Victorian Political Culture

'Habits of Heart and Mind'

Angus Hawkins

An original exploration of the distinctive values and cultures behind the political and constitutional transformations of the Victorian age
Examines the development of political parties and public understanding of parliament, elections, public opinion, and democracy
Shows the role which moral communities played in the shaping of British political culture
Draws on contemporary literature, theology, and science, as well as political speeches and writings
Provides a corrective to conventional views of the period, emphasizing a dominant Liberal ideology, increasing secularisation, and growing individualism

Victorian Political Culture

'Habits of Heart and Mind'

Angus Hawkins

Description

Victorian Britain is often described as an age of dawning democracy and as an exemplar of the modern Liberal state; yet a hereditary monarchy, a hereditary House of Lords, and an established Anglican Church survived as influential aspects of national public life with traditional elites assuming redefined roles.

After 1832, constitutional notions of 'mixed government' gradually gave way to the orthodoxy of 'parliamentary government', shaping the function and nature of political parties in Westminster and the constituencies, as well as the relations between them. Following the 1867-8 Reform Acts, national political parties began to replace the premises of 'parliamentary government'. The subsequent emergence of a mass male electorate in the 1880s and 1890s prompted politicians to adopt new language and methods by which to appeal to voters, while enduring public values associated with morality, community and evocations of the past continued to shape Britain's distinctive political culture. This gave a particularly conservative trajectory to the nation's entry into the twentieth century.

This study of British political culture from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century examines the public values that informed perceptions of the constitution, electoral activity, party partisanship, and political organization. Its exploration of Victorian views of status, power, and authority as revealed in political language, speeches, and writing, as well as theology, literature, and science, shows how the development of moral communities rooted in readings of the past enabled politicians to manage far-reaching change. This presents a new over-arching perspective on the constitutional and political transformations of the Victorian age.

Victorian Political Culture

'Habits of Heart and Mind'

Angus Hawkins

Introduction
1:The Sovereignty of Parliament
2:A Constitutional Turning Point: 1828-1836
3:'Parliamentary Government' and its Critics: 1832-1867
4:Constituency Politics: 1832-1867
5:The Dynamics of Voting: 1832-1867
6:The Moral Climate of Reform: 1848-1867
7:'Shooting Niagara': the 1867 Reform Acts
8:The Demise of 'Parliamentary Government': 1868-1884
9:Party, Society and the State: 1886-1905
10:Epilogue

Victorian Political Culture

'Habits of Heart and Mind'

Angus Hawkins

Author Information

Angus Hawkins, Professor of Modern British History, Keble College, Oxford University

Angus Hawkins is Professor of Modern British History at Oxford University and a Fellow of Keble College. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has written widely on Victorian politics, including his two-volume biography of the 14th Earl of Derby, entitled The Forgotten Prime Minister, also published by Oxford University Press.

Victorian Political Culture

'Habits of Heart and Mind'

Angus Hawkins

Reviews and Awards

"What is different about Victorian Political Culture is that the author places parliament at the centre of his story. Reprising and extending the themes of a seminal article on 'parliamentary government' from 1989. ... Hawkins digs deep into recent research on the politics of the period, benefiting not least from the compendious information now being generated by the 1832-68 section of the History of Parliament. He is diligent about including Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Public moralists from Carlyle to Dicey are seamlessly worked in. ... we are left with an important and original work of synthesis that confirms the value of letting a good idea develop, ripen and mature over time. Victorian Political Culture reasserts the place of conservatism with a small and a large 'c' in the 19th century." - Miles Taylor, Parliamentary History

"Hawkins builds carefully on existing studies, making good use of the published and as yet unpublished History of Parliament volumes, but produces here an original and powerful interpretation which will command the field for some time." - Anthony Howe, History

"This book succeeds, not only in restoring political history to what Stedman Jones called the central position in the study of the Victorian world, but also in reaffirming the importance of primary research, if the historian wishes to offer valid explanation of change, rather than mere descriptions of the past. This book can be seen as a rallying point for those who wish to see the New Political History become more than merely a fashionable label for studies of questionable rigour and insufficient depth, and should be celebrated by all students of the Victorian period." - Ian Cawood, The Times Literary Supplement,

"a mine of useful information for those new to the subject while providing a judicious and elegant synthesis of recent research which will appeal to novices and aficionados alike ... Victorian Political Culture is essential reading for all students of Victorian politics, but it should also be read by anyone with an interest in the workings of Victorian society who wants to understand the central role of politics and political institutions within it." - Dr Simon J. Morgan, Reviews in History