Domestic / Political

_{Crowds line the streets to see Queen Victoria's funeral procession. © Getty Images.}

The event that overshadowed all others in 1901 was the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January. The ruler of the largest empire the world had ever seen had spent 63 years on the throne.

It was impossible to escape the atmosphere of mourning. "Drawn blinds, shaded shops and the sombre trappings of woe may be observed everywhere", according to a press report. Her death should have been anticpated but it was so unthinkable that the Government and court were utterly unprepared. The Victorian age had been one of increasing wealth but there were still plenty of people living at the other end of the social scale: 35 per cent of East Enders lived below the official poverty line. The American writer Jack London described "a new and different people, short of stature, an odd wretched and beer-sodden appearance" in 1902.

Also in this year, the Taff Vale judgement was finally passed down from the House of Lords. The Taff Vale Railway Company had sued for their losses when the union was on strike. The result was that the union had to pay £32,000 in costs and damages, but the effect was to cripple the trade union movement.

The real winner in all this was the Labour Representation Committee - soon to be the Labour Party - which formed in 1900 to combine trade unions and socialist societies in a political party. Within a year, membership more than doubled to 861,000, and it began to win by-elections.

The Royal Navy's first submarine was launched at Barrow, and this year the admiralty decided to build three huge battleships, the biggest in the world.

The first practical electric vacuum cleaner was patented by Birmingham engineer Hubert Booth. 'Puffing Billy' was a horse-drawn, petrol-driven van that would be parked outside the house to be cleaned and hoses run inside to suck out dirt.

Guglielmo Mrconi conducted the first successful wireless experiment in Cornwall, sending messages to the Newfoundland coast 2,000 miles away.

The ills family of Bristol created the Imperial Tobacco Company from a merger between 13 British tobacco companies to produce pipe tobacco and the increasingly popular cigarretes.

It had been a long wait for the Prince of Wales who ascended to the thrown at the age of 59 as Edward VII. His 48-inch waistline gave him the nickname Tum-Tum; is fondness for female companionship gave him another: Edward the Caresser. Queen Victoria had hated smoking; the new king gathered his friends at Buckingham Palace and entered with a cigar in his hands and the words: "Gentlemen, you may smoke."