Moonbeam Shadows by Author John C Nash

Queen Victoria has presided over the Great Exhibition of 1851 and commands a great empire that is splashed red across the globe. Despite the wealth that is the Empire, the ordinary people mostly do not have running water, and very few towns have sewers. That is changing, and the agents of change are enterprising people who are scrambling energetically to build a new world in which they can live and prosper.

Among these are Cassandra Cohen, née Match, and her circle of friends and associates, who are building a modest commercial empire of their own in Brighton. This motley assortment of individuals all have their own trials, such as Tony Brown, donkeyman and carter, who is actually Antonia Crown and trying to decide how to go forward in life with Moonbeam, his jenny.

And Tony is just one of our protagonists.