Talk:Edwardian era

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It seems to me there should be more historical facts...I would also think this is a stub.Zigzig20s 03:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, we should be able to find this page if we search for "edwardian age"...I don't know how to do the redirecting thing so I'll let someone else do it for me... I was just joking, ofcourse,,Zigzig20s 03:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

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This article is a wierd hodge-podge of complete generalities and randomly selected and inconsequential facts. It starts off by giving four different definitions for the period and gets worse. The preceding/current/following block at the end of the article uses 1901-1910 - but then more than half of the "significant events" fall outside these limits!

The topics chosen for discussion are also puzzling. For example, why is one of the three paragraphs in "Class and Society" devoted to corsets? (Half the comments about "corsets" refer to events outside the period anyway.) Presumably somebody chose the detailed topics "Class and Society" and "the Arts" as being particularly significant to the period, but then why is only one of the "significant events" at all related to these topics?

One major omission is the lack of any acknowlegement that the Edwardian period was one of political turmoil, arguably the most tumultuous in the 20th century in the UK. It saw a major constitutional crisis with a stand-off between the Commons and the Lords, the threat of a mutiny by many officers of the Army over the Irish question, the first stirrings of the Indian idependence movement, severe industrial disruption and the military occupation of many working-class areas of Britain (esp. South Wales), the rise of the Labour party, and a mass movement for universal suffrage (of which female suffrage was a part). This was in addition to the "arms race" with Germany that led to WWI.

--58.108.246.17 10:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

First section

I would concur this is a very disjointed article. The first thing to read about for the Edwardian Age is women and contraceptives? Clearly it has relevancy and a place, but even the idea of "contraception" as a concept is much newer than the history this is supposed to be addressing. That's all secondary to the notion that this article seems hodge-podged, and definitely from a very limited vantage point. Perhaps the contents would be better suited towards subtopics. Granted, the lack of referenced material might lead me to believe none of this is scholarly, or copywritten material shoe-horned into an article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.183.13.16 (talk) 17:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Agree, a lot of talk on contraception and not a word of women's suffrage in a section called Status of Women. Were the conditions described in "Women and birth control" unique to the Edwardian Era, or in anyway markedly different from either Victorian times or after Edward's death? If so, that should be made clear; if not, perhaps it belongs elsewhere. Mannanan51 (talk) 22:58, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Edwardian Oxymoron

"the British class system was very rigid. Economic and social changes created an environment in which there was more social mobility." I don't know enough about the history to lean one way or another but I know they seem to me to be mutually exclusive. Musicandnintendo (talk) 01:15, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

It's somewhat true that changing economics ran headlong into ossified social stratification. Regardless, that section was unsourced and smells a lot like original research. I'd leave it out until it can be responsibly restored. Chris Troutman (talk) 06:23, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Liberal welfare reforms

No mention of the Liberal welfare reforms? DuncanHill (talk) 04:27, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

good point. I added text ex Liberal Party (UK) and revised it a bit. Rjensen (talk) 04:47, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Why are we removing sourced info?

To editor Trequor: You removed content sourced to this academic article. Please explain, new editor, how this info is "illogical and unsubstantiated... several contradictions and did not add anything to what was already said." Chris Troutman (talk) 00:01, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Labour Party and secularised education

I find the sentence "Social factors included secularised elementary education (with a lesser role for Dissenting Protestantism)" in the section on the Labour Party rather unconvincing as an explanation for the younger generation of voters preferring Labour over Liberal. Firstly, elementary education was not being secularised - the Education Act 1902 embedded the churches (Anglican and RC) in their privileged position in education, and secondly the fight against denominational education was led by the Liberals, not Labour. DuncanHill (talk) 00:19, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

The Nonconformist schools inculcated Liberal Party values and after 1902 they faded away. The Anglican schools remained & inculcated Conservative views. Rjensen (talk) 02:15, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

State education has never been fully "secularised" in England - the compromise of 1870 was that RE teaching in the new board schools be non-denominational, ie. teaching of Bible stories with no theological content whatsoever. State schools in England & Wales are still required to start the day with an act of collective worship which is non-denominational but predominantly Christian. There are provisions for parents to opt out, or for schools to opt out where it simply isn't appropriate, eg inner city schools where 30-40% of the kids are Muslim, and I suspect a lot of LEAs aren't particularly rigorous about enforcement nowadays (I'd need to investigate the exact provisions more thoroughly).

As for Nonconformist schools, there were never all that many of them - a few hundred iirc, and I've never really come across this claim. It would appear to be a "minority claim".Paulturtle (talk) 03:35, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

. There were about 1500 nonconformist schools in 1900, but over 95% were closed in 20c. --eg . In 1902 the Methodists operated 738 schools, but only 28 remained in 1996. [according to John T. Smith, "Ecumenism, economic necessity and the disappearance of Methodist elementary schools in England in the twentieth century." History of Education (2010) 39#4 pp 631-657.] Nonconformists were livid in opposition to the 1902 education law, which provided tax money from the rates for voluntary schools, the great majority of which (12,000 esp in rural areas) were Anglican. It was a common belief among nonconformists that the Anglican voluntary schools were leading the children into Anglican church, which was heavily dominated by political Conservatives. Yes this is covered in the scholarly literature. 1) please read P. F. Clarke (2007). Lancashire and the New Liberalism. p. 66. 2) Pugh, "English Nonconformity, Education And Passive Resistance 1903-6." History of Education. 1990, pp 355-373. says after the passage of the 1902 law "tens of thousands of Nonconformists in England refused to pay the local tax that would primarily support the denominational schools of the Church of England." 3) Tenbus English Catholics and the Education of the Poor (2015) says 1902 law won Catholic support--they had 1000 or so schools. he says "this meant a return of the Catholic drift towards the Tories on education, as the Conservative Party was much more supportive of denominational education. " 4) McKibben, Parties and People: England 1914-1951 p 5 says "Anglicans were Conservatives...Both major political parties had strong religious ties which they openly exploited..... The conservatives for example ...the 1902 education act. McKibben cites Ramsden saying 90+% of conservative MPs were Anglican and many were politically active defenders of the Church of England. 5) Childs (see footnote 23) is solid scholarship and makes the explicit claim I summarised. --I can send a copy to anyone who emails me at rjensen@uic.edu Meanwhile I'd like to see what RS the critics here are using. Rjensen (talk) 04:35, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

It’s the RS called “deep familiarity with the subject from years of reading” (I read “Lancashire and the New Liberalism” about 30 years ago (it was first published in 1971) and some of Ross McKibbin’s rather dry and tedious work around the same time) and, while one cannot prove a negative, not in all these decades having come across the claim that a decline in nonconformist schools was a major factor in the decline of the Liberal Party.

A lot of these arguments go to the heart of old debates about why and how and to what extent the Liberal Party declined (was it decaying, or was it in reasonable health when it was run over by the First World War?) The usual line, for example, is that the fight against the 1902 Balfour Act and the 1906 election victory were a kind of final swansong for the Nonconformist vote, which even then was nothing quite like the force it had been a generation earlier. Furthermore, the Liberals of 1906 were a surprisingly empty and backward-looking bunch with not much keeping them together apart from opposition to the Education Act and to Tariff Reform … until Lloyd George started setting the agenda (I’m caricaturing a bit). But it’s perfectly possible to argue that they were beginning to do a good job of adapting to a new agenda of social reform, as Clarke does.

There’s no need to be posting a long list of authorities telling us the nonconformists were not happy about state money being spent on CofE schools in 1902, or that the CofE was "the Tory Party at prayer" in those days (it certainly isn't nowadays). Any student studying the period would be expected to know that, and if he wants a good grade he can point out that the issue had been rumbling, on and off, all the way back to the 1830s. That isn’t the issue here.

The issues are 1. what form these “Nonconformist schools” took. If they were absorbed into the new state system (board schools) pretty rapidly after the 1870 Forster Act (which is what Peter Clarke says, not least because the nonconformists tended to be pretty happy with non-denominational RE teaching) then long before 1902 they would have been “Nonconformist” in little more than name only – a plaque over the door and a few local worthies sitting on the board of governors and choosing the new headmaster every 10-20 years. 2. The explicit claim which you say is made by Childs, namely that the decline in nonconformist schools helped to do for the Liberal Party.Paulturtle (talk) 06:54, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes and the Liberals ran out of young voters and watching the Anglicans and Catholics keep their schools while they lost their made it highly visible. Conservatives and Labour (and Catholics) held their young . that is one of multiple factors that played a role. The RS are unanimous that 1902 enabled them to make one final rally (ie in 1906). The NC schools all shut down--I think you missed the 2010 Smith article on exactly how that happened. They had lost their recruitment system (and lost unity re Ireland and Boer war) and then they self destructed (Lloyd George vs Asquith). Furthermore the NC chapels lost their belief in peace progress (in WWI) see John Glaser, "English nonconformity and the decline of liberalism." The American Historical Review 63.2 (1958): 352-363. Rjensen (talk) 07:41, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Removing Fashion section

The fashion section isn't in a good state right now, as it makes a lot of generalisations as to what people wore and makes no mention of menswear. I have made a few edits to it to clear up some inaccuracies and exaggerations*, but I think it might be best to remove the section altogether and direct readers to the [[1]] page, which is more in-depth, accurate, and easier to monitor as its own topic.

• If the section is not removed, this section should be marked as in need of work, as well as reciting many of the citations, as many of them aren't reliable or are misused in the article.

Class system women’s roles

No 185.69.145.11 (talk) 12:31, 19 September 2022 (UTC)