1900

Politics

CREATION OF THE LABOUR PARTY

HISTORY WAS made at the Memorial Hall in London's Farringdon Street, when 129 delegates from 65 trade unions and three Socialist societies met to establish a Labour group in Parliament to campaign for workers' rights.

They passed a motion by Scottish miner James Keir Hardie to form 'a distinct Labour group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips, and agree upon their policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour'.

Calling themselves, the 'Labour Representation Committee', James Ramsay MacDonald was voted secretary.

Hardie later made the poetic remark, 'It has come. Poor little child of danger, nursling of the storm. May it be blessed.'

The LRC put up 15 candidates in the 1900 General Election, winning 62,698 votes. Two of the candidates, Keir Hardie and Richard Bell, won seats in the House of Commons.

The LRC was to change its name in 1906 to the Labour Party.

WINSTON CHURCHILL BECOMES MP

Winston Churchill, who had failed to be elected as Conservative MP for Oldham in 1899, returned a year later to stand again in the general election. This time he succeeded.

The 26-year-old son of Tory politician Lord Randolph Churchill capitalised on his privileged upbringing. Educated at Harrow, he attended Sandhurst Royal Military College, after which he saw service in India and the Sudan. Churchill made a name for himself during this time by also acting as a war correspondent.

He left the Army in 1899 to take up politics, but first travelled to South Africa as a journalist. Taken prisoner by the Boers, he made a daring escape and returned home to a hero's welcome. The nation warmed to some stirring patriotic news after a string of failures for the British Army against the Boers. His fame helped him to win his parliamentary seat as the member for Oldham.

UNREST IN IRELAND

Irish Nationalist leader John Redmond called for an uprising against the British.

Royalty

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON PRINCE OF WALES

The Prince of Wales escaped uninjured when a 15-year old anarchist fired at him on a train as it left a railway station in Brussels. Jean-Baptiste Sipido stepped onto the footboard of the train, which was taking the Prince and the Princess on a trip to Copenhagen.

He pointed the gun at the Prince through the window and fired twice but missed his target. He was quickly apprehended and found to be carrying anarchist literature.

Brussels was a centre of opposition to the British role in the Boer War at this time, and Sipido told police he wanted to kill the Prince who had so many men killed in South Africa.

FIRE AND WATER

There were red faces all around as the new Royal Yacht, Victoria and Albert, capsized as it left the port of Southampton. Later in the year, a fire at Buckingham Palace destroyed part of the roof.

ITALIAN KING MURDERED

King Umberto I of Italy was assassinated by anarchist Gaetano Bresci in Monza, near Milan on July 30. He was shot three times.

The King had become deeply unpopular with many for his ruthlessness. During the colonial wars in Africa, there were large demonstrations at home over the rising price of bread. The city of Milan was put under the military control of General Fiorenzo Bava-Beccaris, who ordered the use of cannons on the demonstrators.

Over a hundred died and a thousand were wounded. The King outraged a great many of his people by sending a telegram to the General congratulating him for restoring order.

Bresci said he killed the King because he wanted to avenge the people killed by Bava-Beccaris.

King Umberto was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel III.

BIRTHS

August 4 – Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, The Queen Mother.

June 25 – Lord (Louis) Mountbatten, son of Prince Louis of Battenberg, who became British military commander and last Viceroy of India.

Historical Events

BOER WAR

After the outbreak of hostilities the previous October, the British suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the Boers in South Africa.

In January, Field Marshall Lord Roberts arrived in Cape Town to assume supreme command of the British forces and in February, the turn around began. After 118 days, the siege of garrison town, Ladysmith, ended when a relief column of cavalry arrived and the Boers packed their wagons and retreated.

In May, the seven-month siege of Mafeking, the small town on the railway line to Rhodesia, was lifted after British troops arrived.

When the Boers surrendered the Orange Free State and the Transvaal to the British, it was the beginning of the end.

In September, Lord Roberts declared that the war was over, but scattered fighting continued and the war was not officially ended until two years later.

BOXER REBELLION

The Boxer Rebellion against foreign influence in China, which started in November of the previous year, escalated to alarming proportions.

The Boxers, who called themselves 'Fists of Righteous Harmony', began as members of a patriotic society devoted to martial arts. But it turned into a popular movement against foreign and Christian influence in their country. They were joined by disaffected soldiers and some high officials in the Manchu regime.

In June 1900, the Boxers, some 140,000 strong, invaded Peking, killing hundreds of foreigners, including the hated missionaries and Chinese Christians. Thousands more were killed throughout China.

Many women and children took refuge in the British Embassy which came under heavy attack. After eight weeks, the siege was lifted by an international force of British, French, Russian, American, German, and Japanese troops.

Despite their defeat, the Boxers carried on fighting, but the uprising had been crushed.

BIRTHS

October 7 – Heinrich Himmler, German Nazi and SS chief.

Social Change

During the reign of Queen Victoria, UK cities, especially London, had become hugely overcrowded, leaving the poorer classes crammed into sub-standard accommodation. Slums had sprung up all over the country and one rented room often housed a whole family, if not two.

The luckier workers had houses built for them by the factory owner or landowner, but even these were often just two rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs. With the average Victorian couple having four or five children, the family home was a crowded place.

Houses had no running water and no bathrooms and the water from the communal pump was often unclean. Worse still, some of the 'back to backs' had a sewer running through the street and this poor sanitation meant many children didn't make it to adulthood.

By 1900, many slums had been demolished but, for the very poor, that only meant having to move from one hovel to another.

INFLUENZA HITS THE UK

Despite Louis Pasteur's discovery of bacteria in 1867, medical knowledge was poor and disease spread quickly through the crowded slums. New treatments for Cholera, Typhoid, Scarlet Fever and Tuberculosis (TB) were beginning to have a limited impact but these diseases still claimed many lives.

In January, an influenza epidemic in London claimed 50 lives a day and other major UK cities were also hit. Gravediggers and undertakers struggled to cope with the demand and, due to a shortage of nurses, hospitals were forced to turn patients away.

Later in the year, bubonic plague swept through Glasgow.

SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN

The battle for social reforms had made huge progress during the Victorian era, and by 1900 it was illegal for children under 11 to work, as had been the norm 50 years ago.

Thanks to an act passed in 1870, it was compulsory for all children under 14 to receive an education. School varied from the academic – where reading, writing and arithmetic were the top subjects – to the industrial, where youngsters learned a skill such as carpentry or lacemaking. 'Half-time' schools were also set up for those children who were already in employment, to help them study in their spare time.

Fashion

The Twentieth Century saw a sweeping change in the nature of fashion. As the new decade dawned, fashionable clothes were the preserve of the wealthy and influential. The less affluent could only dream of such a luxury. Further industrialisation and an increase in global transport meant that the relative cost of clothes dropped dramatically throughout the century. Fashion was set to become the domain of all walks of society.

Although Queen Victoria was still on the throne, fashion was already into its 'Edwardian' era, particularly when it came to the female silhouette. A new corset introduced in 1900 dramatically altered the figure into an 'S' shape, forcing the bosom forward and the hips back, giving the appearance of a large chest and bottom.

Surprisingly, this constricting undergarment was dubbed the 'health corset' and was thought to benefit the wearer by removing the pressure exerted by conventional corsets on the waist and diaphragm. Invented by French lady Mme Gaches-Sarraute, who had studied medicine, the corset was believed to mirror the natural curves of a woman's body, while freeing up the bust and extending further down the hips. Laced too tightly, however, it produced the extraordinary 'S' line, or 'Kangaroo Stance' that is characteristic of the early part of the decade.

For the affluent lady, there were still many layers of clothing to contend with at the end of the Victorian era. As well as the corset, there was the chemise, the corset cover, several petticoats in flannel, cotton and silk and finally, the gown. Considering the more elegant ladies changed their outfit up to five times a day, it's surprising they had time to do anything else!

While the upper echelons of society were setting the trends, the ladies of the increasingly prosperous middle classes (spurred on by the popular fashion magazines showing the latest designs from Paris) spent much time and energy attempting to keep up. Dressmakers were often employed to replicate the beautiful creations sold by the fashion houses of Paris and London.

At the turn of the century, Paris fashion houses were already the acknowledged leaders of the industry. The Great Exhibition, where designers such as Doucet, the Callot Soeurs and English houses Redfern and Worth displayed their wares, confirmed the city's status further. Mme Paquin, the first successful woman in haute couture, drew gasps of admiration with her contribution – a wax model of herself in one of her own creations.

But in the decade ahead, more and more Paris designers, including Mme Paquin, opened branches in London, making up-to-the-minute designs available to the affluent English rose.

Entertainment

HOME ENTERTAINMENT

With no TV or radio, most evenings revolved around conversation, reading and games. For those who could afford the instruments, music was an option and for the very wealthy there was a new, hi-tech form of home entertainment available:

The 'electrophone' was a telephone-based service that gave people access to concerts in the comfort of their own homes. Subscribers could hear music, theatrical performances and even sermons, at home or at special listening-in points. This early precursor to radio was quite expensive and was scrapped in the 1920s.

THEATRE

West End plays and operas were a popular pastime for the well to do, but many theatres in the late Victorian era were given over to music halls and 'spectacles', where paranormal events, such as hypnotists, mediums and ghost conjurers were the entertainment. Magic shows and circus acts were immensely popular.

On January 15, the Hippodrome theatre opened on the corner of Charing Cross Road and Cranbourn Street in London. Designed by Frank Matcham, it was originally built as a Hippodrome for circuses, and it housed a vast tank for water spectacles. It was not until 1909 that the stage was extended to accommodate variety acts and, later, revues.

For children, theatre began on Boxing Day with the arrival of the pantomime season. The traditional pantomime included a harlequinade, with a mysterious Harlequin, a beautiful Columbine and a jolly clown, but by the end of the Victorian era, this feature was cut down to the closing comic turn – if not eliminated. The Christmas show in 1900 would not differ greatly to the ones our children watch today.

On May 4, the celebrated beauty, Mrs Lillie Langtry, took her portrayal of a dissolute courtesan in The Degenerates to Washington. She was an instant sensation, packing the theatre there as she had in London.

Also in the States, Floradora opened at Broadway's Casino Theatre. It introduced dancing girls called The Floradora Sextet, a precursor to the chorus line.

Puccini's Tosca was premiered in Rome. The story of the singer who offers herself to a villainous police chief to save her lover's life, aroused much passion in the opera loving audience.

On November 22, Sir Arthur Sullivan, one half of Gilbert and Sullivan, died at the age of 58. His collaboration with W.S. Gilbert, which had begun 25 years earlier, had produced 13 hit operettas, including the hugely popular HMS Pinafore and The Mikado, and had ensured packed houses at the specially built Savoy theatre in London. Sadly, the pair fell out over the price of a carpet for the theatre in 1890 and, although they were reconciled three years later, subsequent works flopped.

FILM

Four years before the turn of the century, on February 20, 1896, the first British cinema audience had gathered at The Regent Street Polytechnic in London to watch short films by French pioneers, the Lumiere Brothers. By 1900, films were being shown as part of the evening's entertainment at music halls up and down the country. As they were silent, they were usually accompanied by a pianist, although a new innovation in France was about to change that. In April, the moving picture acquired sound with the use of a phonograph beside the screen, controlled by the projectionist. For the first time, a private viewer could hear as well as see an artist on the screen.

Also in France, the Lumiere Brothers premiered their new wide-screen format at the 1900 World Fair. At 75 mm wide, it has held the record for over 100 years as the widest format ever developed.

Films released this year included Sherlock Holmes Baffled, a 30 second feature shown in arcades, which was the earliest use of Conan Doyle's famous detective on screen.

BIRTHS

February 22 – screenwriter and director Luis Buñuel.

April 5 – actor Spencer Tracy.

June 6 –Arthur Askey, British comedian.

October 9 – actor Alistair Sim.

October 10 – actress Helen Hayes.

December 6 – actress Agnes Moorehead.

DEATHS

Nov 22 – Sir Arthur Sullivan, composer.

Literature

Journalist L Frank Baum created The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The book was a bestseller for two years and spawned a hit stage production in 1902, which used the shorter, more familiar title, of The Wizard of Oz. The production started in Chicago then moved to Broadway, where it played for 293 nights from January to October 1903. Baum went on to write over 60 novels, 13 of which were sequels to Dorothy's original adventure.

In February, Winston Spencer Churchill published his first and only novel, Savrola. Serving as a soldier and war correspondent in the Boer War, he somehow managed to find time to pen a 70,000-word romance set against the turbulent political backdrop of a Mediterranean republic.

Other literary works published in 1900 include Anthon Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim and Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men on the Brummel, in the long-awaited sequel to the 1889 bestseller Three Men in a Boat.

On November 30, the world lost a literary giant in disgraced playwright Oscar Wilde, who died in exile in Paris. The Irish writer had been living there, under the name of Sebastian Melmoth, since his release from prison (where he served two years for homosexual offences). Convicted in 1895, Wilde had written The Ballad of Reading Gaol while serving his sentence and it was published under the pseudonym C.33, his prison number. But his career was over. His stage successes, such as The Importance of Being Earnest, were unperformed since his disgrace and he died in poverty, dependent on the charity of his friends.

US writer Margaret Mitchell was born on November 8 in Atlanta, Georgia. She would grow up to write the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gone with the Wind, while convalescing from a foot injury in 1926. The bestseller, set during and after the American Civil War, would become one of the century's most successful films in 1939. It was the only book Mitchell ever wrote. Ten years later, she was killed by a speeding taxi.

BIRTHS

June 29 – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, novelist.

July 24 – Zelda Fitzgerald, wife and inspiration of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

November 8 – Margaret Mitchell, author.

November 19 – Anna Seghers, novelist.

December 16 – V. S. Pritchett, short story writer.

DEATHS

January 29 – John Ruskin, critic.

January 31 – John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, (nemesis of Oscar Wilde).

November 30 – Oscar Wilde, poet and dramatist.