Fagged out: overwork and sleeplessness in Victorian professional life

The paper sets current concerns with insomnia in our 24/7 society in the context of nineteenth-century anxieties about the pressures of overwork and sleeplessness in professional culture. Following a case study of a sleepless prime minister, William Gladstone, it explores the early history of sleep research, including the first recordings of a brain pulse during sleep by Angelo Mosso. In parallel with current problems with addiction to sleeping pills, it explores accounts of addiction to choral, a sleeping remedy, and considers the forms of diet and regimes recommended for combatting insomnia. These are surprisingly similar to current advice, including a form of mindfulness breathing. Medical findings also anticipated recent research in arguing that sleeplessness could cause heart problems and what was termed ‘premature mental decay’. Concerns about overwork and lack of sleep were also extended to school children, with campaigns to reduce homework and examinations, in order to improve mental and bodily health. Nineteenth-century medicine offered a broad-based model for understanding the physiological, psychological and social causes of sleep problems from which we can still learn.

The Metaphysical Society (1869-1880)

The Metaphysical Society was founded in 1869 at the instigation of James Knowles, editor of the Contemporary Review and then of the Nineteenth Century, as a private dining and debate club that gathered together a latter-day clerisy. Building on the tradition of the Cambridge Apostles, the founding members elected talented men from across the Victorian intellectual spectrum: bishops, one Cardinal, philosophers, scientists, literary figures, and politicians. There were liberals and conservatives, empiricists and intuitionists, and Protestants, Catholics, and unbelievers. It included in its 62 members the prominent intellectual superstars of the period, such as T. H. Huxley; William Gladstone; Walter Bagehot; Henry Edward Manning; John Ruskin; and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The members of the Society discussed the reality of miracles, the status of evolution, and the nature of ethics. This collection moves beyond Alan Willard Brown’s 1947 pioneering study of the Metaphysical Society by offering a more detailed analysis of its inner dynamics and its larger impact outside the dining room at the Grosvenor Hotel. It casts light on many of the colourful figures that joined the Society and also examines, with fresh eyes, the major concepts that informed the papers presented at Society meetings. By discussing groups, important individuals, and underlying concepts, the chapters contribute to a rich, new picture of Victorian intellectual life during the 1870s, a period when intellectuals were wondering how, and what, to believe in a time of social change, spiritual crisis, and scientific progress.

Mary, Countess of Derby, and the Politics of Victorian Britain

Lady Mary Derby (1824–1900) occupied a pivotal position in Victorian politics, yet her activities have largely been overlooked or ignored. A Female Politician places Mary back into the political position she occupied and offers the first dedicated account of her career. Based on extensive archival research, including hitherto neglected or lost sources, this study reconstructs the political worlds Mary inhabited. Her political landscape was dominated by the machinations and intrigues of high politics and diplomacy. As this book uncovers, her political skill and acumen were highly valued by leading politicians of the day, including Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, and she played a significant role in many of the key events of the mid-Victorian era. This included the passing of the Second Reform Act, the formation of Disraeli’s 1874 government, the Eastern Crisis of 1875–1878, and Gladstone’s 1880–1885 government. By exploring how one woman was able to exercise influence at the heart of Victorian politics, this book considers what Mary’s career tells us about the nature of political life in the mid nineteenth century. It sheds new light on the connections between informal and formal political culture, incorporating the politics of the home, letter-writing, and social relations into a consideration of the politics of Parliament and government. A Female Politician is a rich investigation of how a woman, with few legal or constitutional rights, was able to become a significant figure in mid-Victorian political life.

A Crisis of Faith, Scary Popes, and William Gladstone

William Gladstone presided as Prime Minister of Great Britain on four separate occasions between 1868 to 1894. Gladstone was preoccupied both personally and politically with religion, and his personal faith journey reflected the larger crisis of faith occurring in Britain in the nineteenth century as secularism and urbanization began to erode the place of faith in common life. Many scholars have referred to this period as the “Victorian Crisis of Faith.” This paper examines his personal diaries and extensive writings to understand his zest for religion, primarily regarding the supposed papal aggression of 1850 in Great Britain and his personal faith crises. The significance of this paper is that it highlights how both personally and politically this key leader was working to understand the role of religion in public life in nineteenth-century Great Britain.