ABSTRACT
In 1839 Thomas Carlyle had warned about the ‘Condition of England Question’ and voiced the widespread concern about the plight of the labouring classes. A flurry of investigations into living and working conditions produced a spate of reports by select committees, royal commissions, statistical societies and local bodies in the 1830s and 1840s, which led to a certain amount of legislation. After 1848 and with the onset of mid-Victorian prosperity public interest in these questions died down, although social reformers continued to campaign against specific social abuses such as prostitution and drunkenness. Then in the 1880s this general social complacency was rudely shaken and a second age of inquiry began. Issues of overcrowding, poverty, sexuality and immorality suddenly reappeared on the political and social agenda in response to pressure from articulate sections of the population. A sense of shock and a demand that ‘something should be done’ constituted an important element in the process of social change in late Victorian Britain.
