The Victorian era has a rich history. The history is dominated by Queen Victoria of England who also lended her name to this particular period. In the following we will learn a little more about Queen Victoria. This young woman ascended the throne at the age of 18 and influenced her people a lot. The second part of the history section will be a short essay on the Crimean war. The Crimean war was the most horrid war in the Victorian era. Many men were waled of to war whilst women had to stay at home. Imagine the anguish those women felt and the horror the men experienced on the front. The final part of the history will be about the great advancement men made in many areas during the Victorian period. For instance people created the railway. It would mean the beginning of the Industrial revolution which brought wealth and means to modern man.

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, aged 18, when her uncle, King William IV, died without legitimate heirs. Due to a bizarre set of circumstances, with most of the monarchs of that age being mentally ill, proliferate and disinclined, or unable, to produce legitimate heirs, the young Alexandrina Victoria was the only heir to the throne of Britain.

Virtually her first act as Queen was to rid herself of her mother's suffocating influence. The young Victoria had been very carefully brought-up, shielded from the excesses of the time, but almost stifled by her mother's strictness. Victoria showed that, as Queen, she had no intention of allowing her mother to go on influencing her. She was an independent and strong-willed young woman even then: probably the main reason why the Victorian age was so exciting, progressive and creative.

Although she had to take the good of the country to heart, Victoria was able to marry a man she genuinely loved. Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coberg-Gotha, was her mainstay. Together, they lived as happy a family life as they were able, despite being at the head of the largest Empire in the world. One visitor to one of their homes remarked that one could almost forget that they were the monarch and consort, so homely and comforting was their family life. The Queen was heart-broken when Albert died in 1861, still a relatively young man. She retreated into her memories and was only coaxed back into public life several years later.

Queen Victoria died on january 22, 1901, having lived out the century. At the end she was tired and "sick of the future". But her reign had seen the Industrial Revolution, inventions such as the phonograph, the camera and the early computer. There were great leaps in the fields of science, archaeology and medicine. Poets, writers and artists flourished. Of course, there was also great poverty, not to mention deportation and slavery.