Year

Morris’s life

Political events

Social events

Art and architecture

Literature

1832

The first or great Reform Act is passed. This climax of a period of political reform extends the vote to a further 500,000 people and redistributes Parliamentary seats on a more equitable basis

1830-1832 : First major cholera epidemic

Royal Commission on the Poor Laws appointed.

Allotment's Act - authorised Vestries to let small portions of land, from a quarter of an acre up to an acre, to industrious cottagers for cultivation. The rental income was to be used to buy winter fuel for the poor.

1833

The Chartist Movement: demands for electoral reform (e.g. secret ballot) and universal male suffrage – 1st Petition

Abolition of slavery

Factories Regulation Act, preventing the employment of children less than 9 or for more than 48 hours for those less than 11

1834

The government acts against 'illegal oaths' in such unionism, resulting in the Tolpuddle Martyrs

Poor Law Amendment Act (14 Aug.) starts union workhouses

Poor Law Commissioners sworn in on August 23rd

Robert Owen founds the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union: action by government against 'illegal oaths' in unionism results in failure of GNCTU and transportation of six 'Tolpuddle Martyrs'to Australia.

Houses of Parliament burnt down.

1835

MELBOURNE P.M. (W) (Apr.)Parliament passes the Municipal Reform Act, requiring members of town councils to be elected by ratepayers and councils to publish their financial accounts

1835-1836 : Commercial boom: 'little' railway mania

1836

Registration of Births, Marriages, and Deaths Act

Lowering of the Stamp Duty on newspapers

Enforcement of the Poor Law Amendment Act

1837

20 June, Queen Victoria succeeds to throne following death of William IV

Government School of Design

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist.

1838

The People's Charter drafted

Anti-Corn Law Association (Manchester)

1839

The Chartist Movement: demands for electoral reform (e.g. secret ballot) and universal male suffrage

1st Chartist Petition

First Opium War begins
British Army in Afghanistan

Anti-Corn Law League;

1840

February; Queen marries Prince AlbertThe penny post is instituted

1841

Peel Prime Minister (Tory)

The first British Census recording the names of the populace is undertaken

1842

2nd Chartist Petition

Income Tax introduced for 3 years (7d in the £ for incomes over £150 p.a.)

1843

Carlyle, Past and Present
--> à partir d’une reconstitution méticuleuse et exacte du passé, illustration du présent et de l’avenir

1844

Bank Charter Act

Factory Act limits working hours to women (extension of the 1833 Factories Regulation Act)

A further Poor Law Amendment Act improved numerous details of the 1834 Act. One of its most significant changes was a revision to the bastardy laws whereby mothers were granted the civil right of claim against the putative father, regardless of whether she was in receipt of poor relief.

The Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order issued by the PLC in December, prohibited all outdoor relief to able-bodied men and women apart from in exceptional circumstances.

1845

1845-50 : Potato famine in Ireland

Andover workhouse scandal : conditions were so bad that inmates were revealed to be fighting over scraps of rotten meat left on bones they were crushing.

1846

RUSSELL P.M. (W) (July);

Repeal of the Corn Laws
An Act granted settlement after five years' residence in a parish.

1847

Student at Malborough College

“As far as my school-instruction went, I think I may fairly say I learned next to nothing there, for indeed next to nothing was taught”

-->“I set myself eagerly to studying [everything] that had any history to it, and so perhaps learned a good deal especially as there was a good library at the school to which I had access”.

-->cf les connaissances et l’érudition du vieux Hammond

Ten-Hours Act : 60-hour working week instead of 69.Report on Welsh education

Charlotte Bronte , Jane Eyre

Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights

Disraeli Tancred

Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto

1848

3rd Chartist Petition

Public Health Act

Cholera epidemic

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (The Pre-Raphaelite movement was intended to redefine art)

• Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(1828-1882)
• William Michael Rossetti
(1829-1919; art critic and D.G.'s brother)
• James Collinson (1825?-81; painter)
• William Holman Hunt
(1827-1910; painter)
• John Everett Millais
(1829-96; painter)
• Thomas Woolner
(1825-92; a sculptor)
• Frederic George Stephens
(1828-1907; art critic)

1849

1850

Death of Robert Peel (2.07)

The Pre-Raphaelite magazine The Germ appeared. (4 issues)

1851

Catholic hierarchy in England restored

Great Exhibition (backed by Prince Albert ; Crystal Palace)

The first volume of Ruskin's Stones of Venice was published

1852

DERBY P.M. (T) (Feb.);ABERDEEN P.M. (Coal.) (Dec.)

The Poor Law Board's Outdoor Relief Regulation Orders in August and December broadened the conditions under which outdoor relief could be provided.

Houses of Parliament in London completed

1853

Morris and Burne-Jones became friends (Oxford)

Vaccination against smallpox is made compulsory

1854

Crimean War (1854-56)

Dickens, Hard Times

1855

Starts writing poetry

PALMERST0N PM. (W) (Feb.)

1855 – 1885 : High Victorian Gothic

1856

Foundation of the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine (12 issues)

1857

Morris, Burne-Jones, Rossetti and other Pre-Raphaelites painted the Oxford Union frescoes.

Matrimonial Causes Act

1858

DERBY P.M. (W) (Feb.)
Indian mutiny and India Act

Workhouse Visiting Society founded by Louisa Twining

1859

Morris married Jane Burden

PALMERSTON P.M. (W) (June); Disraeli's Reform Bill (Feb.)

1859-1860 : Red House at Bexleyheath is the building which started the Arts and Crafts movement. It was originally designed for newly-weds William and Janey Morris (architect: Philipp Webb)

Charles Darwin ‘Origin of the Species’

1860

Russell's Reform Bill

Anglo-French 'Cobden' treaty and Gladstone's budget codify and extend principles of free trade

c. 1860-1910 : The arts and crafts movement was made up of English designers and writers who wanted a return to well-made, handcrafted goods instead of mass-produced, poor quality machine-made items.

George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

1861

Foundation of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co (« The Firm »)

Death of Prince Albert from typhoid

1862

Limited liability Act provides vital stimulus to accumulation of capital in shares

International Exhibition

1863

The Salvation Army is founded

George Elgar Hicks, Woman’s Mission : a triptych (Guide to Childhood / Companion to Manhood / Comfort of Old Age)

--> the 3 main roles of a woman (mother, wife and carer) which we find in NFN : Nowhere remains a male paradise / nothing has really changed in the utopian romance

1864

Mrs. Gaskell's Wives and Daughters

1865

Death of Palmerston (Oct.)
RUSSELL P.M. (W) (Oct.)

The Union Chargeability Act based each parish's contribution to the union's funds on its rateable value not how many paupers it had. The union also became the area of settlement and the period of residency required for irremovability was reduced to one year.
The Lancet exposed the terrible conditions that existed in many London workhouse infirmaries.

Ford Madox Brown's Work first exhibited

Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

1866

EARL OF DERBY P.M. (T);
Russell-Gladstone moderate Reform Bill fails

Hyde Park RiotsCholera epidemic

1867

Derby and Disraeli's Second Reform Bill doubles the franchise to two million (extension aux ouvriers qualified)

Dominion of Canada Act making Canada the first dominion of the British Empire

Representation of the People Act (5.08)

1868

He began studying and translating Icelandic sagas
The Earthly Paradise: A Poem

DISRAELI P.M. (C) (Feb.); GLADSTONE P.M. (L) (Dec.)Trades Union Congress formed

1869

Trade & politics : The Suez Canal is opened

Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Irish Church Act

1870

Elementary Education Act (Forster) introduced compulsory elementary education administered by local School Boards.

Married Women's Property Act extends the rights of women in marriage

1871

He visited Iceland

Criminal Law Amendment Act

University Tests Act abolished Trade Union Act legalizes TUs

1872

Voting by secret ballot was introduced.

G. Eliot's Middlemarch

Lewis Carroll Alice Through the Looking Glass

1873

Economic slump in Europe

1874

1875

Dissolution of the Firm

Disraeli purchases a controlling interest for Britain in the Suez Canal

Public Health Act set up nationwide system of rural and urban sanitary authorities.

Trade Union Act

Pure Food and Drugs Act

Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act

Employers' and Workmen's Act

Agricultural depression deepens

Trades Disputes Act legalizes picketing
1875-76 R. A. Cross's Conservative social reforms passed

1876

Morris entered politics

Victoria proclaimed Empress of India
massacres of Christians in Turkish Bulgaria provoke anti-Turkish campaign in Britain, led by Gladstone

Education Act (Sandon)

The Divided Parishes and Poor Law

Amendment Act gave the Local Government Board new powers to reorganise and dissolve unions.

1877

Foundation of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, to counteract the highly destructive 'restoration' of medieval buildings being practised by many Victorian architects

1878

The Decorative Arts: Their Relation to Modern Life and Progress

Factory and Workshops Act

Thomas Hardy, Return of the Native

1879

Irish Land League

Trade depression

1880

GLADSTONE P.M. (L) (Apr.);

Employers' Liability Act

1881

Disraeli died

2nd Irish Land Act (Gladstone)1881-86 : Essor du socialisme brit.

The first electric streetlights appeared.
The first houses were lit by electricity

1882

Married Women's Property Act enables women to buy, own, and sell property, and to keep their own earnings.

Education Act (Mundella)

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

1883

He joined the Socialist Democratic Federation

Fabian Society founded

“The object of the Fabian Society is to persuade the English people to make their political constitution thoroughly democratic and so to socialize their industry as to make the livelihood of the people entirely independent of private capitalism” G.B. Shaw

“The Fabian Society, far from desiring to abolish wages wishes to secure them for everybody” G.B. Shaw

illegal and Corrupt Practices Act

Once-a-week fish dinners allowed in workhouses.

Bankruptcy Act (Chamberlain) interdit l’emprisonnement pour dettes

1884

The Socialist League

Art and Socialism: A Lecture Delivered before the Secular Society of Leicester.

Delivers a speech : Useful Work versus Useless Toil

Representation of the People Act (6.12)Third Reform Act extends the franchise (suffrage quasi-universel)

1884-85 Reform and Redistribution Acts

1885

SALISBURY P.M. (C) (June)

Redistribution of Seats Act

Working Class Dwelling Act : donna plus de pouvoirs aux autorités locales pour éradiquer les taudis

1886

GLADSTONE P.M. (L) (Feb.); SALISBURY P.M. (C) (Aug.)

1st Home Rule Bill for Ireland (Gladstone)

Split in the Liberal Party

Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1887

The Aims of Art

Independent Labour party founded

November, 13th 1887: "Bloody Sunday" (riots) Morris took part in the demonstrations which in fact showed how strong the state was and how weak the workers were.

Queen Victoria celebrates her Golden Jubilee

1888

A Dream of John Ball

Local Government Act (Goschen)

The County Councils' Act establishes representative county based authorities

Scottish Labour Party founded

1888-92 : Développement du Néo-Unionisme

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (publication US)

--> utopia : scene takes place in 2000

--> Absolute nonsense for Morris since no historical dimension in the text : smooth transition between 19th century / 20th century.

1889

Fabian Society Essays (doctrines et methods de la société)

London dock strike

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (publication GB)

1890

Foundation of Kelmscott Press

News from Nowhere published in the USA without Morris’s permission

1891

News From Nowhere : first British edition

Factory and Workshops (Consolidation) Act
Education Act

Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

1892

GLADSTONE P.M. (L) (Aug)

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

1893

Second Home Rule Bill rejected by the Lords

Formation of the Independent Labour Party

1894

ROSEBERY P.M. (L) (March)

Time Machine H. G. Wells

1895

SALISBURY P.M. (C) (June)

The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde

1896

Morris died at Kelmscott House on 3 October

1897

Queen Victoria celebrates her Diamond Jubilee

Voluntary Schools Act; Employers' Liability Act

1898

1899

1900

Labour Representation Committee (LRC) created

Elementary Education Act

Joseph CONRAD, Lord Jim

1901

Death of Queen Victoria; Edward Prince of Wales succeeds as Edward VII.

Factory and Workshops Act