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SENATE ? 

SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES 

To

..........................................................

From

......................................

.DETA1MENT O 

?

IIITOR'T........................ 

..................................... 

NEW C ? 

PROPOSAL 

COURSE PPOSAL - HIST 415-3 - 

?

OCTOBER 15, 

. 1981 

S

uDlect

..........................

VICTORIAN 

BRITAfl 

?

Date

...... . .... ....

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .... ...... .. .. .... .. .... .. .. .. .. .... .... 

Action undertaken by the Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies 

at its meeting of October 6, 1981 gives rise to the following motion: 

MOTION: That Senate approve and recommend approval to the Board 

of Governors, as set forth in S.81-145, the proposed new 

course HIST 415-3 - Victorian Britain. 

Note: The memorandum from the Chairman of the Department describes the 

place of this course in overall offerings of the Department. 

.

SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

MEMORANDUM

Wo .................. Charles.Hamiltan

............... ?

From

Chairman ?

Chairman

Faculty. .of.Art.s..Cur.ricuLum..Comitt.ae.

Department-of.-History

Subiect...HLST..4L5..V.ictor.jan..BritaLn ........ .

Date. ...2&. September .19.81.......................

This new course proposed by the History

Department has been taught previously in

the Department under a special topics rubric.

Because it has been a successful course, the

Department now wishes to enter it as a regular

calendar entry. Because we have already been

teaching it, this course will require no

additional faculty time, nor any new position,

nor will it require any additional library

expenditure.

The course will not change our normal scheduling

•

format of courses - we

will not schedule more

courses in any one semester, but will re-arrange

current courses to accommodate the offering of

SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES 

NEW COURSE PROPOSAL FORM 

1.

Calendar Information ? 

Department ? 

JitiQflL. 

Abbreviation Code: HIST 

?

Course Number: ? 

415 ? 

Credit Hours: 3 

?

Vector: 0-3-0? 

Title of Course: Victorian Britain 

Calendar Descri 

p

tion of 

Coiire

An examination of some of the major achievements, problems and controversies - 

economic, social, political, religious, imperial, cultural - in the world's 

first industrial society as it approached its maximum imperial extent and 

the zenith of its prosperity. 

Nature of Course Seminar 

Prerequisites (or special instructions): Students are strongly recommended to take one? 

?

or more of the following history courses: 

?

224, 226, 315, 316. 

What course (courses), if any, is being dropped from the calendar if this course is 

approved: 

none 

2. Scheduling 

How frequently will the course be offered? 

?

once every two years 

Semester in which the course will first be offered? 

?

82/3 

Which of your present faculty would be available to make the proposQffe1i 

possible? 

A.B. Cunningham, E.R. Ingram Ellis, C. Hamilton, M.L. McDou'5)'1, 

?

3.

Objectives of the Course To permit students to study in greater depth thasurvey 

course permits a specialized period of British history in which the availab1) 

historical literature and documentation is extensive. 

4.

Budgetary and Space Requirements (for information only) 

What additional resources will be required in the following areas: 

Faculty none 

Staff ? 

none 

Library 

the materials in the library are perfectly sufficient for this course, being 

Audio Visual 

none ? 

particularly abundant on the Victorian age, and including much 

material of especial value in microfiche/microfilm form, e.g. 

Space ? 

none ? 

newspapers, parliamentary debates, government reports, etc. 

Equipment ? 

none 

5.

Approval 

Date:-- 

30 June 1981 

?

September 29, 1981 

Ye ajrtme t Chairman ? 

Dean 

?

Chairman, SCUS 

SCUS 73-34h:- (When completing this form, for instructions see Memorandum SCUS 73-34a 

Attach

course outline). 

Arts 

78-3

HISTORY 415             

Allan Cunningham 

Office AQ 6010 

Phone 291-3751 

Many B.C. students imagine they have glimpsed the authentic atmosphere 

of Victorian England in the lounge of the Empress Hotel at tea-time, at which 

hour antique ladies who have slept the afternoon away after lunch in the Bengal 

Room rally to the rattle of cups, emerge from under their handkerchiefs, and 

take tea and cucumber sandwiches to the music of Willy Tickell's trio, squeaking 

among the potted palms. 

The implications of this prejudiced vision are that all Victorians 

were not only always comfortable and idle, but always old as well; that their 

society was dull, their lives uneventful, their interest material, their church- 

going mindless, their morality hypocritical, their taste awful and their children 

hideously repressed. ? 

In their sepia photographs, it is true, they seem removed 

from us by much more than a century, the men pompous and the women distinguishable 

from the men because - as a rule - they didn't have whiskers. 

It may, therefore, be all the harder for you to recognise that these 

people (whose great-grand-children you may be) created the then most powerful and 

influential nation on earth, ruled over a quarter of the earth's surface and a 

third of its people, and established the prototype of that industrial civilisation 

which we, among other societies, have inherited. 

?

They worried, at least as much 

as we do, about the problems, dangers and opportunities inherent in such a society. 

In many ways too, - and this is not an intentionally romantic view - the 

Victorians were more interesting and individualistic, more activist and purposeful, 

more eccentric and visionary, than our homogenised society allows us tobe. 

The Victorian were always arguing, and the course invites you to join 

them as they disagree about the many effects of two particular phenomena upon an 

old, vigorous and highly integrated society: firstly, the decisive shift from 

agriculture to industry as the basis of the national livelihood; secondly, the 

introduction of middle-class and popular democratic elements into a predominantly 

aristrocratic constitution. 

1. Required Books (all in paperback) 

1.

J.F.C. Harrison, The Early Victorians, 1832-51 

2.

G. Best, Mid-Victorian Britain, 1851-75 

3.

R. Shannon, The Crisis of Imperialism, 1865-1915 

(all have good bibliographies and notes) 

2. Books on Reference 

1. J.L. i\ltholz, Victorian England, 1837-1901: a bibliography 

S ?

2. G.R. Elton, Modern Historians on British History, a critical 

bibliography 

3. English Historical Documents,ed., D.C. Douglas. 

Vol. 11 - covers 1783-1832 

Vol. 12 - covers 1833-1874 

Vol. 13 - covers 1874-1914 

Page 2. 

?

HISTORY 415 

?

Allan Cunningham 

3.

Course plan 

The format of the seminar will be (a) in the first hour, an 

informal lecture by me, usually illustrated with slides and with 

photocopies of original documents for students to keep, read 

and think about, (b) in the second hour, there will be a 

discussion of previously specified readings, from the required 

books and/or other books and articles, and (c) in the third, 

a seminar presentation by a member of the class. 

4.

Course Requirements 

Obligatory attendance and informed participation in all seminars; 

a formal class presentation of 20 minutes duration; one long 

essay; half of grade for essay, half for seminar contribution. 

5.

Grading 

For the final essay, fifty percent; for the seminar, fifty percent. 

.

SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

MEMORANDUM

To.

Sheila Roberts 

From..

•.l.n•çray           

•

D&.1?3HP0.

The library is well equipped to support the proposed course, History 

415, for it has had the resources to teach 19th century English history 

to the Ph.D. level for sometime. 

The secondary materials are here in abundance as for the primary 

materials the library has: 

The major political and social journals of the period, 

The Times of London, 

British parliamentar 

y

papers, 

Debates from mid-country, 

Diaries, memoirs, documents. 

Added to these are the rich 19th century English literature collection 

as well as the worksof the period and on it that reside in the philosophy, 

economics and political science classifications. 

L&dt*€