The show is about a modern family that tries to the live in the way of the late Victorians in 1900 for three months in a modified house.

A great many exotic specimen trees were donated and planted throughout the Domain by the late Victorians which have now matured into a splendid landscape park.

But Fforde, unlike the late Victorians and Edwardians, fails to distinguish between socialism as a political movement and 'socialism' as a contemporary synonym for state intervention.

Thus we come to a set of black dress variations, elaborate gowns said to be inspired by the mourning dress of the late Victorians.

And he probably wasn't even the first to do so in that ur-city of the Western imagination, the fog-damped, smoke-choked London of the late Victorians.

Today's all-black wardrobe, with its undeniable practicality and thinning elegance, has a parallel in the day clothes of the late Victorians, who became addicted to black.

Hygiene was of increasing importance to the late Victorians as cities grew in population and needed extensive sewerage systems.

In fact, Mr. Wilson comes to the conclusion that "the God-idea" was not wrenched from human consciousness with the ease that so many late Victorians predicted.

These were questions that went to heart of how the late Victorians and Edwardians understood the very nature of society.