ABSTRACT
The four brief microeconomic studies of British industries confirm, rather than contradict, R. A. Church's warning that labels such as 'Golden Age' hide as much as they reveal about the character. In agriculture, for instance, a transient combination of favourable market circumstances produced a Golden Age of prosperity for the capitalist food producers which did not filter down to the farm workers who 'did not see even an illusion of gold'. George Elliot MP, a prominent figure in both the coalmining and submarine cable industries was, indeed, the embodiment of mid-Victorian inconsistency. Unlike the 'staple' industries of agriculture, coal and cotton, the electrical engineering industry was created in the form of the submarine telegraph cable and telegraph communication industry in the two decades after 1850. During these years 'undersea telegraphs from an experimental technology into a significant science-based industry', though as Gillian Cookson demonstrates this was a Golden Age shot through with paradox and inconsistency.
