8th January 2026 · By the Conference Team · 8 min read

Tagged: Consumer Culture, Retrospective, Victorian Studies

Nearly a decade has passed since over 330 scholars gathered at Cardiff University for the BAVS 2016 conference, "Consuming (the) Victorians." The event brought together a remarkable diversity of perspectives on Victorian consumer culture, and the themes explored during those three days in late August and early September 2016 have continued to resonate and develop in the years since. Looking back from 2026, it is possible to trace some of the ways in which the study of Victorian consumption has evolved and expanded.

The conference itself was a landmark event for the British Association for Victorian Studies. Keynote lectures by Patricia Duncker, Christina Bashford, and Frank Trentmann offered ambitious perspectives on the neo-Victorian imagination, musical consumer culture, and the global reach of Victorian commerce. The full conference programme included panels and workshops covering an extraordinary range of topics, from advertising and retail space to food, fashion, and the commodification of knowledge.

Global and Postcolonial Perspectives

One of the most significant developments in the study of Victorian consumer culture since 2016 has been the deepening engagement with global and postcolonial perspectives. While Frank Trentmann's keynote address pointed in this direction, the decade since has seen a sustained effort to understand how British consumption was shaped by, and in turn shaped, the colonial world.

Scholars have examined how commodities such as tea, cotton, sugar, and rubber connected Victorian consumers to networks of production and labour that spanned the globe. This work has drawn attention to the human costs of Victorian consumption, highlighting the exploitation and dispossession that underpinned the abundance of goods available in British shops and department stores. Research published through institutions such as the National Archives has made many of the primary sources for this history more widely accessible.

Environmental Histories of Consumption

Another area of growing interest has been the environmental dimensions of Victorian consumer culture. As contemporary societies grapple with the consequences of mass consumption, historians have turned to the nineteenth century to understand the origins of the environmental challenges that define the present day. Research on topics such as coal consumption, waste disposal, urban pollution, and the transformation of rural landscapes has revealed the extent to which Victorian economic growth was accompanied by significant environmental change.

This environmental turn has also prompted scholars to reconsider the Victorians' own awareness of ecological issues. While the language of environmentalism is largely a product of the twentieth century, many Victorian writers, scientists, and reformers expressed concerns about the effects of industrial production and mass consumption on the natural world. Recovering these voices contributes to a longer history of environmental thought and activism.

Digital Approaches and New Methodologies

The methodological landscape of Victorian studies has also changed considerably since 2016. Digital humanities approaches, including computational text analysis, network visualisation, and large-scale data mining, have become increasingly integrated into the study of consumer culture. These methods have enabled scholars to ask new kinds of questions about the scale, patterns, and language of Victorian consumption, complementing the close reading and archival research that remain the foundation of the field.

At the same time, scholars have continued to develop innovative approaches to material culture, drawing on insights from anthropology, archaeology, and design history. The study of objects, spaces, and sensory experience has enriched understanding of how consumption was lived and felt, moving beyond the textual and visual sources that have traditionally dominated the field.

The Continuing Relevance of the Victorian Period

Perhaps the most striking feature of the decade since the BAVS 2016 conference has been the continuing, indeed growing, relevance of the Victorian period to contemporary debates. Questions about inequality, globalisation, environmental crisis, and the ethics of consumption that preoccupy twenty-first-century societies all have their roots, in part, in the transformations of the nineteenth century. The study of Victorian consumer culture, far from being a purely antiquarian pursuit, offers essential context for understanding the world in which contemporary societies find themselves.

As the field looks ahead, the legacy of the Cardiff conference remains an important touchstone. The interdisciplinary ambition, scholarly rigour, and generous collegiality that characterised the event continue to define the best work in Victorian studies. The themes of "Consuming (the) Victorians" have proved enduringly productive, and there is every reason to believe that the next decade will bring further innovation, insight, and discovery.