A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain

by Michael Paterson

  It would be immensely complicated, but not impossible. By digging the lines beneath roadways the disturbance and expense of demolishing buildings would be minimized, and a method of doing this, known as ‘cut and cover’ – digging a short section at a time, laying the tracks and then roofing it over before moving on – would make matters yet easier for those above ground. Only at the eastern end, where the track would go through Farringdon, was it necessary for major demolition, and this was of poorer housing that public opinion wished to see swept away in any case.

  The moving spirit behind the dream of an underground railway was Charles Pearson (1798–1862), a London solicitor. He had first proposed the idea in 1845, but had met with scepticism and reluctance, even after Parliament approved in 1853 and 1854 two schemes to build a ‘Metropolitan Railway’ between Edgware and Holborn. The project flagged and might have died altogether through suspicion, inertia and procrastination had Pearson not lobbied tirelessly to keep it going.

  Most of the fifties was spent in raising the capital, but work finally began in the spring of 1860. It was an entirely new venture, and involved the complicated diverting of pipes and drains. Nothing was known about the effects that vibrating trains would have on the foundations of buildings, and there must have been concern that the heavy traffic on roadways above might cause roofs to collapse. With no precedent to follow, it was necessary to trust to luck and rely on the skill of the engineers.

  That reliance was vindicated. Though the disruption was immense, the work was finished – somewhat late – by the end of 1862, and service began on 10 January 1863. People’s curiosity got the better of their fears, for a total of 30,000 passengers travelled that day. Once the novelty had worn off there was no drop in numbers, indeed the daily average of passengers for the whole of the first year was 32,000. Had there been a serious accident during the first weeks and months, the Metropolitan Railway might have lost favour and perished, but it was known that the safety measures were stringent (the signals were especially good) and this won public confidence. Its sheer convenience, in any case, ensured its popularity. More than 11 million people used it during the first year.

  As on the surface, there were three classes of carriage, of which all were comfortable and spacious. It was reported that a six-foot-tall man could stand up with his hat on. First and second class had leather seats and all carriages were lit effectively with gas. The trains were frequent – the number rose to 630 a day – and the journeys were swift, as the trains stopped in stations for only fifteen or twenty seconds. It had been stipulated from the beginning that the railway must provide cheap workmen’s fares as a means of encouraging them to move out of the city, and this indeed followed. Most users – almost three-quarters – were Third Class passengers, and these especially appreciated the service. Artisans and their families were able to live farther from the city in more healthy locations, and because the men did not have a lengthy walk home after a day’s work, they arrived in a better mood and did not row with their wives!

  The dankness below ground was not as off-putting as had been imagined, for a great deal of the line was not tunnel at all but cuttings that were open to the sky, and gas lighting on platforms made them ‘more like a well-kept street at night than a subterranean passage’.2 Nevertheless the dampness was a problem, and injured the health of many staff who had to work long hours below ground. To combat the stench of smoke, the engines burned only coke, and special locomotives were used that carried condensing equipment. Within ten years of opening, ventilation shafts were also being dug. Conditions and equipment on the Metropolitan were therefore better than on any surface railway, though the problem of smoke was never adequately solved until the steam locomotive was replaced by electric trains in 1905.

  It quickly became apparent that Londoners – and millions of visitors – preferred the underground railway to the slower horse bus for anything but the shortest journeys, and the cynicism of shareholders quickly turned to euphoria as the service flourished, giving a return of £102,000 in the first year. The line was extended, and carried freight as well as people. Before long there was a Metropolitan line running to Moorgate, and the lines began to spread all over the city. Importantly, links were established with both the London, Chatham and Dover and the London & South Western railways. This meant that underground and surface networks were able to work in tandem and that passengers could travel right through the capital by train without having to use other transport. In 1884, after years of difficulties caused by bickering and obstructions, the pivotal piece of the system – the Circle Line – was opened. The network continued to expand throughout the reign and far into the following century, both linking and creating suburbs. The London Underground, as the various components of the system were collectively termed, was to provide the model for similar networks all over the world, though only one other British city – Glasgow in 1896 – built its own underground during this era.

  ‘Cads on Castors’

  As a revolution in transport, the bicycle was second only to the railway, and its importance cannot be overstated, for it utterly changed the view that millions of people had of the world. It was far cheaper, and easier to use and maintain, than a horse, and thus affordable for millions whose only alternative was to walk. The skill of riding, once learned, made possible an entirely new sense of personal freedom and mobility. For women it was especially significant, for it meant that for the first time respectable ladies could go out in public without a male escort. Because it became a popular pastime for couples, it also to a large extent killed off the chaperone.

  The country roads of Victorian Britain were not suited to this new mode of transport. The triumph of the railways meant that the building and maintenance of roads had been seriously neglected. Ruts and pot-holes, or rough flint or gravel surfaces, made many of these thoroughfares extremely difficult for cyclists to traverse. At the end of the century, once the bicycle had become first fashionable and then essential, pressure began to build for improvements in the network of rural thoroughfares and this – literally – paved the way for the automobile that was so swiftly to follow in its wake.

  The vehicle developed from the celerifere or ‘hobby horse’. This had first been seen in France in 1791. It was a wooden beam shaped like a horse with handlebars set above two equal-sized wheels. The rider sat on it and propelled it along with strides. There was no way of controlling speed or direction, and there were no brakes. It created some interest as a plaything in Paris parks before going the way of all fads. In 1817 a German, Baron von Drais, improved the design. He added a saddle and a steering mechanism, and called his machine a velocifere. It started a new craze in Paris, and this spread to England. It was briefly seen as a rival to the horse, but was not generally popular because it was exhausting to ride and looked ridiculous – as well as being hard to stop. After a brief vogue in 1819–20 it lost popularity, but though forgotten by the public it did not disappear. Over the next thirty years, three- and four-wheeled machines – the latter called quadricycles or velocipedes – were designed that could be propelled by turning handles or by primitive pedals (one was shown at the Great Exhibition). More importantly, a Scottish blacksmith invented in 1839 a two-wheeled machine that was treadle-operated and driven by connecting-rods. The inventor, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, used it himself but did not market it. His achievement was to create a velocipede that could be propelled without the feet touching the ground.

  It was not until 1863 that the breakthrough in design came with the invention of pedals. The notion of fitting the front wheel of a velocipede with a cranked axle ‘like the crank handle of a grindstone, so that it could be turned by the feet of the rider’3 was carried out by Ernest and Pierre Michaux, two Paris coach-repairers. They saw at once the usefulness of this discovery, and began to manufacture pedalled hobby horses. The result was a return of the craze, which again spread across the Channel. One of the first to adopt it was a Cambridge undergraduate called G. Herbert, who acquired a
machine and doggedly practised for several weeks before mastering the technique of getting on and off and keeping his balance. Like all who first saw one of these, it seemed to him nothing short of a miracle that it was possible to remain upright without support. Others followed his example, and the fashion spread.

  It is sometimes suggested that the modern bicycle was invented in Cambridge rather than demonstrated there, but it may well have been in the city that it acquired its modern name. The word is a combination of Latin ‘bi’ (two) and Greek ‘kuklos’ (circles, or wheels). In the 1930s the writer Augustus Muir met an elderly Benedictine monk at a Highland monastery who told him: ‘I rode the first bicycle that was made in England. I was up at Cambridge at the time. I knew the man who was making that strange contraption on two wheels, and I said I wanted to ride it. I did so – and had a spill. When he asked me what to call it I said, “Why, of course – a bicycle!” When I got back to my rooms I thought, “What a hybrid name I’ve given it – part Latin, part Greek! But it was too late. The man had told everybody it was a bicycle, and a bicycle it has remained.” ’4

  The bicycle was first demonstrated in London at a gymnasium in 1869. By that time the first cycle race had already taken place in France – though it was won by an Englishman. The machines sold well in both countries, and the mania crossed to America, where a generation of young men sought to learn the mysteries of riding (a cycling school there was called a velocinasium). Bicycling was often carried out, like skating, in indoor rinks, but from the beginning its devotees travelled on roads.

  It is difficult from a present-day perspective to appreciate the sense of liberation that the bicycle offered. Keeping a horse was highly expensive, and hiring one was relatively so. Walking over long distances was slow and tiring. The bicycle solved these problems, and suddenly made it possible to travel without great cost or inconvenience. It was not yet available to everyone, and it was still regarded as a hobby, but its potential was quickly coming to be recognized. As increasingly lengthy journeys were made – three men cycled from London to Brighton in sixteen hours in 1869 – newspapers, and the public, began to take it a good deal more seriously.

  The Michaux brothers had had the idea of increasing the speed of machines by making the front wheel bigger than the rear. This quickly led to the exaggerated shape known as the high wheeler (the term ‘penny farthing’ came in only later) in which the driving-wheel was about four feet high. This type was introduced in 1871 and dominated cycling for the whole of that decade.

  The saddle and handlebars were on top of the big wheel, and mounting the machine required a good deal of practice. A contemporary manual described how to do this:

  Hold the handle with the left hand and place the other on the seat. Now take a few running steps, and when the right foot is on the ground give a hop with that foot, and at the same time place the left foot on the step, throwing your right leg over on to the seat. Nothing but a good running hop will give you time to adjust your toe on the step as it is moving. It requires a certain amount of strength and agility.5

  Getting off again similarly required skill:

  First see that the left-hand crank (pedal) is at the bottom, then throw your right leg with a swing backwards and continue until you are off the seat and on the ground. If you attempt it when going at all quickly, you will have to run by its side when you are off, which is a difficult feat for any but a skilful rider.6

  Starting too slowly, or indeed not travelling fast enough at any time, meant falling off. There were often brakes on a penny farthing. If not, the machine could be stopped by back-peddling. The saddle was tiny and uncomfortable, and the handlebars were at arm’s length immediately in front of the seat. The resulting posture was arguably better than it would be for those bending forward with hunched shoulders on the later ‘safety bicycle’, but riding a penny farthing was a difficult and dangerous practice until one had got the hang of it. Perched so high above the ground and entirely exposed to the elements, cyclists would have experienced some difficulty with low branches. There could be no question of dawdling on such a machine. If slowed down by traffic it would be necessary to dismount at once to avoid falling sideways to the ground. On the other hand, its big driving-wheel enabled it to travel faster than almost anything else on the road. To the thrill of speed would be added the commanding view and the exhilaration of hard exercise.

  On and Off

  Riding one of these machines was as difficult as it sounds. Anyone using a high-wheeler needed legs long enough to work the pedals, and enough physical strength to handle such a big machine. It was not suited to older people or to women. Riding any sort of bicycle was not something that could easily be picked up simply by finding a quiet stretch of road and pushing off. It was necessary to have a course of lessons to do it well, and all over the country cycling schools appeared, as ubiquitous in late Victorian Britain as the driving school is in our own time. To us, the instructions seem self-evident, but a generation unused to these practices had to be taught them:

  1. Always look where you are going. 2. Always sit straight. 3. Pedal evenly and use both legs. 4. Pedal straight. 5. Keep the foot straight. 6. Hold the handles naturally. 7. Don’t wobble the shoulders. 8. Hold the body still and sit down. 9. Don’t shake the head.

  Once equipped with the necessary skills, many people joined clubs, for there was greater pleasure in cross-country trips with organized groups than in solitude. On holidays, flocks of men in the distinctive insignia of cycle clubs became a noticeable feature of rural life from the seventies onwards, rushing along lanes, congregating at crossroads to study maps, lounging outside the country pubs that were usually their meeting-points or destinations. They often attracted a good deal of ridicule, and local urchins would gather in the hope of seeing them fall off – ‘take a spill’ in cycling parlance – or might even engineer such an accident by leaving obstacles in the road.

  Cycling became established as a sport, with contests in speed and of endurance over rough terrain. Though the British were used to seeing themselves as the inventors of sport, and regarded their country as the home of this one, nobody could dispute the greater claims of the French – especially when in 1903 they were to establish the world’s premier cycle race. It also became a national institution in Belgium and the Netherlands, where there were even units of bicycling soldiers with cycling bands.

  The tricycle had developed at the same time as the two-wheeled variety, and was popular among those of a less athletic bent. These were driven by levers through a double-cranked axle, or might have a small steering-wheel. With more wheels, it was not necessary to keep one’s balance, and thus it was possible to rest whenever necessary. The ‘quadricycle’ never enjoyed the same public favour, for it was something of a brute to handle. The first model was seven feet wide, and its driving wheels tended to skid when taking corners. Ladies, whose dress prevented them from using a high-wheeler, could, however, sit comfortably on one of these other models, and propel it without loss of dignity. They often cycled in the company of a man, for many versions had two seats – either fore-and-aft or side-by-side (the latter was known as a ‘sociable’). This was naturally convivial, and not the least of its attractions was that it offered possibilities for courting couples to out-distance a chaperone. The tandem – a two-seater bicycle of the type still seen today – enabled women for the first time to use an upright bicycle. What a contemporary female author called ‘the first revolution’ came about when women were persuaded to take the front seat on tandems, ‘under masculine convoy and protection’. After this, a two-wheeled bicycle for ladies gradually appeared.

  Women cyclists were, to begin with, a source of amusement and a target for ridicule – more likely than their male counterparts to have stones thrown at them by urchins or obstacles scattered in their path, for if all cyclists were eccentric, female ones were also unfeminine and unnatural. The clothing they wore, by necessity, was ugly and unflattering.

  What to Wear


  While women’s everyday outfits were not suited to cycling, even men dressed specially for it, in knickerbockers and short jackets. Because a large proportion of cyclists belonged to clubs, they often wore a quasi-uniform of matching coloured suits or caps sporting an emblem. The Cyclists’ Touring Club, which was founded in 1883 and became the supervising body for the sport, recommended garments the fabric and design of which were suited to the level of activity necessary. The CTC even designated a colour – grey – for their members. It became a uniform by which one serious bicyclist could recognize another. As women became more involved, they also wore grey. Mrs Harcourt Williamson, aware of the insult and danger that might await a lone woman in remote areas, valued the anonymity it offered. She wrote, somewhat patronizingly, that ‘One reason for the protection which ladies undoubtedly find in the C.T.C. grey uniform lies in the fact that . . . it so closely resembles that ordinarily worn by the wife of a parson or doctor, and therefore the bucolic intelligence sets down the passing stranger in his mind as probably a friend or acquaintance of the local lady.’7

  The Club made minute recommendations regarding what they should wear too. The list included underwear, for it stated that: ‘Nothing but wool should be worn next the skin. A good many riders of both sexes prefer those excellent garments known as “combinations”.’8 It went on to suggest ‘a bodice or jacket’, a plain skirt, or loose knickerbockers, or ‘a pair of trousers cut loose to just below the knee’, as well as ‘a pair of “Tilbury’d” doeskin gloves’ and ‘a helmet or hat of the Club cloth, with a special and registered ribbon’.9 It was, it will be noticed, assumed that cyclists could afford tailor-made outfits for participating in their hobby, but there is a far more important point here: it was also taken for granted that wearing knickerbockers or trousers was acceptable – though these were expected to be covered by a full-length skirt! Female dress was slowly and gradually becoming less cumbersome and more practical, a trend that was to spill over from cycling into golf, tennis and hockey, and into society as a whole. The change came in 1893 with the arrival from France of a movement for what was called ‘rational dress’. Until then, the great majority of women’s cycling accidents had happened because their long skirts caught in the chain or spokes. Rational dress meant that they could wear leggings and baggy knickerbockers instead, and after brief initial hilarity these became accepted. The word ‘revolution’ was indeed appropriate.