The Victorian Society

Organisation to protect architecture in England and Wales

The Victorian Society is a UK charity and amenity society that campaigns to preserve and promote interest in Victorian and Edwardian architecture and heritage built between 1837 and 1914 in England and Wales. As a statutory consultee, by law it must be notified of any work to a listed building which involves any element of demolition or structural alteration.

The society, a registered charity, fights to protect Victorian and Edwardian heritage from demolition or careless alteration. As a membership organisation, the majority of its funding comes from subscription fees and events. As one of the National Amenity Societies, The Victorian Society is a statutory consultee on alterations to listed buildings, and by law must be notified of any work to a listed building which involves any element of demolition. From the 1890s into the 20th century, Victorian art had been under attack, critics writing of "the nineteenth century architectural tragedy", ridiculing "the uncompromising ugliness" of the era's buildings and attacking the "sadistic hatred of beauty" of its architects. The commonly held view had been expressed by P. G. Wodehouse in his 1933 novel, Summer Moonshine: "Whatever may be said in favour of the Victorians, it is pretty generally admitted that few of them were to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks." The first meeting was held at Linley Sambourne House on 28 February 1958. Among its 30 founder members were the first secretary John Betjeman, Henry Russell Hitchcock and Nikolaus Pevsner, who became chairman in 1964. Christopher Costelloe took over as director from Dr Ian Dungavell in 2012. Joe O'Donnell succeeded Costelloe as director in September 2020.

The society has worked to save numerous landmark buildings such as St Pancras Station, Albert Dock in Liverpool, the Foreign Office and Oxford University Museum. and appealing against proposals to raise money by selling original features. In 2015, the society launched a campaign to preserve Victorian gasometers, after utility companies announced plans to demolish nearly 200 of the now outdated structures. Costelloe, the society's director at the time, commented: "Gasometers, by their very size and structure, cannot help but become landmarks. [They] are singularly dramatic structures for all their emptiness." The society publishes an annual list of the Top Ten Most Endangered Victorian or Edwardian Buildings in England and Wales.

The Victorian Society has a sister organisation in the United States, the Victorian Society in America, founded in 1966 in New York City, by such champions of historic preservation as Brendan Gill, Henry Russell Hitchcock, and Margot Gayle; it was borne from the outrage they felt at the 1964 destruction of New York's Pennsylvania Station. as of 2017 the Victorian Society in America is based in Philadelphia with 12 registered chapters, mostly in the Eastern United States.

The counterpart organisations to the society for the protection of the heritage of earlier and later periods are the Georgian Group (for buildings erected between 1700 and 1840) and The Twentieth Century Society (for post 1914 buildings).