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Sherlock Holmes’s tales were published in the Strand Magazine, it was the mass media of the day. The new energy of steam was driving science, invention and mass manufacturing evolved in Britain, bringing wealth. This inspired confidence that took British influence around the world. Some speculations sank and some simple headed science amuses us in our modern, comfortable life. Victorians were striding out of a society were nearly all laboured on the land, where wars ravaged, and disease swept away parts of the population. They, as we, were working for a better life and while some of it seems gruesome to us, much of it was well intended under the pressures of the day.
Men’s and women’s roles became more sharply defined during the Victorian period than
arguably at any time in history. In earlier centuries it was usual for women to work
alongside husbands and brothers in the family business, but as the nineteenth century
progressed, a middle-
The two sexes came to inhabit completely different spheres, meeting together only at breakfast and dinner. Whilst we can deplore the waste of women’s mental capacity, we must also acknowledge that there was a tenderness that sought to project the gentle sex. Attitudes sway and women were thus expected to do little more than seek a husband, have babies, and keep house. The population of London alone, increased fourfold, leading to poverty and exasperation
In this period some able women did forge a way for themselves through barriers of disapproval. We see the froward Scarlett striding past the conventional John Watson in her drive for recognition.