ABSTRACT
The chronological mid-point of Queen Victoria's long reign fell in 1869 - more than thirty years on the throne, over thirty still to pass. Of course, the Victorians did not know that the reign still had so much time to run. But long before its ending they were to become aware that the lengthening span of years from the queen's accession in 1837 possessed a unity only through the accident of her longevity. At the time of her Golden and Diamond Jubilees in 1887 and 1897 the great changes which had taken place since the start of the reign were frequently described. Lord Salisbury remarked as Prime Minister in 1897 how Queen Victoria had 'bridged over that great interval which separates old England from new England'. This transition from the 'old' to the 'new' had been not only continuous but also accelerating, so that each Victorian generation seemed to be the more separated from its predecessor. Society, industry, agriculture, religion, ideas, politics - everything seemed to be in flux. James Baldwin Brown, a leading Congregationalist minister, tried in First Principles of Ecclesiastical Truth (1871) to measure 'the revolution of our times'. Society (he wrote) seemed to be seeking a new basis 'instead of expanding on the old bases. Compare the throng of things which now press upon you daily, the crowd of interests which demand attention, and force themselves into the council chamber of your thoughts, with the narrower circle of pursuits, pleasures and ideas which occupied our fathers little more than a generation ago'. 'The real power of the revolution,' continued Brown, was mental more than material. 'The submission of every thing and every method to the free judgement of reason, by the menstrum which a free Press, a free Platform, and a free Parliament supply.' Certainly, the power of traditional authority in church and state had been receding since the seventeenth century. Now it was being rapidly displaced by the power of inquiry, observation, and opinion. In intellectual and scientific fields the numbers engaged were still small; but the interested audience was growing fast. And the public opinion which could influence political decisions was becoming larger with every year.
