The UK According to Whitaker: 1900 Quiz

Answer: True

Victoria ascended the British throne in 1837 at the age of eighteen and reigned for the rest of the century, dying early in 1901.

Franz Joseph of Austria, who had become Emperor in 1848, eventually reigned for even longer, dying in 1916 after nearly 68 years on the throne.

Answer: the Second Boer War

The war between Britain (which governed Cape Colony and Natal) and the Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State lasted until 1902. From late 1900 it became a protracted war of attrition, during which public support for it in Britain fell off sharply.

Answer: Lord Salisbury

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, was the leader of the Conservative Party which had won an absolute majority of seats in the Commons in the general election of 1895 and also had the support of Liberal Unionists (i.e. opponents of Home Rule in Ireland).

In October 1900, when the Liberal opposition was deeply divided over the Boer War, Salisbury called a general election and secured a further five years in power for his party, though he resigned the premiership in 1902.

Answer: Poet Laureate

If Austin is remembered at all today, it's because he is credited with an uninspired couplet on the illness of the Prince of Wales in 1871 (Along the wire the electric message came/ "He is no better; he is much the same."). It seems clear that Austin did not in fact pen these lines, but even so he was hardly in the same class as Wordsworth and Tennyson, who preceded him in the Laureateship.

Some people think he was given the honour by Lord Salisbury, then Prime Minister, as a reward for his loyalty to the Conservative cause.

Answer: Eightpence in the pound (3.33 per cent)

Income tax was first introduced in 1799-1800 as a war measure, and abolished in 1816 after the Napoleonic Wars ended. It was revived in 1842 during Sir Robert Peel's ministry at 7d in the pound (just under 3 per cent). Under Disraeli in the 1870s it fell to 2d in the pound (less than one per cent), but had risen again by the end of the century. No tax was payable on incomes below £160 a year, and so virtually all manual workers, and many of the lower middle classes, were unaffected by it.

Answer: Paris

Whitaker gives the population of Paris as 2,512,000, compared with 4,505,000 for London, 1,773,000 for Berlin, 1,590,000 for Vienna and 1,133,000 for St Petersburg. In the USA New York City, which had recently expanded to take in Brooklyn, had 3,439,000 inhabitants.

Answer: Rutland

Most of the traditional counties of England survived all kinds of political upheaval for hundreds of years until the mid-twentieth century. Since then, successive "reforms" of local government have left some old-timers with only the haziest idea of the extent or even the current names of their counties.

Rutland, famous as the smallest of the ancient counties, had an area (according to Whitaker) of 110,190 acres (about 172 square miles or 44,600 hectares) and a population of 22,000. This made it less than one thirtieth the size of Yorkshire, the largest county. In the 1974 reorganization of local government, Rutland lost its status and was incorporated into Leicestershire. In 1997 it became a "unitary authority," effectively regaining the powers of a county.

Answer: 41 years

One of the most remarkable changes in living conditions in the twentieth century was the increase in the average lifespan: a male child born in the late 1990s could expect to live for about 75 years.

Whitaker's figures are based on calculations made by the UK Government's General Register Office: other sources have slightly different figures.

Mortality among small children was high in Victorian Britain: a boy who survived his first year would see his expected age of death rise from 41 at birth to 49, while an average male five-year-old could expect to live to 56.

Answer: Rudyard Kipling

Originally appearing separately in magazines, the stories were published together in book form in October 1899. Despite the disapproval of critics like George Gissing ("the most vulgar and bestial production of our times") and Robert Buchanan ("the vulgarity, the brutality, the savagery, reeks on every page"), sales seem to have been good.

The character of Beetle is generally supposed to represent Kipling himself.

Answer: Battersea, London

The home was started in 1860 by Mrs Mary Tealby in the Holloway area of London, and moved to Battersea in 1871. It was ridiculed in its early years, but had gained widespread respect by the end of the century. Officially known today as Battersea Dogs' and Cats' Home (yes, it looks after cats as well), it is one of Britain's best known animal welfare charities and is still active in caring for lost or abandoned animals, reuniting them with their owners or re-homing them.