In the Shadow of Victoria

Dad - who is he, really? There’s talk of a crisis of masculinity, so what does that mean for fathers? What do we need from them, and how much has that changed?
To answer these questions writer Horatio Clare digs into history to better understand the story of the father in the UK. Using his own family as a starting point, he begins in Salford, tracing his paternal line to a red brick terrace where his great grandfather lived. In this first episode Horatio explores the life and times of fathers parenting in the shadow of queen Victoria’s reign. He considers how Victorian law and politics shaped the role, with social class and work as central themes. He also takes us even further back, speaking to evolutionary anthropologists to understand whether the Victorian tropes were consistent with what went before, how the role of father was born and how it has transformed.