Dr. Bob Nicholson joins WIRED to answer the internet’s _most intriguing queries_ about Victorian England. How did people entertain themselves in England in the 1800’s? Why was openly showing feelings frowned upon in the Victorian Era? How many assassination attempts did Queen Victoria survive? Was it very difficult to wear a bustle? How did Victorian style become associated with “spooky” things? Answers to these questions and plenty more await on Victorian England Support.
0:00 Victorian England Support
0:13 Mummy unwrapping parties
1:14 Victorian Age eroticism
2:27 Queen Victoria’s assassination attempts
3:46 Was it very difficult to wear a bustle?
5:06 The beginning of the Victorian Age
5:43 Victorian tech
6:48 How did Victorian style become “spooky”
7:30 News
8:24 Edgy 19th Century humor
10:25 Jack the Ripper
11:48 The Great Stink of London (1858)
12:52 How did English literature change throughout the Victorian era?
14:29 How did people entertain themselves in the 1800’s?
15:31 It’s an ammonia source, I guess
16:15 Economic factors and hardship
17:30 Victorians vibrator myths
18:40 Like you know, whatever
19:30 Victorian London in film
21:40 Sewer-powered gas lights
22:09 Penny farthings
23:05 Victorian courtship
24:38 Victorian slang
25:35 Hat pins for self defense
26:28 USA
27:30 Victorian forensics
28:08 Victorian Age human rights and women’s rights
28:50 Why was openly showing feelings frowned upon in the Victorian Era?
Director: Lauren Zeitoun
Director of Photography: James Fox
Editor: Alex Mechanik
Expert: Dr. Bob Nicholson
Line Producer: Jamie Rasmussen
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas
Production Manager: Jonathan Rinkerman
Casting Producer: Nick Sawyer
Camera Operator: Neill Francis
Sound Mixer: Oliver Beard
Production Assistant: Andrea Ratti
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Stella Shortino
Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo
Additional Editor: Sam DiVito
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
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Hello, internet! I’m the historian in this video. Hope you enjoy it. If you’ve got more questions about the Victorians, feel free to drop them here and I’ll try answer some in the comments.
1) Do you own a bustle?
2) Why didn’t you wear it for the video?
I love non fiction books . Can you recommend me books which depict time in victorian era , maybe true story , book about someones life or history book ? Thank you
@steubenbreundenHah! I do own a *lot* of weird Victorian objects (we ran out of room on the table in this video) but no bustle — at least not yet. Lots of popular Victorian entertainment involved men dressing in women’s clothes, so I probably could claim it’s for research purposes. So watch this space, I guess!
@GulsezimBatyrbayevaOooh yes, there are almost too many to mention! Hallie Rubenhold’s books are very readable, and her book ‘The Five’ got a lot of praise for revealing the truth of the lives of the women who were murdered by Jack the Ripper. ‘The Suspicions of Mr Witcher’ by Kate Summerscale is also a great read if you’re interested in detectives / true crime. Most recently, Fern Riddell released a really interesting book exploring Queen Victoria’s alleged romantic relationship with her servant, John Brown. I haven’t read this yet, but I also hear good things about ‘Billy Waters is Dancing’ by Mary Shannon. Regency period rather than Victorian, but it looks great. Finally, keep an eye out for my new book — Killing Victoria — sometime next year!
What country has the most amount of Victorian influence?
“Full disclosure, I’ve never worn a bustle.” Alright, Wired. Now you need to get Bernadette Banner on the show.
My favorite fact, and I’m surprised he didnt mention it when talking about accuracy in historically set films is the Accent. The British accent that we know today didnt start coming around until late 18th/early 19th century. The American accent is the original English accent lol (Give or take).
Not only did a married Victorian woman take her husband’s last name, she even used his *first* name in the public sphere. Her family and friends would call her “Mary” of course, but she would be identified more broadly as “Mrs John Baker”.
The stereoscopic photos and their viewer were in use until, at least, the 1960’s. That’s a really early date too, My grandparents had all sorts of them and a couple of the viewers and they both died after 2014.
Thanks for sharing. It was a wild century that’s for sure. I love this period and been doing a lot of reading about it lately, and there is a lot of things that happened that I can’t believe. Considering they were very strict, fussy and rule oriented on everything, they were very curious, strange, morbid, superstitious, quirky people you could ever meet.
4:58 plus it’s not like us putting on a giant bustle and trying to go to the bathroom after never having worn one, they would have been handling much smaller/easier skirts since they were little and getting used to more and more complex outfits as they grew up
Don’t like this, the questions are mostly about petty social stuff and lifestyle.
Almost nothing/only hinting on politics, economy, the British Empire in it’s prime.
26:15 The hairpin started off okay as it was given to courting partners as a token of love and respect, but by 1850 onwards, it became a competitive scavenger hunt where everyone would try and get thier hands on many as possible for thier scrapbooks and thier strange descriptive lists. They did anything and everything to get thier hands on them, no matter what it was, or how they got it, they would go to any length to get them. It was so bad that it was impossible to go anywhere in case someone did grab a pin…and even the house wasn’t always a safe heaven either. The law looked the other way on this due to ”boys will be boys” motion and ignored the situation. It started off as a nice thing and ended up in a nightmare fuel that only ended once cycling and sports started to take off.
YEAYYY A NEW HISTORY SUPPORT
25:29 “hold your horses” is also an American term that eventually made its way to Victorian England. It first came about in the U.S. circa 1843 and then eventually got to England circa 1857.
These are always so fascinating.
He’s one of my uni lecturers an absolute legend
Doctor Bob! <3
plumpness essential yep 🙂
This reminded me of one of my old time favorite Q&A jokes: What do you get when you cross Lassie with a cantaloupe? A Melancholy Baby🎶
I have to admit, I’d love to go to the pub with this historian. His enthusiasm is so attractive!
I’ve had a slight case of the morbs myself
Best tech support in a long time. Topic, presenter, and questions were very entertaining.
I thought that, going back to the Romans, urine was used for bleaching and then the item was soaped and rinsed but never gave it a bunch of thought.