Edwardian britain (1901-1910) Task 21. Read the following and answer the questions:

1. What were the changes in life at the turn of the centuries ?

2. What were the tendencies in population?

3. How did science and industry develop?

4. What were the most important discoveries?

Edwardian days are evoked in many novels and memoirs as halcyon times when every man knew his place in the scheme of things and was content, when food was wholesome, the countryside unspoilt, and the pace leisurely. In his autobiography the author and administrator John Buchan (Lord Tweedsmuir) remembered the period as 'unbelievably secure and satisfied. The world was friendly and well bred'. But elsewhere he referred in less nostalgic mood to 'the vulgarity and the worship of wealth which appeared with the new century'.

The pace was in fact anything but leisurely. Worship of wealth there may have been, but also a desperate need for simple subsistence. The population of the British Isles had been about 25 million at the beginning of Victoria's reign; at the beginning of Edward's it was over 40 million. In 1800 there had been about 180 million people in Europe; by the early 1900s the figure was rising over the 400 million mark. Every country had more mouths to feed, every country wanted to sell more goods. Ominously, by the turn of the century German and American steel production had far outstripped Britain's, and their populations were growing faster. Merchant fleets expanded. So did navies and armies.

Steam-power linked British colonies, dominions and protectorates with the homeland: four-fifths of the world's steamships were British registered. Steam drove trains over the great mesh of main and branch lines which brought industry closer to its markets within the United Kingdom and closer to the ports. It also opened up new possibilities in work and play: it was feasible for more wage-earners, even in the lower income groups, to travel between city and suburb; businessmen could get about with less waste of working time; and the seaside holiday was in reach of many who could never have contemplated such a luxury if it had been a matter of owning or hiring their own family transport.

London's Underground had opened its first electrified line in 1890, and the network continued to develop through the first decade of the new century. Electric tramways competed with local railways, and in reply the Liverpool to Southport line and Tyneside suburban services, for example, were electrified in 1904.

But the most immediately noticeable force for change was the internal combustion engine. The motor ship was already on the horizon. King Edward himself gave his seal of approval to the motor car. His first two vehicles, however, were not British: he bought a Mercedes and a Renault. In this field Britain was a late starter.

The motor industry in Britain lagged behind Germany, France, and soon the USA, partly because of restrictions imposed by the law that any mechanically propelled vehicle should be preceded by a man on foot carrying a red flag. This Red Flag Act was repealed in 1896, but a speed limit of 12 mph was imposed, rising to 20 mph in 1903.

Although Frederick Lanchester designed a successful all-British car, manufacturers tended for some time to concentrate on the assembly of foreign motor parts or to copy foreign designs. The meeting in 1904 of Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce resulted in a partnership in 1906; their factory at Derby opened in 1908 and set new standards of design and performance. In 1905 the Austin Motor Company went into business; and in that same year a regular motor-bus service was inaugurated in London. The double-decker powered vehicles slowly took over from the thousands of horse-drawn buses. At first they ran on solid rubber tyres, but the inflatable tyre patented by John Boyd Dunlop, a veterinary surgeon, for use on bicycles was soon adopted for cars, buses and the motor taxis which were also appearing in city streets.

Petroleum at last gave man the power to fly with a reasonable hope of going in the direction he wished to go. Balloon ascents had been a popular spectacle since the Montgolfier brothers sent up their first hot-air balloon in France in 1783, and experiments were carried out in many countries on the use of gas-filled, rigid airships which would be dirigible rather than at the mercy of wind and weather. The most successful was the invention of the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, tried out in 1900, making a twelve-hour passenger run in 1908, and between 1910 and 1914 carrying over thirty thousand passengers without mishap.

The future belonged, however, to the heavier-than-air machine. At Kitty Hawk in America the Wright brothers first got their powered aeroplane off the ground on 17th December 1903, and two years later came to Europe to demonstrate their invention. In 1909 Louis Bleriot made the first crossing of the English Channel by air.

A. V. Roe's triplane was the first all-British machine. The first pilot's certificate granted by the Royal Aero Club was issued to John Moore-Brabazon (Lord Brabazon of Тага), who was to do valuable work in the development of aerial photography.

Significantly, an allocation of funds for aeronautics was introduced into the Army and Navy estimates for 1909.