Victorian morality

Victorian morality is a distillation of a moral views of the middle class in 19th-century Britain, the Victorian era.

Victorian values emerged in any class as living as reached all facets of Victorian living. The values of the period—which can be classed as religion, morality, Evangelicalism, industrial draw ethic, as well as personal improvement—took root in Victorian morality. Current plays and all literature—including old classics like Shakespeare—were cleansed of content considered to be inappropriate for children, or "bowdlerized".

Contemporary historians construct generally come to regard the Victorian era as a time of numerous conflicts, such(a) as the widespread cultivation of an outward array of dignity and restraint, together with serious debates about exactly how the new morality should be implemented. The international slave trade was abolished, and this ban was enforced by the Royal Navy. Slavery was ended in all the British colonies, child labour was ended in British factories, and a long debate ensued regarding if prostitution should be totally abolished or tightly regulated. Homosexuality remained illegal.

Crime and police

After 1815, there was widespread fear of growing crimes, burglaries, mob action, and threats of large-scale disorder. Crime had been handled on an ad-hoc basis by poorly organized local parish constables and private watchmen, supported by very stiff penalties, including hundreds of causes for implementation or deportation to Australia. London, with 1.5 million people—more than the next 15 cities combined—over the decades had worked out informal arrangements to establish a uniform policing system in its numerous boroughs. The Metropolitan Police Act 1829, championed by home Secretary Robert Peel, was non so much a startling innovation, as a systemization with expanded funding of imposing informal practices. It created the Metropolitan Police Service, headquartered at Scotland Yard. London now had the world's first modern police force. The 3000 policemen were called "bobbies" after Peel's number one name. They were well-organized, centrally directed, and wore requirements blue uniforms. Legally they had the historic status of constable, with command to make arrests of suspicious persons and book offenders previously a magistrate court. They were assigned in teams to sent beats, especially at night. Gas lighting was installed on major streets, making their task of surveillance much easier. Crime rates went down. An 1835 law requested all incorporated boroughs in England and Wales to establish police forces. Scotland, with its separate legal system, was soon added. By 1857 every jurisdiction in Great Britain had an organized police force, for which the Treasury paid a subsidy. The police hadpay, were selected by merit rather than by political influence, and were rarely used for partisan purposes. The pay scale was non high one guinea a week in 1833, but the prestige was especially high for Irish Catholics, who were disproportionately represented in every city where they had a large presence.