POLITICS
The Victorian era was seen as being ruled through a strong class system, carrying on from previous eras. As time progressed and the Industrial Revolution came into full swing, issues such as women’s rights began being talked about fought, not the least within women’s periodicals.
The Class System
"England is the most class ridden society under the sun"
- George Orwell
There was an obsessive nature in the lives of the Victorian citizens, putting people into social categories to differentiate them. This formed rules for who people could or could not associate with. These social rules formed the three classes: upper, middle and working.
Upper Class and The Aristocracy
Royals, Viscounts, Earls, Dukes or anyone in society with a title was counted as a part of the aristocracy. The only way to inherit a title, along with their house and money, was through a member of their own family.
This class did not have jobs and spent their time running the family estate, with the men gaining a seat in the House of Lords to have the ability to vote on all political matters.
As well as having a countryside estate in their inheritance of the title, a home in London was also provided, keeping them in society.
Other titles in the upper class were the Baronet or Knight, with these roles being given to men by the monarch. Having this title meant being just below aristocrats, but also becoming a part of the upper class, gaining social standing and status.
In the upper class, girls stayed at home to be governed and learn the way of the household due to being expected as a societal structure of marrying men of a similar ranking.
Middle Class
The Victorian era brought along the ‘middle class’, this is where a person became rich through their work instead of inheriting money like the upper class. This class was typically made up of merchants; trading goods across seas for Indian goods (tea, coffee and spices). These goods were popular in Britain, so merchants sold them for a profit, ensuring their place within the middle class.
Other jobs in this class included: doctors, lawyers, masters at boarding schools, bankers and so on.
The jobs paid well, allowing land to be bought by men in this class, making them eligible to vote with the upper class in the general elections.
Education for this class was boys in boarding schools and girls being taught by a governess. The boys were being prepared to help run and eventually take over the family business, while the girls were preparing for good marriages from men in the middle class and in some cases, the upper class.
Working Class
This class made up the majority of Britain but were also the heart and soul of the country. Little money was earned and was only earned through the amount of hours worked, this being physical and hard labour.
Women worked but it was hard to do while looking after children and the family. Without women working in this class, it would’ve been hard to bring enough money in.
Alongside these hardships, it was also easy for someone to lose their job. If they became ill or were injured, they were easily replaced by someone else. There was no welfare state, benefit system or national health care at this time.
Many working-class people lived in rooms in slum housing. They were not eligible to vote as they did not own no land.
This poverty cycle was a continuous cycle; this class married in the same class, education was scarce, and social mobility almost non-existent.
The Government
Victorian Britain was conservative with the country managing to reform its political system without a revolution (unlike other countries in Europe, such as France).
Sir Robert Peel was Prime Minister twice for Britain (1834-35, 1841-46), he was conservative but was also the son of a Northern manufacturer, embodying the broadening social background of the conservative party and their acceptance of reform.
The government remained heavily aristocratic, the House of Lords was as important as the commons, with a lot of the political life playing out in London drawing rooms.
Yet new politics were on the rise, with liberalism forming in the late 1850s. This new politics was personified by William Gladstone who joined the Liberals in 1859.
In the 1860s, the Conservative party, under the leadership of Benjamin Disraeli, undertook further parliamentary reform , including the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884, which increased the amount of men allowed to vote, although there was still no vote for women.
The Suffrage Movement and The Woman’s Signal
The Second Reform Bill failed to include any women in an enlarged electorate in 1867. This is the same year that the London National Society for Women’s Suffrage and the Manchester National Society for Women’s Suffrage were also formed. Lydia Becker, who served as Secretary of the Manchester society, went to become a prominent suffrage leader and campaigner for women’s education in Britain.
A decade later, in 1877, the London Society merged with the Central Committee, therefore becoming the Central Committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage.
In 1884 the Third Reform Bill was passed, allowing working class men the right to vote but still not allowing women any right to do so. Tensions between members of the Central Committee – between those who supported Gladstone and Home Rule for Ireland and the Liberal Unionists who were anti-Gladstone and anti-Home rule – caused a split in 1888.
The Home Rulers broke away to form the Central National Society for Women’s Suffrage, a split that mirrored the larger 1886 split in the Liberal Party itself.
The Woman’s Signal 1894
This periodical, known as The Women’s Penny Paper (1880-90), The Woman’s Herald (1891-93) and finally The Woman’s Signal (1894-99) was published weekly and was a British feminist paper published by Marshall & Son in London.
This is the first page of the first issue and it declares: “A new paper is like a newly-planted tree – there will be no top to it unless it is well rooted”.
"There is enough real interest in the beneficent movement that we represent, to raise up for us as an army of thoughtful and earnest workers".
"Send it to your pastor, that he may have the arrest of thought concerning what the ‘women folk’ who work along the line of duty are doing in these days".
"Send it to the reading room in your village or town, that its womanly voice may be heard in the clashing opinions and sentiments that make a Babel in that quiet place"
This inaugural message is powerful. It shows that the magazine is there for the women and there to make women heard.
Issues such as women voting, women having jobs in society, why men and not women.
"To give the title of Lady as an equivalent to knight or baronet, to illustrious types of women who have done splendid service to humanity, granting this to each in her own right, and not to be inherited by any descendant".
The Woman’s Signal 1896
Political differences had softened by 1894, so that suffrage societies began renaming themselves to be based along geographical instead of ideological lines.
The Woman’s Signal published monthly reports on the Central National Society for Women’s Suffrage, stating what the society seeks to achieve such as "holding public meetings in support of the repeal of the electoral disabilities of women".