Watt, James, ref1
Webb, Beatrice, ref1; My Apprenticeship, ref1
Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of: as national hero, ref1; disparages Prince Regent, ref1; on Babbage’s calculating machines, ref1; on George Canning, ref1; on foreign intervention, ref1; illness after duke of York’s funeral, ref1; on ‘impractical’ government, ref1; supports maintaining Ottoman Empire, ref1; as prime minister, ref1; agrees to Catholic emancipation, ref1; poor relations with George IV, ref1; opposes parliamentary reform, ref1; resigns, ref1; on passing of Reform Bill, ref1, ref2; fails to form government (1832), ref1; heads Tory party, ref1; declines to form government (1834), ref1, ref2; on Melbourne’s first government, ref1; deputizes for Peel as prime minister, ref1; declines Victoria’s appeal to replace Melbourne, ref1; as leader in Lords, ref1; on Peel’s reaction to Irish famine, ref1; declines cabinet post under Russell, ref1; pessimism on national defence, ref1; on Derby’s government, ref1; funeral, ref1
Wells, H. G., ref1, ref2
Wesleyan Methodist anti-slavery petition (1833), ref1
West Africa: mortality, ref1
Weymouth, ref1
Whig party: differences from Tories, ref1, ref2; and reform, ref1, ref2; develops unity, ref1; Disraeli on, ref1; election victory (1832), ref1; introduces New Poor Law, ref1; radicals in, ref1; opposes Peel, ref1; election victory (1837), ref1; opposes Corn Laws, ref1; becomes Liberal party, ref1; see also Liberal party
White, William, ref1
Wigston, Leicestershire, ref1
Wilberforce, William, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Wilde, Oscar: parodies earnestness, ref1; wit, ref1; reads at British Museum, ref1; life, style and ideas, ref1; trials and conviction, ref1, ref2; The Importance of Being Earnest, ref1; The Picture of Dorian Gray, ref1; Salomé, ref1; ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’, ref1
Wilhelm II, kaiser of Germany: telegram to Kruger, ref1
Wilkie, David: The Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch (painting), ref1
William IV, King (earlier duke of Clarence): on Whigs and Tories, ref1; accession, ref1; character and qualities, ref1; calls on Grey to form government, ref1; and Grey’s parliamentary reform, ref1, ref2, ref3; contempt for Victoria’s mother, ref1; invites Melbourne to form government, ref1; dismisses Melbourne and invites Peel to form government, ref1; reinstates Melbourne as prime minister, ref1; supports Tories, ref1; prejudice against Melbourne, ref1; death, ref1; political achievements, ref1
William, Prince of Prussia, ref1
Windham, Colonel Sir Charles Ash, ref1
wireless, ref1
Wiseman, Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Stephen, archbishop of Westminster, ref1, ref2
Wollstonecraft, Mary: A Vindication of the Rights of Women, ref1
women: rights and status, ref1, ref2; employment conditions, ref1, ref2, ref3; dress and fashion, ref1, ref2; anti-slavery petitions, ref1; equal pay demands, ref1; match-girls’ strike, ref1; emancipation, ref1
Wood, Charles (1st Viscount Halifax), ref1, ref2
Wood, Nicholas, ref1
Woolf, Virginia, ref1
workhouses, ref1
working class: and religious worship, ref1; disenfranchised, ref1, ref2; and parliamentary representation, ref1; hatred of governing classes, ref1; and Chartism, ref1; poverty and starvation, ref1; behaviour, ref1, ref2; Chadwick’s report on, ref1; conditions and improvement, ref1, ref2; Engels on, ref1; political leanings, ref1; see also trade unions
Yeats, William Butler, ref1, ref2
Yellow Book (magazine), ref1
York, Frederick Augustus, duke of: death and funeral, ref1
Young, Arthur, ref1; Travels, ref1
Young, G. M., ref1
Young, Thomas, ref1, ref2
Young England Movement, ref1
Young Ireland, ref1
Zulu war (1879), ref1
1. Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd earl of Liverpool, by Sir Thomas Lawrence.
2. George IV, king of the United Kingdom and Hanover.
3. 1815 Bread Riot at the entrance to the House of Commons caused by the implementation of the Corn Laws.
4. The 1819 Peterloo Massacre at St Peter’s Field, Manchester.
5. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and 2nd marquess of Londonderry.
6. Caroline of Brunswick, consort of George IV, 1820.
7. The arrest of the Cato Street conspirators in 1820. The name comes from their meeting place near Edgware Road in London.
8. A model of the analytical engine, a calculating machine invented in 1837 by Charles Babbage.
9. Mary Anning, pioneer fossil collector and palaeontologist of Lyme Regis, Dorset.
10. The Rt Hon. George Canning, MP.
11. Arthur Wellesley, the duke of Wellington.
12. William IV, king of the United Kingdom and Hanover.
13. The Rt Hon. Earl Grey.
14. An illustration of Daniel O’Connell for The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography.
15. The title page to The Life and History of Swing, The Kent Rick Burner, 1830.
16. A young Queen Victoria in 1842.
17. Prince Albert in 1840.
18. William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne.
19. Robert Peel.
20. A photograph of Lord John Russell.
21. Lord Palmerston.
22. The Rt Hon. W.E. Gladstone.
23. Benjamin Disraeli.
24. The ‘Rocket’ locomotive designed by George Stephenson in 1829.
25. Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway painted before 1844 by Turner.
26. The royal family in 1846.
27. The Great Exhibition of 1851 held in a purpose-built Crystal Palace in Hyde Park.
28. The Relief of the Light Brigade, 25 October 1854.
29. Mary Jane Seacole.
30. On Strike, c. 1891, by Hubert von Herkomer.
31. An illustration of music-hall performers for The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 1876.
32. Ramsgate Sands (or Life at the Seaside) by William Powell Frith.
33. The cover of The Illustrated London News depicting Mr Hawkins addressing the jury during the trial of the Tichborne Claimant.
34. Annie Besant, from Bibby’s Annual.
35. A descriptive map of London poverty, compiled and coloured by Charles Booth.
36. The key for Charles Booth’s poverty map.
37. A photograph of Lord Rosebery.
38. A group of Boer commandos armed with the German Mauser rifle, 1895.
39. Oscar Wilde.
40. Queen Victoria, empress of India, and Abdul Karim (munshi), 1894.
DOMINION
Peter Ackroyd is an award-winning novelist, as well as a broadcaster, biographer, poet and historian. He is the author of the acclaimed non-fiction bestsellers Thames: Sacred River and London: The Biography. He holds a CBE for services to literature and lives in London.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Non-Fiction
The History of England Vol. I: Foundation
The History of England Vol. II: Tudors
The History of England Vol. III: Civil War
The History of England Vol. IV: Revolution
London: The Biography
Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination
The Collection: Journalism, Reviews, Essays, Short Stories
Lectures Edited by Thomas Wright
Thames: Sacred River Venice: Pure City Queer City
Fiction
The Great Fire of London
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
Hawksmoor Chatterton First Light
English Music The House of Doctor Dee
Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem Milton in America
The Plato Papers The Clerkenwell Tales
The Lambs of London The Fall of Troy
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein Three Brothers
Biography
Ezra Pound and his World T. S. Eliot
Dickens Blake The Life of Thomas More
Shakespeare: The Biography Charlie Chaplin
Brief Lives
Chaucer J. M. W. Turner
Newton Poe: A Life Cut Short
First published 2018 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2018 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5098-8131-4
Copyright © Peter Ackroyd 2018
Cover images: Portrait of Queen Victoria, 1859 (oil on canvas) (detail of 192754), Winterhalter, Franz Xaver (1806–73) (after) / Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK The Stapleton Collection Bridgeman Images