Chalke Talk

The podcast from the Chalke Valley History Festival
Released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings

Chalke Talks for PERIOD: Victorians


  • 25. THE DRAMA OF THE GREAT REFORM BILL 1832
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    In November 1930, the Duke of Wellington declared. ‘the beginning of reform is the beginning of revolution. Despite his fears, a bill to introduce greater democracy was duly presented to Parliament. Eminent historian, Antonia Fraser, discusses with William Waldegrave how this most divisive of bills led to a complete change in the way Britain was […]

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  • 35. TEN CITIES THAT MADE AN EMPIRE
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    Historian, broadcaster and former Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt takes a new approach towards the history and decline of the British Empire. By examining the stories and defining ideas of ten of the most important cities, he shows how they transformed the culture, economy and identity of the British Isles for good.

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  • CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN THE VICTORIAN COUNTRYSIDE
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    In this talk for junior pupils at the Chalke Valley History Festival for Schools, Jamie Byrom tells of ‘Sarah’s Sad Story’. Using the local records in Devon from the Victorian era, he follows her from early childhood to her first job as a servant aged ten (although claiming to be thirteen) to her incarceration in […]

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  • 103. THE ONCE AND FUTURE FARM
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    Today farmers face unprecedented changes, exacerbated by Britain’s uncertain relationship with Europe. In this highly topical event, our experts discuss how farming has survived revolutions and reformations from the end of the 19th century to the present, and what can be done to ensure our mutual future prosperity.

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  • 140. HOW RUSKIN SHAPES OUR WORLD
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    John Ruskin was the best-known and most controversial intellectual of the Victorian Age. He was an art critic, a social activist, an early environmentalist; he was also a painter, writer, and a determined tastemaker in the fields of architecture and design. In the bicentenary of his birth, Andrew Hill shows how Ruskin’s radical ideas are […]

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  • 146. DISRAELI
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    Benjamin Disraeli was the most gifted parliamentarian of the nineteenth century. He twice rose to become Prime Minister, dazzling many with his famous epigrams along the way. Politician Douglas Hurd and political speechwriter Edward Young strip away the myths which surround his career, explore the paradoxes at the centre of his “two lives” and bring […]

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  • 174. THE VICTORIANS: TWELVE TITANS WHO FORGED BRITAIN
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    Many associate the Victorian era with austere social attitudes and filthy factories. Jacob Rees-Mogg discusses a very different picture of the age, one of bright ambition, bold self- belief and determined industriousness. Whether through Peel’s commitment to building free trade, Palmerston’s deft diplomacy in international affairs, or Brunel’s incredible engineering feats, the Victorians transformed the […]

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  • 178. VICTORIA: QUEEN, MATRIARCH, EMPRESS
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    Queen Victoria inherited the throne aged 18 and, in an unprecedented reign of 63 years, she oversaw intense industrial, cultural, political, scientific and military change within the United Kingdom, and great imperial expansion outside it. In the bicentenary of her birth, Professor Jane Ridley overturns the established picture of the dour old lady to create […]

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