Conclusion

Abstract

In British history, the period before the 1880s is sometimes known as the ‘high Victorian’ era – a time when the industrial revolution had blossomed into prosperity, when towns and cities built massive town halls and public buildings, when landmark reforms were taking place in parliamentary politics, when the British empire reached its zenith, and when confidence, innovation and dynamism abounded. It was also a period in which nonconformist and evangelical religion dominated the urban scene – across British towns and cities, philanthropic projects, Sunday School teaching, temperance and missions preoccupied thousands of middle-class citizens....