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Poster from the exhibition
© Wrexham Heritage Services
On 3 February 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, George Bristow, the master of Bersham Board School, wrote in his log book:
"Devoted a whole lesson to loyalty. Reason for the term 'Diamond' – recalled the Jubilee Year – compared our country with others – immunity from invasion and civil strife – growth of commerce – change in methods of communication and locomotion – Christian character of Her Majesty. Finally concluding with the National Anthem."
Mr Bristow did not usually teach this lesson to his class, but the values he was teaching were typical of the time. Queen Victoria had been monarch for sixty years and she reigned over an Empire upon which the sun never set.
High Street, Victorian Wrexham
© Wrexham Archives
Yet all was not still, the Victorians saw huge changes in their lifetimes. These changes were inspired by how Victorian people saw and judged the world around them. Their values left their mark on Wrexham and the surrounding communities. This exhibition explores some of those values: the importance of learning, philanthropy, morality, loyalty, hierarchy, industry and progress; how these values affected the lives of local people, who benefited and who suffered.
This is an age of improvement and discovery and intellectual progress, beyond any that has gone before it.
- Wrexham Recorder 1848
A spirit of progressive improvement has of late manifested itself in this town and neighbourhood.
- Wrexham Registrar, 1848
Up fellow townsmen and be doing! Awake from your ignoble slumbers, and join in the universal and accelerating march of intelligence, liberty and religion.
- Wrexham Registrar, 1848
There are many primary sources still available if you would like to research deeper into the nineteenth-century history of Wrexham and its surrounding communities.
Census returns, the minutes of the meetings of the Wrexham Poor Law Guardians, log books of local board schools, the records of the Quarter Sessions and microfilm copies of the Wrexham Advertiser and the Wrexham Guardian are just a few of the fascinating resources available in local archives.
Acknowledgements
- Wrexham Archives Service
- W.A.Williams
- C.J.Williams
- Bark Design
This document with added images is available to download in the following formats:
Victorian Values - PDF format 703Kb 
A map showing Wrexham in 1898 is available to download in the following format:
Map of Wrexham 1898 - PDF format 207Kb
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