ABSTRACT
The physical changes in England in these years are easily described because they were so visible. Even the poor – however subterranean they may have seemed to many early Victorians – were physical landmarks in the urban landscape. Less obvious, though no less important, were the changes in attitude brought about by the inexorable drift towards urban – in part industrial – life. To a marked degree this was the case, as we have seen, with the question of class consciousness. And there were other marked changes; notable breaks with older attitudes and values. In the course of these years there was, for instance, a quite dramatic change in attitudes to learning and education – especially for the common people. In the mid eighteenth century learning (however rudimentary) among labouring people was generally viewed with suspicion and dislike by their betters. Frequently denounced as subversive and dangerous, popular learning was positively resisted. By the end of our period, however, quite the opposite outlook prevailed among the propertied orders who now believed that ignorance, not learning, was the greatest threat to and the solvent of social harmony and tranquility. And, as if to confirm their fears, it was revealed, in irrefutable detail in 1851, that religious belief (long viewed as a major force in securing loyalty and stability) was itself in decline.
