1 00:00:03,500 --> 00:00:05,700 This rare film from 1897 2 00:00:05,700 --> 00:00:07,660 shows Queen Victoria 3 00:00:07,660 --> 00:00:10,400 celebrating her Diamond Jubilee. 4 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:13,500 It's the ultimate display of order and respect. 5 00:00:14,740 --> 00:00:15,980 But don't be deceived. 6 00:00:17,300 --> 00:00:18,660 Beneath the surface, 7 00:00:18,660 --> 00:00:21,700 Victorian Britain is in turmoil. 8 00:00:21,700 --> 00:00:24,940 In the 1890s, the modern world erupts. 9 00:00:30,020 --> 00:00:31,220 This is the decade 10 00:00:31,220 --> 00:00:33,060 that electrified Britain. 11 00:00:33,060 --> 00:00:35,420 When science, entertainment, 12 00:00:35,420 --> 00:00:38,100 art and morality collide. 13 00:00:39,340 --> 00:00:42,020 And the Victorians have to make sense of it all. 14 00:00:43,940 --> 00:00:46,780 Now, in three films, Dr Hannah Fry, 15 00:00:46,780 --> 00:00:48,900 Philippa Perry 16 00:00:48,900 --> 00:00:51,300 and I are travelling back in time, 17 00:00:51,300 --> 00:00:55,140 to an era when anything seemed possible, 18 00:00:55,140 --> 00:00:57,940 to understand what was really on the Victorians' minds. 19 00:01:00,340 --> 00:01:03,420 Dear ones, if you can hear me, 20 00:01:03,420 --> 00:01:04,780 I'm already dead... 21 00:01:05,820 --> 00:01:07,900 And please don't forget to feed the cat. 22 00:01:09,260 --> 00:01:10,460 Well, I'm shocked. 23 00:01:10,460 --> 00:01:12,380 Think how shocked they were in the 1890s. 24 00:01:14,700 --> 00:01:15,900 I've always been fascinated 25 00:01:15,900 --> 00:01:18,940 by the art and culture of this decade. 26 00:01:18,940 --> 00:01:21,620 The daring works of Oscar Wilde. 27 00:01:21,620 --> 00:01:24,220 I congratulate you on the great success of 28 00:01:24,220 --> 00:01:25,500 your performance... LAUGHTER 29 00:01:25,500 --> 00:01:29,380 The fantastical tales of HG Wells. 30 00:01:29,380 --> 00:01:31,220 Now, I'm going to discover 31 00:01:31,220 --> 00:01:34,420 how they were shaped by fears of moral, 32 00:01:34,420 --> 00:01:36,820 social and racial degeneration. 33 00:01:38,140 --> 00:01:39,940 The whole sort of cultural idea 34 00:01:39,940 --> 00:01:41,660 is the improvement of people, 35 00:01:41,660 --> 00:01:43,900 improvement of their stock. 36 00:01:43,900 --> 00:01:46,580 And I'll see how the Victorians' anxieties 37 00:01:46,580 --> 00:01:50,020 provoked radical arguments for women's empowerment. 38 00:01:51,380 --> 00:01:54,260 And a pioneering campaign against imperial rule, 39 00:01:54,260 --> 00:01:57,740 and its racist underpinnings. 40 00:01:57,740 --> 00:02:00,060 "The British Empire will come to grief 41 00:02:00,060 --> 00:02:03,660 "unless it changes its methods of dealing with the aboriginal races." 42 00:02:06,500 --> 00:02:09,580 Welcome to the decade the future landed. 43 00:02:21,260 --> 00:02:23,420 It's 1894, 44 00:02:23,420 --> 00:02:26,820 and the novelist HG Wells is readying his new time machine 45 00:02:26,820 --> 00:02:28,900 for its maiden voyage. 46 00:02:35,500 --> 00:02:38,180 "What strange developments of humanity," 47 00:02:38,180 --> 00:02:40,060 the time traveller ponders, 48 00:02:40,060 --> 00:02:41,620 "what wonderful advances upon 49 00:02:41,620 --> 00:02:45,060 "our rudimentary civilisation might appear?" 50 00:02:49,220 --> 00:02:53,140 And with that, he flings himself into futurity. 51 00:02:53,140 --> 00:02:55,860 REPEATED PINGING 52 00:02:55,860 --> 00:02:59,540 DRAMATIC MUSIC 53 00:03:21,780 --> 00:03:23,540 But the future that HG Wells showed us 54 00:03:23,540 --> 00:03:29,540 was one in which the human race had not evolved, nor advanced, 55 00:03:29,540 --> 00:03:32,340 but, rather, decayed and degenerated. 56 00:03:34,140 --> 00:03:36,220 Wells was a student of science, 57 00:03:36,220 --> 00:03:40,620 and in his vision, society has divided into two species. 58 00:03:41,740 --> 00:03:43,980 The effete, childlike Eloi, 59 00:03:43,980 --> 00:03:46,220 who drift, carefree, on the surface of the Earth... 60 00:03:47,580 --> 00:03:50,060 ..but then huddle, in fear of the dark 61 00:03:50,060 --> 00:03:52,700 and of being preyed upon by 62 00:03:52,700 --> 00:03:54,500 the ape-like Morlocks, 63 00:03:54,500 --> 00:03:56,380 who toil away underground. 64 00:04:01,780 --> 00:04:04,820 The time traveller's journey might be the stuff of science fiction, 65 00:04:04,820 --> 00:04:07,500 but it wasn't pure fantasy. 66 00:04:07,500 --> 00:04:11,740 This was a future all too recognisably rooted in the present. 67 00:04:11,740 --> 00:04:14,660 For HG Wells, writing at a time of 68 00:04:14,660 --> 00:04:17,300 widening social divisions, 69 00:04:17,300 --> 00:04:19,940 the Eloi represent the upper class, 70 00:04:19,940 --> 00:04:22,540 living in luxury upon the surface, 71 00:04:22,540 --> 00:04:25,860 only to be consumed by the workers, 72 00:04:25,860 --> 00:04:29,900 the Morlocks, massing ominously beneath them. 73 00:04:32,500 --> 00:04:35,660 The Time Machine is emblematic of the 1890s - 74 00:04:35,660 --> 00:04:39,220 a decade of invention and scientific discovery, 75 00:04:39,220 --> 00:04:42,340 but one in which conflicting visions of the future 76 00:04:42,340 --> 00:04:45,140 are at war in the Victorian imagination. 77 00:04:50,580 --> 00:04:51,740 On the one hand, 78 00:04:51,740 --> 00:04:54,940 the Empire has never been so vast. 79 00:04:56,100 --> 00:04:57,820 Are the British destined to be 80 00:04:57,820 --> 00:04:59,740 the world's master race - 81 00:04:59,740 --> 00:05:01,980 robust, enduring? 82 00:05:04,020 --> 00:05:06,980 Yet, at home, industrialisation 83 00:05:06,980 --> 00:05:10,100 has rapidly swollen the numbers of the urban poor. 84 00:05:12,860 --> 00:05:16,220 There's rising hostility to immigration. 85 00:05:16,220 --> 00:05:20,380 Perhaps Britain's future really is like that of the Eloi and Morlocks, 86 00:05:20,380 --> 00:05:23,220 one of decline and degeneration. 87 00:05:30,180 --> 00:05:32,220 These fantasies and fears have been brewing 88 00:05:32,220 --> 00:05:35,740 in the Victorian mind since 1859, 89 00:05:35,740 --> 00:05:39,420 when Charles Darwin challenged the assumption that species 90 00:05:39,420 --> 00:05:41,260 were fixed and immutable. 91 00:05:45,140 --> 00:05:47,300 Since then, other eminent thinkers 92 00:05:47,300 --> 00:05:50,620 have begun to argue that Darwin's theory of evolution 93 00:05:50,620 --> 00:05:52,860 might be given practical application 94 00:05:52,860 --> 00:05:54,380 to the human race. 95 00:05:55,620 --> 00:05:58,260 This social Darwinism, as it came to be called, 96 00:05:58,260 --> 00:06:01,260 held that human society should be governed by 97 00:06:01,260 --> 00:06:05,020 the survival of the fittest and that, with intervention, 98 00:06:05,020 --> 00:06:08,580 one could improve the genetic stock of the nation. 99 00:06:08,580 --> 00:06:10,300 Some believe that these measures 100 00:06:10,300 --> 00:06:12,220 might protect humanity 101 00:06:12,220 --> 00:06:14,500 from the kind of social decay 102 00:06:14,500 --> 00:06:17,820 prophesied in The Time Machine. 103 00:06:17,820 --> 00:06:21,220 One Social Darwinist - no less than Darwin's own half-cousin, 104 00:06:21,220 --> 00:06:25,100 Francis Galton - sought to push these principles 105 00:06:25,100 --> 00:06:28,540 to what he saw as their logical conclusion. 106 00:06:28,540 --> 00:06:31,180 And the name he gave to his new project? 107 00:06:32,380 --> 00:06:33,660 Eugenics. 108 00:06:36,180 --> 00:06:38,180 Francis Galton's proposition 109 00:06:38,180 --> 00:06:41,780 combined social elitism with outright racism. 110 00:06:41,780 --> 00:06:44,780 "Could not the undesirables be got rid of 111 00:06:44,780 --> 00:06:48,700 "and the desirables multiplied?" he later asks. 112 00:06:49,860 --> 00:06:51,900 But first, Galton needed to gather data on 113 00:06:51,900 --> 00:06:54,340 the British people's physical characteristics. 114 00:06:54,340 --> 00:06:56,100 Lots of data. 115 00:06:58,700 --> 00:07:00,020 And in a way that anticipates 116 00:07:00,020 --> 00:07:02,700 today's tech giants, 117 00:07:02,700 --> 00:07:06,300 he encouraged people to supply their personal details, 118 00:07:06,300 --> 00:07:08,580 and even pay for the privilege. 119 00:07:08,580 --> 00:07:10,980 In a pioneering exercise, 120 00:07:10,980 --> 00:07:14,540 Galton set up what he called his anthropometric laboratory 121 00:07:14,540 --> 00:07:17,060 where, for a mere thruppence, 122 00:07:17,060 --> 00:07:18,860 he would take your measurements. 123 00:07:21,300 --> 00:07:22,900 So, here I am in Galton's lab. 124 00:07:22,900 --> 00:07:25,300 Got my thruppence. What does it get me? 125 00:07:25,300 --> 00:07:29,100 So, this is the card that Galton used. 126 00:07:29,100 --> 00:07:31,060 And so, you come into the lab, 127 00:07:31,060 --> 00:07:33,100 and you'd be measured for various dimensions. 128 00:07:35,820 --> 00:07:38,900 OK, so, things like skull dimensions. 129 00:07:38,900 --> 00:07:41,500 So, use calipers, you know, to measure 130 00:07:41,500 --> 00:07:43,060 your temporal dimensions there, 131 00:07:43,060 --> 00:07:47,180 and across the sagittal plane there. HE LAUGHS 132 00:07:47,180 --> 00:07:49,980 I'm from a long line of big 'eads. There it is, yeah. 133 00:07:49,980 --> 00:07:52,940 So, you know, eye dimensions like that. 134 00:07:52,940 --> 00:07:55,940 I'm really conscious of poking you in the eye here! 135 00:07:55,940 --> 00:07:58,460 This astonishing piece of equipment 136 00:07:58,460 --> 00:08:00,580 is here to test 137 00:08:00,580 --> 00:08:03,060 your visual acuity. Oh. 138 00:08:03,060 --> 00:08:05,500 So... What do I do? You look through it. 139 00:08:05,500 --> 00:08:09,740 And you've got to see which of those cards you can still read, 140 00:08:09,740 --> 00:08:11,980 in this slightly peculiar angle. 141 00:08:11,980 --> 00:08:13,820 Well, I keep seeing the word "church." 142 00:08:15,020 --> 00:08:16,900 So, they're pages from... 143 00:08:16,900 --> 00:08:18,420 the Book of Prayer. 144 00:08:19,420 --> 00:08:21,820 But wouldn't people know some of this text anyway? 145 00:08:21,820 --> 00:08:23,820 Do you know what? He pointed that out 146 00:08:23,820 --> 00:08:25,700 when he wrote the study up afterwards. 147 00:08:25,700 --> 00:08:28,980 He realised that the Book of Prayer was a poor choice, 148 00:08:28,980 --> 00:08:30,580 because people knew the text, 149 00:08:30,580 --> 00:08:33,180 and he actually suggested that a book of logarithms 150 00:08:33,180 --> 00:08:35,780 would be a better test, because they're so boring that 151 00:08:35,780 --> 00:08:37,780 no-one would actually know what they are. 152 00:08:37,780 --> 00:08:39,060 Yeah, so, one of them was... 153 00:08:39,060 --> 00:08:41,340 blow of hand in feet per second. So, basically, 154 00:08:41,340 --> 00:08:43,740 it was punch strength. And we don't have the equipment 155 00:08:43,740 --> 00:08:45,620 to test that, but, you know, it's basically, 156 00:08:45,620 --> 00:08:48,540 how hard can you hit? Shall I? Yeah! 157 00:08:49,980 --> 00:08:53,060 Ooh, God, I almost glanced off there! 158 00:08:53,060 --> 00:08:54,980 Sorry. Here you go. 159 00:08:54,980 --> 00:08:56,820 You get your little certificate, 160 00:08:56,820 --> 00:08:58,740 which says all of your biometrics on it, 161 00:08:58,740 --> 00:09:00,580 and I've got a carbon copy. 162 00:09:01,780 --> 00:09:03,900 9,000 people did this over the course of a week, 163 00:09:03,900 --> 00:09:05,820 and I've got the biggest dataset 164 00:09:05,820 --> 00:09:10,380 that's ever been compiled of human metrics, biometrics, 165 00:09:10,380 --> 00:09:12,140 and you paid me for it. It's brilliant! 166 00:09:13,460 --> 00:09:15,340 Galton hopes that by building up 167 00:09:15,340 --> 00:09:18,980 a long-term database of people's physical characteristics, 168 00:09:18,980 --> 00:09:22,260 he can identify which sections of British society 169 00:09:22,260 --> 00:09:26,820 should be encouraged to breed and which should not. 170 00:09:26,820 --> 00:09:30,700 The whole sort of cultural idea at this time 171 00:09:30,700 --> 00:09:34,980 is the improvement of people, improvement of the stock. 172 00:09:34,980 --> 00:09:36,780 We're now in the Darwinian era, 173 00:09:36,780 --> 00:09:40,260 so we recognise that people and all organisms change over time, 174 00:09:40,260 --> 00:09:44,140 and so there is a sense that if you didn't breed well, 175 00:09:44,140 --> 00:09:46,620 that degeneration was the result. 176 00:09:46,620 --> 00:09:49,100 And so, people were beginning to turn to these ideas that 177 00:09:49,100 --> 00:09:51,860 we could improve individuals through science. 178 00:09:51,860 --> 00:09:54,660 So, this search for improvement, 179 00:09:54,660 --> 00:09:56,700 this is positive eugenics? 180 00:09:56,700 --> 00:09:59,340 Yeah. Eugenics is Galton's coinage, 181 00:09:59,340 --> 00:10:01,860 and the word itself means "good genes," 182 00:10:01,860 --> 00:10:06,060 so it's not regarded as a sort of toxic concept 183 00:10:06,060 --> 00:10:09,340 that we think about when we talk about eugenics today. Mmm. 184 00:10:09,340 --> 00:10:13,060 Back in the late 19th century, and well into the 20th century, 185 00:10:13,060 --> 00:10:15,620 people across the political spectrum - both left and right - 186 00:10:15,620 --> 00:10:19,020 are talking about eugenics as a positive force 187 00:10:19,020 --> 00:10:23,260 for improving the quality of populations. 188 00:10:23,260 --> 00:10:25,940 Surely, he'd be aware that 189 00:10:25,940 --> 00:10:29,740 he was straying into dubious territory, wouldn't he? 190 00:10:29,740 --> 00:10:32,700 He was definitely a racist. Erm... 191 00:10:32,700 --> 00:10:34,500 But we have to contextualise that, 192 00:10:34,500 --> 00:10:38,580 because everyone was more racist then than we are today. 193 00:10:38,580 --> 00:10:44,860 I think that Galton was particularly racist, even for the 19th century, 194 00:10:44,860 --> 00:10:47,900 and that's documented in various things that he wrote. 195 00:10:47,900 --> 00:10:50,740 When he was younger, he travelled in Africa extensively, 196 00:10:50,740 --> 00:10:52,580 and he came back more assured of 197 00:10:52,580 --> 00:10:54,340 the natural hierarchy of people 198 00:10:54,340 --> 00:10:56,540 around the world. More convinced. Yeah. 199 00:10:56,540 --> 00:10:59,540 And these are all part of the ideas which are rooted in 200 00:10:59,540 --> 00:11:01,620 what we now call scientific racism. 201 00:11:01,620 --> 00:11:05,820 And they're also massively tied into the whole concept of 202 00:11:05,820 --> 00:11:09,860 European expansion and empire and colonialisation. Yeah. Yeah. 203 00:11:13,260 --> 00:11:16,060 Inevitably, the use of scientific racism 204 00:11:16,060 --> 00:11:19,340 to bolster imperial rule will come under attack from 205 00:11:19,340 --> 00:11:21,540 Britain's colonial subjects themselves. 206 00:11:24,460 --> 00:11:26,300 But the work of another scientific racist 207 00:11:26,300 --> 00:11:29,580 provokes a more unexpected response. 208 00:11:29,580 --> 00:11:31,940 Cesare Lombroso is the founder of 209 00:11:31,940 --> 00:11:35,460 the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. 210 00:11:35,460 --> 00:11:38,780 He's convinced that the so-called "born criminal" 211 00:11:38,780 --> 00:11:42,340 is identifiable by certain anatomical features - 212 00:11:42,340 --> 00:11:44,860 such as handle-shaped ears, 213 00:11:44,860 --> 00:11:46,820 protuberant jaws, 214 00:11:46,820 --> 00:11:48,820 and even excessive tattooing. 215 00:11:51,620 --> 00:11:54,500 The notion that someone's moral character could be manifested 216 00:11:54,500 --> 00:11:58,660 in their features sparks the interest of a certain young writer, 217 00:11:58,660 --> 00:12:02,060 soon to become one of the 1890s' most iconic figures. 218 00:12:08,820 --> 00:12:12,460 An idea begins to form in the mind of Oscar Wilde. 219 00:12:12,460 --> 00:12:15,180 What if a painted portrait 220 00:12:15,180 --> 00:12:19,740 could capture its subject's moral decay and degeneration, 221 00:12:19,740 --> 00:12:23,060 while the sitter himself remained unblemished? 222 00:12:24,620 --> 00:12:29,420 The idea quickly becomes the basis for The Picture of Dorian Gray, 223 00:12:29,420 --> 00:12:31,260 Wilde's first and only novel. 224 00:12:32,940 --> 00:12:34,740 The story revolves around 225 00:12:34,740 --> 00:12:38,140 the handsome title character, Dorian Gray, 226 00:12:38,140 --> 00:12:41,940 and the fashionable society painter Basil Hallward, who paints 227 00:12:41,940 --> 00:12:45,060 Gray's portrait and becomes infatuated with him. 228 00:12:49,980 --> 00:12:52,500 Gray soon embraces a life of hedonism, 229 00:12:52,500 --> 00:12:58,020 but, to do so, he sells his soul in a Faustian pact, 230 00:12:58,020 --> 00:13:00,860 ensuring that the picture, not he, 231 00:13:00,860 --> 00:13:04,500 will bear all the physical signs of his immorality. 232 00:13:12,340 --> 00:13:14,980 He found himself at first gazing at the portrait 233 00:13:14,980 --> 00:13:17,980 with a feeling of almost scientific interest. 234 00:13:17,980 --> 00:13:21,820 That such a change should have taken place was incredible to him. 235 00:13:21,820 --> 00:13:25,100 Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms 236 00:13:25,100 --> 00:13:28,580 that shaped themselves into form and colour on the canvas 237 00:13:28,580 --> 00:13:31,620 and the soul that was within him? 238 00:13:31,620 --> 00:13:35,100 He shuddered and felt afraid, 239 00:13:35,100 --> 00:13:37,660 and, going back to the couch, lay there, 240 00:13:37,660 --> 00:13:40,380 gazing at the picture in sickened horror. 241 00:13:44,180 --> 00:13:46,460 The novel divides opinion, 242 00:13:46,460 --> 00:13:48,380 condemned by critics as 243 00:13:48,380 --> 00:13:50,340 unclean and effeminate, 244 00:13:50,340 --> 00:13:52,700 for its homoerotic undertones. 245 00:13:52,700 --> 00:13:56,740 Some people even begin to wonder whether Dorian Gray 246 00:13:56,740 --> 00:14:00,420 is, in fact, a portrait of Oscar Wilde himself. 247 00:14:04,780 --> 00:14:09,740 In a taste of things to come, Wilde is forced to defend himself. 248 00:14:09,740 --> 00:14:14,580 He states, "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. 249 00:14:14,580 --> 00:14:19,460 "Books are well written or badly written. That is all." 250 00:14:22,420 --> 00:14:26,620 Wilde's book is one of the first works to be feverishly discussed 251 00:14:26,620 --> 00:14:29,300 by a select gathering of self-styled Aesthetes 252 00:14:29,300 --> 00:14:31,580 and self-proclaimed Decadents. 253 00:14:32,700 --> 00:14:37,260 Embracing what others regard as affected, even offensive, 254 00:14:37,260 --> 00:14:39,660 they want to liberate art and literature 255 00:14:39,660 --> 00:14:42,820 from staid Victorian convention and morality. 256 00:14:44,380 --> 00:14:47,820 Inaugurated by the poet WB Yeats, 257 00:14:47,820 --> 00:14:51,540 the Rhymers - as this group is called - often convene here, 258 00:14:51,540 --> 00:14:55,660 at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub, on Fleet Street. 259 00:14:56,780 --> 00:14:58,420 Tucking themselves away 260 00:14:58,420 --> 00:15:00,420 in an upper smoking room. 261 00:15:02,460 --> 00:15:07,380 And these Rhymers, and the Decadents and the Aesthetes, 262 00:15:07,380 --> 00:15:09,340 were they, I mean, are they one in the same, 263 00:15:09,340 --> 00:15:11,220 are they all the same people? 264 00:15:11,220 --> 00:15:14,340 The Aesthetes had ideas of aesthetism, 265 00:15:14,340 --> 00:15:17,060 love of beauty for its own sake. 266 00:15:17,060 --> 00:15:19,260 The important thing, if you were painting pictures, 267 00:15:19,260 --> 00:15:21,940 was not to tell a story, but just to be beautiful. 268 00:15:21,940 --> 00:15:25,580 The idea that if you were writing, it was to write beautifully. 269 00:15:25,580 --> 00:15:30,500 Decadents, I think, have sort of more of an idea of trying to, 270 00:15:30,500 --> 00:15:35,340 as it were, change things, undermine old and established, 271 00:15:35,340 --> 00:15:37,140 and boring and stale ideas. 272 00:15:37,140 --> 00:15:39,420 So, what did they actually publish? 273 00:15:39,420 --> 00:15:41,900 What was completely different was The Yellow Book, 274 00:15:41,900 --> 00:15:44,580 which became the great symbol. 275 00:15:44,580 --> 00:15:47,300 This is the first number of The Yellow Book, 276 00:15:47,300 --> 00:15:49,180 with a cover by Aubrey Beardsley, 277 00:15:49,180 --> 00:15:50,460 the most significant 278 00:15:50,460 --> 00:15:52,420 1890s Decadent artist. 279 00:15:52,420 --> 00:15:53,900 The Yellow Book sort of became 280 00:15:53,900 --> 00:15:55,500 almost symbolic of the age. 281 00:15:55,500 --> 00:15:58,460 We still talk about the Yellow Nineties, even now. 282 00:15:58,460 --> 00:16:01,740 And why yellow? What was the significance of that colour? 283 00:16:01,740 --> 00:16:03,940 Yellow wrappers were the way in which 284 00:16:03,940 --> 00:16:06,220 lubricious French novels were published, 285 00:16:06,220 --> 00:16:08,860 and I think it's certainly the case that they could 286 00:16:08,860 --> 00:16:13,420 suggest that here was something new and modern and slightly dangerous. 287 00:16:13,420 --> 00:16:15,100 And of course, in many ways, 288 00:16:15,100 --> 00:16:16,500 The Yellow Book was actually 289 00:16:16,500 --> 00:16:19,100 launched on the back of the notoriety that Beardsley 290 00:16:19,100 --> 00:16:21,460 already achieved a few months earlier, 291 00:16:21,460 --> 00:16:24,340 when he'd illustrated Oscar Wilde's play Salome, 292 00:16:24,340 --> 00:16:26,620 a set of illustrations which he made for the book 293 00:16:26,620 --> 00:16:29,580 which were absolutely scandalous. 294 00:16:29,580 --> 00:16:31,020 The publisher, John Lane, 295 00:16:31,020 --> 00:16:32,660 said that you have to look at 296 00:16:32,660 --> 00:16:35,980 all of Beardsley's drawings upside down and through a magnifying glass, 297 00:16:35,980 --> 00:16:38,540 to make sure that he's not slipping in something... 298 00:16:38,540 --> 00:16:41,180 Sneaking something through! The wonderful thing is that 299 00:16:41,180 --> 00:16:43,180 half the time, they did all miss these details. 300 00:16:43,180 --> 00:16:45,420 I can show you a typical example. 301 00:16:48,460 --> 00:16:50,500 Here's one of... 302 00:16:50,500 --> 00:16:52,660 Beardsley's drawing of Herodias, 303 00:16:52,660 --> 00:16:55,380 appearing with this very dubious 304 00:16:55,380 --> 00:16:56,900 effete page. 305 00:16:56,900 --> 00:16:59,100 Here we see Oscar Wilde caricatured, 306 00:16:59,100 --> 00:17:01,260 as though he's a sort of vulgar showman, 307 00:17:01,260 --> 00:17:03,660 putting on this tawdry play. 308 00:17:03,660 --> 00:17:06,260 And then if you look across the bottom here, you can see 309 00:17:06,260 --> 00:17:09,220 the candlesticks are all, quite clearly, 310 00:17:09,220 --> 00:17:11,420 indecent little penises. 311 00:17:11,420 --> 00:17:14,820 Well, I'm shocked. Think how shocked they were in the 1890s. 312 00:17:14,820 --> 00:17:16,180 Absolutely. 313 00:17:16,180 --> 00:17:19,740 You know, here's another example, which we can see. 314 00:17:19,740 --> 00:17:22,820 This is called The Toilette of Salome, 315 00:17:22,820 --> 00:17:24,420 and he's got Salome here, 316 00:17:24,420 --> 00:17:26,220 sitting at a very modern-looking 317 00:17:26,220 --> 00:17:27,420 dressing table. 318 00:17:27,420 --> 00:17:28,900 This is a little hermaphrodite. 319 00:17:28,900 --> 00:17:30,500 Yes, he's very clearly 320 00:17:30,500 --> 00:17:32,300 a hermaphrodite figure. 321 00:17:32,300 --> 00:17:34,060 But this figure here, 322 00:17:34,060 --> 00:17:36,580 this is the one that really upset people. Why? 323 00:17:36,580 --> 00:17:37,820 Because if you see, 324 00:17:37,820 --> 00:17:39,660 this is sort of a strange boy, 325 00:17:39,660 --> 00:17:41,580 who's got a curved spine... 326 00:17:41,580 --> 00:17:43,740 Looks very vulnerable. Well, 327 00:17:43,740 --> 00:17:45,700 you see, the curved spine, at that time, 328 00:17:45,700 --> 00:17:49,700 was an absolute indicator of degeneracy. Ah! 329 00:17:49,700 --> 00:17:51,660 And if you think about, sort of, 330 00:17:51,660 --> 00:17:53,260 the writings of Lombroso, 331 00:17:53,260 --> 00:17:55,700 Galton, all those sort of people, 332 00:17:55,700 --> 00:17:56,940 who were studying 333 00:17:56,940 --> 00:17:59,780 the decline of the race in a scientific way, 334 00:17:59,780 --> 00:18:02,380 the curved spine was supposed to be 335 00:18:02,380 --> 00:18:05,740 indicative of constant masturbation. 336 00:18:05,740 --> 00:18:09,100 So, Beardsley's playing with 337 00:18:09,100 --> 00:18:11,340 current ideas that were quite coded. 338 00:18:11,340 --> 00:18:13,340 You mentioned Galton and Lombroso, 339 00:18:13,340 --> 00:18:16,100 so it's like you have art and science 340 00:18:16,100 --> 00:18:18,660 almost talking to one another. 341 00:18:18,660 --> 00:18:21,140 I think that's very much a thing of the time. 342 00:18:21,140 --> 00:18:24,180 The writers and artists thought that they were doing something 343 00:18:24,180 --> 00:18:27,460 interesting and clever but, at the same time, 344 00:18:27,460 --> 00:18:33,060 scientists begin to look for signs within art and literature 345 00:18:33,060 --> 00:18:35,900 of the decline that they've been describing scientifically. 346 00:18:40,620 --> 00:18:44,020 But what if art isn't just a sign of racial decline, 347 00:18:44,020 --> 00:18:47,300 but an actual cause, like heredity? 348 00:18:47,300 --> 00:18:50,060 In early 1895, one man - 349 00:18:50,060 --> 00:18:52,780 drawing on the latest scientific thinking - 350 00:18:52,780 --> 00:18:57,020 takes a vehement stand against art for art's sake. 351 00:19:04,140 --> 00:19:05,980 This is Degeneration, 352 00:19:05,980 --> 00:19:09,180 by Austro-Hungarian physician Max Nordau. 353 00:19:09,180 --> 00:19:11,660 And in it, he argues that society is suffering 354 00:19:11,660 --> 00:19:13,900 a severe mental epidemic. 355 00:19:13,900 --> 00:19:18,420 A kind of Black Death of hysteria and degeneration. 356 00:19:18,420 --> 00:19:21,540 And it's on the Aesthetes and the Decadents 357 00:19:21,540 --> 00:19:24,100 that Nordau firmly pins the blame. 358 00:19:26,060 --> 00:19:29,380 "Books and works of art," states Dr Nordau, 359 00:19:29,380 --> 00:19:33,020 "exercise a powerful suggestion on the masses. 360 00:19:33,020 --> 00:19:35,420 "And it is from them that an age derives its ideals 361 00:19:35,420 --> 00:19:37,420 "of morality and beauty." 362 00:19:38,340 --> 00:19:40,340 Degeneration goes down a storm. 363 00:19:40,340 --> 00:19:42,300 This is the seventh edition, 364 00:19:42,300 --> 00:19:43,780 printed just six months after 365 00:19:43,780 --> 00:19:45,460 the first English publication, 366 00:19:45,460 --> 00:19:47,260 in February, 1895. 367 00:19:48,660 --> 00:19:52,380 And here, you can see the dedication to his great mentor, 368 00:19:52,380 --> 00:19:54,220 Lombroso. 369 00:19:54,220 --> 00:19:58,060 Nordau argues that degenerates are not always criminals, 370 00:19:58,060 --> 00:20:00,620 prostitutes, lunatics or anarchists. 371 00:20:00,620 --> 00:20:03,900 Sometimes, they're authors and artists, 372 00:20:03,900 --> 00:20:05,220 and if their works are absurd 373 00:20:05,220 --> 00:20:08,540 or anti-social, they exert 374 00:20:08,540 --> 00:20:13,060 a "disturbing and corrupting influence" on a whole generation. 375 00:20:14,180 --> 00:20:17,700 And there's one artist in particular who Dr Nordau singles out 376 00:20:17,700 --> 00:20:20,300 as the epitome of this corrupting influence. 377 00:20:23,020 --> 00:20:25,460 "The ego-mania of decadentism, 378 00:20:25,460 --> 00:20:28,060 "its love of the artificial, 379 00:20:28,060 --> 00:20:29,660 "its aversion to nature 380 00:20:29,660 --> 00:20:32,860 "and to all forms of activity and movement 381 00:20:32,860 --> 00:20:37,340 "have found their English representative among the Aesthetes, 382 00:20:37,340 --> 00:20:39,940 "the chief of whom is Oscar Wilde." 383 00:20:42,780 --> 00:20:45,300 "It is asserted," continues Nordau, 384 00:20:45,300 --> 00:20:48,620 "that he has walked down Pall Mall in the afternoon, 385 00:20:48,620 --> 00:20:51,020 "dressed in doublet and breeches, 386 00:20:51,020 --> 00:20:53,780 "with a sunflower in his hand, 387 00:20:53,780 --> 00:20:56,700 "the quasiheraldic symbol of the Aesthetes." 388 00:21:09,140 --> 00:21:11,340 Nordau couches his attack in 389 00:21:11,340 --> 00:21:14,460 the scientific terminology of the time... 390 00:21:15,780 --> 00:21:17,660 ..denouncing Wilde's attire as, 391 00:21:17,660 --> 00:21:21,220 "the pathological aberration of a racial instinct". 392 00:21:22,700 --> 00:21:27,060 But Nordau's stance is that of the stiff Victorian reactionary, 393 00:21:27,060 --> 00:21:30,260 Wilde - who'd lectured widely on fashion - 394 00:21:30,260 --> 00:21:33,500 was forging a look, a persona, an identity. 395 00:21:33,500 --> 00:21:35,820 And as he said himself, 396 00:21:35,820 --> 00:21:40,980 "A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life." 397 00:21:43,940 --> 00:21:47,460 For Nordau, the sartorial aesthetic of the dandy 398 00:21:47,460 --> 00:21:51,620 is at odds with a natural instinct for sensible, practical clothing. 399 00:21:54,220 --> 00:21:56,460 Yet, despite their differences, 400 00:21:56,460 --> 00:21:59,940 he and Wilde agree that clothes maketh the man. 401 00:22:03,100 --> 00:22:05,540 I think for anybody that puts on a performance, 402 00:22:05,540 --> 00:22:09,260 clothes, costume, help build a character. 403 00:22:09,260 --> 00:22:14,780 Or as my favourite Soho tailor says, "It's your armour". 404 00:22:16,300 --> 00:22:19,380 And Wilde seems to be in a combative mood 405 00:22:19,380 --> 00:22:23,820 on the opening night of his first hit play, Lady Windermere's Fan, 406 00:22:23,820 --> 00:22:25,700 in February, 1892. 407 00:22:27,140 --> 00:22:30,140 The play, which explores the hypocrisy of Victorian attitudes 408 00:22:30,140 --> 00:22:33,700 to women and sex, is the first in a series of popular 409 00:22:33,700 --> 00:22:35,220 social satires. 410 00:22:35,220 --> 00:22:37,060 APPLAUSE 411 00:22:38,380 --> 00:22:42,300 I suppose, Windermere, you'd like me to retire into a convent, 412 00:22:42,300 --> 00:22:43,860 or become a hospital nurse, 413 00:22:43,860 --> 00:22:45,500 or something of that kind! LAUGHTER 414 00:22:45,500 --> 00:22:47,780 That is stupid of you, Arthur! 415 00:22:47,780 --> 00:22:51,580 In real life, we don't do such things, not as long as we have any 416 00:22:51,580 --> 00:22:53,340 good looks left, at any rate. LAUGHTER 417 00:22:53,340 --> 00:22:55,660 No, what consoles one nowadays 418 00:22:55,660 --> 00:22:59,580 is not repentance, but pleasure! 419 00:22:59,580 --> 00:23:03,460 Repentance is quite out of date. LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 420 00:23:05,020 --> 00:23:07,260 At the final curtain call comes rapturous applause 421 00:23:07,260 --> 00:23:09,740 and cries of "Author! Author!" 422 00:23:09,740 --> 00:23:11,660 Oscar Wilde steps out on stage 423 00:23:11,660 --> 00:23:12,980 and addresses his public 424 00:23:12,980 --> 00:23:15,860 in typical fashion. 425 00:23:15,860 --> 00:23:19,300 Ladies and gentlemen, I have enjoyed this evening immensely. 426 00:23:19,300 --> 00:23:21,100 LAUGHTER 427 00:23:21,100 --> 00:23:24,940 The actors have given us a charming rendering of a delightful play. 428 00:23:24,940 --> 00:23:27,020 LAUGHTER And your appreciation 429 00:23:27,020 --> 00:23:29,860 has been most intelligent. I congratulate you 430 00:23:29,860 --> 00:23:32,700 on the great success of your performance... 431 00:23:32,700 --> 00:23:34,340 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 432 00:23:34,340 --> 00:23:36,540 ..which persuades me that you think 433 00:23:36,540 --> 00:23:39,420 almost as highly of the play as I do myself. 434 00:23:39,420 --> 00:23:43,500 LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE 435 00:23:45,300 --> 00:23:49,900 The evening is a triumph, but there are those who are outraged, 436 00:23:49,900 --> 00:23:52,820 not by the play, but by the playwright. 437 00:23:54,380 --> 00:23:57,740 Some find Wilde's impromptu speech patronising and impertinent. 438 00:23:57,740 --> 00:24:01,780 Others are scandalised at the lit cigarette that Wilde puffs at 439 00:24:01,780 --> 00:24:05,540 in the presence of ladies. But what really seems to get to them 440 00:24:05,540 --> 00:24:09,580 is the vibrant flower Wilde sports in his lapel. 441 00:24:09,580 --> 00:24:11,900 A dyed green carnation. 442 00:24:15,380 --> 00:24:16,900 With its unnatural hue, 443 00:24:16,900 --> 00:24:18,740 Wilde is playing with one of 444 00:24:18,740 --> 00:24:20,500 his most decadent ideals - 445 00:24:20,500 --> 00:24:22,180 that life should imitate art, 446 00:24:22,180 --> 00:24:23,900 and not the reverse. 447 00:24:23,900 --> 00:24:27,860 He's arranged for some of the male leads to wear them. 448 00:24:27,860 --> 00:24:32,140 He's out to provoke, hoping this "speck of mystic green," 449 00:24:32,140 --> 00:24:34,860 as he calls it, will annoy his critics, 450 00:24:34,860 --> 00:24:36,460 and it does. 451 00:24:38,900 --> 00:24:42,860 Normality, in the way of asceticism, recalls to mind various... 452 00:24:42,860 --> 00:24:44,580 The ghastly green carnation. 453 00:24:44,580 --> 00:24:47,780 It is crude enough to set one's teeth on edge and affect 454 00:24:47,780 --> 00:24:49,700 the observer with... 455 00:24:49,700 --> 00:24:53,820 Outrage public opinion and propriety of behaviour, 456 00:24:53,820 --> 00:24:55,660 he would do anything... 457 00:25:02,780 --> 00:25:05,260 The green carnation may have caused offence, 458 00:25:05,260 --> 00:25:10,420 but more subversive was Wilde's portrayal of the Victorian woman. 459 00:25:10,420 --> 00:25:12,620 Lady Windermere's Fan, and his plays that followed, 460 00:25:12,620 --> 00:25:16,940 challenged the conventions of marriage and motherhood. 461 00:25:16,940 --> 00:25:18,780 Wilde seems to be in solidarity with 462 00:25:18,780 --> 00:25:21,060 the growing movement of female writers, 463 00:25:21,060 --> 00:25:23,460 who are known as the New Women. 464 00:25:25,940 --> 00:25:29,180 These writers - such as Sarah Grand, 465 00:25:29,180 --> 00:25:30,660 Mona Caird 466 00:25:30,660 --> 00:25:32,580 and George Egerton - 467 00:25:32,580 --> 00:25:34,620 portray new ideas of femininity. 468 00:25:34,620 --> 00:25:37,740 Their heroines are independent, 469 00:25:37,740 --> 00:25:40,660 educated and sexually autonomous, 470 00:25:40,660 --> 00:25:43,860 and reflect the new-found freedoms of the middle-class woman, 471 00:25:43,860 --> 00:25:47,420 such as cycling, practical or rational dress, 472 00:25:47,420 --> 00:25:49,460 and even, for some, smoking. 473 00:25:51,340 --> 00:25:55,460 The New Woman is endlessly discussed and debated. 474 00:25:55,460 --> 00:25:59,940 Some observers think she's but a passing fashion and, 475 00:25:59,940 --> 00:26:03,220 like Oscar Wilde, she quickly becomes an easy target 476 00:26:03,220 --> 00:26:06,260 for Punch magazine and its leading cartoonists, 477 00:26:06,260 --> 00:26:08,140 such as Edward Linley Sambourne, 478 00:26:08,140 --> 00:26:10,100 who completed his drawings here, 479 00:26:10,100 --> 00:26:11,540 at his London home. 480 00:26:13,260 --> 00:26:16,180 And here we have the caricature of the New Woman. 481 00:26:16,180 --> 00:26:17,900 And so, we... She's holding a key. 482 00:26:17,900 --> 00:26:19,180 Yes. Yes, well, 483 00:26:19,180 --> 00:26:20,740 this is George Egerton, 484 00:26:20,740 --> 00:26:22,900 and she had published Keynotes - 485 00:26:22,900 --> 00:26:25,540 a collection of short stories - the year before, 486 00:26:25,540 --> 00:26:28,140 and they were disruptive, experimental 487 00:26:28,140 --> 00:26:31,660 stories, with strong female protagonists. 488 00:26:31,660 --> 00:26:34,260 But you can see around her 489 00:26:34,260 --> 00:26:36,300 the products of a riotous imagination. 490 00:26:36,300 --> 00:26:38,220 So, we have tyrant man slain, 491 00:26:38,220 --> 00:26:39,980 decorum slain. 492 00:26:39,980 --> 00:26:42,020 Punch is expressing 493 00:26:42,020 --> 00:26:45,060 hostility to the intellectual woman. And the quotation here, 494 00:26:45,060 --> 00:26:46,620 from Don Quixote, 495 00:26:46,620 --> 00:26:50,260 "A world of disorderly notions, picked out of books." 496 00:26:50,260 --> 00:26:54,140 The suggestion that her ideas have come from her reading. 497 00:26:54,140 --> 00:26:56,220 And that was considered a threat. Yes. 498 00:26:56,220 --> 00:26:58,660 She's being lampooned because she's a threat. Yes. 499 00:26:58,660 --> 00:27:02,220 So, this is another one lampooning the New Woman. 500 00:27:02,220 --> 00:27:04,180 This is by a different artist. 501 00:27:04,180 --> 00:27:05,980 It's by George du Maurier. 502 00:27:05,980 --> 00:27:09,020 But you also see very mannish women here. 503 00:27:09,020 --> 00:27:11,140 These two are wearing ties 504 00:27:11,140 --> 00:27:12,980 and they're smoking, 505 00:27:12,980 --> 00:27:16,380 and they're repellent to a man of their own class. 506 00:27:16,380 --> 00:27:18,420 Jack would rather take tea with the servants 507 00:27:18,420 --> 00:27:20,220 than spend time with them. 508 00:27:20,220 --> 00:27:22,900 And who coined the term, where did the term come from, New Woman? 509 00:27:22,900 --> 00:27:25,620 Well, Sarah Grand introduced the phrase New Women 510 00:27:25,620 --> 00:27:29,700 in her bestselling novel of 1893, The Heavenly Twins. 511 00:27:29,700 --> 00:27:32,660 By the end of the century, over 100 novels have been written 512 00:27:32,660 --> 00:27:34,500 by or about the New Woman. 513 00:27:34,500 --> 00:27:36,980 But if there were only novels, why the threat, 514 00:27:36,980 --> 00:27:38,660 why the perception of threat? 515 00:27:38,660 --> 00:27:41,340 Well, they weren't only in novels. And there was so much change, 516 00:27:41,340 --> 00:27:44,780 in urban spaces in particular. You had so many more workers 517 00:27:44,780 --> 00:27:47,020 and consumers that were women, 518 00:27:47,020 --> 00:27:50,260 so even if you hadn't read any New Woman fiction, you would have had 519 00:27:50,260 --> 00:27:52,980 a sense of the New Woman, in some guise. 520 00:27:52,980 --> 00:27:56,100 So, is Sarah Grand at the forefront of this movement? 521 00:27:56,100 --> 00:27:59,660 She is, yes, though she distances herself from the term. 522 00:27:59,660 --> 00:28:01,500 So, she had meant something very different 523 00:28:01,500 --> 00:28:04,900 from the caricature of femininity that you see in the pages of Punch. 524 00:28:04,900 --> 00:28:09,940 What she meant by the New Woman was a new type of duty. 525 00:28:09,940 --> 00:28:13,100 She wanted a citizenship of contribution, 526 00:28:13,100 --> 00:28:15,220 rather than entitlement. 527 00:28:15,220 --> 00:28:19,380 And at the centre of her politics was a racial idea, 528 00:28:19,380 --> 00:28:22,380 the idea of eugenic feminism. Meaning? 529 00:28:22,380 --> 00:28:26,420 That she thought that women should play a leading role 530 00:28:26,420 --> 00:28:29,340 in regenerating the British imperial race. 531 00:28:29,340 --> 00:28:31,900 The middle class should breed more 532 00:28:31,900 --> 00:28:34,340 and the working class should breed less. 533 00:28:36,060 --> 00:28:38,980 This unsettling idea about the New Woman's role 534 00:28:38,980 --> 00:28:42,660 in selective breeding runs through much of Sarah Grand's fiction. 535 00:28:44,140 --> 00:28:46,020 It even inspires the heroine's name 536 00:28:46,020 --> 00:28:48,860 in her short story, Eugenia. 537 00:28:52,700 --> 00:28:55,740 "She was, in fact, essentially a modern maiden, 538 00:28:55,740 --> 00:28:59,060 "richly endowed with all womanly attributes, 539 00:28:59,060 --> 00:29:02,220 "whose value is further enhanced by the strength 540 00:29:02,220 --> 00:29:05,220 "which comes of the liberty to think. 541 00:29:05,220 --> 00:29:07,900 "With such women for the mothers of men, 542 00:29:07,900 --> 00:29:09,460 "the English-speaking races 543 00:29:09,460 --> 00:29:10,820 "should rule the world." 544 00:29:12,980 --> 00:29:15,820 It comes of the liberty to think. 545 00:29:15,820 --> 00:29:18,220 I mean, this is progressive. Yes, that's right. 546 00:29:18,220 --> 00:29:20,260 She did have some progressive ideas, 547 00:29:20,260 --> 00:29:26,540 but it coexists with a deeply repressive idea of eugenics. 548 00:29:28,580 --> 00:29:31,540 Sarah Grand imagines a future where the health of the nation 549 00:29:31,540 --> 00:29:35,220 is secured through the sexual choices of middle-class women. 550 00:29:36,820 --> 00:29:40,380 Such freedom is not for those they consider to be of lesser stock. 551 00:29:50,340 --> 00:29:55,820 For eugenicists, one way of keeping a degenerate working class in check 552 00:29:55,820 --> 00:29:59,460 was incarceration which, in the Victorian age, 553 00:29:59,460 --> 00:30:05,140 meant either prison or, increasingly, the asylum. 554 00:30:11,460 --> 00:30:14,140 When it opened in 1848, 555 00:30:14,140 --> 00:30:17,900 Denbigh Asylum accommodated a mere 70 patients, 556 00:30:17,900 --> 00:30:19,940 but by the 1890s, 557 00:30:19,940 --> 00:30:23,420 the site had been expanded to serve the whole of North Wales 558 00:30:23,420 --> 00:30:26,180 and houses over 500 patients. 559 00:30:30,020 --> 00:30:31,900 According to records, 560 00:30:31,900 --> 00:30:34,300 the most frequent cause of admission to Denbigh 561 00:30:34,300 --> 00:30:38,460 during this period is "hereditary influence," 562 00:30:38,460 --> 00:30:41,540 which essentially meant that degeneration was inherited. 563 00:30:44,340 --> 00:30:48,420 If left unchecked, physical, mental and moral defects 564 00:30:48,420 --> 00:30:50,140 would be passed down, 565 00:30:50,140 --> 00:30:53,620 creating an increasingly unfit population. 566 00:30:57,100 --> 00:30:59,100 The situation is critical. 567 00:30:59,100 --> 00:31:02,620 Overcrowding and severe staff shortages mean that, 568 00:31:02,620 --> 00:31:05,420 in one women's ward, there are but three nurses 569 00:31:05,420 --> 00:31:09,340 supervising 46 very troublesome female patients. 570 00:31:15,500 --> 00:31:20,740 In a case that could have come from the pages of a New Woman novel, 571 00:31:20,740 --> 00:31:25,460 one female patient, Janet Maude Wise, was admitted here 572 00:31:25,460 --> 00:31:30,340 having become so intent on doing the things that people do in books 573 00:31:30,340 --> 00:31:33,220 that she'd taken to stalking young men. 574 00:31:34,900 --> 00:31:37,060 Janet's case notes describe her as 575 00:31:37,060 --> 00:31:39,580 "deluded, often abusive," 576 00:31:39,580 --> 00:31:40,860 and they also state that 577 00:31:40,860 --> 00:31:42,460 at one point, she asked the doctor 578 00:31:42,460 --> 00:31:44,460 to cut off a piece of her tongue 579 00:31:44,460 --> 00:31:45,740 because she said 580 00:31:45,740 --> 00:31:47,500 she could no longer control it. 581 00:31:49,500 --> 00:31:52,900 But it isn't just female transgression that is treated here. 582 00:31:52,900 --> 00:31:54,380 Sexual intemperance 583 00:31:54,380 --> 00:31:55,940 and sexual self-abuse 584 00:31:55,940 --> 00:31:58,500 are listed as causes of male admissions. 585 00:32:01,740 --> 00:32:03,500 And among the preventative devices 586 00:32:03,500 --> 00:32:05,260 used in asylums is one 587 00:32:05,260 --> 00:32:07,420 which can, quite literally, 588 00:32:07,420 --> 00:32:10,100 stem the flow of man's moral weakness. 589 00:32:13,900 --> 00:32:16,900 Now, this might look like a pocket watch 590 00:32:16,900 --> 00:32:19,300 without its inner workings, but it is, in fact, 591 00:32:19,300 --> 00:32:21,260 a device to prevent 592 00:32:21,260 --> 00:32:23,620 what many Victorians saw as 593 00:32:23,620 --> 00:32:26,660 a symptom of degeneracy - masturbation, 594 00:32:26,660 --> 00:32:29,260 or "self-pollution", as they preferred to call it. 595 00:32:29,260 --> 00:32:31,380 These anti-masturbation devices 596 00:32:31,380 --> 00:32:32,860 were often worn at night, 597 00:32:32,860 --> 00:32:34,580 to prevent nocturnal emissions. 598 00:32:34,580 --> 00:32:36,700 It doesn't leave a lot to the imagination. 599 00:32:36,700 --> 00:32:40,340 Essentially, the old chap is held in place by this inner ring 600 00:32:40,340 --> 00:32:41,540 and was quickly subdued by 601 00:32:41,540 --> 00:32:42,620 this outer barbed ring 602 00:32:42,620 --> 00:32:45,140 at the onset of an erection. 603 00:32:49,060 --> 00:32:50,780 Renouncing masturbation 604 00:32:50,780 --> 00:32:52,100 was one of the aims of 605 00:32:52,100 --> 00:32:53,940 new Social Purity groups, 606 00:32:53,940 --> 00:32:55,740 who pledged sexual restraint 607 00:32:55,740 --> 00:32:57,460 among married men 608 00:32:57,460 --> 00:32:59,420 and chastity among unmarried ones. 609 00:33:01,060 --> 00:33:05,020 But their crusade wasn't just Victorian prudishness. 610 00:33:05,020 --> 00:33:07,980 It reflected a growing belief that masturbation 611 00:33:07,980 --> 00:33:10,140 was highly injurious to health 612 00:33:10,140 --> 00:33:13,620 and could even be sapping the vitality of the nation. 613 00:33:16,660 --> 00:33:20,180 Doctors warned men to conserve their essence, 614 00:33:20,180 --> 00:33:22,540 stating that the wanton waste of semen 615 00:33:22,540 --> 00:33:24,540 can lead to a range of disorders, 616 00:33:24,540 --> 00:33:26,660 from nervousness to paralysis 617 00:33:26,660 --> 00:33:29,860 and, ultimately, the descent into madness. 618 00:33:31,940 --> 00:33:34,980 The case notes for 19-year-old Norman Owen - 619 00:33:34,980 --> 00:33:38,900 a vicar's son admitted here in October 1890 - 620 00:33:38,900 --> 00:33:42,660 refer simply to the "insanity of masturbation". 621 00:33:43,700 --> 00:33:47,780 His notes go on to describe him pacing the ward, 622 00:33:47,780 --> 00:33:51,460 head hung down, needing to be force-fed 623 00:33:51,460 --> 00:33:54,020 and even placed in strong clothing, 624 00:33:54,020 --> 00:33:55,620 in a padded room. 625 00:33:56,820 --> 00:34:01,780 After just a year in this place, he was deemed incurable, 626 00:34:01,780 --> 00:34:03,540 but perhaps the most telling document 627 00:34:03,540 --> 00:34:07,020 concerning poor young Norman is the copy of a letter 628 00:34:07,020 --> 00:34:09,660 that he wrote to his parents. 629 00:34:09,660 --> 00:34:11,140 It says, simply, 630 00:34:11,140 --> 00:34:13,860 "Dear Papa and Mamma, 631 00:34:13,860 --> 00:34:16,860 "Of course you know that I'm a devil 632 00:34:16,860 --> 00:34:19,860 "and that I will go to eternal hell." 633 00:34:45,940 --> 00:34:49,340 The asylum helps keep so-called "degenerate behaviour" 634 00:34:49,340 --> 00:34:52,100 out of sight and out of mind. 635 00:34:54,220 --> 00:34:55,580 But sexual transgression 636 00:34:55,580 --> 00:34:59,060 is about to intrude into the Victorian consciousness 637 00:34:59,060 --> 00:35:00,300 as never before. 638 00:35:01,500 --> 00:35:03,420 It will take the form of one of the 639 00:35:03,420 --> 00:35:05,540 most infamous trials of the 1890s. 640 00:35:10,180 --> 00:35:12,500 The opening of The Importance of Being Earnest, 641 00:35:12,500 --> 00:35:15,900 in February 1895, sees Oscar Wilde 642 00:35:15,900 --> 00:35:17,140 at the height of his fame. 643 00:35:18,340 --> 00:35:20,620 Victorian society is in thrall to him. 644 00:35:22,460 --> 00:35:24,660 All except for one man. 645 00:35:24,660 --> 00:35:26,980 The Marquess of Queensberry has become incensed by 646 00:35:26,980 --> 00:35:28,860 his son Bosie's intimate relationship 647 00:35:28,860 --> 00:35:30,620 with the playwright. 648 00:35:32,860 --> 00:35:36,580 On February 18th, he seeks out Wilde at his club 649 00:35:36,580 --> 00:35:39,740 to confront him, but without success. 650 00:35:41,100 --> 00:35:43,660 So, Queensberry asks the staff 651 00:35:43,660 --> 00:35:46,380 to pass on an inflammatory message. 652 00:35:49,260 --> 00:35:52,500 When Wilde arrives at the Albemarle Club some two weeks later, 653 00:35:52,500 --> 00:35:56,420 he's handed an envelope, containing... 654 00:35:56,420 --> 00:35:59,180 Queensberry's visiting card. 655 00:35:59,180 --> 00:36:00,540 The message reads, 656 00:36:00,540 --> 00:36:03,060 "For Oscar Wilde posing as somdomite," 657 00:36:03,060 --> 00:36:05,380 clearly meant a sodomite. 658 00:36:05,380 --> 00:36:09,340 You can imagine Wilde staring at this little scrap of card, 659 00:36:09,340 --> 00:36:12,220 wondering what his next move should be. 660 00:36:12,220 --> 00:36:13,820 It's a defining moment, 661 00:36:13,820 --> 00:36:15,940 and one that could have had a very different outcome 662 00:36:15,940 --> 00:36:18,060 if Wilde had simply... 663 00:36:18,060 --> 00:36:19,300 done this. 664 00:36:25,780 --> 00:36:28,620 But he does no such thing. 665 00:36:28,620 --> 00:36:32,100 Encouraged by Bosie, who detests his father, 666 00:36:32,100 --> 00:36:36,060 Wilde launches a criminal libel suit against Queensberry, 667 00:36:36,060 --> 00:36:37,980 at huge personal risk. 668 00:36:44,900 --> 00:36:47,300 To avoid conviction, 669 00:36:47,300 --> 00:36:52,300 Queensberry need only prove his accusation of sodomy to be true. 670 00:36:52,300 --> 00:36:54,420 His lawyers set about gathering evidence 671 00:36:54,420 --> 00:36:57,060 of Wilde's illegal assignations with young men, 672 00:36:57,060 --> 00:36:59,980 many of which began here, in Soho. 673 00:37:05,060 --> 00:37:06,980 It was often here, at Kettner's restaurant, 674 00:37:06,980 --> 00:37:10,060 that Wilde would lavish his young lovers with dinners 675 00:37:10,060 --> 00:37:12,460 and gifts of silver cigarette cases, 676 00:37:12,460 --> 00:37:16,380 before plunging into an illicit sexual underworld. 677 00:37:16,380 --> 00:37:19,420 It was like "feasting with panthers," he said. 678 00:37:19,420 --> 00:37:21,180 The danger was half the excitement. 679 00:37:24,140 --> 00:37:26,180 All of these encounters - including 680 00:37:26,180 --> 00:37:28,940 when Wilde reportedly fed preserved cherries 681 00:37:28,940 --> 00:37:32,220 to rent boy Charles Parker here in the champagne bar - 682 00:37:32,220 --> 00:37:33,940 would, over the coming weeks, 683 00:37:33,940 --> 00:37:36,700 be dredged up by Queensberry's legal team, 684 00:37:36,700 --> 00:37:39,700 who seemed hell-bent on destroying Wilde. 685 00:37:46,980 --> 00:37:50,220 Queensberry is speedily acquitted 686 00:37:50,220 --> 00:37:53,460 and Wilde himself now put on trial. 687 00:37:53,460 --> 00:37:54,940 His private life is exposed 688 00:37:54,940 --> 00:37:56,580 in salacious detail. Order, order... 689 00:37:56,580 --> 00:38:00,020 His work is used against him, 690 00:38:00,020 --> 00:38:02,220 Dorian Gray cited as proof enough 691 00:38:02,220 --> 00:38:03,900 of unnatural vice. 692 00:38:05,300 --> 00:38:08,380 It's not just Wilde in the dock, 693 00:38:08,380 --> 00:38:10,940 but everything he stands for. 694 00:38:10,940 --> 00:38:12,700 The judge describes it as 695 00:38:12,700 --> 00:38:15,860 the worst case he's ever tried. 696 00:38:15,860 --> 00:38:18,300 Found guilty of gross indecency, 697 00:38:18,300 --> 00:38:21,700 Wilde is sentence to two years, with hard labour. 698 00:38:23,580 --> 00:38:25,180 In his prison cell, 699 00:38:25,180 --> 00:38:28,620 Wilde now looks to science to exonerate himself. 700 00:38:28,620 --> 00:38:31,420 He composes a petition, in which he states... 701 00:38:31,420 --> 00:38:34,740 he's been suffering from the most horrible form of erotomania, 702 00:38:34,740 --> 00:38:38,460 and that this sexual madness is a disease 703 00:38:38,460 --> 00:38:40,980 to be cared for by a physician, 704 00:38:40,980 --> 00:38:43,900 rather than a crime to be punished by a judge. 705 00:38:43,900 --> 00:38:45,820 And to lend weight to his argument, 706 00:38:45,820 --> 00:38:48,180 he even cites his great critic 707 00:38:48,180 --> 00:38:52,260 Max Nordau's damning attack on him in Degeneration. 708 00:38:53,500 --> 00:38:55,820 But it's a desperate plea for clemency, 709 00:38:55,820 --> 00:38:58,860 and ignored by the Home Secretary. 710 00:38:58,860 --> 00:39:01,580 Wilde is to be an example to all, 711 00:39:01,580 --> 00:39:03,260 a vindication of all that 712 00:39:03,260 --> 00:39:05,340 Max Nordau had warned against. 713 00:39:06,460 --> 00:39:07,980 Once free, though, 714 00:39:07,980 --> 00:39:10,540 Wilde would have the last word. 715 00:39:12,060 --> 00:39:15,500 On his release from Reading Gaol in May 1897, 716 00:39:15,500 --> 00:39:19,580 Wilde told friends that the fact that he was a pathological problem, 717 00:39:19,580 --> 00:39:22,260 in the eyes of German scientists, 718 00:39:22,260 --> 00:39:25,220 was interesting only to German scientists. 719 00:39:25,220 --> 00:39:28,820 "I quite agree with Dr Nordau's assertion," he says, 720 00:39:28,820 --> 00:39:31,700 "that all men of genius are insane, 721 00:39:31,700 --> 00:39:34,020 "but Dr Nordau forgets 722 00:39:34,020 --> 00:39:36,780 "that all sane people are idiots." 723 00:39:40,780 --> 00:39:42,820 Fearing further persecution, 724 00:39:42,820 --> 00:39:45,580 Wilde goes into exile, 725 00:39:45,580 --> 00:39:49,300 travelling under the name Sebastian Melmoth, 726 00:39:49,300 --> 00:39:51,420 never to see England - 727 00:39:51,420 --> 00:39:53,780 nor his wife and children - again. 728 00:40:04,980 --> 00:40:07,220 Wilde's story, as the most famous 729 00:40:07,220 --> 00:40:09,740 gay writer of the late-19th century, 730 00:40:09,740 --> 00:40:11,660 stands in sharp contrast to that of 731 00:40:11,660 --> 00:40:13,900 an altogether less ostentatious author. 732 00:40:13,900 --> 00:40:18,180 One who draws on Victorian theories of sexuality, 733 00:40:18,180 --> 00:40:22,820 in a quiet, but genuine, attempt to make sense of his own experience, 734 00:40:22,820 --> 00:40:25,700 and who leaves a ground-breaking legacy, 735 00:40:25,700 --> 00:40:28,220 despite being all but forgotten today. 736 00:40:30,140 --> 00:40:32,300 John Addington Symonds was 737 00:40:32,300 --> 00:40:34,980 a highly respected man of letters, 738 00:40:34,980 --> 00:40:37,380 and an expert on the Italian Renaissance. 739 00:40:46,100 --> 00:40:48,060 Symonds was married with children, 740 00:40:48,060 --> 00:40:52,500 but, like his near-contemporary Oscar Wilde, he lived a double life. 741 00:40:52,500 --> 00:40:54,820 Since his youth, here in Bristol, 742 00:40:54,820 --> 00:40:56,980 he'd harboured strong desires for men. 743 00:41:02,700 --> 00:41:04,700 But Symonds conducted his liaisons 744 00:41:04,700 --> 00:41:08,580 with far more discretion than the flamboyant Wilde. 745 00:41:08,580 --> 00:41:11,380 There were no public displays of affection, 746 00:41:11,380 --> 00:41:15,460 no preserved cherries, no green carnations. 747 00:41:17,180 --> 00:41:20,700 Symonds left behind an extraordinary document, 748 00:41:20,700 --> 00:41:23,980 which could have seen him suffer the same fate as Wilde, 749 00:41:23,980 --> 00:41:25,900 and which survives intact - 750 00:41:25,900 --> 00:41:29,140 under lock and key - at The London Library. 751 00:41:34,380 --> 00:41:37,620 So, this is the actual memoir of John Addington Symonds? 752 00:41:37,620 --> 00:41:40,820 It is, the handwritten document itself. 753 00:41:42,580 --> 00:41:45,260 Of course, this was all illegal. The way he was living was illegal, 754 00:41:45,260 --> 00:41:48,660 him writing about these things was illegal, so if this was so... 755 00:41:48,660 --> 00:41:51,620 dangerous and incendiary, why did he write it? 756 00:41:51,620 --> 00:41:53,900 It's either a very brave or a very foolish thing 757 00:41:53,900 --> 00:41:56,700 to do, but I think it's brave. So, he writes... 758 00:41:56,700 --> 00:42:00,300 He sets aside all his paid work in 1889 759 00:42:00,300 --> 00:42:01,780 and spends three to five months 760 00:42:01,780 --> 00:42:05,300 just writing this really feverishly, 761 00:42:05,300 --> 00:42:09,820 and what he says is that he's writing it for a future audience, 762 00:42:09,820 --> 00:42:11,500 a scientific audience, 763 00:42:11,500 --> 00:42:15,260 that might use this as primary evidence of the development 764 00:42:15,260 --> 00:42:18,020 of sexuality. He tracks his sexual development 765 00:42:18,020 --> 00:42:22,420 from very, very young and starts with early sexual fantasies. 766 00:42:22,420 --> 00:42:25,620 He says they're essential for a "proper understanding 767 00:42:25,620 --> 00:42:27,580 "of my vita sexualis," 768 00:42:27,580 --> 00:42:30,020 my sexual life. 769 00:42:30,020 --> 00:42:32,060 His earliest sexual experiences at school, 770 00:42:32,060 --> 00:42:35,180 sort of cultures of abuse and bullying and blackmail 771 00:42:35,180 --> 00:42:37,700 at Harrow and then at Oxford. 772 00:42:37,700 --> 00:42:39,860 And this page is one of my favourites, 773 00:42:39,860 --> 00:42:41,780 because it's got a hole in. Oh. 774 00:42:41,780 --> 00:42:43,500 You can actually see 775 00:42:43,500 --> 00:42:45,420 a cut-out hole in the middle here, 776 00:42:45,420 --> 00:42:47,380 where a name has been removed. 777 00:42:47,380 --> 00:42:49,180 The name is Vaughan, and that was 778 00:42:49,180 --> 00:42:51,100 his headmaster at Harrow... Blimey! 779 00:42:51,100 --> 00:42:53,900 ..and he's at the centre of a sexual scandal. 780 00:42:53,900 --> 00:42:56,020 So, there might be a reason why 781 00:42:56,020 --> 00:42:58,020 he would remove his name. 782 00:42:58,020 --> 00:42:59,220 Look at that! 783 00:43:00,780 --> 00:43:03,860 Was homosexuality used then as a term? 784 00:43:03,860 --> 00:43:06,460 It's... It exists by this point. 785 00:43:06,460 --> 00:43:10,220 The word homosexual exists, and Symonds doesn't like it. 786 00:43:10,220 --> 00:43:13,820 He doesn't like it... Why? ..because it mixes Latin and Greek, 787 00:43:13,820 --> 00:43:16,300 and that's his reasons for not liking it! So, he was sniffy! 788 00:43:16,300 --> 00:43:18,420 He's very sniffy about it. 789 00:43:18,420 --> 00:43:23,300 The term that he finds, that he discovers in his reading 790 00:43:23,300 --> 00:43:25,820 and that he really latches onto, 791 00:43:25,820 --> 00:43:28,380 is "sexual inversion." 792 00:43:28,380 --> 00:43:30,540 And what's actually meant by the expression? 793 00:43:30,540 --> 00:43:32,420 What did he understand it to mean? 794 00:43:32,420 --> 00:43:36,860 Sexual inversion literally just means the normal sexual instinct, 795 00:43:36,860 --> 00:43:40,700 the so-called normal sexual instinct, the wrong way round. 796 00:43:40,700 --> 00:43:44,980 But Symonds, I think, is interested in its vagueness, 797 00:43:44,980 --> 00:43:49,740 that it's not naming a specific type of practice, or type of person. 798 00:43:49,740 --> 00:43:52,420 It's kind of poignant, isn't it? It's like it hasn't stopped. 799 00:43:52,420 --> 00:43:56,980 We're in this age where we have myriad names for sexualities, 800 00:43:56,980 --> 00:44:02,300 like we're still looking for a term that's non-judgemental. 801 00:44:04,740 --> 00:44:09,140 Inspired by his research, Symonds has a daring idea. 802 00:44:10,140 --> 00:44:11,820 He approaches a leading physician, 803 00:44:11,820 --> 00:44:14,420 Henry Havelock Ellis, 804 00:44:14,420 --> 00:44:16,620 proposing that they collaborate on 805 00:44:16,620 --> 00:44:19,300 a scientific survey of homosexuality. 806 00:44:20,700 --> 00:44:22,020 The resulting book 807 00:44:22,020 --> 00:44:26,020 gathers 36 anonymous case studies, 808 00:44:26,020 --> 00:44:27,620 first-hand testimonies, 809 00:44:27,620 --> 00:44:29,860 drawn from ordinary members of the public. 810 00:44:31,780 --> 00:44:33,980 And what's really amazing is that 811 00:44:33,980 --> 00:44:36,700 Symonds includes himself. 812 00:44:36,700 --> 00:44:39,020 He's Case Study 18 here. 813 00:44:39,020 --> 00:44:42,260 "Englishman, independent means, aged 49." 814 00:44:42,260 --> 00:44:44,940 It's incredibly sexually explicit, 815 00:44:44,940 --> 00:44:46,900 and it even includes a list here 816 00:44:46,900 --> 00:44:49,260 of the kinds of sexual activities 817 00:44:49,260 --> 00:44:51,180 that Symonds preferred - 818 00:44:51,180 --> 00:44:53,380 in later life, in particular. So... 819 00:44:53,380 --> 00:44:56,180 "In the third period the gratification became 820 00:44:56,180 --> 00:44:57,540 "more frankly sensual. 821 00:44:57,540 --> 00:45:00,660 "It took every shape - mutual masturbation, 822 00:45:00,660 --> 00:45:03,940 "intercrural coitus, fellatio, irrumatio... 823 00:45:03,940 --> 00:45:05,740 "always according to the inclination 824 00:45:05,740 --> 00:45:08,220 "or concession of the beloved male." 825 00:45:08,220 --> 00:45:11,060 And this book is very rare, 826 00:45:11,060 --> 00:45:13,340 because most copies of this edition 827 00:45:13,340 --> 00:45:17,380 were bought up by Symonds' family and friends and destroyed, 828 00:45:17,380 --> 00:45:19,660 because they were very nervous about 829 00:45:19,660 --> 00:45:21,860 having his name on a title page 830 00:45:21,860 --> 00:45:24,660 next to the word sexual inversion. 831 00:45:24,660 --> 00:45:29,020 They were trying to protect his posthumous reputation. 832 00:45:29,020 --> 00:45:32,940 Symonds' material and his contribution remains in print, 833 00:45:32,940 --> 00:45:35,220 but he's just not given the credit for it. 834 00:45:35,220 --> 00:45:36,660 He becomes a footnote. 835 00:45:36,660 --> 00:45:38,500 He actually becomes a footnote. 836 00:45:38,500 --> 00:45:40,620 His material moves into the appendices 837 00:45:40,620 --> 00:45:42,180 and he gets written out of 838 00:45:42,180 --> 00:45:43,420 the history of this book. 839 00:45:46,180 --> 00:45:48,460 Published in Britain in 1897, 840 00:45:48,460 --> 00:45:50,620 Sexual Inversion is now acknowledged as 841 00:45:50,620 --> 00:45:52,900 the first English medical textbook 842 00:45:52,900 --> 00:45:54,380 on homosexuality. 843 00:46:02,420 --> 00:46:04,500 Questions of sex and gender 844 00:46:04,500 --> 00:46:07,020 also lie at the heart of 845 00:46:07,020 --> 00:46:08,780 a very different kind of book. 846 00:46:14,500 --> 00:46:16,420 Unleashed on an unsuspecting public 847 00:46:16,420 --> 00:46:18,500 that same year, 848 00:46:18,500 --> 00:46:22,500 in a fashionably decadent yellow cover, 849 00:46:22,500 --> 00:46:25,020 Bram Stoker's Dracula. 850 00:46:30,220 --> 00:46:32,140 When he leaves England for Transylvania, 851 00:46:32,140 --> 00:46:34,980 the main protagonist, Jonathan Harker, 852 00:46:34,980 --> 00:46:37,940 is portrayed as masculine, rational, 853 00:46:37,940 --> 00:46:41,220 but during his stay - or, rather, imprisonment 854 00:46:41,220 --> 00:46:42,780 at Castle Dracula - 855 00:46:42,780 --> 00:46:45,500 his gender becomes confused. 856 00:46:45,500 --> 00:46:48,380 Harker becomes slowly transformed - 857 00:46:48,380 --> 00:46:49,900 not into a vampire, 858 00:46:49,900 --> 00:46:51,620 but progressively feminised. 859 00:46:51,620 --> 00:46:53,460 The Count takes his possessions, 860 00:46:53,460 --> 00:46:55,140 begins to control his every move. 861 00:46:55,140 --> 00:46:59,820 And Harker becomes hysterical and passive, 862 00:46:59,820 --> 00:47:01,860 like the archetypal Victorian woman. 863 00:47:03,900 --> 00:47:08,980 This gender fluidity in Dracula is just one of its many topical tropes. 864 00:47:08,980 --> 00:47:11,540 Stoker clearly has his finger - 865 00:47:11,540 --> 00:47:13,620 or should that be teeth - 866 00:47:13,620 --> 00:47:16,620 on the pulse of the age, and infuses Dracula with 867 00:47:16,620 --> 00:47:19,860 many of the decade's chief preoccupations, 868 00:47:19,860 --> 00:47:22,300 including the New Woman. 869 00:47:22,300 --> 00:47:26,180 Lucy Westenra is the racy young temptress, 870 00:47:26,180 --> 00:47:28,580 toying with three suitors, 871 00:47:28,580 --> 00:47:31,660 whose promiscuity - or moral weakness - 872 00:47:31,660 --> 00:47:34,140 enables Dracula to prey on her. 873 00:47:34,140 --> 00:47:38,780 Then, as one of the undead, she becomes the monstrous antithesis of 874 00:47:38,780 --> 00:47:42,380 the ideal Victorian mother, leaving her tomb each night 875 00:47:42,380 --> 00:47:45,580 to prey on a succession of defenceless children. 876 00:47:52,180 --> 00:47:55,420 "With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, 877 00:47:55,420 --> 00:47:59,020 "callous as a devil, the child that up to now 878 00:47:59,020 --> 00:48:02,100 "she had clutched strenuously to her breast, 879 00:48:02,100 --> 00:48:05,980 "growling over it as a dog growls over a bone." 880 00:48:08,980 --> 00:48:12,100 Lucy's friend Mina, on the other hand, 881 00:48:12,100 --> 00:48:16,900 stands for everything Stoker sees as morally upright and respectable. 882 00:48:16,900 --> 00:48:21,420 She retains a job, she's devoted to God and her husband. 883 00:48:21,420 --> 00:48:24,340 And when she records her impressions of Dracula, 884 00:48:24,340 --> 00:48:27,900 she draws on the pseudoscientific theories of the period. 885 00:48:27,900 --> 00:48:31,820 The Count is "a criminal" and a "criminal type," 886 00:48:31,820 --> 00:48:34,580 she tells Professor Van Helsing. 887 00:48:34,580 --> 00:48:38,380 Nordau and Lombroso would so classify him, 888 00:48:38,380 --> 00:48:41,300 "He is of imperfectly formed mind." 889 00:48:48,420 --> 00:48:50,940 The Count, wishing to invade 890 00:48:50,940 --> 00:48:54,100 a new land, makes for London, 891 00:48:54,100 --> 00:48:55,860 there to satiate his bloodlust 892 00:48:55,860 --> 00:48:58,180 among its teeming millions, 893 00:48:58,180 --> 00:48:59,820 and propagate his kind. 894 00:49:32,580 --> 00:49:36,860 The Count creates several lairs across the metropolis. 895 00:49:36,860 --> 00:49:40,740 Six great wooden boxes, filled with so-called mould, 896 00:49:40,740 --> 00:49:44,180 are sent here, to Chicksand Street in Whitechapel. 897 00:49:45,340 --> 00:49:49,180 The mould is, in fact, Transylvanian soil, 898 00:49:49,180 --> 00:49:52,020 with which to line the Count's coffin bed 899 00:49:52,020 --> 00:49:55,060 and enable him to regenerate his powers. 900 00:49:57,100 --> 00:50:00,940 It's significant that the boxes are sent to Whitechapel, 901 00:50:00,940 --> 00:50:04,660 an area at the time predominantly populated by Jewish refugees 902 00:50:04,660 --> 00:50:06,780 from Eastern Europe. 903 00:50:06,780 --> 00:50:09,580 Bram Stoker is tapping into racial prejudice 904 00:50:09,580 --> 00:50:11,900 and a growing fear of immigration. 905 00:50:12,940 --> 00:50:17,620 Dracula is portrayed as a dangerous foreign intruder, 906 00:50:17,620 --> 00:50:21,220 here to drain Britain of its imperial vitality. 907 00:50:27,580 --> 00:50:30,220 But whether in literature, society, 908 00:50:30,220 --> 00:50:32,140 or the so-called social Darwinism 909 00:50:32,140 --> 00:50:34,020 of some scientists, 910 00:50:34,020 --> 00:50:36,460 racism is now being challenged, 911 00:50:36,460 --> 00:50:38,740 together with the very idea of Empire. 912 00:50:42,380 --> 00:50:44,620 Victoria Park, in Hackney, 913 00:50:44,620 --> 00:50:48,900 which rivals Hyde Park as a centre for political rallies, 914 00:50:48,900 --> 00:50:51,020 becomes the stage upon which 915 00:50:51,020 --> 00:50:53,820 a visionary campaigner imagines a new world. 916 00:50:55,380 --> 00:50:57,860 In the early 1890s, one speaker here 917 00:50:57,860 --> 00:51:01,500 began to draw increasingly larger crowds. 918 00:51:01,500 --> 00:51:04,740 Notable not only for the content of his speeches, 919 00:51:04,740 --> 00:51:07,180 but also for the colour of his skin. 920 00:51:07,180 --> 00:51:10,020 His name was Celestine Edwards, and he was on a mission. 921 00:51:12,020 --> 00:51:13,500 Originally from Dominica, 922 00:51:13,500 --> 00:51:15,580 in the West Indies, young Celestine 923 00:51:15,580 --> 00:51:18,100 had stowed away aged 12, 924 00:51:18,100 --> 00:51:20,980 travelling the oceans for several years, 925 00:51:20,980 --> 00:51:25,100 before fetching up in Edinburgh in the late 1870s. 926 00:51:25,100 --> 00:51:26,900 As a temperance evangelist, 927 00:51:26,900 --> 00:51:29,020 he had ambitions to become a missionary 928 00:51:29,020 --> 00:51:35,580 in Africa. But instead, he came to London, to study at King's College. 929 00:51:35,580 --> 00:51:38,020 Slowly but surely permeating society, 930 00:51:38,020 --> 00:51:40,380 I will, in the hearts of good men... 931 00:51:40,380 --> 00:51:42,620 Celestine worked as a builder's labourer 932 00:51:42,620 --> 00:51:45,540 to fund his studies, but he also used the money 933 00:51:45,540 --> 00:51:47,620 to finance the printing of penny pamphlets, 934 00:51:47,620 --> 00:51:50,780 which he would hand out to people who gathered here to hear him speak. 935 00:51:54,780 --> 00:51:56,940 The British Empire will come to grief 936 00:51:56,940 --> 00:52:00,180 unless it changes its methods of dealing with the aboriginal races. 937 00:52:00,180 --> 00:52:04,220 The day is coming where all Africans will speak of themselves. 938 00:52:04,220 --> 00:52:07,020 The day is breaking, and the despised African, 939 00:52:07,020 --> 00:52:08,700 whose only crime is his colour, 940 00:52:08,700 --> 00:52:11,180 will yet give an account of himself. 941 00:52:11,180 --> 00:52:13,180 Powerful words. 942 00:52:13,180 --> 00:52:15,340 How much of a pioneer was he? 943 00:52:15,340 --> 00:52:17,460 I think he's one of the most inspirational people 944 00:52:17,460 --> 00:52:18,820 to come from the Victorian era. 945 00:52:18,820 --> 00:52:20,980 He was a solitary, er, soldier. 946 00:52:20,980 --> 00:52:23,740 He's the, er, epitome of someone who was on a mission - 947 00:52:23,740 --> 00:52:25,460 protesting, speaking, 948 00:52:25,460 --> 00:52:27,740 er, involved in campaigns. 949 00:52:27,740 --> 00:52:30,060 Did he tour? Did he lecture? Oh, he did, yeah. 950 00:52:30,060 --> 00:52:32,940 It was a real accolade when he was given the, er, 951 00:52:32,940 --> 00:52:34,900 moniker as "The Negro Lecturer", 952 00:52:34,900 --> 00:52:38,380 because he was the only one at that time 953 00:52:38,380 --> 00:52:41,020 in the 1890s actually there 954 00:52:41,020 --> 00:52:44,540 standing - whether here in Victoria Park, 955 00:52:44,540 --> 00:52:48,100 or in the various, erm, halls around the country - 956 00:52:48,100 --> 00:52:51,380 speaking against social Darwinism and imperialism. 957 00:52:51,380 --> 00:52:53,420 Wherever he spoke, hundreds would, er, 958 00:52:53,420 --> 00:52:56,180 turn up to... Overspill. Yeah, overspill. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 959 00:52:56,180 --> 00:52:58,900 In 1892, he became the first ever 960 00:52:58,900 --> 00:53:01,540 black editor in this country, 961 00:53:01,540 --> 00:53:04,300 and that was through editing a journal called Lux. 962 00:53:04,300 --> 00:53:06,140 The remit was that black people 963 00:53:06,140 --> 00:53:09,300 would be able to speak for themselves in this newspaper, 964 00:53:09,300 --> 00:53:13,620 to kind of denounce all these theories of white superiority 965 00:53:13,620 --> 00:53:17,300 that came with social Darwinism and imperialism. 966 00:53:17,300 --> 00:53:21,220 He said that, kind of, if people of African descent were given 967 00:53:21,220 --> 00:53:25,900 the same opportunities as white people and were given time, 968 00:53:25,900 --> 00:53:29,140 they will be able to kind of raise their level, erm, 969 00:53:29,140 --> 00:53:33,220 the same as a white person. So, he was basically saying that there was 970 00:53:33,220 --> 00:53:35,660 a lack of opportunity, which then kind of 971 00:53:35,660 --> 00:53:38,100 relegated people of African descent to, er... Yeah. 972 00:53:38,100 --> 00:53:39,860 ..the lower levels. Yeah. 973 00:53:39,860 --> 00:53:43,700 Celestine Edwards argues that racial theories 974 00:53:43,700 --> 00:53:48,620 are being used by the Empire to justify a massive act of theft. 975 00:53:50,500 --> 00:53:52,420 We think it no crime for Africans 976 00:53:52,420 --> 00:53:55,100 to look with suspicion upon the European, 977 00:53:55,100 --> 00:53:57,380 who has stolen a part of their country, 978 00:53:57,380 --> 00:53:59,740 and deluged it with rum and powder, 979 00:53:59,740 --> 00:54:01,700 under the cover of civilisation. 980 00:54:04,820 --> 00:54:08,180 Edwards' mantle is taken up by a fellow West Indian 981 00:54:08,180 --> 00:54:11,260 and graduate of King's College called Henry Sylvester-Williams. 982 00:54:13,740 --> 00:54:16,500 In 1897, he forms the African Association. 983 00:54:18,860 --> 00:54:20,780 It aims to promote and protect 984 00:54:20,780 --> 00:54:24,500 the interests of all subjects claiming African descent. 985 00:54:26,220 --> 00:54:29,820 Whilst many expect the association to be short-lived, 986 00:54:29,820 --> 00:54:33,940 by 1900, it's ready to hold the first Pan-African Conference, 987 00:54:33,940 --> 00:54:35,860 here at the former 988 00:54:35,860 --> 00:54:37,540 Westminster Town Hall. 989 00:54:40,020 --> 00:54:43,620 And this is the invitation that was sent out, calling for... 990 00:54:43,620 --> 00:54:46,660 the discussion of "the Native Races question" 991 00:54:46,660 --> 00:54:49,180 to be "addressed by those of African descent 992 00:54:49,180 --> 00:54:51,740 "from all parts of the British Empire, 993 00:54:51,740 --> 00:54:53,860 "the United States of America..." 994 00:54:53,860 --> 00:54:55,300 and several other countries too. 995 00:54:58,740 --> 00:55:02,580 Perhaps against all odds, the conference proves a huge success, 996 00:55:02,580 --> 00:55:05,180 reported widely in leading British newspapers. 997 00:55:07,660 --> 00:55:10,140 It's remarkable to think that here, right in the heart of 998 00:55:10,140 --> 00:55:13,060 the British Empire, a member of its native races 999 00:55:13,060 --> 00:55:15,380 had set in motion a public debate 1000 00:55:15,380 --> 00:55:18,780 on the treatment of its oppressed subjects. 1001 00:55:18,780 --> 00:55:22,260 As Williams said himself, this was the first occasion upon which 1002 00:55:22,260 --> 00:55:24,740 black men would assemble in England 1003 00:55:24,740 --> 00:55:26,780 and speak for themselves, 1004 00:55:26,780 --> 00:55:30,140 and endeavour to influence public opinion in their favour. 1005 00:55:31,740 --> 00:55:33,820 These black Victorians are imagining a world 1006 00:55:33,820 --> 00:55:36,940 where they're seen not as subject peoples, 1007 00:55:36,940 --> 00:55:39,860 or racial types, but as human beings... 1008 00:55:42,300 --> 00:55:45,260 ..and their vision will reverberate throughout the coming century. 1009 00:56:02,940 --> 00:56:07,340 The 1890s brought to the fore a range of social and cultural issues 1010 00:56:07,340 --> 00:56:09,740 we still seem to be addressing. 1011 00:56:09,740 --> 00:56:14,220 Questions of race, gender, and immigration. 1012 00:56:17,540 --> 00:56:21,100 The decade was, in many ways, one of extremes. 1013 00:56:21,100 --> 00:56:22,580 While the interest in 1014 00:56:22,580 --> 00:56:23,820 scientific racism 1015 00:56:23,820 --> 00:56:25,860 and eugenics would lead to 1016 00:56:25,860 --> 00:56:27,500 some of the worst horrors of 1017 00:56:27,500 --> 00:56:29,780 the 20th century, the 1890s 1018 00:56:29,780 --> 00:56:33,740 also saw the continued march towards women's emancipation, 1019 00:56:33,740 --> 00:56:37,460 and sowed the seeds of anti-colonialism 1020 00:56:37,460 --> 00:56:38,900 and gay liberation. 1021 00:56:56,140 --> 00:56:59,180 And it's perhaps typical of this contradictory decade 1022 00:56:59,180 --> 00:57:01,780 that one of its leading figures, 1023 00:57:01,780 --> 00:57:04,740 Oscar Wilde, lingered - largely forgotten - 1024 00:57:04,740 --> 00:57:08,900 in his Paris hotel room, as the new century dawned. 1025 00:57:14,700 --> 00:57:16,980 From his bed, despite great discomfort, 1026 00:57:16,980 --> 00:57:21,100 Wilde still held court to a small coterie of loyal friends, 1027 00:57:21,100 --> 00:57:23,340 remarking to one the immortal line, 1028 00:57:23,340 --> 00:57:27,500 "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. 1029 00:57:27,500 --> 00:57:29,660 "One of us has to go." 1030 00:57:32,260 --> 00:57:36,460 Wilde succumbed on November 30th, 1900. 1031 00:57:36,460 --> 00:57:38,380 He was 46 years old. 1032 00:57:40,020 --> 00:57:43,660 To the Victorian establishment, Oscar Wilde had been 1033 00:57:43,660 --> 00:57:46,900 the hideous embodiment of moral degeneracy. 1034 00:57:46,900 --> 00:57:52,220 To his admirers, the dazzling icon of a daring aestheticism, 1035 00:57:52,220 --> 00:57:55,580 and an even more daring personal freedom. 1036 00:57:57,740 --> 00:58:00,260 Before he died, Wilde told a friend, 1037 00:58:00,260 --> 00:58:03,060 "I have no doubt that we shall win, 1038 00:58:03,060 --> 00:58:08,060 "but the road is long, and red with monstrous martyrdoms." 1039 00:58:17,980 --> 00:58:19,300 Next time, 1040 00:58:19,300 --> 00:58:21,660 on Victorian Sensations... 1041 00:58:21,660 --> 00:58:24,100 Psychotherapist Philippa Perry... BANGING 1042 00:58:24,100 --> 00:58:25,940 ..explores scientists obsessed 1043 00:58:25,940 --> 00:58:27,340 with spirits... 1044 00:58:28,900 --> 00:58:31,980 ..and communication with other worlds... 1045 00:58:31,980 --> 00:58:33,620 It's amazing! 1046 00:58:33,620 --> 00:58:36,700 ..and witnesses the birth of new mass media, using 1047 00:58:36,700 --> 00:58:38,780 an extraordinary collection of 1048 00:58:38,780 --> 00:58:41,700 rare Victorian films from the BFI National Archive.