The middle years of Queen Victoria's reign saw huge social changes with the rise of the middle classes, the introduction of compulsory education and the growth of the labour movement. The Great Exhibition brought a taste of the exotic to the masses, and the London Underground was opened. Life for the poorest was affected by the work of the Board of Health, while the middle classes developed elaborate etiquette and the art of housekeeping with the help of Mrs Beeton. Mid-Victorian Britain explains how these changes affected family life in Britain, from matchgirls, prostitutes and workhouses to tea parties, jet mourning jewellery and the leisure revolution.

Author Biography

Christine Garwood is an author and researcher with a specialism in nineteenth-century social history and the history of science. She gained her Ph.D in 1998 from the University of Leicester and has since gone on to publish books and articles on topics as diverse as Victorian environmentalism, quack medicine, popular astronomy and the history of ideas. Her book, Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea (Macmillan, 2007) was widely reviewed in publications such as the Sunday Times, Telegraph, New Scientist and BBC History Magazine.