It is surprising then that so little attention has
been paid to the events surrounding the formation
of the Society—particularly given that researchers
and historians have concentrated so much scholarship
upon late Victorian England—showing this to
have been an exceedingly rich period in the history
of social and political reform. Such events include
the advancement of women’s emancipation, the
development of germ theory and sanitary science,
social problems of urban overcrowding, the effects
of two foreign wars, and political questions of
sovereignty and government, classical liberalism
and legal reform.