The Victorian Era

Why Was the Victorian Era Named After Queen Victoria?

Article · History & Overview · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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The Victorian era takes its name from Queen Victoria, the British monarch who reigned from 1837 to 1901. The convention of naming a historical period after its reigning monarch was well established in English history. The Elizabethan era took its name from Queen Elizabeth I, the Jacobean era from King James I, the Caroline era from King Charles I, the Georgian era from the four King Georges, and the Edwardian era from King Edward VII. The Victorian era likewise took its name from its queen, and the name has stuck because her reign was so long, so consequential, and so distinctive.

The use of the term Victorian as a historical description began in the early years of the twentieth century, after the queen’s death in 1901. Writers and historians began to refer to the period of the previous reign as the Victorian era, and the convention gradually took hold. By the 1920s, the term was in common use among British and American historians, and by the middle of the twentieth century it was the standard term in English-language scholarship. The political and cultural context of the reign that gave its name to the era is examined in The Reign of Queen Victoria. For the broader setting, see The Victorian Era: A Complete Historical Overview.

The Convention of Naming Eras After Monarchs

The convention of naming a period of English history after a monarch is a long one. The medieval period was divided into Angevin, Plantagenet, Lancaster, and York eras, named after the ruling houses. The Tudor era, from 1485 to 1603, was named after the Tudor dynasty. The Stuart era, from 1603 to 1714, was named after the Stuart dynasty. The Hanoverian era, from 1714 to 1901, was named after the House of Hanover, the dynasty that ruled Britain from George I to Victoria. The Victorian era is, in this sense, a subdivision of the Hanoverian era, taking the name of the longest-reigning monarch of the dynasty.

The use of the monarch’s name as a description of an era has its limits. The Hanoverian era includes the reigns of George I, George II, George III, George IV, William IV, and Victoria, and these reigns had very different characters. The Georgian era is usually taken to refer to the reigns of George I through George IV, and the Victorian era to the reign of Victoria alone. The Edwardian era, from 1901 to 1910, is the reign of Edward VII, and a later “Georgian era” is sometimes used to refer to the period from 1910 to 1936, the reigns of George V and Edward VIII, although this usage is less common. For the parallel naming of the Edwardian era, see the page on Victoria’s death.

Why “Victorian” Became Such a Powerful Term

The term Victorian has been used in English since the late nineteenth century, and it has come to mean many things. The satirists of the 1850s and 1860s were already using the queen’s name to mock the moral pretensions of her subjects. Punch magazine ran a mock almanac in 1854 in which it was “The Year of the Weary Victorians”, and Punch and the comic journal Fun regularly lampooned the high-minded earnestness of the age. In the early twentieth century, the term was sometimes used admiringly, to refer to the perceived moral seriousness, the imperial grandeur, and the cultural confidence of the period. In the mid-twentieth century, the term was used critically, to refer to the perceived prudery, the sexual repression, the racial arrogance, and the social hypocrisy of the period. The revisionist scholarship of the late twentieth century and the early twenty-first century has been more nuanced, recognising the period’s complexity and ambivalence. The cultural context is examined in Victorian Literature, Theatre, and the Written Word and in Victorian Morality and Social Reform.

The term Victorian is also used in design, fashion, and architecture, often without precise chronological reference. A Victorian house is a house built in the British style of the period, with bay windows, decorative brickwork, slate roofs, and ornamental ironwork. A Victorian dress is a dress inspired by the elaborate styles of the period, with bustles, lace, and high collars. A Victorian novel is a long, often serialised novel in the tradition of Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and William Makepeace Thackeray. The architectural usage is examined in Victorian Architecture and Interior Design. The fashion usage is examined in Victorian Fashion and Dress. The literary usage is examined in The Victorian Novel.

What the Term “Victorian Era” Refers To

In historical usage, the Victorian era refers to the period from 1837 to 1901, the years of Queen Victoria’s reign. Some historians use the term more broadly, to refer to the period from 1830, when the reign of William IV was still fresh, to 1914, when the First World War began. The long Victorian era is a useful concept because it captures the fact that the cultural and economic transformations of the period did not begin or end with the calendar of the reign. The British economy, for example, was transformed by industrialisation over a longer period than the reign, and the British Empire grew in scope over a longer period than the reign. The long nineteenth century, a term used by the historian Eric Hobsbawm, runs from 1789, the French Revolution, to 1914, the First World War, and it includes the Victorian era as its central decades.

The distinction between the narrow and the broad usages matters for understanding the period. The narrow usage, 1837 to 1901, is useful for understanding the formal political history of the United Kingdom, since the queen’s reign was the principal constitutional fact of the period. The broad usage is useful for understanding the cultural and economic history, since the forces that shaped the period extended well beyond the reign itself.

Was the Victorian Era Only British?

The term Victorian era is most often used to refer to the period of British history, but the influence of Victorian Britain extended across the world, through the British Empire and through the cultural influence of the English language, the English novel, the English university, and the English model of industrial capitalism. In the United States, the period of the late nineteenth century is sometimes called the Gilded Age, the period from 1870 to 1900, although the term Victorian is also commonly used. In Continental Europe, the term Victorian is sometimes applied to the period of the reign of Victoria, and the era is associated with the high point of British power and influence. The international context is examined in British Empire in the Victorian Era and in Victorian Cities, Transport, and Entertainment.

The term is also used, sometimes critically, to refer to the cultural attitudes of the period. The word Victorian is used in everyday English to mean prudish, narrow, hypocritical, or moralistic, as in Victorian values or Victorian attitudes to sex. The word is also used positively to mean serious, upright, hard-working, and respectable, as in Victorian work ethic or Victorian novel of manners. The cultural history of the term is examined in Victorian Morality and Social Reform.