When King William died in 1837, the granddaughter of George III became Queen of Great Britain. Her name was Victoria and she was eighteen years old.        

The age of invention
The Victorian period was a time of great improvement and transformation for Scotland and the rest of Great Britain. There were many improvements and new inventions which altered the way people lived.  They made it dramatically different from before. Some of the most important developments included the telephone, which was invented by Sir Alexander Graham Bell when he was living in America in 1875. Gas lighting was invented by William Murdoch from Ayrshire and in 1803.  The foundry he managed was the first industrial site to be lit by gas. It was not long before gas was used to light up the city streets at night and in people's homes. Steam power also brought great changes and it was used to power machinery and in transports such as boats and trains. The first steam train was invented by George Stevenson.  It ran between Glasgow and  Garnkirk in Lanarkshire in 1831. Improved transport meant improved communications; Scotland's major cities were linked by rail.

Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions
There were revolutions in agriculture and industry, which resulted in a change in employment for most Victorians.  Farm workers moved to the towns and cities to find work in factories or coal fields. Most Scottish Victorians had jobs in heavy industry (mining, shipbuilding, engineering, or iron and steel manufacturing). The old domestic jobs like maidservant and cook still existed, but there were new jobs as new shops needed assistants, hospitals needed nurses, and schools needed teachers. Women worked as typists in offices, using the new typewriters, or on the telephone exchanges. Some women worked in the factories, in poor conditions and for very little pay. Victorian women had no rights or unions to represent them, and were not allowed to vote. Some people still worked on the land, as farmers in the Highlands. The industrial workers brought great wealth to Scotland but they were often very badly paid. They worked for very long hours in terrible conditions, and lived mainly in the filthy slums of the big cities. Overcrowding was a massive problem; families shared single rooms in the tall tenement buildings without toilets or water. Disease and illnesses like typhus, cholera and tuberculosis were widespread.  Many died because of their appalling living conditions.

Improvements in life
Change was slow because of the way that government and parliament was organized. Originally only the very wealthy could vote. People began to protest about this because they wanted fair representation in Parliament, and eventually more working men were given the vote in the Reform Act of 1832.

Improvements came about when the local burgh councils changed. Councilors were elected by the householders, who wanted things to be different. Councilors agreed that living conditions needed to be improved and arranged for clean water to be piped into cities from nearby lochs. Sewage and drainpipes were also laid and streets were paved. Other changes included the provision of public baths, wash houses, hospitals, gas lighting, libraries, museums and parks. Then Education Act of 1872 made schooling compulsory for all children aged five to thirteen so that all children would learn to read and write. Slums were cleared and council houses were built.

Queen Victoria was very interested in Scotland and visited many times with her husband Prince Albert. She bought Balmoral Castle as a holiday home. This sparked a nation-wide interest in the Highlands among the wealthy Victorians. They bought Highland estates for fishing and hunting, and eventually invented their own Highland traditions.

End of an era
Victoria died in 1901. By the end of her reign Scotland was completely reliant on heavy industry for wealth. Scotland was the most important centre in the world for the production of steel. The shipbuilding, coal mining, engineering and iron and steel industries kept thousands of people in jobs. Other industries also grew in the central belt of Scotland, including the production of wax, lubricating oil, and paraffin from shale oil, dynamite, rubber, and chemical manufacture. Singer sewing machines were made in Glasgow, Scotland. There were still very wealthy people and very poor people, but in between there were many more who had managed to make better lives for themselves; some emigrated to parts of the British Empire to live. The British Empire included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, some Caribbean islands, Hong Kong, parts of Africa and India. In the days of Queen Victoria Britain was the richest country in the world.