686 Ch. 18 • The Dominant Powers in the Age of Liberalism
Victorian Britain
In 1840, young Queen Victoria (1819-1901) married the German Prince
Albert (1819-1861) of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. They were happily married,
although she described sex as “giving way to the baser passions.” She warned
one of her daughters who was about to be married that a bride was “like a
lamb led to the slaughter,” and that there would be times when she would
simply have to submit to her husband’s urges and “think of England.” Victo
ria bore children only because she thought it part of her duties as queen. She
raised her children with little visible affection, as if managing a business
from afar. Yet the queen projected a maternal image both in Britain and in
the colonies over which she also ruled.
Albert’s tendency to be narrow-minded, socially awkward, and tactless
irritated cabinet ministers and other highly placed people. He hovered
about the government, dashing off letters and memoranda when the mood
struck him, meddling when he could. Although Victoria made clear from
the beginning that she would serve as a queen without a king, her devotion
to Albert sparked some anti-German feeling in Britain.
Prince Albert organized the Great Exposition of 1851 in London. In his
opening prayers, the Anglican archbishop made the connection between
Britain’s prosperity and the era of relative peace that had prevailed since the
end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. More than this, Great Britain seemed
special. The historian Thomas Macaulay wrote in the wake of the Revolu
tions of 1848 on the continent: “All around us the world is convulsed by the
agonies of the great nations.... Meanwhile, in our island, the course of
government has never been for a day interrupted. We have order in the midst
of anarchy.”
At the Great Exposition of 1851, more than 6 million visitors—most from
Britain but a good many from the continent and beyond—could choose
among more than 100,000 exhibits (half from Britain and its colonies) put
forward by 14,000 exhibitors. The exhibits were categorized into raw mate
rials, machinery, manufactured goods, and fine arts, and ranged from use
ful household items to huge guns exhibited by the Prussian industrialist
Krupp. These seemed somewhat out of place in a venue where many assured
themselves that science and industry offered hope for continued peace in
Europe.
The Great Exposition celebrated the industrial age, Britain’s primacy in
manufacturing, and the “working bees of the world’s hive.” Its catalogue
intoned, “The progress of the human race ... we are carrying out the will
of the great and blessed God.” Most of the visitors to the Great Exposition,
ranging from the wealthy and famous to the poor folk paying just one
shilling to enter, arrived by railroad.
When Albert died of typhoid in 1861 at age forty-two, Victoria was devas
tated. She retreated into lonely bereavement and isolation, ignoring most
public duties. Only gradually did Victoria reemerge to provide a focal point