Introductory Remarks to Section I

Books about Britain in the early nineteenth century characteristically refer to the period as one of progress and reform. The title of Asa Briggs's classic The Age of Improvement 1783–1867 sums up a fundamental belief held by British people at all levels of society during the life-span of Patrick Brontë (1777–1861): the belief that human beings could become better and make their world better by labouring with and for one another. The impulses that guided them and the policies they evolved were diverse, conditioned by social factors as well as by individual inclinations; the latter aspect is important, not least because this was a time when individuality asserted itself vigorously in all walks of life and in members of both sexes. The student of the nineteenth century who attempts to map out consistent lines of development, attaching them to representatives of political parties and philosophical schools of thought, soon becomes thoroughly bewildered. Terms such as ‘conservative’, ‘progressive’ and ‘radical’ fail to do justice to the complexity of movements and people. Reformers are seen to have made common cause across class and party lines. Similarly, causes that posterity regards as enlightened were sometimes opposed by persons whose reforming zeal manifested itself in other contexts. One thing, however, was clear then and is equally so now: in the words of an 1828 review of a schoolbook, ‘[t]his is truly the age of intellectual improvement, and in every form and manner exertions are multiplied to advance it’.