At the same time that Victorian England was reigning in social behavior, it realized incredible expansion in terms of wealth, power, and influence. Science and technology including the study of natural laws and biology were rapidly advancing. Spiritual matters, particularly the role of institutional religion, were beginning to be questioned in accordance with a continued emphasis on rational thought. Under the influence of individuals such as Marx, Freud and Darwin, Victorian England became innovative in its views of ideology, politics, democracy, socialism, unionization, women's rights, and other social movements.

    However, a dark side to Victorian society existed, in part as a reaction to the emphasis on restraint of pleasure and social propriety. Victorian society saw a rampant, though covert, use and abuse of drugs and alcohol. Developments in medicine and science made drugs such as heroin, chloral, and laudanum available and widely prescribed. Often the result was addiction. In addition, the expansion of the British Empire and developments in trade relations brought other drugs and drug derivatives into Great Britain, in particular opium from Asia. Alcohol, always present in society, was more easily produced and distributed with continued industrialization.

    The rise of a middle class with expendable incomes made access to such substances even easier. It must be noted that the most popular of drugs used, those listed here, are all barbiturates, depressants, suggesting perhaps a high level of frustration with and desire to escape the repressive strictures under which Victorians found themselves living.

    Denial, always a popular abstraction in a culture advocating repression, served to keep drug (ab)use covert, suggesting that perhaps there was little or no use of illicit substances in the British isles. Furthermore, Britain's view of its moral imperative in its imperial activities allowed it to place the blame for any drug problems on the influence of foreign habits and foreign peoples in the land.

    This site is dedicated to an investigation of the uses and abuses of drugs and alcohol within Victorian society. In particular, it investigates the role of drug and alcohol use in the production of art and literature and how drug and alcohol use gets represented in the literature and art of the period.

     Click on a picture below to learn more about the substance.