0:00:08 > 0:00:10HOOTER BLARES
0:00:10 > 0:00:14The Victorians saw the world change before their very eyes.
0:00:16 > 0:00:21And Victorian artists captured that change in paintings that were the cinema of their day.
0:00:30 > 0:00:35They were pictures that revealed their greatest dreams
0:00:35 > 0:00:38and their worst nightmares.
0:00:41 > 0:00:46One dream in particular fuelled the Victorian imagination -
0:00:46 > 0:00:49a dream of escape.
0:00:49 > 0:00:54Escape from the monster that was the sprawling, dirty Victorian city,
0:00:54 > 0:00:58with its lure of vice,
0:00:58 > 0:01:00drink...
0:01:00 > 0:01:01SIREN WAILS
0:01:01 > 0:01:03..and crime.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14Escape to a haven that offered refuge from all that.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19The family home.
0:01:21 > 0:01:26Once inside, you could close the door to on that noise and
0:01:26 > 0:01:31nasty reality out there, and be secure in your own "Home sweet home".
0:01:36 > 0:01:41A respectable household showed you had worked hard and provided for your family.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47Victorian artists loved cosy domestic scenes.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50A sort of comfort food for the soul.
0:01:54 > 0:01:59Their paintings showed life in the Victorian home as it should be.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02Father pays for it.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04Children play in it..
0:02:07 > 0:02:11But the one who holds it all together is the wife and mother.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17She became known as "The Angel in the House."
0:02:17 > 0:02:21But artists also liked to dispense moral medicine
0:02:21 > 0:02:26in paintings which warned what could happen when things went wrong.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33The fear of poverty and disease.
0:02:36 > 0:02:37The evils of drink.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43The shame of illicit sex.
0:02:45 > 0:02:51All waiting in the shadows to destroy the Victorian dream of "Home Sweet Home".
0:03:28 > 0:03:31On the Isle of Wight, well away from the noise and
0:03:31 > 0:03:36filth of the city, lay a Royal model for the perfect family household.
0:03:40 > 0:03:47Queen Victoria's holiday home, Osborne House, was created as a haven of peace and family life.
0:03:58 > 0:04:03For Victoria, it was a retreat from the business of being queen.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09Here she escaped from London, from politics, from the Court,
0:04:09 > 0:04:12to live out a dream of a very different kind of life.
0:04:17 > 0:04:23Here at Osborne, Victoria and Albert could indulge themselves in their favourite fantasy, which was
0:04:23 > 0:04:26that they were just like any other British middle-class family.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30So the dining room here is full of pictures of the family.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34Not so much Royal pictures as family pictures and the one that dominates
0:04:34 > 0:04:40the room is this one - Victoria's favourite, by Franz Winterhalter.
0:04:45 > 0:04:50It was painted here at Osborne in 1846 and shows Victoria and Albert
0:04:50 > 0:04:54with five of their children, just after they'd moved in.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57OK, who wears a crown at home?
0:04:57 > 0:05:00But this is the Queen and Consort as mother and father.
0:05:02 > 0:05:07The princelings are children first, royals second.
0:05:08 > 0:05:14Even the older girls gaze dotingly on the latest arrival as though in preparation for motherhood.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27Victoria and Albert's was a genuinely loving marriage.
0:05:27 > 0:05:31And though we like to think of Victoria as a bit of a prude,
0:05:31 > 0:05:34she and Albert enjoyed married life to the full.
0:05:45 > 0:05:51This room, their bedroom, is full of clues as to how much they loved each other as well as the place.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54The door, for example. One keyhole on the outside and
0:05:54 > 0:06:00two keyholes on the inside so the servants wouldn't disturb them when they didn't want to be disturbed.
0:06:00 > 0:06:08The bed, a little plaque to commemorate when they first slept together and the last occasion.
0:06:08 > 0:06:11And even in the fabric on the seat at the bottom of the bed,
0:06:13 > 0:06:17a little profile Victoria
0:06:17 > 0:06:19and one of Albert,
0:06:19 > 0:06:21looking at each other for all time.
0:06:26 > 0:06:31Over a period of 17 years, Victoria was almost constantly pregnant.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40Osborne is a shrine to motherhood.
0:06:41 > 0:06:49Images of Madonnas jostle with portraits of Victoria as a doting new mother.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51And a dutiful wife.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03But the royals lived an enchanted life.
0:07:03 > 0:07:09Victorian artists knew that for ordinary people, the course of true love didn't always run smooth.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18They showed courtship as a risky business,
0:07:18 > 0:07:21with temptations of the flesh everywhere.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27Forbidden pleasures, only a whisker away.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34Betrayal lying just behind the garden fence.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41And broken vows spelling disaster.
0:07:44 > 0:07:49Pictures like this carried a clear moral message.
0:07:49 > 0:07:54The sooner young lovers got married, set up home and had a family, the better.
0:08:09 > 0:08:16The newly-fashionable London suburb of Kensington was where one middle class couple chose to settle down.
0:08:19 > 0:08:2418 Stafford Terrace was home to the newly-wed Linley and Marion Sambourne.
0:08:28 > 0:08:33From the outside at least it looked like the perfect, respectable household.
0:08:48 > 0:08:52Linley was a cartoonist for Punch magazine.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56Marion was a full-time housewife, and soon a mother, too.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03Together, this exemplary, hard-working pair put
0:09:03 > 0:09:06their hearts and souls into their cherished family home.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25What is amazing about this house is that it is virtually unchanged
0:09:25 > 0:09:28since the time when the Sambournes moved in in the 1870s.
0:09:28 > 0:09:33Like many Victorians, they loved to show off their possessions.
0:09:33 > 0:09:40This single-terraced house has 144 chairs and there are 900 pictures on the walls.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47Minimalist it ain't.
0:09:54 > 0:10:00As in any middle class home, it was Marion, the matriarch, who ordered the household.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10And this, the morning room, is where Marion ran her empire.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14This was not a particularly large Victorian household - only two children -
0:10:14 > 0:10:20but it still had a staff of four - cook, parlour maid, housemaid and groom.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24She would sit at the desk here, writing letters, doing the accounts
0:10:24 > 0:10:27and telling the staff what they ought to do during the day.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31But as well as an army of servants, you also needed this -
0:10:31 > 0:10:37Mrs Beeton's Book Of Household Management - the bible for running a household.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40With this you would become the perfect domestic goddess and
0:10:40 > 0:10:43a rather formidable one at that, by the sound of it.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46The functions of the mistress of a house
0:10:46 > 0:10:50resemble those of an army general or the manager of a great business concern.
0:10:56 > 0:11:02Mrs Beeton's was just one voice advising a young wife how to run the perfect household.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06There were plenty more.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13The pictures that hung in every home carried clear messages, too.
0:11:18 > 0:11:22The man was the head of the family, the moral guardian of the home.
0:11:25 > 0:11:30The woman was a provider of love and comfort.
0:11:30 > 0:11:34A figure of purity and goodness.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39Marion Sambourne seems to have embraced her role.
0:11:40 > 0:11:46In the words of a popular poem of the day, she set out to be the perfect "angel in the house".
0:11:49 > 0:11:54Her husband, on the other hand, was definitely lower than the angels.
0:11:58 > 0:12:03For Linley had a little secret. It all started off innocently enough.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06He was a good enough draftsman, but felt he had a problem drawing people.
0:12:06 > 0:12:08Photography seemed to be the answer.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18Linley started off using himself as a model.
0:12:18 > 0:12:24Then he persuaded his wife, children and even servants to pose for him.
0:12:32 > 0:12:37But soon, Linley would require another sort of model altogether.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42His private bathroom doubled as a darkroom.
0:12:44 > 0:12:48Using the rather predictable excuse that an artist needed to be
0:12:48 > 0:12:55intimate with the naked body in order to be able to depict the human form, he began to hire in models.
0:12:55 > 0:12:57He used them to take photographs like this.
0:12:59 > 0:13:05Quite why Miss Cornwallis needed to be naked in order for him to draw a cartoon of a Vicar's daughter
0:13:05 > 0:13:11riding a bicycle is a question it would have been rather interesting to hear him try to answer.
0:13:19 > 0:13:25As his passion for nude photography grew, so Linley grew bolder.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31Always carefully choosing times when Marion was safely out of the house,
0:13:31 > 0:13:36Linley started to smuggle models into the family home.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40And in Marion's morning room of all places.
0:13:40 > 0:13:44One particular session involved Marion's delicate tea table as a prop.
0:13:51 > 0:13:55Another time, look what he did with her favourite comfy armchair.
0:14:07 > 0:14:14Poor Marion Sambourne - she really hadn't much idea what was going on. Fortunately nor did the neighbours.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23Keeping up appearances was what it was all about.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35This was a very good time to be a portrait painter.
0:14:37 > 0:14:45Rich families commissioned pictures to tell the world they were upright, content and respectable.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48Which is why they all look rather smug.
0:14:48 > 0:14:53Most people, of course, couldn't afford an oil painting of their family.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57But the local photographer could provide something that looked just like one.
0:15:12 > 0:15:18This photographic studio in the Sussex town of Lewes has been run by the same family since the 1850s.
0:15:25 > 0:15:28This is the room where all the images are kept.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31- It is like a treasure trove.- Yes!
0:15:32 > 0:15:36- How much have you got down here? - My father worked out there were about five tonnes.
0:15:36 > 0:15:41About 200,000 plates. It's all the images back to the beginning of the business in 1850-odd.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43Can we have a look at one or two?
0:15:43 > 0:15:45Absolutely.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48Let's take a box out.
0:15:51 > 0:15:56- There we go. There are two shots of three children.- Wow!
0:15:57 > 0:16:04They look fairly sombre. It was probably all taken very seriously at the time.
0:16:04 > 0:16:09It also tells you something about the pride that the parents had in their family.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12And of course it follows on from previous art.
0:16:12 > 0:16:16The great masters - they're not grinning out of the canvases at you.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20They've got dignity and gravitas. And so did early portraiture.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23It's only more recently that you're expected to have a cheesy grin.
0:16:24 > 0:16:29- A group of some sort.- That's in the studio, is it?- Yes it is. That's a painted backdrop.
0:16:29 > 0:16:34- There were lots of different backdrops.- That's right. It was a matter of fashion.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38- People had different backgrounds according to the fashion.- Let's look at some others.
0:16:38 > 0:16:44And you could also, presumably, pass yourself off as something that you weren't, quite?
0:16:44 > 0:16:50People only knew you from the image. So if you dressed up and had a fancy backdrop, you were more important.
0:16:50 > 0:16:52Yes, why not?
0:16:52 > 0:16:55Was it an enormous performance, having one of these done?
0:16:55 > 0:16:59- It probably was in the old days. Do you want to have a go?- I'll give it a go, yeah, why not?
0:17:02 > 0:17:08Right. This is the studio where we still do all the photography, where great-grandad started off.
0:17:08 > 0:17:14What I thought was, this was a fairly standard Victorian set-up,
0:17:14 > 0:17:19the gentleman sitting at the desk in the chair, with the painted backdrop.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22- So we can build a set. - This is the desk, is it?
0:17:22 > 0:17:24This is the desk, yep.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27If you'd like to pull the chair in...
0:17:27 > 0:17:29Am I going to regret this?
0:17:29 > 0:17:31Almost certainly!
0:17:31 > 0:17:36We've only got one survivor of reasonable antiquity.
0:17:36 > 0:17:42- And it's in a bit of a state.- Welcome to my modest home.- Absolutely. Made to order.
0:17:42 > 0:17:48- This is a Victorian neck clamp. - Neck clamp?- Just to allow you to sit still for the requisite time.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51We put the neck clamp in the back of your neck. There we go.
0:17:52 > 0:17:54Splendid.
0:17:54 > 0:17:56Excellent.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59You can see why they have that rigor mortis look about them..
0:17:59 > 0:18:03- It looks perfectly natural! - Doesn't feel the slightest bit natural!
0:18:03 > 0:18:06Bit of meths, flash powder...
0:18:13 > 0:18:15And one, two, three...
0:18:16 > 0:18:17Jolly good!
0:18:18 > 0:18:22SMOKE ALARM BEEPS
0:18:22 > 0:18:23JEREMY LAUGHS
0:18:23 > 0:18:26I think there's a rook nest here.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32Oh for goodness sake, it'll burn itself out!
0:18:32 > 0:18:34JEREMY LAUGHS
0:18:42 > 0:18:47And here is the end product - the very picture of Victorian respectability.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54Almost as respectable in fact as this gentleman.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00This is the artist William Powell Frith.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06Frith painted one of the most popular paintings of the day, casting himself
0:19:06 > 0:19:13as the perfect father and his own family as a true picture of Victorian virtue and happiness.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27This is his little daughter, Alice.
0:19:27 > 0:19:29It's her sixth birthday.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34This is Isabelle Frith, young mother to a fine brood.
0:19:36 > 0:19:40A happier scene of family life you could hardly imagine.
0:19:44 > 0:19:50When it went on show at the Royal Academy in 1856, the public loved it.
0:19:53 > 0:19:58Pictures like this proclaimed life was wonderful in the Victorian home.
0:20:00 > 0:20:04The critics applauded its "moral and improving tone."
0:20:08 > 0:20:11Copies of Frith's painting hung in homes up and down the land,
0:20:11 > 0:20:16reminding everyone of what to aspire to.
0:20:19 > 0:20:24The trouble is, at the heart of this picture was a lie.
0:20:36 > 0:20:42This nice, respectable middle-class enclave in Bayswater was where Frith
0:20:42 > 0:20:49lived with his nice, respectable middle-class wife Isabelle and their 12 children, his official family.
0:20:49 > 0:20:54And here, in the rather more shabby district of Paddington, is where he
0:20:54 > 0:20:58set up home with his mistress and his family of illegitimate children.
0:21:00 > 0:21:06For many years, he managed to run both households, without his wife suspecting a thing.
0:21:08 > 0:21:14But then, one day, so the story goes, his wife saw him posting a letter in west London.
0:21:14 > 0:21:19Nothing unusual in that, of course, except that on that day, he was supposed to be away.
0:21:19 > 0:21:26When she received the letter later that day, it told her what a lovely time he was having in Brighton.
0:21:34 > 0:21:36Keeping a mistress was not unusual.
0:21:36 > 0:21:41They were hidden away in rented rooms all over the place.
0:21:45 > 0:21:50Everyone knew what was happening, but no-one talked about it.
0:21:51 > 0:21:56Then one artist dared to show what was really going on.
0:22:04 > 0:22:09In William Holman Hunt's scandalous picture, The Awakening Conscience,
0:22:09 > 0:22:13a married man canoodles with his mistress in their love nest.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24The look in her eye shows a glimmer of guilt.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27She's resolved to end their affair.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32But the man is flushed with desire.
0:22:32 > 0:22:34Look at that face.
0:22:34 > 0:22:36No pangs of conscience for him.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42All this suits him just fine.
0:22:45 > 0:22:48But the public were appalled.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51And so, too, were critics.
0:22:51 > 0:22:59"Mr Hunt's picture", fumed one, "is drawn from a very dark and repulsive side of domestic life."
0:23:02 > 0:23:06This was a subject far too close to home.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12But adulterous liaisons were common.
0:23:16 > 0:23:19So, too, was prostitution.
0:23:21 > 0:23:28In London in 1857, it's estimated there was one prostitute for every 25 men,
0:23:28 > 0:23:31and many of their clients were married.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54Sexually transmitted diseases were rife.
0:23:59 > 0:24:05Thousands of unsuspecting Victorian wives and mothers were infected.
0:24:10 > 0:24:15Even Mrs Beeton, who had defined the perfect Victorian home, fell victim
0:24:15 > 0:24:20to syphilis, probably infected by her husband on their honeymoon.
0:24:26 > 0:24:33In many Victorian cities, anatomical museums provided the public with
0:24:33 > 0:24:39graphic and sensational warnings of the dangers of illicit sex.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58These places have long vanished.
0:24:59 > 0:25:06But hidden in the backroom of a modern waxwork museum, one Victorian collection survives,
0:25:06 > 0:25:10too unpleasant to be on public display nowadays.
0:25:12 > 0:25:14Wow, what is this?!
0:25:14 > 0:25:19This is what remains of the Liverpool Museum of Anatomy,
0:25:19 > 0:25:23a rare survival of a public Victorian anatomy museum.
0:25:23 > 0:25:29These are wax anatomical models of common Victorian diseases
0:25:29 > 0:25:34that people could have walked in, paid sixpence and seen at any time of the day.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39They are revolting.
0:25:40 > 0:25:46"Lets go for a nice afternoon out and look at the symptoms of syphilis, dear." It's horrible.
0:25:46 > 0:25:52- This was of great concern to people at the time.- Syphilis was?- Yes, small pox was small because
0:25:52 > 0:26:00syphilis was the great pox and the fear of syphilis in Victorian Britain was very prevalent.
0:26:00 > 0:26:04No-one would want to visit a prostitute whose skin looked like that.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08There's obviously a moral warning here, isn't there?
0:26:08 > 0:26:12Yes, when people came into the museum, they'd be given
0:26:12 > 0:26:18a catalogue, such as this one, the descriptive catalogue, urging man "know thyself".
0:26:18 > 0:26:22"Face of man showing the evil effects of secondary symptoms of syphilis."
0:26:22 > 0:26:25That's this face here, isn't it?
0:26:25 > 0:26:28Yes, that's probably referring to this actual specimen.
0:26:28 > 0:26:30"Model of a head of a child.
0:26:30 > 0:26:35"In this model, the visitor sees the awful effects of men leading a depraved life."
0:26:35 > 0:26:41- And that's this child here, is it? - Yes, you can see the inflammation of its eyes and nose...
0:26:41 > 0:26:46Many men must have been concerned if they'd had a wayward youth.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50The worst possible thing for them to do was for them to infect their loved ones with this
0:26:50 > 0:26:56dreadful disease, which was not only something that would affect them and be passed on to their children...
0:26:56 > 0:27:00So this is all a dire warning, isn't it?
0:27:00 > 0:27:07- It's, "Don't."- Yes, for example this one here, "The face of an old bachelor, a confirmed onanist."
0:27:07 > 0:27:12- An onanist is a masturbator.- That's right, that's what they meant by onanist.
0:27:12 > 0:27:16"He became idiotic and he rapidly sank into a second childhood.
0:27:16 > 0:27:21"What a fearful account he will have to give of himself at the Judgment Day."
0:27:21 > 0:27:24To put it crudely, simple masturbation is going to addle the brain.
0:27:24 > 0:27:30That was the worst thing for you because the sexual organs,
0:27:30 > 0:27:36like the other organs of the body, were regarded as being there, placed there to perform a function.
0:27:36 > 0:27:40Purely for procreation, it wasn't pleasure or anything else.
0:27:40 > 0:27:46Yes, exactly, but there were devices that could come to your aid.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49This is a spermatorreah ring.
0:27:49 > 0:27:51Oh, my God.
0:27:51 > 0:27:59It's designed to fit around the base of the penis to prevent inadvertent nocturnal emissions.
0:27:59 > 0:28:02So, OK, the penis goes through the middle,
0:28:02 > 0:28:05you get an erection...
0:28:05 > 0:28:09Oh, my God, and you come up against all these spikes.
0:28:09 > 0:28:12That would wake up you really. That would put an end to proceedings.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15Yes, exactly. It was sold as the early awakener,
0:28:15 > 0:28:18not really the awakening one would want.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28The message was clear.
0:28:28 > 0:28:33Illicit sex was a huge threat to the Victorian home.
0:28:35 > 0:28:38COWS MOO
0:28:51 > 0:28:56You just couldn't take too many precautions to keep loose behaviour at bay.
0:28:58 > 0:29:00Even in the way you built your house.
0:29:06 > 0:29:08This is Lanhydrock in Cornwall.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18It was the home of Thomas Charles Agar-Robartes.
0:29:22 > 0:29:29He was a stern-minded Anglican, who lived here with his wife Mary and their children.
0:29:39 > 0:29:41When he redesigned their home in the 19th century,
0:29:41 > 0:29:46he turned it into a bastion of morality and rectitude.
0:29:51 > 0:29:55When they rebuilt the house, they did it according to the guidelines
0:29:55 > 0:30:01laid out by the architect Robert Kerr in his book of 1864 The Gentleman's House.
0:30:01 > 0:30:05Now, this is a highly prescriptive guide to how to run and build
0:30:05 > 0:30:08a successful and, indeed, morally-upstanding household.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12He says, for example, "Every servant, every operation,
0:30:12 > 0:30:17"every utensil, every fixture, should have a right place and no right place but one.
0:30:17 > 0:30:22"The family constitute one community, the staff another.
0:30:22 > 0:30:26"This is the way to to plan a gentleman's house of the better sort."
0:30:26 > 0:30:31What this is then, is a guide to morality set in stone.
0:30:36 > 0:30:40As well as rules about the separation of the classes, with
0:30:40 > 0:30:45the servants in the practical areas and the family in the polite areas, Robert Kerr also laid down
0:30:45 > 0:30:51very strict rules about the segregation of the sexes, right across the household.
0:30:54 > 0:30:56No ladies allowed in here.
0:30:56 > 0:30:58The billiard room was for men only.
0:31:00 > 0:31:05Instead, women retired to Lady Robarte's boudoir to drink tea.
0:31:12 > 0:31:18Now, above stairs, the family were expected to act impeccably, but below stairs, nobody wanted to
0:31:18 > 0:31:23take any chances so the male and female living quarters were quite separate
0:31:23 > 0:31:27and to avoid any temptation, they were accessed separately.
0:31:28 > 0:31:36So while the women used this wooden staircase to reach their bedrooms in the attic, the men used this sturdy,
0:31:36 > 0:31:40stone staircase and if all went well, never the twain should meet.
0:31:47 > 0:31:51They needn't have worried so much.
0:31:51 > 0:31:56Victorian servants were probably too busy working to have a lot of time for hanky panky.
0:32:00 > 0:32:06Most Victorian paintings of them show a rather cheery view of life below stairs.
0:32:13 > 0:32:18This finely dressed skivvy looks the picture of contentment,
0:32:18 > 0:32:22happy to serve her master and look fetching at the same time.
0:32:29 > 0:32:30You can understand.
0:32:30 > 0:32:37What rich employer would want a picture of some sour-faced drudge on his walls?
0:32:50 > 0:32:54Everyone had their place in the Victorian home.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58Yet there would be some whose place would never be comfortable.
0:33:08 > 0:33:13The person who occupied this room belonged neither above stairs
0:33:13 > 0:33:19nor below stairs - the nanny or the governess lived in some in-between world.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23She lived with the children and because she was responsible
0:33:23 > 0:33:26for the children's education, she was better paid than the servants.
0:33:26 > 0:33:31When a new nanny moved into a house, she was often advised, if she had one, to put down
0:33:31 > 0:33:36a silver-backed hairbrush, so the servants could see they weren't one of them.
0:33:36 > 0:33:39But equally, they weren't part of the family.
0:33:39 > 0:33:45They were in some sort of social no-man's-land. It was a very uncomfortable place to be.
0:33:52 > 0:33:56This painting by Richard Redgrave spells it out.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02The Governess, the young woman in mourning dress,
0:34:02 > 0:34:07holds a black-edged letter telling her of a death in the family.
0:34:09 > 0:34:13The music sheet on the piano from the popular song "Home Sweet Home"
0:34:13 > 0:34:21ratchets up her unhappiness by recalling the family she has been forced to leave in search of work.
0:34:22 > 0:34:25She sheds a single tear.
0:34:30 > 0:34:35Next to her, lie the remnants of her lonely supper- a dry husk of bread.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41Although evening's drawing in, her work is not over -
0:34:41 > 0:34:46the table is piled with exercise books to be corrected.
0:34:50 > 0:34:55Behind her, her pupils play happily, oblivious to her sorrow.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03For the artist, this was an especially painful painting.
0:35:03 > 0:35:09His much-loved younger sister, Jane, was working as a governess when she died.
0:35:09 > 0:35:10She was 19.
0:35:13 > 0:35:17Richard Redgrave put her death down to her unhappy working life and
0:35:17 > 0:35:22he never forgot the plight of genteel young women who'd fallen on hard times.
0:35:22 > 0:35:25It'd have to be said, though, that for the children of
0:35:25 > 0:35:31the rich who were charges of these governesses, life was about to become better than it had ever been.
0:35:38 > 0:35:45For middle and upper-class children like the family who lived here, the 19th century was a golden age.
0:35:51 > 0:35:57Never had privileged children been so indulged and doted upon.
0:36:09 > 0:36:15Victorian artists created a picture of childhood as a time of innocence and purity -
0:36:15 > 0:36:18a time to be cherished.
0:36:32 > 0:36:35If only it could last forever.
0:36:43 > 0:36:47In reality, children had never been more vulnerable.
0:36:50 > 0:36:54This was the great age of epidemic.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58Tuberculosis, scarlet fever and typhoid
0:36:58 > 0:37:01killed thousands of children every year.
0:37:07 > 0:37:11No amount of money or prayer could keep death from the door.
0:37:16 > 0:37:19CHURCH BELL TOLLS
0:37:25 > 0:37:28No-one was safe from epidemic.
0:37:28 > 0:37:33The Rev AC Tait and his wife Catherine had seven children.
0:37:33 > 0:37:38And then in the spring of 1856, scarlet fever struck the parish.
0:37:38 > 0:37:43They could only watch as, one after another, their children succumbed.
0:37:50 > 0:37:52The first to die was Charlotte on March 6th,
0:37:55 > 0:38:03Susan Elizabeth died on March 11th, Frances Alice on March 20th, Catherine Anna on March 25th.
0:38:05 > 0:38:09Mary Susan on the April 8th.
0:38:09 > 0:38:15That is five daughters dead in five weeks.
0:38:33 > 0:38:37Infant death became a compelling subject for painters.
0:38:40 > 0:38:44On the walls of countless Victorian homes hung
0:38:44 > 0:38:48pictures of parents grieving for their dead or dying children.
0:39:02 > 0:39:05In Frank Holl's painting, Hush!,
0:39:05 > 0:39:10a woman begs her daughter not to wake the sick baby in the cradle.
0:39:16 > 0:39:23In its companion piece, Hushed, the mother is inconsolable with grief.
0:39:23 > 0:39:25The cradle is still.
0:39:25 > 0:39:29The headboard now resembles nothing so much as a gravestone.
0:39:52 > 0:39:57In the poorest homes, almost one child in five died before their fifth birthday.
0:40:01 > 0:40:07The terrible living conditions of the poor led desperate mothers to pay to have their babies adopted,
0:40:07 > 0:40:10sometimes with horrifying consequences.
0:40:37 > 0:40:45On 30th March 1896, a bargeman here on the river at Reading looked in the water and saw a package.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49He fished it out, he opened it,
0:40:49 > 0:40:53and found it contained the body of a baby girl. She'd been strangled.
0:40:53 > 0:40:59There was a white tape tied tight around her neck and knotted below her left ear.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11The discovery led to one of the most gruesome murder cases in British history.
0:41:15 > 0:41:21All the police had to go on was some writing on the paper the body was wrapped in.
0:41:27 > 0:41:35The address they deciphered lead them here, to 45 Kensington Road. It was the home of Amelia Dyer.
0:41:35 > 0:41:39She was what the Victorians called "a baby farmer".
0:41:46 > 0:41:53For a price, baby farmers adopted children from desperate parents with the promise of a better life.
0:41:56 > 0:42:02But in the case of Amelia Dyer, it was a promise never kept.
0:42:02 > 0:42:07Over the space of 30 years, she took in more than 50 babies.
0:42:07 > 0:42:09And she killed them all.
0:42:17 > 0:42:22The records of her case are held here in the Thames Valley Police Museum.
0:42:28 > 0:42:32How would a baby farmer like Amelia Dyer have got access to children?
0:42:32 > 0:42:38Well, what she did was she put these adverts into the paper...
0:42:38 > 0:42:44"Highly respectable married couple wish to adopt child. "Premium required, very small."
0:42:44 > 0:42:46And this is Amelia Dyer herself, isn't it?
0:42:46 > 0:42:51That's Amelia Dyer shortly after she was arrested.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54I would imagine that was taken at Reading Police Station.
0:42:54 > 0:42:57These are dead children, are they?
0:42:57 > 0:43:03These are dead babies which were recovered from the river near Caversham.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05- She strangled them all?- Yeah.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07Terrible, isn't it?
0:43:07 > 0:43:10What she was doing was disposing of them, sometimes in
0:43:10 > 0:43:14brown paper packages, and sometimes in carpet bags.
0:43:14 > 0:43:17And here we've got the carpet bag
0:43:18 > 0:43:23together with the bricks, which had been used to weight the bag down.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26There would have been a dead child inside this?
0:43:29 > 0:43:31- Yes.- It's awful for the mothers, isn't it?
0:43:31 > 0:43:35You have a child, presumably out of wedlock,
0:43:35 > 0:43:39you make the heart-wrenching decision to give it up,
0:43:39 > 0:43:44- you pay for privilege and then you discover you've given up your own child to be murdered.- Absolutely.
0:43:55 > 0:44:01More often, both illegitimate baby and unmarried mother ended up in the river.
0:44:01 > 0:44:05It was a fate they richly deserved in the eyes of many.
0:44:17 > 0:44:21But then a painting appeared that confronted that prejudice head-on.
0:44:27 > 0:44:29Found Drowned, by GF Watts,
0:44:29 > 0:44:33is an almost religious vision of the fallen woman.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40In despair, she has thrown herself in the river.
0:44:42 > 0:44:49She lies washed up on the shores of the Thames stretched out like a martyr to Victorian morality.
0:44:51 > 0:44:56She drowned clutching a locket - does it hold a picture of her child?
0:45:01 > 0:45:07Her body is bathed in a warm light - set against a cold uncaring world.
0:45:10 > 0:45:13A single star shines down on her.
0:45:23 > 0:45:29This picture couldn't fail to strike a chord in Victorian Britain.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33Its title was taken from a regular column in the Times newspaper which
0:45:33 > 0:45:38listed the number of women who'd thrown themselves into the Thames.
0:45:38 > 0:45:44In just two days in August 1847, the bodies of five women were recovered.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56In the artist's eyes, the fallen woman has become
0:45:56 > 0:46:01a fallen angel, no longer a moral degenerate but someone to be pitied,
0:46:01 > 0:46:08a victim of an unjust system which sees a man go unpunished while she is cast out from society.
0:46:14 > 0:46:18Other artists took inspiration from Watts, insisting the public
0:46:18 > 0:46:22take notice of women in desperate straits.
0:46:33 > 0:46:34Banished from the home...
0:46:40 > 0:46:42..pining for the children they'd had to give up.
0:46:48 > 0:46:50Forced to live on the streets.
0:47:06 > 0:47:10Sympathy for unfortunate working-class women was one thing.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14But if a respectable woman was involved in sexual scandal,
0:47:14 > 0:47:19it spelled disaster not only for her, but for all polite society.
0:47:24 > 0:47:27One artist dared tackle this taboo head-on.
0:47:38 > 0:47:39In "Past and Present",
0:47:39 > 0:47:46Augustus Leopold Egg shows a wife prostrated before her husband, begging for forgiveness.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55His face is stiff with despair and disbelief.
0:47:58 > 0:48:02In his hand he holds a letter he's intercepted from his wife's lover.
0:48:09 > 0:48:14An apple on the floor at her side suggests Eve's fall from paradise.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20Their daughter looks on anxiously.
0:48:20 > 0:48:25The family home like a house of cards is about to collapse.
0:48:30 > 0:48:33Two more paintings accompany the main picture.
0:48:37 > 0:48:42In this one, the daughters have grown up to be penniless spinsters,
0:48:42 > 0:48:46unable to marry because of their mother's disgrace.
0:48:46 > 0:48:51The sins of the mother have been visited on the next generation.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05In the final painting, the destitute mother
0:49:05 > 0:49:12lies huddled alone under an arch, cradling the illegitimate child that is the product of her affair.
0:49:16 > 0:49:19There's no mistaking whose side the artist is on.
0:49:19 > 0:49:24Why, he asks, are women punished so savagely?
0:49:35 > 0:49:38But the critics were horrified.
0:49:38 > 0:49:43Paintings of the Victorian family were supposed to invoke feelings of
0:49:43 > 0:49:50comfort, harmony and security - not to expose terrible dark truths.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55Too late. The truth was out.
0:49:55 > 0:49:58Home sweet home could be hell on earth.
0:50:00 > 0:50:05Artists began to abandon their cosy myth-making, and started to show the
0:50:05 > 0:50:10Victorian home as a very different place for a man and a woman.
0:50:14 > 0:50:17For a man it might be his castle,
0:50:17 > 0:50:21for a woman it was all too often a prison.
0:50:24 > 0:50:30Painters showed the Victorian wife bound by law...
0:50:30 > 0:50:34..by convention...
0:50:34 > 0:50:36..by religious teaching.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42Even by the clothes she wore.
0:51:02 > 0:51:05- Hello, you must be Rosemary. - I am.- Hello.
0:51:08 > 0:51:11I've come to see you about your collection of Victorian clothes.
0:51:11 > 0:51:13Wonderful.
0:51:18 > 0:51:25This is what I call the fragrant woman and the whole thing is delicate and feminine.
0:51:25 > 0:51:27This is the perfect Victorian woman.
0:51:27 > 0:51:29She's very thin.
0:51:29 > 0:51:34Underneath she has some excruciating corsets.
0:51:36 > 0:51:38And this... do you mind if I touch it?
0:51:38 > 0:51:40No, you can touch it.
0:51:41 > 0:51:45How does it work? Is it lots and lots of layers?
0:51:45 > 0:51:46There's lots of layers.
0:51:46 > 0:51:53The skirt is to give that idea of a sort of ebullience and then there are several petticoats.
0:51:53 > 0:51:59And the idea, presumably, is to get a shape that goes out, in and out again. Is that it?
0:51:59 > 0:52:01Yes. The most alluring -
0:52:01 > 0:52:07and probably still is, let's face it - shape for a female is to have
0:52:07 > 0:52:11the bosom, a small waist and generous hips.
0:52:11 > 0:52:16This was the prized look of the Victorian time.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19Was there a moral purpose to it, too?
0:52:19 > 0:52:21It gave a sense of propriety, you know.
0:52:21 > 0:52:26Everything was right as rain if the woman was upright and corseted.
0:52:26 > 0:52:31- Of course you couldn't, almost literally, you couldn't be a loose woman, could you?- No, indeed.
0:52:31 > 0:52:33You were a tight-laced woman.
0:52:33 > 0:52:36Yes. And, if you've got
0:52:38 > 0:52:44a corset pulling your insides in and your ribcage in,
0:52:44 > 0:52:46it must do something to your insides, mustn't it?
0:52:46 > 0:52:51It certainly did. There were articles in the Lancet and medical
0:52:51 > 0:52:55journals of the time which warned of the dangers of misplacing...
0:52:55 > 0:53:01you know, the ribs were crushed, particularly for women of child-bearing age.
0:53:01 > 0:53:07The organs were displaced, or indeed would malfunction after that.
0:53:07 > 0:53:10They suffered from dreadful dyspepsia, they could hardly eat.
0:53:10 > 0:53:14So when a woman was wearing corsets,
0:53:14 > 0:53:16could she get into them by herself?
0:53:16 > 0:53:18Give me a couple of seconds and I'll show you.
0:53:18 > 0:53:22You're not going to take all your clothes off, are you?
0:53:22 > 0:53:24See you in a bit.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30Jeremy, please, could you just help me out here?
0:53:30 > 0:53:33The laces need tightening and then tying.
0:53:33 > 0:53:36Perhaps you could give your manly strength to this.
0:53:36 > 0:53:39Is it like doing a shoelace up?
0:53:39 > 0:53:41Tighter, Mr Paxman, tighter!
0:53:41 > 0:53:44Stop hamming it up!
0:53:44 > 0:53:47You're a vicar's wife, for heaven's sake!
0:53:47 > 0:53:49- Enough, enough!- There we are.
0:53:49 > 0:53:51- Good.- That's it, we're there.
0:53:51 > 0:53:55I thought you had to put your knee into the small of the back of a person.
0:53:55 > 0:53:57Well I'm not asking you to do that.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00No, because you're so slim it just fits perfectly.
0:54:00 > 0:54:04Yes, and then I'd have slipped into my gown of choice.
0:54:04 > 0:54:06Is it incredibly uncomfortable?
0:54:06 > 0:54:10Well, because I'm not used to wearing something like this it does feel a little odd.
0:54:10 > 0:54:17It's so engineered, so structured, it could be done by Mr Isambard Kingdom Brunel himself.
0:54:25 > 0:54:29But women wouldn't be trussed up forever.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40Something had to give.
0:54:45 > 0:54:49Victorian women started to fight back.
0:54:49 > 0:54:55It began with The Dress Reform Movement of the 1880s, a national campaign
0:54:55 > 0:55:00against the kind of clothing that scarcely allowed women to breathe.
0:55:01 > 0:55:07They fought, too, against divorce laws that saw them lose their house, children and money.
0:55:09 > 0:55:12They fought conventions that kept them locked in the house.
0:55:16 > 0:55:21And they fought the prejudice that education was only for men.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28Universities began to open their doors to women.
0:55:30 > 0:55:33They studied maths and science,
0:55:33 > 0:55:35they took up sport,
0:55:35 > 0:55:40and they found there was a life beyond the family home.
0:55:46 > 0:55:53The fact that a few middle class women could now get a university education didn't mean the end of the
0:55:53 > 0:55:56old order for Victorian women.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59But it did mean that the door, which had hitherto
0:55:59 > 0:56:03been firmly locking them in the house, was at least ajar.
0:56:03 > 0:56:05It would never be closed again.
0:56:18 > 0:56:23The Victorian dream of Home Sweet Home, a dream fed for so
0:56:23 > 0:56:29long by so many Victorian painters, was now well and truly over.
0:56:33 > 0:56:36But it had never been much more than a dream.
0:56:38 > 0:56:43Even the young Queen Victoria had written in her private diary,
0:56:43 > 0:56:45"All marriage is such a lottery,
0:56:45 > 0:56:50"the poor woman is bodily and morally a husband's slave.
0:56:50 > 0:56:53"That always sticks in my throat."
0:56:54 > 0:56:57Now such thoughts were out in the open.
0:56:59 > 0:57:04Children weren't always the apple of their parents' eye.
0:57:07 > 0:57:10Nor the husband, the faithful provider.
0:57:13 > 0:57:17Nor the wife, the contented homemaker.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24We'd never look at the home
0:57:24 > 0:57:26in the same way again.
0:57:44 > 0:57:51Next time: how the Victorians came to believe they were born to rule the world...
0:57:53 > 0:57:56..and thought their reign would last forever.
0:58:00 > 0:58:03Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:03 > 0:58:07E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk