England In The Nineteenth Century David Thomson The Pelican History of England

A succinct and worthwhile history of the Victorian age, by an old-fashioned historian who thankfully doesn't feel the need to get caught up in debates about culture and power. After all, he's got a good story to tell. Thomson has an eye for surprising facts and telling anecdotes. Apparently it was the authoritarian Duke of Wellington who first converted to the cause of police reform in the 1820s, and, along with, though not lead by, Robert Peel, created the world's first non-military police force in London. It was funded at the time directly out of the "poor rate" tax, explicitly linking poverty and crime in the nation's government and culture. In 1842 Peel also established a permanent income tax as a foundation of British government, almost 70 years before the US would do so. Thomson shows how the famous reform bill of 1867, which significantly expanded the franchise, was championed by the conservative ministry of Disraeli only because he and the Tories realized that reform was inevitable, and because they wanted to take the credit. Yet their plan for minority party representation in large cities (to reserve seats for conservatives backfired and led to well-organized liberals creating their own tickets which in turn led to modern party politics, with groups like the "Birmingham Liberal Union" and "National Union of Conservation and Constitutional Systems" organizing coherently for the first time The book also showcases the early power of trade unions in England. When the House of Lords declared unions liable for strike damages and incapable of donating to political campaigns, the unions managed to overturn these decisions in the 1906 and 1913 Trade Union Acts (just like in the US today, non-political union members were allowed to "contract-out" their donated funds for political purposes). The conservatives also courted the unions with the 1905 Alien Act which restricted emigration (mainly Jewish) to a few major ports with powers of expulsion