Life in Victorian Britain

What was daily life like for people in the Victorian era? From the slums of 19th-century London and life in the workhouse to the court of Queen Victoria and the revolution of the railways, we bring you the facts

Cocaine: a Victorian sensation

The Great Exhibition: everything you wanted to know

Women enjoy life on two wheels in this 1895 photograph. The bicycle was a key part of the image of the ‘New Woman’ (Photo by Glasshouse Images/Alamy Stock Photo)

Challenging gender in the Victorian Age: the 'masculine' New Woman and 'effeminate' New Man

Victorian women gossip at the opera (Photo by Bridgeman Images)

Sex, sadism and sugared death: 8 scandals that rocked Victorian Britain

Victorians podcast episodes

A black and white photo of Queen Victoria and Empress Augusta sat together outside, both wearing dark clothing

“There was a general perception that Queen Victoria’s mourning was neither normal nor acceptable”

Episode 6Battling against Bovril

Episode 5Crazy about wheelbarrows

Episode 4Celebrity pedestrian

Episode 3Would you let a tiger lick your face?

Episode 2Sail, steam & stormy seas

Episode 1“The life of a dozen men”

Victorian death rituals

Gravestones displaying the names of pets

Pet cemeteries: where have beloved animals been laid to rest through the centuries?

The characters Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, from Charles Dickens's work 'A Christmas Carol'

Did Charles Dickens invent Christmas as we know it today?

Black Victorians: radicals, muses, inmates & aristocrats

An engraving of a prison hulk at Deptford, from a c1826 painting. (Photo by: Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Floating hell: the brutal history of prison hulks

Image of Aina Forbes Bonetta and her husband, James Davies (GettyImages-3318942)

15 minutes of fameHannah Cusworth chooses Aina Forbes Bonetta

Love, marriage & wallpaper: the artistic lives of Jane and William Morris

An illustration of fossil hunter Dorothea Bate

Dorothea Bate: A fearless fossil hunter

Photograph of Mrs Beeton bracing herself against a chair while wearing a long, dark-coloured gown

The secret life of Mrs Beeton: 10 pieces of life advice from her famous Book of Household Management

A black and white photo of several 'matchwomen', who went on strike at the Bryant and May's factory in London in 1888.

The 1888 Matchgirls strike: how a group of East End women changed British labour history

Life in the workhouse podcast with Peter Higginbotham

Life in the workhouse: everything you wanted to know

At dinner, St Marylebone Workhouse, London, c1901 (1903)

The rise and fall of the workhouse

The Irregulars. From left to right: Prince Leopold (Harrison Osterfield), Jessie (Darci Shaw), Bea(Thaddea Graham), Spike (McKell David), and Billy (Jojo Macari)

The Irregulars: the real history behind Netflix’s supernatural Sherlock spinoff

The 'Iron Duke' steam locomotive with railway workers

The history of railways in Britain: from the first steam trains to the rail revolution

Charles Dickens: prison reformer, scourge of capitalists, champion of the poor

Workers repair Fleet sewer in 1854. London’s creaking sewer network sparked anxieties over what lay beneath the sprawling capital. (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Living in fear: the dangers of Victorian London

The real history behind Victorian thriller ‘The Limehouse Golem’

Ramshackle homes in a Newcastle slum, c1880

From riches to rags: David Olusoga reveals how Britain's grand houses descended into Victorian slums