EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE EDWARDIANS

Dr John Jacob Woolf answers key questions about a brief but momentous 'gilded age' for Britain

- Dr John Jacob Woolf

Q: When was the Edwardian era and how long did it last? A: Technically, it was the period when Edward VII, the eldest son of Queen Victoria, ruled as King of Great Britain and Ireland, from January 1901 to May 1910. Most historians, however, talk of the Edwardian era as extending to the years until World War I broke out in 1914. That is because once the nation had entered the war, the whole tenor of British life fundamentally changed and a new country, both domestically and internationally, emerged.

Q: What was it known for? A: Coming as it does after Victoria's long and epochal reign and before the destruction and horror of the world war, it was a liminal time for Britain, commonly imagined to this day as a 'gilded age' all about tea on the lawns and lazy, sunlit afternoons. But once you penetrate the Edwardian era, you see a different side to the myths that have long been perpetuated.

It was a period that saw the spread of the labour movement, an intensification of the fight for women's suffrage, and the rise of Pan-Africanism; a key trademark of the decade was the assertion of such marginalised groups. There were plenty of other changes, too: the growth of the middle classes, greater urbanisation and electrification, and so on. It was an era of swagger, opulence, self-belief and a bit of arrogance. But underneath this was a fear of imperial decline - a decline in the British 'stock', if you like and the birth of the eugenics movement in Britain. So the era was a paradoxical age as well.