allowed to come into and go out of English ports on the same conditions as vessels owned in England. Within a few years, between 1846 and 1849, protective duties were removed from some two hundred articles which had before been taxed. England thus gave up entirely her old policy of protection and established free trade in all articles of import and export. ............