The history of women in the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901) is barely considered. Campaigns for female suffrage had started after rejection in the Reform Bill of 1867, achieving little before the suffragettes waged war from 1904. There was oppression and discrimination, but women had endured a Patriarchy for centuries. Perhaps, nothing had happened?

That was mostly true. Queen Victoria had blocked votes for women, but this is no longer a secret, her feminist image long tarnished. American and French women had scarcely fared better against their Republics. The only incident of any note was the raising of the age-of-consent from 13 to 16 in 1885. A radical newspaper editor made false accusations, broke the law, sent to prison. The Scandal was swiftly resolved, new laws passed, and women had won a great victory. Nothing to see here, please move along.

The sexual revolution of the 1960’s drew attention to the prohibition of indecency between males, repealed in 1967. The origin of this law was a mystery, one of several agreed late-at-night in a near-empty House of Commons. The Church of England held scant influence on private morals after Oliver Cromwell, yet their misogynist Puritan laws had somehow crept back, re-branded for the Industrial Age. When? 1885.

Social Purity became the new morality, an evangelical Crusade for Church and Empire, their flaming swords vigilance and repression. This history was never written: of women, their cause betrayed; of freedoms, taken away, in Silence.