0:00:08 > 0:00:09It was the best of times...
0:00:11 > 0:00:14..it was the worst of times.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22The Victorian age was one of soaring ambition...
0:00:23 > 0:00:26..technological wonder...
0:00:27 > 0:00:30..and awesome grandeur.
0:00:32 > 0:00:34As well as ugliness...
0:00:37 > 0:00:38..squalor...
0:00:40 > 0:00:43..and misery on an unprecedented scale.
0:00:47 > 0:00:52The Victorians knew life was changing faster than ever before.
0:00:59 > 0:01:05And they recorded that change in paintings that were the cinema of their day.
0:01:05 > 0:01:08These paintings aren't fashionable, and they
0:01:08 > 0:01:14don't generally change hands for millions of pounds in auction rooms, but to me, they're a goldmine.
0:01:14 > 0:01:19They show us like nothing else what it was like to live in those incredible times.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23And they tell amazing stories.
0:01:25 > 0:01:29The most dramatic story of the age was the explosion of giant cities.
0:01:29 > 0:01:35To our Victorian forefathers, they were a terrific shock.
0:01:36 > 0:01:42When Queen Victoria came to the throne, people were at best uneasy at, and at worst
0:01:42 > 0:01:49utterly terrified by, these vast gatherings of humanity. Nothing like them had existed before.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53But by the time she died, the men and women of the age had pioneered
0:01:53 > 0:01:59an entirely new way of living. They had invented the modern city.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59At the dawn of the 19th century, Britain was on the move.
0:03:02 > 0:03:06Rumours had reached even the remotest villages and hamlets of
0:03:06 > 0:03:10incredible developments just over the horizon,
0:03:10 > 0:03:14towns bigger than anyone could imagine,
0:03:14 > 0:03:16astounding new machines
0:03:16 > 0:03:20and money to be made for those ready to take the risk.
0:03:21 > 0:03:26My own great-great-great-grandfather was in that tide of humanity that
0:03:26 > 0:03:28left the land in search of a better life.
0:03:28 > 0:03:35He, his wife and four of their children travelled to the industrial north by barge.
0:03:35 > 0:03:40They didn't really know what they'd find here, but they did know what they were leaving behind,
0:03:40 > 0:03:45and whatever they were to find here, it was better than begging for handouts or going hungry.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59Their first stop was an upstart city called Manchester.
0:04:01 > 0:04:06Early Victorian artists observed it from a safe distance,
0:04:06 > 0:04:08fascinated, but wary.
0:04:08 > 0:04:10And well they might be.
0:04:11 > 0:04:14The safe distance, though, soon disappeared.
0:04:14 > 0:04:20Like an invading army, the mills and factories marched across the plain.
0:04:31 > 0:04:37The nation was in the grip of the world's first Industrial Revolution.
0:04:39 > 0:04:44It sucked the rural poor into new cities right across the land.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52But more than any other, it was Manchester that fired the Victorians' imagination.
0:04:59 > 0:05:03It was where you came if you wanted to see the future.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22In its dozens of steam-powered cotton mills, the rural immigrants
0:05:22 > 0:05:25got their first taste of a new world.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31The change must have been astonishing. The noise, the energy.
0:05:31 > 0:05:36This was a real revolution in the pace of life, a rupture in history.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40Places like this would change Britain beyond recognition.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11Today, Queen Street Mill is the last of its kind to survive intact.
0:06:16 > 0:06:17Conrad, hi.
0:06:18 > 0:06:20SPEECH DROWNED OUT BY MACHINERY
0:06:20 > 0:06:21I can't hear you!
0:06:32 > 0:06:36So, how many people did it take to run one of these looms?
0:06:36 > 0:06:38In this particular shed, they varied.
0:06:38 > 0:06:42This one they ran eight looms - that's one, two,
0:06:42 > 0:06:45three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47So one person has control over eight looms?
0:06:47 > 0:06:50Yes, so you'd actually be kept going all the time.
0:06:50 > 0:06:53It was a very, very hard job. A very hard job.
0:06:53 > 0:06:55Rather dangerous, too. If you're
0:06:55 > 0:06:58running eight machines and something goes wrong on one of them,
0:06:58 > 0:07:00it could be right behind you, could be anything.
0:07:00 > 0:07:04It could. The main danger being if the belt broke. You couldn't...
0:07:04 > 0:07:08- It's leather?- Yes. You couldn't stop the machinery, so it was repaired in situ.
0:07:08 > 0:07:12Now, if there was a protrusion, shall we say there,
0:07:12 > 0:07:14it could catch your sleeve.
0:07:15 > 0:07:17It would take you round the shafting.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20- Are you serious?- I'm serious. - They would be pulled...?
0:07:20 > 0:07:22Pulled round, and there's quite a few, yes.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25Quite a few was killed by going round the shafting.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28So that's... And it isn't often you came down in one piece, to be honest.
0:07:36 > 0:07:41But the paintings of the time told a quite different story.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45Pictures of workers were rare, and, frankly, rose-tinted.
0:07:46 > 0:07:50These factory girls are having a jolly time buying dresses.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53You can hardly see the factory itself.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58And here are some workers at a spinning mill on their lunch break.
0:07:58 > 0:08:01Unlike some of their real-life counterparts,
0:08:01 > 0:08:03they all seem to have a full set of fingers.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09One has does have bare feet, but look how spotless they are.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13There's not a speck of dirt on the women, their clothes
0:08:13 > 0:08:16or, indeed, the entire yard.
0:08:16 > 0:08:20Even the chimneys are puttering out genteel little wisps of smoke.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26This was art designed to reassure anxious clients.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31Wealthy Victorians, the kind who bought paintings,
0:08:31 > 0:08:34found the new cities deeply unsettling.
0:08:39 > 0:08:44Never before had they seen so many people massing together.
0:08:44 > 0:08:51Manchester natives must have felt they being swallowed up by some alien beast.
0:08:54 > 0:08:59If you'd been born, say, in the 1770s, you began life in a town of about 20,000 people.
0:08:59 > 0:09:05By the time you were in your late 20s, the population had trebled.
0:09:05 > 0:09:12And if you were lucky enough to make it into your 70s, the city was 15 times larger.
0:09:23 > 0:09:28Newcomers from the countryside found themselves in the middle of a horror story.
0:09:30 > 0:09:36In cities all over the nation, there were too many workers and not enough houses.
0:09:39 > 0:09:43People were living like animals. Or worse.
0:09:47 > 0:09:53A doctor in Manchester reported finding a single privy, little more than a hole in the ground at the end
0:09:53 > 0:10:00of an alley, that was shared by no less than 380 people.
0:10:02 > 0:10:07One inspector described a communal yard six inches deep in excrement,
0:10:07 > 0:10:11into which bricks had been tossed for residents to walk across.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18Not surprisingly, disease was rampant.
0:10:21 > 0:10:25A child born into a poor family in Manchester
0:10:25 > 0:10:29had a less than 50% chance of living to their fifth birthday.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40One artist was prepared to confront the horror.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42This is the work of Luke Fildes.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51It's really a piece of campaigning visual journalism,
0:10:51 > 0:10:53more eloquent than any newspaper expose.
0:10:53 > 0:10:59Fildes was reporting what he'd seen one wintry night on the streets of London.
0:11:01 > 0:11:05He recreated the moment using real down-and-outs as models.
0:11:08 > 0:11:15The fat man in the middle was a drunkard whom Fildes paid in jugs of beer from a nearby pub.
0:11:15 > 0:11:17Others represent different routes to the gutter.
0:11:19 > 0:11:21The young widow.
0:11:21 > 0:11:25And the tradesman, out of work, with a family to feed.
0:11:27 > 0:11:32It's a painting that forces the viewer to look at the poor.
0:11:32 > 0:11:36But the Victorians were more interested in shutting them away,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39and the painting shows that too.
0:11:41 > 0:11:45It's not a chance gathering of lost souls.
0:11:45 > 0:11:50These people are waiting to enter that most feared of Victorian institutions.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56The workhouse.
0:11:56 > 0:12:02The first response of Victorian authority to this misery wasn't charity. It was blame.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07If you were poor, it was your fault. So they built places like this
0:12:07 > 0:12:11to try to scare people out of their poverty.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21There was to be no more sitting at home, scrounging off the parish.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27From now on, if you wanted help, you'd have to check yourself in here.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35And you'd have to be truly desperate to do that.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40A clergyman wrote to those framing the legislation,
0:12:40 > 0:12:47"The workhouse should be a place of hardship, of coarse fare, of degradation, of humility.
0:12:47 > 0:12:51"It should be administered strictly, with severity.
0:12:51 > 0:12:56"It should be as repulsive as is consistent with humanity."
0:13:02 > 0:13:04They took him up on his suggestion.
0:13:16 > 0:13:21You might have arrived here with your family, but you weren't going to be with them for long.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24All these doors were locked.
0:13:24 > 0:13:27Men were in one wing, women were in another.
0:13:29 > 0:13:32Children were separated from their parents.
0:13:32 > 0:13:36In one workhouse, it was even said
0:13:36 > 0:13:40that a five-month-old infant was kept away from its parents, being
0:13:40 > 0:13:44only occasionally brought to its mother for the breast.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56In the dormitories, as elsewhere, strict segregation applied.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00This room was for elderly or infirm men.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02They were known as the blameless.
0:14:04 > 0:14:10But over here were the lowest of the low, the undeserving poor.
0:14:10 > 0:14:18Able-bodied men who could possibly work were officially designated as idle and profligate.
0:14:30 > 0:14:34Finally came the work itself, under constant supervision.
0:14:38 > 0:14:39How long do I have to do this for?
0:14:39 > 0:14:42Till you've done at least a quarter of a tonne a day.
0:14:42 > 0:14:44- Quarter of a tonne a day?- Mmm.
0:14:44 > 0:14:46Minimum.
0:14:50 > 0:14:52You'd know about it, wouldn't you?
0:14:58 > 0:15:01At the end of a day's hard labour, a bowl of gruel.
0:15:06 > 0:15:07What IS gruel?
0:15:07 > 0:15:10Essentially it's skimmed milk boiled up with oatmeal,
0:15:10 > 0:15:12and a very small amount of oatmeal, too.
0:15:12 > 0:15:17Only about 16 drachms, which is - per pint - which is only 11...
0:15:17 > 0:15:18it's less than an ounce.
0:15:18 > 0:15:20An ounce?!
0:15:22 > 0:15:25It's like porridge without the porridge in it, isn't it?
0:15:25 > 0:15:27- Without the flavour. - Without anything in it.
0:15:27 > 0:15:32I keep digging down to the bottom hoping for something interesting, but there isn't, is there?
0:15:32 > 0:15:35Well, you'd be grateful of it if you were in the workhouse.
0:15:35 > 0:15:38It's about the only circumstances you would be grateful of it.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49Occasionally, another artist might take up the inmates' cause.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52But there were limits to their courage.
0:15:54 > 0:15:58This newspaper engraving showed inmates' suffering realistically enough.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03But when the artist turned it into a painting
0:16:03 > 0:16:04for sale to a wealthy client,
0:16:04 > 0:16:08the old women were cheered up, with a smile,
0:16:08 > 0:16:10a vase of flowers
0:16:10 > 0:16:12and a nice cup of tea.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20If you wanted to sell your work, it didn't do to unsettle the rich.
0:16:20 > 0:16:22They desperately wanted to believe
0:16:22 > 0:16:25that the urban poor were this easily pleased.
0:16:30 > 0:16:32And they had good reason to be frightened.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47Just across the Channel,
0:16:47 > 0:16:50revolution was sweeping through Europe.
0:16:50 > 0:16:52The French king had been deposed.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57There were violent uprisings from Naples to Prague.
0:16:58 > 0:17:03When a huge political rally was announced for 10th April 1848,
0:17:03 > 0:17:06the Victorian upper classes shuddered at the thought
0:17:06 > 0:17:10that London would be the next city to fall to the mob.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20As the fateful day dawned, the capital was already in lockdown.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25The authorities were taking no chances.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36Surprisingly, the British Museum was identified as a key target.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43The director of the Museum was sufficiently worried
0:17:43 > 0:17:46he declared that if the building were to fall into the hands
0:17:46 > 0:17:48of what he called "disaffected people",
0:17:48 > 0:17:52it could turn into a fortress big enough to hold 10,000 men.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56So up on the roof, they piled up bricks and rocks,
0:17:56 > 0:17:59ready to hurl down on the rioters
0:17:59 > 0:18:02they expected to be swarming down below.
0:18:04 > 0:18:06Waterloo Station was cleared.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12The Royal Family dispatched to the safety of the Isle of Wight.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19And at the Bank of England, guns were mounted on the roof.
0:18:23 > 0:18:24London waited.
0:18:32 > 0:18:37In the event, 20,000 demonstrators gathered on Kennington Common.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41But they were met by almost 90,000 police.
0:18:41 > 0:18:45Their ranks had been swollen by ordinary Londoners,
0:18:45 > 0:18:48who signed on as Special Constables to keep the peace.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54Outnumbered, the demonstrators abandoned their plan
0:18:54 > 0:18:55to march on Westminster.
0:19:05 > 0:19:07Today, on the same spot,
0:19:07 > 0:19:10the memory of that great gathering has vanished.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17But at the time, its failure taught well-to-do Victorians
0:19:17 > 0:19:21a crucial lesson about the people they so feared.
0:19:24 > 0:19:29It turned out that what the Victorian working classes wanted wasn't socialism,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32so much as the possibility of becoming middle class,
0:19:32 > 0:19:35which I suppose explains why so many more of them volunteered
0:19:35 > 0:19:38to become policemen than protestors.
0:19:38 > 0:19:43Victorian society was competitive, restless, aspirational.
0:19:43 > 0:19:45The revolution wasn't gonna happen here.
0:20:00 > 0:20:04The cause that really lit the imagination of Victorian workers
0:20:04 > 0:20:06was self-improvement.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10If you wanted to get on, you did it on your own,
0:20:10 > 0:20:12pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
0:20:12 > 0:20:16With discipline and hard work, you could do anything.
0:20:18 > 0:20:22One Lancashire blacksmith took this idea to heroic lengths.
0:20:25 > 0:20:30In the process, he would shine new light on a hidden world.
0:20:36 > 0:20:39James Sharples was one of 13 children,
0:20:39 > 0:20:42the son and grandson of ironworkers.
0:20:47 > 0:20:50He started work in a foundry at the age of ten.
0:20:54 > 0:20:56But he nursed a passion for painting.
0:20:56 > 0:21:01And while still a boy, he pursued it with typical Victorian earnestness.
0:21:05 > 0:21:08He'd walk 18 miles into Manchester to buy paint and canvases,
0:21:08 > 0:21:12he'd get up at four in the morning to study painting manuals,
0:21:12 > 0:21:15and sometimes, he got his brother Peter out of bed
0:21:15 > 0:21:18at three in the morning to act as his model.
0:21:18 > 0:21:20Quite how Peter felt about that isn't recorded.
0:21:30 > 0:21:34The result of his dedication was this hugely original painting.
0:21:36 > 0:21:40It was one of the very first actually to show the Victorians
0:21:40 > 0:21:43the labour that was firing the urban revolution.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48While he worked on it,
0:21:48 > 0:21:53Sharples carried on putting in 12 or 14-hour days at the foundry.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56Snatching time to paint when he could,
0:21:56 > 0:21:58it took him nearly three years to finish.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06But he brought an insider's eye to his subject.
0:22:06 > 0:22:11His picture shines with respect and admiration for his fellow workers.
0:22:18 > 0:22:23Many Victorian ironworks survived well into the 20th century.
0:22:23 > 0:22:25Ken Hall worked at one.
0:22:27 > 0:22:29What do you think of this picture then, Ken?
0:22:30 > 0:22:33Yes. Nice picture.
0:22:33 > 0:22:37It's atmospheric if nothing else.
0:22:37 > 0:22:39Don't you think they all look a bit clean?
0:22:39 > 0:22:45Well, one of them's got a bloomin' hole in his apron, so...
0:22:45 > 0:22:47- No, I mean their faces. - Yes, they, they would...
0:22:47 > 0:22:49Although there again,
0:22:49 > 0:22:52I mean my face was always bloomin' clean
0:22:52 > 0:22:54because of the wiping it, the sweating.
0:22:54 > 0:22:56Oh, you sweat so much it just washes off.
0:22:56 > 0:22:58Bloomin' hell, you'd wipe it off.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01Your arms was usually dirtier than that, though,
0:23:01 > 0:23:04but your face was usually the cleanest part on you.
0:23:04 > 0:23:07What would be the temperature up there?
0:23:07 > 0:23:11Hard to say. Well above 100 degrees where he's standing.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15When I finished, it took about, oh,
0:23:15 > 0:23:20near two years for the fire marks to get off your face and your arms.
0:23:20 > 0:23:21What do you mean, fire marks?
0:23:21 > 0:23:25They're like red patches of the skin, where you're burned...
0:23:25 > 0:23:26It scorches you.
0:23:32 > 0:23:36The Forge was the only major painting James Sharples completed.
0:23:36 > 0:23:40But as an enterprising Victorian, he made the most of it.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46This engraved version took him another five years.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49But once the prints went on sale, he was made.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54The Bank of England and the Foreign Office both bought copies.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59After years of toil,
0:23:59 > 0:24:02he'd become a living advertisement for self-improvement.
0:24:06 > 0:24:10The machine age had brought chaos and squalor,
0:24:10 > 0:24:15but now, at last, it was beginning to make British workers richer.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19And with money, came a chance to get out of the city altogether.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32Every year in early summer,
0:24:32 > 0:24:36all Victorian London headed for Epsom Downs.
0:24:37 > 0:24:41Then as now, Derby Day threw all classes together.
0:24:43 > 0:24:45It was the nation at its most jumbled-up,
0:24:45 > 0:24:49raucous and not necessarily sober.
0:24:53 > 0:24:59Among the crowd at the 1856 race was the artist William Powell Frith.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18It was his first visit to the Derby and he was quite blown away by it.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21Admittedly, the day didn't start particularly well
0:25:21 > 0:25:24when he nearly lost all his money to a group of tricksters.
0:25:24 > 0:25:29But after that, he was seduced by the exuberant variety of the crowd,
0:25:29 > 0:25:33"Modern life with a vengeance" was what he called it,
0:25:33 > 0:25:36and he set out to paint the definitive depiction
0:25:36 > 0:25:38of this great festival.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02What I love about it is that Frith wasn't really interested
0:26:02 > 0:26:05in horses or horseracing at all.
0:26:05 > 0:26:07What he was interested in was people,
0:26:07 > 0:26:11and what you get at the end is not a group portrait,
0:26:11 > 0:26:12it's a celebration.
0:26:18 > 0:26:20This isn't a threatening, anonymous mob.
0:26:20 > 0:26:24It's a collection of endlessly engaging individuals,
0:26:24 > 0:26:26each with their own story.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31He even included the con-artists whom he almost fell foul of
0:26:31 > 0:26:34with their three-thimble betting scam.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37Beside them, a recent victim.
0:26:37 > 0:26:41And opposite him, a fresh-faced new one.
0:26:42 > 0:26:44His wife knows what's up.
0:26:44 > 0:26:46And so does his dog.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49But he looks suckered in already.
0:26:52 > 0:26:55It might not all be beautiful, Frith seems to be saying,
0:26:55 > 0:26:58but this is the stuff of life.
0:26:58 > 0:26:59Aghhhhhhhh!
0:27:09 > 0:27:11COMMENTATOR: And they're off!
0:27:11 > 0:27:14Bashkirov ridden as Maidstone Mixture gives way as they begin the descent.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17Kandahar Run, Doctor Fremantle up from Washington Irving.
0:27:17 > 0:27:19How many times do they go round?
0:27:20 > 0:27:23- The once, luvvie, the once. - Just once. Well, I don't know!
0:27:23 > 0:27:26New Approach is still quite well back at this stage.
0:27:26 > 0:27:29- Curtain Call travelling much better now.- Go!
0:27:29 > 0:27:30Go on!
0:27:30 > 0:27:31Go on, Tartan!
0:27:31 > 0:27:33Go on, Tartan.
0:27:33 > 0:27:34Go on, Tartan!
0:27:34 > 0:27:36Doctor Fremantle poised.
0:27:36 > 0:27:38The white cab of Washington Irving...
0:27:40 > 0:27:42Go on! Go on, Tartan!
0:27:46 > 0:27:48CHEERING
0:27:54 > 0:27:56Well...
0:27:58 > 0:28:02- Did you back the winner?- We did! Thank you very much for your luck.
0:28:02 > 0:28:05Well done! Well done! There you are, I told you.
0:28:05 > 0:28:07Just stand by me, the luck'll be with you!
0:28:07 > 0:28:09LAUGHTER
0:28:14 > 0:28:18William Frith had fallen in love with the Victorian public.
0:28:18 > 0:28:20And they returned the favour.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24When Derby Day went on show, they crowded in so closely
0:28:24 > 0:28:28that it had to be protected by a stout iron rail
0:28:28 > 0:28:30and an even stouter policeman.
0:28:43 > 0:28:44Frith was also there
0:28:44 > 0:28:48when city workers first discovered the British seaside.
0:28:49 > 0:28:54A potential buyer dismissed this painting as "a tissue of vulgarity".
0:28:54 > 0:28:58One fellow artist thought it "a piece of cockney business,
0:28:58 > 0:29:01"unworthy even of an illustrated newspaper".
0:29:04 > 0:29:05But the public knew better.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09It was voted Picture of the Year at the Royal Academy,
0:29:09 > 0:29:11and in the end it did find a buyer -
0:29:11 > 0:29:13Queen Victoria herself.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24Meanwhile, back in the capital, all was not well.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31The same summer that Derby Day was exhibited,
0:29:31 > 0:29:36Londoners were confronting a rather urgent and rather unsavoury problem.
0:29:39 > 0:29:41A heatwave hit the city.
0:29:46 > 0:29:50The Thames began to give off a mysterious and appalling smell.
0:29:52 > 0:29:58The problem came to a head at the brand new Houses of Parliament.
0:29:58 > 0:30:01And there's a clue to its cause
0:30:01 > 0:30:04in one of the great building's most private rooms.
0:30:04 > 0:30:11Ever since medieval times, sewage had gone from people's homes into holes in the ground.
0:30:11 > 0:30:16It was then collected from there by the night soil man. Nice job(!)
0:30:16 > 0:30:21He then sold the sewage to farmers for use as fertiliser on the land.
0:30:21 > 0:30:28But in Victorian times, the growing popularity of water closets like this created a real problem.
0:30:28 > 0:30:33Because now in addition to the human waste, you also had vast quantities of water,
0:30:33 > 0:30:37because every time you used the loo, you flushed it.
0:30:39 > 0:30:43As a result, the holes in the ground, the cesspits, overflowed,
0:30:43 > 0:30:49so they connected the cesspits to the drains, but the drains emptied directly into London's river...
0:30:49 > 0:30:53and the result of that was that the Thames became an open sewer.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03'The newspapers dubbed the crisis "The Great Stink".
0:31:09 > 0:31:12'As temperatures soared, and the lumpy river simmered gently,
0:31:12 > 0:31:17'MPs realised that they'd ignored the city's problems for a little too long.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26'Now at last, work began to tackle them.
0:31:33 > 0:31:40'Parliament looked afresh at plans by the engineer Joseph Bazalgette for a massive new network of sewers.
0:31:41 > 0:31:43'He'd been pushing them for years.
0:31:43 > 0:31:48'But he'd been blocked with petty bureaucratic excuses.
0:31:48 > 0:31:53'Now, with the Stink at its height, all objections suddenly vanished.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59'The system he built is still in use today.'
0:32:10 > 0:32:12Man coming down.
0:32:23 > 0:32:26Okey-dokey... OK, ta.
0:32:26 > 0:32:28If you'd like to just follow me.
0:32:28 > 0:32:30Good, let's go.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33Watch your footing there. That's it.
0:32:43 > 0:32:45'The scale of the project was astonishing.
0:32:45 > 0:32:51'Bazalgette built 1,100 miles of new sewers -
0:32:51 > 0:32:55'an enormous, hidden masterpiece.
0:33:00 > 0:33:03'It conquered both stink and disease.'
0:33:10 > 0:33:13What do you think when you look at all this engineering work?
0:33:13 > 0:33:15I'm amazed.
0:33:15 > 0:33:17Seriously... even after all this time?
0:33:17 > 0:33:20- I'm amazed.- You could almost find it beautiful, couldn't you, in a way?
0:33:20 > 0:33:22It is...it is.
0:33:22 > 0:33:25My wife would object, but it is beautiful... I mean...
0:33:25 > 0:33:30it's not a parallel with the Pyramids or something like that,
0:33:30 > 0:33:32but as a complete structure, it's...
0:33:32 > 0:33:33yeah... it is, er...
0:33:33 > 0:33:36And a functioning structure, that's the thing, isn't it?
0:33:36 > 0:33:40Yeah... I mean the Pyramids just looked good and hid a body, didn't they... Or two, maybe...
0:33:40 > 0:33:44but I mean this has actually served London as a working,
0:33:44 > 0:33:48you know, wonder of the world if you like because it is up there...
0:33:48 > 0:33:51must be up there in that sort of field...
0:33:51 > 0:33:53for 150 years.
0:33:53 > 0:33:59And could well serve the same purpose for another 150 years or more.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04Such epic feats of engineering were inspirational.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14One artist captured the Victorians' excitement.
0:34:14 > 0:34:20This extraordinary painting by Ford Madox Brown is a hymn to the building of a new world.
0:34:25 > 0:34:30In the artist's eyes, the simple laying of pipes becomes heroic labour.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41The workmen are bathed in a pool of light.
0:34:41 > 0:34:43One clamps a rose between his teeth.
0:34:43 > 0:34:48And their proud bearing proclaims the moral dignity of work.
0:34:53 > 0:34:55Other figures ram home the message.
0:34:57 > 0:35:02The "ragged wretch" as Brown called him, who has never been taught to work.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06The delicate ladies who represent the idle rich.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15The Victorians had embarked upon a great task,
0:35:15 > 0:35:18and these were the men who would carry it out.
0:35:18 > 0:35:22The word on everyone's lips was 'improvement'.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47By the middle of Queen Victoria's reign,
0:35:47 > 0:35:51this fearsome beast, the city, was beginning to be tamed.
0:35:51 > 0:35:54People even started to see it as something they could take pride in.
0:35:54 > 0:36:00Engineering achievements like Bazalgette's sewers showed how the city might be transformed...
0:36:00 > 0:36:03above ground as well as below.
0:36:06 > 0:36:10Abel Heywood was one of a new generation of civic leaders
0:36:10 > 0:36:14intent upon making the Victorian city the envy of the world.
0:36:16 > 0:36:21He was a founder of one of Manchester's great political clubs.
0:36:21 > 0:36:29Within these walls, he and his fellow councillors drank, debated and plotted their city's rise.
0:36:34 > 0:36:39Today it's home to some rather less high-minded occupants.
0:36:46 > 0:36:51I know this looks a bit dodgy, but inside here, in one of the best-preserved bits of the building,
0:36:51 > 0:36:56you can get a real clue as to the ambition of Heywood and his allies.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03Which way to the changing rooms, please?
0:37:03 > 0:37:04It's just through there, sir.
0:37:04 > 0:37:06Thank you!
0:37:10 > 0:37:15Just to be clear, it's not the knickers that provide the clue to these men...
0:37:15 > 0:37:19it's the fittings, in this what was the cloakroom of the old Reform Club.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22Just look at the details -
0:37:22 > 0:37:25solid marble washbasin.
0:37:25 > 0:37:28A vaulted gallery above.
0:37:30 > 0:37:34And columns... beautifully, intricately carved.
0:37:36 > 0:37:40I think we can take it that people who would go to that amount of trouble fora cloakroom
0:37:40 > 0:37:43wouldn't settle for second best for their city.
0:37:46 > 0:37:51What they needed was a grand gesture, a permanent statement of the city's greatness.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01Their dreams were realised in a spectacular Town Hall.
0:38:11 > 0:38:16It was modelled on the mighty town halls of medieval Europe,
0:38:16 > 0:38:20as if to tell the world that Manchester too was a centre of civilisation.
0:38:34 > 0:38:40'At its heart, a magnificent shrine to the city's new sense of itself.'
0:38:58 > 0:39:04'To decorate the walls, the council turned to the man who had painted that great hymn to "Work",
0:39:04 > 0:39:06'Ford Madox Brown.'
0:39:17 > 0:39:21These murals are trying to do something rather bold, and rather cheeky.
0:39:21 > 0:39:26They're trying to give a 19th-century city an ancient and noble pedigree.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29But they're history as you might expect to find it
0:39:29 > 0:39:33when it's been commissioned by a bunch of politicians.
0:39:33 > 0:39:37So an intriguing mix of things which definitely did happen in Manchester,
0:39:37 > 0:39:39and things which definitely didn't.
0:39:41 > 0:39:45Here's the opening of the Bridgewater Canal,
0:39:45 > 0:39:49an important moment in the city's industrial growth.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52And here's the philanthropist, Humphrey Chetham,
0:39:52 > 0:39:56dreaming of his school of music, still going strong in Manchester today.
0:39:56 > 0:40:03Both of these are achievements of which Mancunians can be justifiably proud.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08But hang on, what's this? The baptism of Edwin.
0:40:08 > 0:40:12It was a key event in the adoption of Christianity in England.
0:40:12 > 0:40:14but it happened in York.
0:40:18 > 0:40:21And here's John Kay, the inventor who revolutionised weaving.
0:40:21 > 0:40:24He actually came from Bury.
0:40:24 > 0:40:26Well, at least it's nearby.
0:40:28 > 0:40:32But even if they're not entirely convincing,
0:40:32 > 0:40:36the murals are a reminder of a heroic effort of will.
0:40:43 > 0:40:47Manchester had once horrified Victorian Britain.
0:40:47 > 0:40:50Now it had been turned into one of its showpieces.
0:40:52 > 0:40:57Its streets were soon adorned with a great flowering of grand buildings.
0:40:59 > 0:41:03As the rest of the country followed suit,
0:41:03 > 0:41:07it seemed that the Victorians had at last taken their cities to their hearts.
0:41:20 > 0:41:25Around the same time, the Victorian city found its true artistic champion.
0:41:27 > 0:41:31John Atkinson Grimshaw was born in Leeds.
0:41:35 > 0:41:40He would come to evoke the cities of the age in loving twilight shades.
0:41:40 > 0:41:44But he had a long apprenticeship first.
0:41:46 > 0:41:49His was a classic Victorian life.
0:41:49 > 0:41:51He was the son of a policeman.
0:41:51 > 0:41:56He worked as a clerk on the Great Northern Railway.
0:41:56 > 0:41:58He taught himself to become an artist,
0:41:58 > 0:42:02despite his mother chucking his oil paints on the fire in disgust.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07But he saw something she didn't.
0:42:16 > 0:42:21Grimshaw belonged to a generation which couldn't remember life before cities.
0:42:21 > 0:42:23Instead of pining for some rural past,
0:42:23 > 0:42:29he found poetry in the smoke and fog and gaslight.
0:42:31 > 0:42:36These pictures celebrated Victorian cities.
0:42:36 > 0:42:42Among them, the city that would undergo the most radical transformation of the age.
0:42:57 > 0:43:04Glasgow had suffered the Victorian curse of population boom and grotesque overcrowding.
0:43:04 > 0:43:09But its council launched a spectacular fight-back.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13The slums were torn down.
0:43:13 > 0:43:1739 new streets rose out of the rubble.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21And a lavish town hall rivalled Manchester's.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31But the transformation reached its climax in this park,
0:43:31 > 0:43:33just outside the city centre.
0:43:35 > 0:43:41For seven months, it was turned into an outlandish oriental fantasy...
0:43:41 > 0:43:44the 1888 International Exhibition.
0:43:46 > 0:43:54Six million people poured in to marvel at the energy and sophistication of the new Glasgow.
0:43:54 > 0:43:58These may only have been temporary buildings, but they looked like palaces.
0:43:58 > 0:44:03And they held a bewildering cornucopia of exhibits.
0:44:05 > 0:44:10There was a working dairy, there was an oriental smoking lounge,
0:44:10 > 0:44:13a Dutch cocoa house with waitresses in national costume,
0:44:13 > 0:44:16the world's largest terracotta fountain.
0:44:16 > 0:44:21Live diamond cutting. A stuffed polar bear, a giant Canadian cheese.
0:44:21 > 0:44:24Thomson's Patent Gravity Switchback railway,
0:44:24 > 0:44:28a balloon manned by Signor Balleni - he actually came from Warwickshire.
0:44:28 > 0:44:35Busts of Queen Victoria in soap, a loom making hygienic woollen underwear, a bachelors' cafe,
0:44:35 > 0:44:38an Indian fakir lying on a bed of nails,
0:44:38 > 0:44:44the Power Drop biscuit machine, and two Venetian gondoliers
0:44:44 > 0:44:48whom the Glaswegian public came to know Signor Hokey and Signor Pokey.
0:44:48 > 0:44:50Now all of this had been assembled
0:44:50 > 0:44:52with the express idea of raising money
0:44:52 > 0:44:54for what was to be the city's crowning glory,
0:44:54 > 0:44:57the real evidence of its transformation -
0:44:57 > 0:45:00a permanent palace of the arts.
0:45:38 > 0:45:43Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery embodied a very Victorian idea:
0:45:43 > 0:45:47that art could raise up and ennoble the population,
0:45:47 > 0:45:52that it could elevate the soul of the common people.
0:45:56 > 0:46:01In the bad old days, the rich had hoarded art in their homes,
0:46:01 > 0:46:06but here the Council's ambition was that paintings should be freely available to everybody...
0:46:06 > 0:46:12in the words of one writer, "for the instruction and gratification of the people at large".
0:46:14 > 0:46:18In its first year, over a million of them came.
0:46:20 > 0:46:24Once Victorian artists had feared the crowd.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28Now this magnificent gallery welcomed them in.
0:46:29 > 0:46:33- You must be Harry, are you? - Aye, pleased to meet you, yes, I am. - Very good to see you.
0:46:33 > 0:46:37- How long have you been here? - I've been here 16 years, Jeremy.
0:46:37 > 0:46:39- 16 years!- 16 years yes.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42- And what do you like about it? - I just love the ambience of it,
0:46:42 > 0:46:45I love the... I love walking around.
0:46:45 > 0:46:49I've been here 16 years and I still find things that are new to me.
0:46:49 > 0:46:53It's always been a principle of this place hasn't it, that it's free...
0:46:53 > 0:46:55- anyone can come.- Yes, it's free.
0:46:55 > 0:46:59It's the people's museum, and it's still free to this day.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02- Do you have a favourite painting in the gallery?- I do, Jeremy, yes.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04- Can we go and see it?- Sure.
0:47:11 > 0:47:14This is Guthrie's Highland Funeral here.
0:47:14 > 0:47:17This is your favourite painting in the entire gallery?
0:47:17 > 0:47:19It's one of them.
0:47:19 > 0:47:21Pretty miserable, isn't it?
0:47:21 > 0:47:23Well, it's the realism of it.
0:47:23 > 0:47:25You look at the two chairs,
0:47:25 > 0:47:27it's an infant's coffin is on it.
0:47:27 > 0:47:31I just think he's got great depth of feeling.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35I know it's very sombre, and it's probably quite a depressing subject
0:47:35 > 0:47:38but, I mean, it was something that happened
0:47:38 > 0:47:42and it probably happened more frequently then than it ever does now.
0:47:43 > 0:47:45I think it's very powerful. Would you not agree?
0:47:47 > 0:47:50I agree with you, it's quite powerful.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53I think it's making a statement.
0:47:53 > 0:47:57Oh, yeah... I give you it's... I grant you it's pretty strong.
0:48:03 > 0:48:06With the rebirth of cities like Glasgow and Manchester,
0:48:06 > 0:48:09a triumphal spirit was in the air.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13Many Victorians believed they'd conquered a great challenge...
0:48:13 > 0:48:17that modern civilisation had reached a peak.
0:48:29 > 0:48:30Well, not quite.
0:48:34 > 0:48:39There was still one city holding out against the tide of improvement.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44Squatting at the centre of a vast empire,
0:48:44 > 0:48:47London was on scale of its own -
0:48:47 > 0:48:50it had become the largest city on Earth.
0:48:52 > 0:48:55But as it had swollen, it had broken.
0:48:55 > 0:48:59Victorian London was a tale of two cities.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05In the West End lived the wealthy.
0:49:09 > 0:49:13The East End was another story.
0:49:20 > 0:49:25A web of narrow alleys and teeming docks...
0:49:25 > 0:49:29lawless immigrants and destitute families.
0:49:29 > 0:49:34It became the focus of all the Victorians' deepest fears.
0:49:34 > 0:49:40Writers now began anxious expeditions into this hidden, menacing world.
0:49:40 > 0:49:45"I propose to record", wrote one, "the results of a journey into a region
0:49:45 > 0:49:49"which lies at our own doors... a dark continent
0:49:49 > 0:49:54"within easy walking distance of the General Post Office."
0:49:58 > 0:50:03Among the explorers who set out to penetrate its perilous interior
0:50:03 > 0:50:06was the celebrated French artist Gustave Dore.
0:50:09 > 0:50:14Fired by tales of the extraordinary scenes to be found in the capital,
0:50:14 > 0:50:19he embarked on what he called a "pilgrimage" to see for himself.
0:50:25 > 0:50:29His images of the East End crackle with dark and fantastic detail.
0:50:35 > 0:50:42He made sure he had a police guard on these forays into Aldgate, Stepney, Wapping and Whitechapel.
0:50:42 > 0:50:43"You adopt rough clothes,"
0:50:43 > 0:50:47said his companion, "you commit yourself to the guidance
0:50:47 > 0:50:50"of one of the most fearless members of the detective force.
0:50:50 > 0:50:55"He mounts the box of the cab and the horse's head is turned...
0:50:55 > 0:50:57"East".
0:51:08 > 0:51:12In these engravings, you can feel the gloom and the gaslight,
0:51:12 > 0:51:15you can hear the mass of hungry children,
0:51:15 > 0:51:21see the sullen glares of the adults, almost smell the filth.
0:51:23 > 0:51:29Dore acted like a spy, lurking in corners, hardly ever drawing in public.
0:51:29 > 0:51:35But he possessed an invaluable asset - he had a nearly photographic memory.
0:51:41 > 0:51:45Here was a London few Londoners had even dared to imagine.
0:51:48 > 0:51:51The desperate in the night shelter,
0:51:51 > 0:51:55unmoved by the pacing missionary who reads from the Bible.
0:51:56 > 0:51:59The addicts in the opium dens.
0:52:01 > 0:52:06And the pickpockets and muggers, gambling their day's takings.
0:52:11 > 0:52:14One of his most famous scenes shows rows of huddled terraces
0:52:14 > 0:52:18where washing is fouled with soot from passing trains.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28Gustave Dore makes East London look like a land of endless night.
0:52:32 > 0:52:36Growing numbers of people were looking for a way to escape the inner city.
0:52:38 > 0:52:42Fortunately for them, Victorian enterprise offered a solution,
0:52:42 > 0:52:46one that would change the face of the modern city.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20Before the invention of things like this,
0:53:20 > 0:53:23people really had to live within walking distance of their work,
0:53:23 > 0:53:29but once you had omnibuses shuttling in and out of town, people could live one place and work another.
0:53:29 > 0:53:33They could even go shopping or go to school somewhere entirely different.
0:53:33 > 0:53:37To us it's just commuting, but to them, it was liberation.
0:53:42 > 0:53:44The omnibus threw all classes together,
0:53:44 > 0:53:48an irresistible prospect for Victorian artists.
0:53:48 > 0:53:55Here a wealthy young woman looks indulgently at her less well-off neighbours.
0:53:55 > 0:53:59Beside them sit a city gent and a nurse.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05William Maw Egley even built a pretend omnibus carriage
0:54:05 > 0:54:09in his back garden, sitting his models on boxes and planks of wood
0:54:09 > 0:54:12to capture the crush of a rush-hour journey.
0:54:21 > 0:54:22By the end of the century,
0:54:22 > 0:54:27the Victorians were making 300 million bus journeys every year.
0:54:30 > 0:54:33The consequences were dramatic.
0:54:45 > 0:54:52Along with the train and the tube, omnibuses opened up great swathes of land for development.
0:54:52 > 0:54:55They created the modern suburbs.
0:55:00 > 0:55:04Six million houses were built during Victoria's reign.
0:55:09 > 0:55:16In the last decade of the century, this ridge in Crouch End, North London was finally taken.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24Snooty Victorian critics reacted with distaste.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28One of them talked about, "The life blood of London pouring out into
0:55:28 > 0:55:35"long arms of bricks and mortar and cheap stucco", but actually the suburb was a brilliant invention.
0:55:35 > 0:55:42It gave people gardens and light and space and clean air, and it was where very large numbers of people
0:55:42 > 0:55:46chose to live, and indeed still choose to live.
0:55:52 > 0:55:55Suburbs bloomed across the country.
0:55:55 > 0:55:59They were in a way the Victorians' greatest innovation.
0:55:59 > 0:56:03They might be less grand and showy than great public buildings,
0:56:03 > 0:56:06but they still shape the lives of millions.
0:56:06 > 0:56:10The ultimate answer to the challenge of city life.
0:56:22 > 0:56:26Victorian artists had charted an extraordinary journey.
0:56:26 > 0:56:29It had begun with horror,
0:56:29 > 0:56:31fear and shock.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37But over time, the Victorians had confronted
0:56:37 > 0:56:40the great change that was upon them.
0:56:42 > 0:56:46Today the results of their ambition and energy are all around us.
0:56:49 > 0:56:52We walk their streets...
0:56:55 > 0:56:57..visit their museums...
0:57:01 > 0:57:04..and share their passions.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12We're still ruled from their lavish town halls.
0:57:15 > 0:57:16And, of course,
0:57:16 > 0:57:20we still rely on some of their less glamorous innovations.
0:57:24 > 0:57:26The very shape of our cities,
0:57:26 > 0:57:28and so of our lives,
0:57:28 > 0:57:31was moulded by their labour.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41It's often said that the British aren't really an urban people,
0:57:41 > 0:57:45that we think the real Britain is out there in the countryside.
0:57:45 > 0:57:50Certainly lots of eminent Victorians believed that, but the plain fact is,
0:57:50 > 0:57:54then as now, most of us lead urban or suburban lives.
0:57:54 > 0:57:57The debt that every one of us owes the Victorians
0:57:57 > 0:58:00is that they didn't just create the modern city -
0:58:00 > 0:58:03they taught us how to survive it too.
0:58:23 > 0:58:26Next time: The Victorian family home
0:58:26 > 0:58:31was a refuge from the pressures of the Victorian city.
0:58:31 > 0:58:34But in the wings lurked danger...
0:58:34 > 0:58:37dark forces that threatened to destroy
0:58:37 > 0:58:39the dream of Home Sweet Home.
0:59:01 > 0:59:04Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd.
0:59:04 > 0:59:07E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk