Swagger and squalor

This is a monumental but inevitably selective survey of all that occurred in Britain, for better or worse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is certainly a useful summary, with much illuminating detail to carry the story forward: describing the opulence that was so much in evidence, Simon Heffer mentions the diamond which adorned Lord Randolph Churchill’s cigarette holder.

He kicks off with Queen Victoria’s Jubilee of 1877, and Disraeli’s proclamation of her as Empress of India. At home, swagger and squalor went side by side, and living conditions, both rural and urban, were often appalling. The population increased from 35 million in 1881 to over 40 million by 1906. Water supplies and sanitation were often lacking, causing frequent outbreaks of cholera and typhus, tuberculosis and dysentery in overcrowded and unhygienic locations.

By the time of her Diamond Jubilee the Queen was asked by one of her grandchildren if the endless dazzling parade of her imperial troops made her feel proud; she replied: ‘No, it makes me feel very humble.’ But she often had a funny way of showing it, and would tick off her ministers angrily when she disagreed with their policies. In politics it was the age of three supreme leaders: Gladstone, who she disliked on the grounds of stiffness and pomposity; Disraeli, who knew exactly how to flatter her; and Salisbury, who having overseen the addition of vast territories to her empire, declared with deep disapproval that ‘All empire is necessarily a love of war’. By comparison with them, nearly all prime ministers in the last 50 years look like pygmies.

By far the worst problem of the age was Britain’s relations with Ireland, and the 65-page chapter on them here is admirable, though depressing.