Political reform in Victorian Britain – and why democracy is always a work in progress
April 9th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
I have now delivered three online lessons on Victorian history for two nine year old that I know as their parents endeavour to keep the kids occupied while schools are closed. This week, we covered the challenging issue of political reform. After all, there were key development in the Victorian era and it’s never too early to start bringing up good citizens.
So I talked about the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 when 18 people were killed and some 600 injured at a peaceful rally to demand extension of the franchise and representation of the cities. I showed the children a very short video about Peterloo, but last year there was a major film about the incident which you might like to track down. You can read my review of the feature film here.
We also talked about the three pieces of legislative reform at this time which reluctantly and partially extended the vote to more and more men (women had to wait until 1918 and 1928): the Great Reform Act of 1832, the Second Reform Act of 1867 and the Third Reform Act of 1884. The battle over the Great Reform Act – legislation which was fiercely resisted by the Tories – was the subject of a fascinating book which I’ve reviewed here.
I tried to emphasise two key points to my young friends:
- Democracy has come slowly and only after many struggles and campaigns, not least that of the Suffragists and the Suffragettes.
- Democracy is never a done deal, but has to be constantly defended. Look today at countries like Poland, Hungary and the United States,
Probably these were not easy messages for nine year olds to take on board but I hope that readers of blog will do so.
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Ever heard of the Pilgrimage of Grace?
April 8th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Neither had I – until I read about it in “The Mirror And The Light”, the 900-page novel by Hilary Mantel which is sustaining me during the period of lockdown as a result of the coronaviris crisis.
The so-called Pilgrimage was a northern rebellion against Henry VIII’s government in i536-1537, originally led by Robert Aske and later by Francis Bigod. The rebellion failed and its leaders were eventually executed.
You can check out a five-minute video on the Pilgrimage of Grace here:
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What were the five worst times and places to be alive in human history?
April 6th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Life is tough now. Everywhere in the world is threatened by the coronavirus. I don’t want in any way to understate the challenges we all face, but maybe we now have the time and motivation to recall that, in the course of human history, things have often been worse, much much worse.
This video suggests five occasions in human history that must be among the worst to have experienced:
- The Black Death in Europe
- The Mongol invasions of China
- The Americas during colonisation
- China during the Great Leap Forward
- Europe in the first half of the 20th century
The video lasts 19 minutes – but you have more time than usually now, don’t you? If you watch it, at the least, you’ll learn some history. At best, you might actually feel better about being alive now.
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How has this week in lockdown been for you? The Internet has made it tolerable for me.
April 5th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
I live alone and I’m in a vulnerable group age-wise for the coronavirus. So I’ve been observing all the lockdown precautions, but still having a walk each day. What has made this experience much more tolerable though has been access to modern communications, especially the Internet.
On Monday, I used FaceTime to deliver an online session on Victorian history for my nine year old granddaughter in Milton Keynes. This week we covered developments in transportation and industrialisation and used a couple of short films on YouTube. On Tuesday, I had an online lunch with a young friend using Skype. On Wednesday, I repeated my session on Victorian history for the nine year old son of a good friend of mine in south London.
On Thursday, I should have been at a hospital for a routine consultation on a health issue, but instead the consultant phoned me at home. The same day, I used Zoom for the first time to attend a lecture on the American presidential election provided by the City Literary Institute which has now put 80% of its courses online. Over 40 students were part of the session.
On Friday, I had a Skype call with my Chinese ‘family’ in Oxford. They have family in Wuhan – the original location of the virus – which I’ve visited twice. On Saturday, I had an online chat with my granddaughter and we each used puppets or cuddly toys to give a little performance.
Also on Saturday, I joined an online launch of a new book by a very good friend. Thanks to the wonders of Zoom, there were participants from 14 locations around the world in seven time zones. There was a short slide presentation, a film clip, and a short video as well as discussion.
On a day to day basis, I’m part of a WhatsApp group of some residents in my block of flats. Throughout the week, I’ve been checking into Facebook several times a day and it’s been a comfort to see pictures and messages from many of the 300 friends with whom I’m connected.
Posted in My life & thoughts, Science & technology | Comments (5)
The importance of rivers to the earliest civilisations
April 3rd, 2020 by Roger Darlington
During the lockdown period of this coronavirus crisis, I’m running online lessons in Victorian history for a couple of nine year olds. This week, we covered developments in transportation and industrialisation.
For the transportation section, I suggested that the history of transport could be seen as having five stages: rivers & seas, roads, canals, railways and aviation. The Victorian period in Britain exhibited dramatic developments in canals and railways and we spoke a lot about this.
But first I pointed out that all the earliest civilisations formed on the banks of rivers. The most notable examples are the Ancient Egyptians, who were based on the Nile, the Mesopotamians in the Fertile Crescent on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the Ancient India on the Indus River, and the Ancient Chinese on the Yellow River.
Rivers were attractive locations for the first civilisations because they provided a steady supply of drinking water and made the land fertile for growing crops. Furthermore, goods and people could be transported easily, and the people in these civilisations could fish and hunt the animals that came to drink water.
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The Marsh family of Faversham in Kent sharing their lockdown-themed coronavirus pandemic in the style of Les Misérables
April 2nd, 2020 by Roger Darlington
Posted in Miscellaneous | Comments (0)
Victoria and Albert – their names are everywhere
April 1st, 2020 by Roger Darlington
This coronavirus crisis has found me running online lessons in Victorian history for a couple of nine year olds. We’re using Skype to have a one-hour session each week and we’re finding it fun.
Naturally we started with Queen Victoria herself who ruled Britain from 1837 to 1901, a record 37 years – until the current Queen Elizabeth II beat the record in 2015. And, of course, there was Victoria’s husband Prince Albert with whom she had no less than nine children before he died at the early age of 42.
I told my young students about some of the many places named after Victoria or Albert or both.
Here, in London, we have Victoria railway station, bus station and coach station and, on the underground, we have both Victoria station and the Victoria line. Even the pub in the television series “Eastenders” is the Queen Victoria or Queen Vic.
Still in London, Albert has a huge music hall named after him and opposite the Albert Hall is a grand statue of the prince.
Staying in central London, north and south of the River Thames we have respectively the Victoria Embankment and the Albert Embankment. Then there is the wonderful Victoria and Albert Museum.
I’m originally from Manchester and the town hall there is located in Albert Square.
But I know that this naming practice is not confined to London or Manchester. I once visited Regina, a provincial capital in Canada, and found that at the centre of the city there was the intersection of Victoria Avenue and Albert Street.
I’m sure that my little friends would be interested in any further examples that you can offer.
Posted in History | Comments (4)
Some people on social media are claiming that coronavirus is just like flu and that governments and the media are over-reacting
March 27th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
CV is not just flu – it is a new virus and we still have much to learn about it
CV is not just like flu – it is much more contagious and will probably prove to be much more deadly.
It is far too soon to be sure which measures were most effective and whether some have been an over-reaction, but already we are seeing dramatic differences between countries which suggest that early and tight controls are not an over-reaction but effective: Taiwan and Singapore versus Italy and Spain. The United States could well prove the most instructive case because the numbers are so great and the response has been so poor.
We will eventually know how many died as a result of the virus. We will never know how many would have died had all the social distancing, self isolation and lockdown measures not been adopted. But the Imperial College modelling in Britain suggests that, without such measures, the death toll would be greater by a factor of more than 10 times.
It is true that the impact on the economy will cause deaths. We will never know how many deaths were attributable to loss of income, bankruptcy, anxiety, suicide and the like. And, at this stage, we have no idea how long an economic recovery will take and how comprehensive it will be.
The reality is that almost all governments – whether totalitarian like China and Iran or democratic like Italy and Spain – have to respond to immediate threats to the lives of their citizens and be seen to do so. Treating CV like a huge medical experiment by just letting it run its course is not an acceptable or moral option.
Posted in Science & technology, World current affairs | Comments (0)
How the coronavirus lockdown introduced me to online home schooling
March 26th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
This CV crisis – and especially the resultant UK lockdown – is leading to a much more intensive use of a variety of online communications services by me and very many others. In this first week, I have had a FaceTime chat with one friend, a Skype lunch with another friend, and a Facebook Messenger coffee break with two other friends.
Especially interesting has been my introduction to home schooling through Skype. My eldest granddaughter (aged nine) is not at school and I was asked to assist in her home education and allocated the subject of Victorian history. This required some research and preparation but seemed to go well.
As a result, I was invited to repeat the lesson for the son – same age as my eldest granddaughter – of a good friend of mine.
Both sessions were just an hour. I tried to make the sessions interactive with questions and discussion plus a couple of short videos, two writing exercises and a final quiz. I’m not sure exactly how my two little students found the project but, for me as 71 year old living alone, it was a joy to interact with two such delightful and bright youngsters.
But I can’t do too much of this. Each day I have my own 16th century history lesson in the form of reading about the life of Thomas Cromwell via the 900-page novel “The Mirror And The Light” by Hilary Mantel.
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A year of living on London’s South Bank – now such a different experience
March 25th, 2020 by Roger Darlington
A year ago today, I moved home for the first time in 35 years. I went from a four-bedroom house in London’s suburbs to a two-bedroom flat on London’s South Bank. It was a major downsizing operation which involved a substantial process of decluttering. It was stressful but it was a great move. Yet how different is my world – and, of course everyone else’s – now.
As a person living alone, I enjoyed chatting to the concierges who operated a 24 hour service in the building, but now they are rightly all at home. Next door is a pharmacy and round the corner is a small Waitrose and now, more than ever, I am grateful to have them so close. My morning routine was to go to my nearest cafe – Caffe Nero just a couple of minutes away – to read the “Guardian” online but, of course, like every cafe and restaurant it is now closed.
I live a minute away from the embankment and the River Thames and I can still take my daily walk. Before CV, the embankment was always thronged with people going to and from work and tourists from every country on the globe. Now everyone is working from home and there are no tourists. There are just the joggers.
I have loved living so close to so many places of culture and entertainment: ten minutes away from the National Theatre, the British Film Institute, the Royal Festival Hall, Tate Modern – all closed now.
So it is an utterly different world – but so it is for everyone. I am fortunate to be in good health with supportive family and friends – and a 900 page novel to read. Stay well everyone.
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