TheVictorians

"We had always been convinced that Victorianism was a myth, engendered by the long life of the sovereign and of her most illustrious subjects. We were constantly being told that the Victorians did this, or the Victorians thought that, while my own difficulty was to find anything on which they agreed: any assumption which was not at some time or other fiercely challenged. 'Victorian History'.


But the dismissal of the Under-Secretaries with their chiefs in 1830, the ...

But the dismissal of the Under-Secretaries with their chiefs in 1830, the inexperience of the new Whig Ministers, and the reform of the Poor

Law, made a fresh departure.

The Benthamite conception of a trained staff dealing with specific problems entered the Civil Service at the very point where the Civil Service impinged most forcibly on the public.

The Poor Law filled the whole horizon in 1834. And here, there, and everywhere were Chadwick's young crusaders, the Assistant Commissioners, scouring the country in stage-coaches or post-chaises, or beating up against the storm on ponies in the Weald, returning to London, their wallets stuffed with the Tabular Data so dear to philosophic Radicals, to

draught their sovereign's decrees

declaring the Union and stating his austere principles of administration, and then back to see that they were carried out.

It was an exciting life. Once they had to be protected with cavalry.

When they appeared at Todmorden, Fielden rang his factory bells and beat them out of town. In so splendid and imperial a manner did the English Civil Servant first take his place in the national life.' The Radicals had conceived the possibility of applying disinterested intelligence to social problems.

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Chadwick realized the idea and created the organ of application. The administrative ...

Chadwick realized the idea and created the organ of application.

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