Kitty Taylor

Shifting power in railway spaces in Victorian London: Eroticism and moral anxieties surrounding women travellers 

Railway transport revolutionised the social and economic status of Britain. Britain transformed the industry of rail with innovation of passenger trains and iron rails, opening the country to a new wave of national travel and trade. The first passenger line train was opened in 1830, the Liverpool and Manchester railway (UK parliament, no date), with the first passenger line in London, through Greenwich, opening in 1836 (The History of London, no date). On the 10th of January 1863, the first underground line run by The Metropolitan Railway opened between Paddington and Farringdon Street (TfL, no date), however much of the core of the modern tube railway in London was not opened until the early 1900’s because of caution by investors throughout the late 19th century (London Transport Museum, no date). However, by 1852 there were 6600 miles of railway in England and Scotland; the speed and ease of railway travel led to a staggering 73 million tickets being sold in Britain in 1852 followed by 507 million in 1875 (R. Barrow, 2015: 341). With the positives of rail for the economy, came the difficulty socially and morally. An intimate space where men, women and children of all backgrounds mixed in this way was not commonplace within the time and stretched the imaginaries and social understanding and behaviour of the Victorian population. Stefan Fisher-Høyrem described the Victorian railways as a ‘technological monster’ (S. Fisher-Høyrem, 2022: 26) that with its safety fences, walls and embankments surrounding the iron tracks, the railway became an ‘otherworld’ (ibid.), unless the public entered the inner network as passengers. Novelists, journalists, and playwrights across Britain swooned over the sensationalism that the railway brought to transport, highlighting its dark side through fiction and non-fiction reports on assaults, murder, rape and promiscuous romances. Challenging the social agenda between gender and class at the time, railway travel in Britain revolutionised the public space and within this essay I will be exploring in what ways the railway facilitated this. 

Although an absence of demographic statistics makes it difficult to identify how many women travelled alone during this period (R. Barrow, 2015: 342), it is certain that an influx of women travelling overall accelerated immensely after expansion of the railways in Britain, introducing a great demographic shift in the people who were using public spaces and transport. As J. D. Sapio concisely explains, the Victorian railway has been precisely mapped, it’s economic affect perfectly plotted, yet the railway compartment as a social study has been wholly ignored (J. D. Sapio 2012, 203). The importance of the social contact within the rail car during the Victorian period is critical in understanding the development of social queues and gender roles, as well as shifting patterns of power between class groups. For the members of the Victorian middle classes, the railway was often their most direct encounter with the discipline of this new industrial technology. They learned on the station platform and railway carriage what the industrial worker had already learned factory floor. In this sense, the railway quite literally brought people up to speed (N. Daley, 1998: 57). With large sections of society in mind, rail companies aimed to cater for a wide range of passengers and purposes, some services such as the Great Eastern actively encouraged ladies to use their trains but also attracted many working-class folks with cheap and efficient ‘work trains’ in the morning (R. Aindow, 2005: 11). Therefore, unavoidably, ladies of all classes were mixing and encountering a large male working-class population, which was unheard of before this invent. This challenged the typical social order of the time and brought women into new male dominated spaces. Specifically in terms of the underground lines, and grand stations being built, a new type of liminal space was being created in London. The public space, mostly being the streets, in London were seen as a ‘male space’, with few women walking them, especially alone. The urban space was already filled with ideologies about the way women should behave and what to wear, and when or who they were in the urban streets with. Not only was the train itself a public space of encounters, but it was transporting a large number of passengers into the territory of the inner city which many may not have experienced before. The railway carriage then became a symbolic contrast between the provincial and metropolitan, the ‘innocent’ and the ‘threatening’ (R. Phillips 2006, 178), and a newfound understanding for the Victorian population about the moral dangers of the urban particularly the train carriage and station. 

Traditionally, urban exploration within London had been the domain of the wealthy male ‘flaneur’, a figure famously evoked in the work of Charles Baudelaire. High class, gentlemanlike and educated, able to ‘ramble’ the streets as a form of leisure. As Judith Walkowitz suggests, however, by the late nineteenth century the city ‘was not just the home and fixed reference of the male flaneur; it had become a new commercial landscape, used by men and women of different classes.’ (R. Aindow, 2005: 1) (J. Walkowitz, 2000). The railway tracks themselves became a public space, yet also significantly altered the demographic of visitors to London, as travel to and from the suburbs became efficient and cheap. Women were even encouraged to make use of the rail for travel into the city as the price and speed enabled them to travel without expensive accompaniment. By 1855, a first class trip to London in a few hours would have cost just nine shillings, whereas a similar stagecoach journey, which would on average take half a day, would have cost one pound five shillings. Barrow highlights how this was ‘a great reduction in time and money’ (R. Barrow, 2015: 342). The railway provided affordable options for women which enabled them to be more independent. However, women were not given the same response as men who walked the streets. It was not seen as ladylike or respectable to be a ’rambler’, specifically to travel for pleasure as a woman. As an interchangeable term for the female prostitute, the expression ‘streetwalker’ instantly injects the urban street space with ‘gendered potency’. Whilst men were able to enjoy the freedoms the city streets created; women were at risk of being mistaken for prostitutes when they chose to occupy the space (ibid., 2). Before the invention of passenger rail, horses and stagecoaches were a few of the limited travelling options for women, and if they did not also travel with a male relative or female servant, they were considered a ‘fallen woman’ (K. Jan 2022, 17). The context of the ‘fallen woman’ and how women were perceived in public and urban spaces, which were automatically assumed as male spaces, tells us about the relationship between sexual activity or femininity and the ideologies that women were expected to embody. The idea that a promiscuous or sexual woman was ‘fallen’ was a wholly negative one and placed the responsibility of the woman to avoid, especially in cases of attracting a male gaze. Indeed, the idea that a woman walking or travelling alone and in anything but sombre dress was promiscuous or sexual, is a problematic assumption in itself. A lack of movement of women travellers in public spaces due to these ideologies (and in some cases laws that enforced the removal of suspected ‘prostitutes’ at the discretion of members of the public) reduced the female presence to the privacy of the domestic home. Interestingly, railway companies encouraged a conflation between railway compartments and domestic space in order to encourage ladies’ patronage (R. Barrow, 2015: 352), and as R. Barrow explores within ‘Rape on the Railway’, this ideological paradox could be identified within the cover of the erotic novel ‘Raped on the Railway’ depicting a ‘disrobed’ woman in a parlour fighting off a gentleman attacker, blurring the lines between railway carriage and the Victorian home (ibid.). This depiction also serves as a reminder that rape typically takes place in domestic settings rather than the public, though those reading the newspapers may have assumed differently and drawn conclusions that the greatest danger was in railcars, alleyways or parks. Ultimately this was challenged by women’s ability to occupy male dominated public spaces with ease due to the technology of the Victorian railway. 

Clothing was an important part of a women’s responsibility in retaining her decency and class within the public sphere, and this was equally as important when travelling via rail. Those who wanted to avoid an uncomfortable experience of the male gaze were encouraged to wear dull colours or ‘sombre’ outfits (R. Aindow, 2005: 5), as bright coloured dresses (though showing a certain degree of wealth and class) were also associated with that of prostitutes and attracting male attention, or indeed any sort of attention. Thinking back to the physicality of the railway carriage, the technical constraints of the time and the privacy of the secluded compartments join to create a perfect environment for these concerns about social misconduct to fester. The physical constraints of the rail carriage are also compounded with the physical constraints experienced by women concerning their sexuality and social freedoms. Even women’s clothing was constrictive and heavy, rendering the isolated woman in a railcar compartment even more unequipped for the male companion, should inappropriate behaviour arise. The Victorian rail car was very different to the streets of London. Train carriages at this time mostly consisted of private compartments, creating an intimate environment in a public space that had not necessarily been encountered by Victorians at this time. The privacy considered necessary for the social habits of the English came at a price, leaving those most vulnerable isolated with their fellow passengers (R. Barrow, 2015: 343). Passengers were confined together in a public space that was often represented as domestic and ‘home-like’ (J. D. Sapio, 2012: 204), yet many experienced a ‘fear of potential mutual threat’ (ibid.). News reports throughout this period significantly embedded this idea in the collective minds of the public, by presenting women as both threatened by male strangers and as threatening towards respectable gentlemen with accusations of misconduct or sexual assault (R. Barrow, 2015: 342). 

A great number of novels and notable figures such as Charles Dickens, were influenced by the sensations of the railway (N. Daly, 1999). Even more influentially, newspapers used these fascinations and equipped sensational headlines to sell more copies. British papers were quick to adopt the ‘American practice of melodramatic headlines’ (R. Barrow, 2015: 346), which created a stir among the public over the social order in the railway carriage and on the tracks. Language within these headlines was often hyperbolic to reflect the contemporary desire to read about crimes which were vulgar and diverged from the standard Victorian codes of conduct and social queues (K. Jan 2022, 16), not so different from the tabloids that we see today. The railway then becomes a catalyst for sexual deviance, endangering both men and women simultaneously. While rape was a genuine concern, the moral panic about rape on the railway was chiefly an artificial fear responding to and creating cultural anxiety about women’s entry into public spaces (R. Barrow, 2015: 352). Not only was there concern for assault towards women, but also male concern over accusations of misconduct and rape. The railway gave women an independence from men, whilst also emphasising the issues created by the patriarchal views that encased women’s freedoms. Some organisations such as The Travellers Aid Society aimed to ease some of the pressures and vulnerabilities that women faced whilst using transport such as rail, yet rendering women as helpless, uninformed, and vulnerable also enforces the problematic misogynistic viewpoint. The Travellers Aid Society was established in 1885 with aims to safe and respectable passage to female travellers at railway stations and ports. Within Richard Phillips exploration of heterosexuality in Victorian London in Unsexy Geographies, he suggests that the actions of the society implicitly normalised and erased women’s sexualities and reproduced hegemonic constructions of morality and sexuality (R. Phillips 2006, 164). Labelling and identifying women as the victims of immoral and sexually deviant acts, without repercussions or removal of the male perpetrators reinforces the notion that women are responsible for the acts committed against them be it due to their behaviour or their appearance. 

Initially we could identify the Victorian railway as a great freedom for women travellers. The price of travel was cheap which allowed more women to experience space, place and socialise outside of the home or work. The speed of travel across the country was significantly improved and allowed women to travel further afield during the day, it also meant they did not necessarily have to have accompaniment or a guardian with them. Yet this also deemed them vulnerable within the railway carriage and within the city itself. I would argue that the narrative over sexual assault and rape on the train, fuelled by sensationalism within journalism was driven as a means to reduce the female presence in these spaces. Yet the distinction between public and private spaces was already blurred, with many scholars pointing to the fact that the middle-class home was a very sociable space. Ultimately the independence and confidence that railway travel instilled in women travellers could be seen as inherently masculine traits. And again, in the form of a moral panic regarding a challenge to the masculine ‘flaneur’ and worker, women’s travel on the railways evoked broader concerns about women assuming ‘masculine responsibilities’ such as handling money or working (R. Barrow, 2015: 355-356). Therefore, you could argue that an increase in the moral panic and ‘scare tactics’ regarding the dangers that women travellers would face coupled with sensationalism in the newspapers was beneficial to those trying to instil that male protection at all times was a necessity. 

To conclude, it is clear that great moral anxieties were produced throughout the Victorian period regarding the influx of women travellers due to the travel opportunities created by the railways. These anxieties were influenced by the gender roles and expectations within Britain at this time, specifically the expectations surrounding women’s decency, respectability, femininity and sexuality. The railway gave women an edge of independence from male companionship that they had not been able to experience before, and although this was positive in terms of feminism, the challenge to masculinity and changing social queues I would argue led to higher amounts of anxiety about the movement of female travellers. Although the dangers of rail travel in this period were stacked against the woman on her travels, the sensationalism within newspapers and novels drew in readers due to their vulgar and taboo nature, creating a moral panic around assault, rape and accidents on the rails. Throughout the themes explored in this essay I would say that some of the reports as a result of these concerns have a blurred line between genuine concern about safety, and attempts to limit women’s physical and social mobility throughout the urban space of London. Across the 19th century the rail carriage became a liminal space between the contrasting suburbs and inner city, whilst also embodying a new wave of social agendas and interactions within the train compartment itself. The economic impacts of rail travel for London and the rest of the country was undoubtedly priceless, however the important shift of power for female travellers, especially those outside of the upper or middle classes was just as important and timeless. 

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