Social Victorians/Timeline/1890s

Time Line

1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s | 1890s 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 | 1900s 1910s 1920s-30s

1890s

Julia Baird says, "Life expectancy in those years was forty-six, and only one in twenty British people was over sixty-five. Almost everyone in the crowd would have known only Victoria as their sovereign." (809 of 1203)

1891 in Detail

In a crucial 1891 case, Regina v. Jackson, a husband — Mr. Jackson — had kidnapped his wife and detained her in his house with guards. He brought her to court for the "restitution of conjugal rights," and lost. The judge held that he had no such right. This was hailed as a momentous decision that ended a husband’s right to control the body of his wife. (Just two years prior, a judge in Regina v. Clarence had held that a man had the right to rape his wife, even when suffering from gonorrhea. There was no concept of "marital rape" in England and Wales until 1991.) Regina v. Jackson built on the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882, which stated [813–814] that a wife could control her own earnings and assets (and that a wife was a separate legal entity from her husband), and the 1886 Infant Custody Act, which introduced the idea that the children’s welfare must be considered when awarding custody. (813–814 of 1203)

1892 in Detail

Headlines

Arnold Dolmetsch performed in public quite a bit.

1892 April 5, Arnold Dolmetsch's consort performed at Lady Ashburton's home, and she wrote to thank him on the fifth. He wrote Horne that the audience was "very distinguished" (Campbell 46).

1892 July 4–26, Wednesday, a general election was held.

1893 in Detail

A. N. Wilson says,

Britain was undergoing a severe recession. Labour relations were poor. The success of the dockers in their long strike of 1889 had inspired other workers to join trades unions – the numbers were approaching 2 million. In 1893, 30,440,000 days’ work were lost in industrial stoppages. Agriculture was in apparently terminal decline. Prices had fallen by 40 per cent since 1890 and wages had been cut by as much as 25 per cent.

Headlines

George Bernard Shaw and Arnold Dolmetsch meet, and Shaw writes about Dolmetsch.

Annie Besant makes her first trip to India.

1894 in Detail

Headlines

19 October 1894, Russian Emperor Alexander III died, to be replaced by Tsar Nicholas II.

Women's suffrage:

In 1894, the new passage of the Local Government Act meant that all women who owned property could vote in local elections, become poor-law guardians (who managed local welfare for the unemployed, elderly, and vulnerable), and act on school boards. (814)

1895 in Detail

Headlines

Oscar Wilde had two plays running in the West End, The Importance of Being Earnest (at the St. James) and An Ideal Husband (at the Haymarket Theatre).

Arthur Wing Pinero's The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith was running at the Garrick.

Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel moved to the Gaiety from Daly's.

A general election was held 13 July – 7 August 1895 that gave a parliamentary majority to the Conservative Party, the 3rd election in a row that they won.

1896 in Detail

In 1896 in Parliament

the Conservatives repealed the Red Flag regulations relating to the newfangled automobiles. In 1896, Parliament decreed it was now possible for drivers of the new contraptions to do so without a pedestrian parading in front of them with a warning scarlet banner. Thus it was that Victoria, who had been born in the Pickwickian age of stagecoaches and seen the birth and growth of the railways, should have lived to see motor travel recognized in English law. In the same year, 1896, Karl Benz built his first car.

Headlines

February

Lecture at the Westminster Town Hall reported by The Literary World on 14 February 1896: "'The transmission of personality is the creed of literature as it is of religion,' said Mr. Birrell in the course of a lecture on Dr. Johnson, at Westminster Town Hall, and the ober dictum is worthy of all acceptation. Mr. Asquith presided, and the audience including 'all the talents,' Lord Roseberry, Mr. Arthur Balfour, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Henry James, and Mr. Herbert Paul occupying chairs in the front row. / Mr. Asquith uttered the usual orthodoxies concerning the author 'who lived so little by his writings and so much by his personality.' That is a view which we confess we do not share. ..." "Table Talk," The Literary World, 14 February 1896, vol. 53, p. 149, col. 1. (Accessed 9 October 2009 in Google Books.)

The annual meeting of the Authors' Society, reported on in the 21 February 1896 Literary World: "The annual meeting of the Authors' Society passed off pleasantly, in spite of the minatory motion that stood in the name of Mr. W. H. Wilkins regarding the unfortunate 'Address' to the authors of America, a motion that was gracefully withdrawn in view of the committee's resoluton that the 'Address' had no official character. We congratulate the Society on the access of 14 new members during the year and on the evidence of practical work afforded by the fact that two-thirds of the members had applied for advice and assistance, to say nothing of the MSS. submitted for the same purpose. The printed report, of which a copy has reached us, is full of exceedingly sound advice, of especial value to young or inexperienced authors." "Table Talk," The Literary World, 14 February 1896, vol. 53, p. 172, col. 3. (Accessed 9 October 2009 in Google Books.)

July

Arthur Conan Doyle feted by the Author's Club.

August

Lady Gregory and William Butler Yeats meet.

The steamer the Norse King to take scientists and tourists to the Varanger Fjord to view the solar eclipse. At least in the planning, as reported in January 1896, "The official observers of the joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society have arranged to go by the Norse King. Among those on board will be Dr. A. Common, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, and Sir Robert Ball, who has consented to deliver a series of three lecture on the eclipse while the steamer is in the Varanger Fjord." (From a "special announcement," quoted in "Table Talk," The Literary World (3 Januray 1896), vol. 53, p. 13 [accessed 10 October 2009 in Google Books].)

December

December, Annie Horniman's name removed from the rolls of the Golden Dawn.

1897 in Detail

In 1897

the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies was formed, linking a host of smaller groups under the leadership of the redoubtable Millicent Garrett Fawcett. For the first time, a bill to give women the vote passed its second reading in the House of Commons. (814)

Headlines

February

February, William Poel's production of Twelfth Night, to a glittering audience.

October

William Morris dies.

June

1897 June 28, Monday, the Garden Party at Buckingham Palace was the last official celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

1898 in Detail

Headlines

Local Government Act passed.