Editing Victorian era (section)

==Terminology and periodisation==
{{see also|Periodisation}}

In the strictest sense, the Victorian era covers the duration of Victoria's reign as [[List of British monarchs|Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]], from her accession on 20 June 1837—after the death of her uncle, [[William IV of the United Kingdom|William IV]]—until her death on 22 January 1901, after which she was succeeded by her eldest son, [[Edward VII]]. Her reign lasted 63 years and seven months, a longer period than any of her predecessors. The term 'Victorian' was in contemporaneous usage to describe the era.{{sfn|Plunkett|2012|page=2}} The era can also be understood in a more extensive sense—the 'long Victorian era'—as a period that possessed sensibilities and characteristics distinct from the periods adjacent to it,{{NoteTag|This is the term used for the period covered by Patrick Leary's international academic mailing-list ''VICTORIA 19th-century British culture & society''.}} in which case it is sometimes dated to begin before Victoria's accession—typically from the passage of or agitation for (during the 1830s) the [[Reform Act 1832]], which introduced a wide-ranging change to the [[Voting system|electoral system]] of [[England and Wales]].{{NoteTag|A Scottish Reform Act and Irish Reform Act were passed separately.}} Definitions that purport a distinct sensibility or politics to the era have also created scepticism about the worth of the label 'Victorian', though there have also been defences of it.<ref name="hewitt20062">{{cite journal |last1=Hewitt |first1=Martin |date=Spring 2006 |title=Why the Notion of Victorian Britain Does Make Sense |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/article/204106 |url-status=live |journal=Victorian Studies |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=395–438 |doi=10.2979/VIC.2006.48.3.395 |s2cid=143482564 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171030004144/http://muse.jhu.edu/article/204106 |archive-date=30 October 2017 |access-date=23 May 2017 | issn = 0042-5222 }}</ref>

[[Michael Sadleir]] was insistent that "in truth, the Victorian period is three periods, and not one".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sadleir |first=Michael |title=Trollope |year=1945 |pages=17}}</ref> He distinguished early Victorianism—the socially and politically unsettled period from 1837 to 1850<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sadleir |first=Michael |title=Trollope |year=1945 |pages=18–19}}</ref>—and late Victorianism (from 1880 onwards), with its new waves of [[aestheticism]] and [[imperialism]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sadleir |first=Michael |title=Trollope |year=1945 |pages=13 and 32}}</ref> from the Victorian heyday: mid-Victorianism, 1851 to 1879. He saw the latter period as characterised by a distinctive mixture of prosperity, domestic [[prude]]ry, and complacency<ref>{{Cite book |last=Michael |first=Sadleir |title=Trollope |year=1945 |pages=25–30}}</ref>—what [[G. M. Trevelyan]] called the 'mid-Victorian decades of quiet politics and roaring prosperity'.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Trevelyan |first=George Macaulay |title=History of England |publisher=Longmans, Green and Co |year=1926 |pages=650 |oclc=433219629}}</ref>