How did the rich Victorians treat the poor?
Rich people could afford lots of treats like holidays, fancy clothes, and even telephones when they were invented. Poor people – even children – had to work hard in factories, mines or workhouses. They didn’t get paid very much money. By the end of the Victorian era, all children could go to school for free.
Why was Victorian London so smelly?
The Great Stink, as was named the horrendous smell given off by the Thames, plagued London for a great many years during the Victorian era. You name it, it probably ended up in the Thames, either deliberately from dumping or from an inadequate, overflowing sewer system leaking its contents.
What conditions did the poor live in in Victorian England?
For the first half of the 19th century the rural and urban poor had much in common: unsanitary and overcrowded housing, low wages, poor diet, insecure employment and the dreaded effects of sickness and old age. By 1851 the census showed the urban population was larger than that of the rural areas.
How did Queen Victoria help the poor?
Every year Queen Victoria gave gifts of food, fuel and clothing to the aged, infirm and ‘deserving poor’ of Windsor, Eton, and Clewer.
How dirty was Victorian England?
In the 19th century, London was the capital of the largest empire the world had ever known — and it was infamously filthy. It had choking, sooty fogs; the Thames River was thick with human sewage; and the streets were covered with mud.
How was Dickens personally affected by poverty?
Certainly Dickens was sympathetic to the working poor—what he would have considered to be the good or “deserving” poor. Dickens was almost always sympathetic to poor women, including prostitutes like Nancy in Oliver Twist, and children like Jo the street sweeper in Bleak House.
What was it like for poor Victorians?
A poor Victorian family would have lived in a very small house with only a couple of rooms on each floor. The houses would share toilets and water, which they could get from a pump or a well. Open sewers ran along the streets in poor areas making them very smelly and unhealthy.
How much poverty was there in Victorian England?
It’s necessary to actually understand what Victorian poverty was. Late 19th century Britain had some 25% of the population living at or below the subsistence level. This subsistence level is not a measure of inequality, nor of the lack of winter clothes.
What did rich Victorians?
Rich Victorian men had jobs such as doctors, lawyers, bankers and factory owners.