A Guide to Victorian Love

Life at the beginning of the Victorian era was harsh but even more so if you were sick, elderly or incapacitated. Hospitals barely existed, the insane were gaoled, outdoor poor relief was all but scrapped and the concept of Public Health as we know it was still a glimmer in Edwin Chadwick’s eye. If you could not afford to eat, you did not eat.The Victorians expected each other to follow a code of conduct which involved hard work, thriftiness, abstinence, honesty, sobriety and a strict morality all governed by the value of self-help. This would see everyone right in the end, and ensure one’s upward social mobility.But what of those who could not help themselves?Just as the Industrial Revolution had not been planned, neither was a welfare system put in place. Different crises called for different modes of action from a variety of politicians, philanthropists and educators leading to a chaotic patchwork of charity and relief.However, the Victorians were marvellous at organising and classifying the natural world, and as the century progressed, they applied the same diligence to the vulnerable, sick and elderly population. In a rapidly changing era, there was a self-help manual to be studied for every problem. If you couldn’t fix it, there was a doctor who could. If all else failed, the Institution provided respite. What slowly emerged from the chaos of indifference at the beginning of the era was a care system which laid the foundations for how we nurture one another today.