QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE
JOURNAL TOPICS
CHOOSE ONE

1.  Queen Victoria was proclaimed “Empress of India” in 1876.  What do the artifacts at the Victoria and Albert Museum reveal about British colonial relationships – politically and culturally?  Choose three items in the museum from or about the British colonies.  Describe each item and discuss its relevance as a symbol of imperial power.

2.  According to H.G.C. Matthew, "The monarchy represented the timeless quality of what was taken to be a pre-industrial order.  In an increasingly urbanized society, it balanced the Industrial Revolution: the more urban Britain became, the more stylized, ritualized, and popular became its monarchy, for the values which it claimed to personify stood outside the competitve egalitarianism of capitalist society" (Morgan 549).  From the exhibts in the Victoria and Albert Museum do you think this is an appropriate description of the monarchy in the Victorian Age?  Why or why not?
 

Suggested Readings:

Archer, Mildred. Company Paintings: Indian Paintings of the British Period.  London: Victoria and Albert Museum in association with Mapin Publishing, 1992.

Bolitho, Hector.  Royal Progress: One Hundred Years of British Monarchy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937.

Burton, Anthony. Vision & Accident: The Story of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: V&A Publications, 1999.

Fieldhouse, D.K.  The Colonial Empires.  London, 1966.

Hardie, Frank. The Political Influence of Queen Victoria, 1861-1901. London: F. Cass [c1938], 1963.

Homans, Margaret.  Royal Representations : Queen Victoria and British Culture, 1837-1876.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Lloyd, Trevor Owen. The British Empire, 1558-1995. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Pelling, Henry.  Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian Britain.  London, 1968.

Sanderson, Gorham D. India and British Imperialism. New York, Bookman Associates, 1951.

Thompson, Dorothy.  Queen Victoria: The Woman, the Monarchy, and the People.  New York: Pantheon Books, 1990.

Thornton, A.P.  The Imperial Idea and its Enemies.  London, 1959.

 The Victoria and Albert Museum.  Ed. by Michael Darby et al. New York: Viking Press, 1983.

The Victorian Vision: Inventing New Britain. Ed. by John M. MacKenzie.  London: V & A, 2001.
 

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