The Form & Growth of the City

At the beginning of Victoria’s reign the city still faced very serious problems of disease and poverty. The shock of the cholera outbreak of a few years earlier was still in many people’s minds (see Late Georgian), and the work of the Improvement Commissioners was far from complete. Their work included the new Queen Street (named after Queen Victoria but in fact begun a few years before her reign), and public schemes to improve the water supply, sewers, hospitals and street lighting.

The period saw a considerable rise in the city’s population from 28,000 in 1831 to 47,000 in 1901. With it came a large growth in the extent of the city, especially in late Victorian times, when St Thomas, Heavitree, Mount Pleasant and St Davids all experienced rapid growth.

Improvements in education for children were marked by a new generation of schools for both boys and girls. The great efforts in improving adult education for working people centred on the Albert Memorial Museum, founded in the 1860s. To many Victorians education was closely linked to religion and new churches were built to serve the suburbs, whilst the cathedral experienced an expensive restoration in the 1870s.