A revolution in the arts The Romantic movement: poetry and painting(The Lake School; Turner & Constable)

It starts as a reaction against the intellectualism of the Enlightenment, against the rigidity of social structures protecting privilege, and against the materialism of an age which, in the first stirring of the Industrial Revolution, already shows signs of making workers the slaves of machinery and of creating squalid urban environments.

Unlike classicism or the baroque, romanticism has no definable standards. Indeed rejection of rules is almost a touchstone of the romantic temperament.

The new mood begins to appear in the 1760s. The year 1761 sees the publication of an immensely successful novel which satisfies both the yearnings of romanticism and the demands of convention.

The theme of impossible love in a marital triangle reappears a decade later in Germany in The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), a romantic .

Meanwhile romantics in Britain are seeking out the mysterious romance of long-forgotten literature (in Macpherson's Celtic researches) and the awesome appeal of hitherto unappreciated landscapes (in the quest for the picturesque).

The post-Napoleonic wars period The Chartist movement

Aims of the movement: A vote for every man twenty- one years of age, of sound mind, and not undergoing punishment for crime; the secret ballot; no property qualification for members of Parliament; payment of members;

equal Constituencies; annual parliaments.

1838. 1842. 1848. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. It was possibly the first mass working class labor movement in the world which included a wide range of organizations. It was largely unsuccessful at convincing Parliament to reform the voting system of the mid-19th century. 1842: Chartism's biggest petition.

The Victorian Era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence for Britain. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities and political concerns to the passage of the Reform Act 1832.

In international relations the era was a long period of peace, known as the Pax Britannica, and economic, colonial, and industrial consolidation, temporarily disrupted by the Crimean War in 1854. The end of the period saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of gradual political reform, industrial reform and the widening of the voting franchise.

The population of England almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901. Scotland's population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. Ireland's population decreased rapidly, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due to the Great Famine. At the same time, around 15 million emigrants left the United Kingdom in the Victorian era and settled mostly in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Victoria's reign lasted for 63 years and 216 days, the longest in British history up to the present day. However, the present monarch, Elizabeth II, will surpass this if she remains on the throne until 9 September 2015.