Between Waterloo and Gladstone's first ministry, Britain underwent a series of rapid and complex changes. At home, repression gave way to reform of the franchise, local government, education, poor relief, and the factory and legal systems. Further agitation arose in the 1840s over the CornLaws, the People's Charter, and the Irish Question. By the 1860s, Britain was able to bask in the glow of the mid-Victorian supremacy forged by its economic might and the foreign policy pursued by Castlereagh, Canning, and Palmerston, which maintained the balance of power and extended the colonialempire. Authoritative and incisive, this newly paperbacked volume in the Oxford History of England is a classic study of Britain in the ascendant.

Ever since Lytton Strachey mocked Thomas Arnold, Florence Nightingale and General Gordon in Eminent Victorians, the reputation of the Victorians and what they stood for has provoked vigorous debate.

The Age of Reform – the hundred years from 1820 to 1920 - has become synonymous with innovation and change but this period was also in many ways a deeply conservative and cautious one. With reform came reaction and revolution and this was as true of the law as it was of literature, art and technology. The age of Great Exhibitions and Great Reform Acts was also the age of newly systemized police forces, courts and prisons. A Cultural History of Law in the Age of Reform presents an overview of the period with a focus on human stories located in the crush between legal formality and social reform: the newly uniformed police, criminal mugshots, judge and jury, the shame of child labor, and the need for neighborliness in the crowded urban and increasingly industrial landscapes of Europe and the United States. Drawing upon a wealth of visual and textual sources, A Cultural History of Law in the Age of Reform presents essays that examine key cultural case studies of the period on the themes of justice, constitution, codes, agreements, arguments, property and possession, wrongs, and the legal profession.

This book traces the decline of landed power in England between 1815 and 1939, primarily in political, but also in economic and social terms. The essays, by leading authors in the field, examine different aspects of the decline of landed power.

This collection of all new essays seeks to answer a series of questions surrounding the Victorian response to poverty in Britain. In short, what did various layers of society say the poor deserved and what did they do to help them? The work is organized against the backdrop of the 1834 New Poor Laws, recognizing that poverty garnered considerable attention in England because of its pervasive and painful presence. Each essay examines a different initiative to help the poor. Taking an historical tack, the essayists begin with the royal perspective and move into the responses of Church of England members, Evangelicals, and Roman Catholics; the social engagement of the literati is discussed as well. This collection reflects the real, monetary, spiritual and emotional investments of individuals, public institutions, private charities, and religious groups who struggled to address the needs of the poor.

Volume 8 of The Royal Historical Society Transactions contains essays based around the theme 'identities and empires'.

This fully revised and updated edition of Norman McCord's authoritative introduction to nineteenth century British history has been extended to cover the period up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The nineteenth and early twentieth century saw the transformation of Britain from a predominantly rural to a largely urban society with an economy based upon manufacturing, finance, and trade, and from a society governed mainly by a landed aristocracy to what was increasingly a mass democracy. The authors chart the development of a modern state equipped with a large and expanding bureaucracy, the expansion of overseas territories into one of the world's greatest empires, and changes in religion, social attitudes, and culture. The book divides the era into four chronological periods, with chapters on the political background, administrative development, and social, economic, and cultural changes in each period. Exploring major themes such as the massive increase in population, the question of class, the scope of state activity, and the development of consumerism, leisure, and entertainment, and including a select bibliography and biographical appendix, this updated new edition provides the ultimate introduction to British history between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of the First World War.

The 1835 Municipal Reform Act is both a consequence and a continuation of the 1832 Reform Act. By dealing with those “citadels of Torysm” that were the municipal corporations, the Whigs not only wanted to confirm their electoral victory, but also to reform the local system that had been largely criticised for decades. Preceding the reform, a thorough investigation was conducted by a group of twenty commissioners – young liberal or radical lawyers – who visited 285 municipal corporations in England and Wales. After public hearings, they wrote, for each borough, a detailed report which provided an accurate picture of the municipal institutions and their functioning over the preceding decades. In describing the political organisation, the administration, the legal and law enforcement functions, the reports showed that the municipal corporations were areas of privileges. Beyond the overview provided by those in favour of reform of a system at breaking point, the reports, while taking into account local situations, measured the role played in urban management by municipal corporations. After an extensive campaign and several petitions, the parliamentary debate resulted in a compromise bill that aimed at reforming only the main royal boroughs. Small towns, as well as large industrial cities, which had not been granted the royal charter of incorporation, were not affected by the reform. Though it carefully treated certain former institutions, the municipal reform fundamentally altered the way administration was run and marked the end of the urban Ancient Regime in England and in Wales.

This book is a study of the influence of religion on the values and ethics of the ‘steel frame of India’—the Indian Civil Service (ICS) and its successor, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Examining pertinent subjects like the historical origins of IAS, colonial ethics, codes of conduct and Hindu ethics, the book presents a socio-religious analysis of corruption in India. The book deals primarily with the issue of administrative corruption in the IAS, the premier civil service of India, and also in the Indian society, of which the IAS is an integral component. It is the result of a thorough survey and in-depth interviews of serving IAS officers of the Karnataka cadre.

The two centuries after 1800 witnessed a series of sweeping changes in the way in which Britain was governed, the duties of the state, and its role in the wider world. Powerful processes - from the development of democracy, the changing nature of the social contract, war, and economic dislocation - have challenged, and at times threatened to overwhelm, both governors and governed. Such shifts have also presented challenges to the historians who have researched and written about Britain's past politics. This Handbook shows the ways in which political historians have responded to these challenges, providing a snapshot of a field which has long been at the forefront of conceptual and methodological innovation within historical studies. It comprises thirty-three thematic essays by leading and emerging scholars in the field. Collectively, these essays assess and rethink the nature of modern British political history itself and suggest avenues and questions for future research. The Oxford Handbook of Modern British Political History thus provides a unique resource for those who wish to understand Britain's political past and a thought-provoking 'long view' for those interested in current political challenges.