Timeline Great Britain 1800-1859
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1800 Jan 24,
Edwin Chadwick, British social reformer, was born.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1800 Feb 11, William Henry Fox
Talbot (d.1877), British inventor and pioneer in instantaneous
photography, was born.
(AHD, 1971, p. 1312)(V.D.-H.K.p.273)(HN, 2/11/01)
1800 Mar 17, English warship Queen
Charlotte caught fire and 700 people died.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1800 Apr 16, George Charles
Bingham, British soldier, was born. He commanded the Light Brigade
during its famous 1854 charge. [see Oct 16, 1797, Lord Cardigan]
(HN, 4/16/01)
1800 May 15, King George III
survived a 2nd assassination attempt.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1800 Sep 5, Malta surrendered to
British after they blockaded French troops.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1800 Oct 25, Thomas Babington
Macaulay (d.1859), England, poet and historian, was born. "No
particular man is necessary to the state. We may depend on it that, if
we provide the country with popular institutions, those institutions
will provide it with great men."
(AP, 11/30/97)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.48)
1800 The Parliament in Westminster
passed an Act of Union formally binding Ireland with England and
abolished the Irish parliament. The Act of Union entailed the loss of
legislative independence of the Irish Parliament.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, zone1 p.6)(WSJ, 11/20/98, p.W6)
c1800 During the Napoleonic Wars
Britain briefly occupied the Banda Island of Run and successfully
transplanted nutmeg to Malaya, Singapore and Ceylon.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1800 Lieven Bauwens stole a
spinning "mule jenny" machine from Britain. He had it dismantled and
smuggled out in a cargo of coffee. This enabled the textile industry in
Ghent to greatly expand. Britain sentenced Bauwens to death in absentia
and Ghent made him a hero.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.T11)
1800-1830 The Regency Period of England. It was named
after George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, who became prince
regent in 1811.
(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W10)
c1800-1900 J.H. Salisbury was a 19th century English
dietician who recommended a diet of ground steak for a variety of
ailments including pernicious anemia, tuberculosis and hardening of the
arteries. His name gave rise to "Salisbury steak."
(WUD, 1994, p.1262)
1801 Jan 28, Francis Barber (ca.
1735 – 1801), the Jamaican manservant of Samuel Johnson (1752-1784),
died at the Staffordshire General Infirmary.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Barber)(http://tinyurl.com/2njdfy)
1801 Feb 7, John Rylands,
merchant, philanthropist, was born in England.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1801 Mar 10, Britain conducted its
first census in order to find out how many men were available for
conscription.
(Econ, 1/12/08,
p.75)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Census)
1801 Apr 2, The British navy
defeated the Danish at the Battle of Copenhagen.
(AP, 4/2/99)
1801 Apr 28, Anthony
Ashley-Cooper, the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury and a leading social
reformer of the Victorian Age, was born. Shaftesbury labored to
establish schools, to abolish the use of small children as chimney
sweeps, and to wipe out child prostitution. He was a vocal opponent of
slavery but had little respect for the United States’ President Abraham
Lincoln and thought the South should be permitted to secede from the
Union.
(HNQ, 6/10/01)
1801 May 6, British Lt. Thomas
Cochrane, commander of the 14-gun sloop HMS Speedy, engaged and
captured the 32-gun Spanish frigate El Gamo. The climactic battle in
Patrick O’Brian’s novel “Master and Commander” is based on the Speedy’s
fight with El Gamo. Cochrane was later elected to Parliament, pointed
out corruption and was arrested on trumped up charges. After that he
served as the first commander of Chile’s navy, then Brazil’s navy and
the Greek navy before returning to England. In 2000 Robert Harvey
authored “Cochrane: The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain.”
(ON, 11/04, p.1)
1801 Jun 14, Former American
Revolutionary War General Benedict Arnold died in London.
(AP, 6/14/01)(ON, 11/01, p.5)
1801 Dec 24, Richard Trevithick,
inventor of the steam locomotive, completed a road test of his 1st
"traveling engine" in Camborne, England.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1801 Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
English poet, wrote to Sir Humphrey Davy a letter in which he says: "I
seem to sink in upon myself in a ruin, like a Column of Sand, informed
and animated only by a Whirl-Blast of the Dessert." Coleridge had
become addicted to opium in this year.
(OAPOC-TH, p.71)(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)
1801 Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of
Elgin, took the 2,500 year-old bas-reliefs from the Parthenon in Greece
while he served as the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. 17
figures and 56 panels were put on display at the British Museum in
1816. Around 1939 the marbles were subjected to a botched scouring
operation that damaged 40% of the collection.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.D6)
1801 The London Stock Exchange
formed. British government debt was the only security traded and this
remained so until 1822.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.70)(Econ, 12/24/05, p.104)
1801-1866 Jane Welsh Carlyle, English writer: "In spite of the
honestest efforts to annihilate my 'I-ity,' or merge it in what the
world doubtless considers my better half (historian Thomas Carlyle), I
still find myself a self-subsisting and alas! self-seeking ME."
(AP, 8/27/98)
1801-1921 A single Parliament legislated all the
British Isles. A history of the archipelago was written in 2000 by
Norman Davies: "The Isles."
(WSJ, 3/9/00, p.A24)
1802 Jan, In London, England,
William Cobbett (1763-1835) set up the Weekly Political Register. It
spread dissent during the post-war recession.
(Econ, 12/23/06,
p.103)(www.nndb.com/people/245/000049098/)
1802 Mar 24, Richard Trevithick
was granted a patent in London for his steam locomotive.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1802 Oct 22, Samuel Arnold (62),
English composer, died.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1802 England passed its first law
regulating child labor.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R28)
1802 Britain levied the first
English income tax to raise money to fight Napoleon. William Pit the
Younger 1st introduced the income tax to finance the war against France.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, Z1 p.8)(Econ, 9/10/05, p.53)
1802 Edward Howard, English
chemist, determined that the iron in meteorites was a unique blend of
iron and nickel that did not occur in known terrestrial rocks.
(ON, 7/02, p.5)
1802 A British exploring party led
by Matthew Flinders landed on a 96-mile-long island southwest of
Adelaide and slaughtered 31 kangaroos for a feast. This 3rd largest
island off Australia was thus named Kangaroo Island. Flinders named the
Great Barrier Reef and found a passage to the Corral Sea.
(SFEC,12/21/97, p.T6)(SSFC, 3/24/02, p.C22)(WSJ,
7/23/04, p.W12)
1802 The Rosetta Stone was seized
by the British in Egypt after the defeat of Napoleon’s army and was
sent to England.
(RFH-MDHP, p.182)
1802-1828 Richard Parkes, English watercolorist.
(Hem., 3/97, p.94)
1802-1838 Letitia Landon, English poet: "Few, save
the poor, feel for the poor."
(AP, 1/21/00)
1802-1876 Harriet Martineau, English writer and
social critic: "Religion is a temper, not a pursuit."
(AP, 6/7/99)
1803 Feb 21, Edward Despard became
the last person drawn & quartered in England.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1803 May 16, Great Britain and
France renewed their war.
(PCh, 1992, p.362)
1803 May 18, Great Britain
declared war on France after General Napoleon Bonaparte continued
interfering in Italy and Switzerland.
(HN, 5/18/99)(ON, 11/99, p.4)(SC, 5/18/02)
1803 May 23, Lord Elgin and his
family were detained in Paris. Elgin's family was allowed to proceed
but he was arrested and declared a prisoner of war.
(ON, 11/99, p.4)
1803 Jul 8, Frederick Augustus
Hervey (b.1730), the 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, died. He
had toured Europe with his own cook and entourage and inspired a number
of hotels to take on the Bristol name.
(WSJ, 9/27/08,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Hervey,_4th_Earl_of_Bristol)
1803 Jul 23, Irish patriots
throughout the country rebelled against Union with Great Britain.
Robert Emmett led the insurrection in Dublin.
(HN, 7/23/98)(MC, 7/23/02)
1803 Aug, The British Sec. of
State invited Mungo Park to lead a 2nd expedition into Africa.
(ON, 7/00, p.10)
1803 Sep 8, A high pressure steam
boiler, made by Richard Trevithick, exploded at a corn mill in
Greenwich, England, and 3 men were killed. A worker had left a heavy
wrench on the safety valve and gone fishing.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1803 Sep 23, British Major General
Sir Arthur Wellesley defeated the Marathas at Assaye, India.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1803 Thomas Robert Malthus
(1766-1834), English political economist, authored the 2nd edition of
his 1798 “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” This edition
introduced the idea of moral restraint.
(Econ, 5/17/08,
p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthus)
1803 John Dalton, British chemist
and physicist, pointed out that the fact that chemical compounds always
combined in certain proportions could be explained by the grouping
together of atoms to form units called molecules.
(BHT, Hawking, p.63)
1803 The steel ink pen was
developed in Birmingham, England.
(SFC, 12/13/06, p.E3)
1804 Jan 31, British vice-admiral
William Bligh (of HMS Bounty infamy) fleet reached Curacao (Antilles).
(MC, 1/31/02)
1804 Mar 7, John Wedgwood, founder
(Royal Horticulture Society), died.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1804 Jun 3, Richard Cobden,
English economist and politician, was born. He became known as 'the
Apostle of free trade.' He led the Anti-Corn League, which in 1839-1846
fought to remove price controls and import barriers for wheat.
(HN, 6/3/99)(Econ, 6/5/04, p.10)
1804 Aug 25, In England Alice
Meynell became the 1st woman jockey.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1804 Oct 2, England mobilized to
protect against an expected French invasion by Napoleon.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1804 Oct 5, The Nuestra Senora de
las Mercedes, a Spanish galleon, was sunk by the British navy southwest
of Portugal with more than 200 people on board. In May 2007, Odyssey
Marine Exploration announced that it had discovered a wreck in the
Atlantic and its cargo of 500,000 silver coins and other artifacts
worth an estimated $500 million. Spain claimed this was the Nuestra
Senora de las Mercedes. In 2009 Peru pushed claims to the silver coins
arguing that they were minted in Lima.
(AP,
5/8/08)(www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/24/usa.spain)(AP, 1/29/09)
1804 Dec 21, Benjamin Disraeli
(d.1881), Prime Minister of Great Britain (1868, 1874-80), was born. He
instituted reforms in housing, public health and factory regulations.
"Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret." In 1993
Stanley Weintraub published "Disraeli: A Biography."
(AP, 10/21/97)(WSJ, 11/17/98, p.21)(HN,
12/21/98)(MC, 12/21/01)
1804 Most of the sculptures from
the Parthenon, removed under the orders of Lord Elgin, arrived in
London.
(ON, 11/99, p.4)
1804 The Royal Horticultural
Society was formed.
(WSJ, 5/30/01, p.A1)
1804 The Royal Watercolour Society
was formed.
(Hem., 3/97, p.94)
1804 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (32),
poet, fled to Malta and worked as an assistant to the civilian
governor. He returned to England in 1806.
(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)
1804 A motion in British
Parliament for abolition of the slave trade passed in the House of
Commons 124 to 29, but was defeated in the House of Lords.
(ON, 4/05, p.2)
1804 Sir George Cayley, England’s
“father of aeronautics,” built and flew the world’s first successful
model glider.
(NPub, 2002, p.4)
1805 Jan 31, Mungo Park set sail
from Portsmouth to Africa where he planned to navigate the Niger River
to its mouth.
(ON, 7/00, p.10)
1805 May 25, William Paley
(b.1805), orthodox Anglican writer, died. He is remembered today
primarily for classical formulation of the teleological argument for
the existence of God. Arguing from the analogy of a watch and
watchmaker, Paley suggested that the analogy offered evidence that the
universe includes order and design, hence a Designer.
(www.wmcarey.edu/carey/paley/paley.htm)(www.thebookofdays.com/months/aug/30.htm)
1805 Aug 9, Austria joined
Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the
Third Coalition against Napoleonic France and Spain.
(HN, 8/9/98)(HNQ, 10/19/98)
1805 Oct 21, A British fleet
commanded by Vice Adm. Horatio Nelson defeated a French-Spanish fleet
in the Battle of Trafalgar fought off Cape Trafalgar, Spain. Admiral
Nelson won his greatest victory and though fatally wounded in the
battle aboard his flagship, he lived long enough to see victory. The
crew fittingly preserved his body in rum. Over 8,500 Englishmen,
Frenchmen and Spaniards were lost in the battle or the hurricane that
swept over the ships the next day. In 1807 Nelson’s surgeon William
Beatty authored “authentic narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson.” In
1999 Barry Unsworth authored the novel "Losing Nelson." In 2001 Joseph
F. Callo edited "Nelson Speaks: Admiral Lord Nelson in His Own Words."
In 2005 Adam Nicolson authored “Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making
of the English Hero;” Roy Adkins authored “Nelson’s Trafalgar,” and
Adam Nicolson authored “Seize the Fire.”
(WSJ, 5/24/01, p.A20)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.82)(WSJ,
8/19/05, p.W6)(ON, 3/06, p.2)
1805 Joseph Mallord William Turner
(1775-1851), English painter and printmaker, created his painting “The
Shipwreck.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner)
1805 Lord Charles Cornwallis,
governor general of India, died in India.
(HNQ, 9/9/02)
1806 Jan 10, The Capitulation of
Papendorp: The Dutch in Cape Town surrendered to a British fleet.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1806 Jan 23, William Pitt (46),
the Younger, PM Great Britain (1783-1801 and 1804-1806), died. Pitt was
the founder of the modern Conservative Party. In 2004 William Hague
authored the biography “William Pitt The Younger.”
(http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/pms/pitt.htm)(WSJ,
2/9/05, p.D10)
1806 cFeb, Mungo Park drowned in
the Niger River during an attack by armed men near Bussa. He had
traveled some 1500 miles down the Niger River.
(ON, 7/00, p.12)
1806 Mar 6, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning (d.1861), English poet, was born in Durham, England. She wrote
"Sonnets from the Portuguese." "Since when was genius found
respectable?"
(AP, 3/6/98)(HN, 3/6/99)(AP, 8/12/99)
1806 Mar 30, Lady Georgiana
Cavendish, an adept negotiator for the Whigs, died at age 49. In 1999
Amanda Foreman authored "Georgiana," a biography of Georgiana Spencer.
(WSJ, 1/7/00, p.W4)(WSJ, 4/6/00, p.A20)
1806 May 20, John Stuart Mill
(d.1873), British philosopher and economist, was born. He promoted
utilitarianism and is known as the last great economist of the
classical school. He authored "Principles of Political Economy" wherein
in theorized that production was the real basis for economic law. He
felt that the market was capable of allocating resources but not of
distributing income. "If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion,
and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no
more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the
power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
(V.D.-H.K.p.253)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)(AP,
1/13/00)(HN, 5/20/01)
1806 Jun 10, James Fox, British
foreign minister, introduced a bill to ban British ships from
transporting slaves to foreign countries. Parliament passed the bill.
(ON, 4/05, p.3)
1806 Jun 27, Buenos Aires was
captured by British. [see Jul 5]
(SC, 6/27/02)
1806 Jun, Lord Elgin was paroled
by the French government.
(ON, 11/99, p.4)
1806 Jul 5, A Spanish army
repelled the British during their attempt to retake Buenos Aires,
Argentina.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1806 Jul 10, George Stubbs
(b.1724), British artist, died. His work included the publication
“Anatomy of the Horse” (1766).
(WSJ, 4/28/05,
p.D8)(www.abcgallery.com/S/stubbs/stubbsbio.html)
1806 Oct 7, Carbon paper was
patented in London by inventor Ralph Wedgewood.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1806 Oct 8, British forces laid
siege to French port of Boulogne using Congreve rockets, invented by
Sir William Congreve.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1806 In London James Beresford
published his bestselling book “The Miseries of Human Life, or the
groans of Samuel Sensitive and Timothy Testy. With a few supplementary
sighs from Mrs. Testy. In twelve dialogues.”
(http://search.abaa.org/dbp2/book336754032.html)
1806 Charles and Mary Lamb
authored “Tales from Shakespeare.” [see 1796: Mad Mary Lamb]
(WSJ, 2/18/05, p.W6)
1806 The British began the
construction of Dartmoor Prisoner to house French soldiers captured in
the Napoleonic Wars. It was capable of housing 10,500 prisoners and
2,000 guards.
(AH, 10/02, p.33)
1806 Lord Grenville succeeded
William Pitt as British prime minister.
(ON, 4/05, p.3)
1806 The British wrested power
over South Africa from the Dutch and prompt the Boer farmers to later
move into the interior.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p. 564)
1807 Jan 2, Lord Grenville
presented to British Parliament a “Bill for the Abolition of the Slave
Trade,” effective May 1. He introduced it directly to the House of
Lords. It passed the House of Lords by 64 votes and cleared the House
of Commons on March 25.
(ON, 4/05, p.3)
1807 Jan 7, Responding to
Napoleon's blockade of the British Isles, The British blockaded
Continental Europe.
(HN, 1/7/99)
1807 Jan 28, London's Pall Mall
was 1st street lit by gaslight.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1807 Feb 24, In a crush to witness
the hanging of Holloway, Heggerty and Elizabeth Godfrey in England 17
died and 15 were wounded.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1807 Mar 25, William Wilberforce
(1759-1833), evangelical member of Parliament, piloted a slave-trade
abolition bill through the British House of Commons. This led to a
labor problem in South Africa. In 1833 Britain abolished slavery
throughout the British Empire when the Slavery Abolition Bill was read
a third time
(HN, 3/24/98)(WSJ, 5/26/04,
p.A8)(www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/huk-wilberforce.htm)
1807 Mar 25, 1st railway passenger
service began in England.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1807 Jun 22, British officers of
the HMS Leopard boarded the USS Chesapeake after she had set sail for
the Mediterranean, and demanded the right to search the ship for
deserters. Commodore James Barron refused and the British opened fire
with broadsides on the unprepared Chesapeake and forced her to
surrender. The British provocation led to the War of 1812.
(NG, Sept. 1939, p.363)(HN, 6/22/98)
1807 Jul 2, In the wake of the
Chesapeake incident, in which the crew of a British frigate boarded an
American ship and forcibly removed four suspected deserters, President
Thomas Jefferson ordered all British ships to vacate U.S. territorial
waters.
(AP, 7/2/07)
1807 Sep 2, British forces began
bombarding Copenhagen for several days, until the Danes agreed to
surrender their naval fleet.
(AP, 9/2/07)
1807 Sep 7, Denmark surrendered to
British forces that had bombarded the city of Copenhagen for four days.
(AP, 9/7/07)
1807 Oct 17, Britain declared it
would continue to reclaim British-born sailors from American ships and
ports regardless of whether they held US citizenship.
(AP, 10/17/07)
1807 After Britain outlawed the
slave trade people called “Recaptives,” those freed from slave ships,
were sent to join the settlers in Sierra Leone. The settlers formed a
new tribe called the Kri and created a language called Krio.
(MT, summer 2003, p.8)
1808 Aug 21, Napoleon Bonaparte's
General Junot was defeated by Wellington at the first Battle of the
Peninsular War at Vimiero, Spain.
(HN, 8/21/98)
1808-1830 In 2005 William Anthony Hay authored “The
Whig Revival, 1808-1830,” a picture of the British Whigs in the early
19th century.
(WSJ, 4/6/05, p.D11)
1809 Feb 12, Charles Robert Darwin
(d.1882) was born. He proposed that evolution was the principle that
underlay the development of all species and that man, an animal, had
evolved from nonhuman ancestors. Shortly after his graduation from
Cambridge, Darwin sailed as a naturalist with the surveying ship HMS
Beagle. All life, he said, is a struggle for existence and some species
are better able to adapt to the environment and survive to pass along
their characteristics. During the five-year voyage, Darwin's
observations of wildlife led to the writing of his 1859 book "The
Origin of the Species," in which he proposed the theory of natural
selection. Besides the "Origin of the Species," he wrote three books on
geology and devoted 8 years to his monograph on barnacles. His last
book was "The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of
Worms." In 1871 Darwin wrote "Descent of Man," which demonstrated that
man and ape could have had a common ancestor. Darwin's theories were
highly controversial and unsettling to those who believed in
creationism. Many Victorians condemned Darwin as blasphemous, but many
important scientists of the day agreed with his theories. "How can
anyone not see that all observation must be for or against some view if
it is to be of any service."
(V.D.-H.K.p.281)(PacDis., Spg. 96, p.52)(NH, 2/97,
p.69)(NH, 5/97, p.11)(HNPD, 2/13/99)
1809 Mar 12, Great Britain signed
a treaty with Persia forcing the French out of the country.
(HN, 3/12/99)
1809 May 24, Dartmoor Prison
opened to house French prisoners of war.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1809 Jun 8, Thomas Paine (b.1737),
British born political essayist, died in poverty and obscurity in the
US. His revolutionary essays included "The Rights of Man" and
"The Age of Reason." His body was exhumed in 1819 by William Cobbett,
shipped to England, and kept in an attic trunk till Cobbett died in
1835. Parts of his skeleton were later said to be sold at auction.
(HN, 1/29/99)(HNQ, 9/21/99)(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.A7)
1809 Aug 6, Alfred Lord Tennyson
(d.1892), English poet laureate (1850), was born. His work included:
"The Charge of the Light Brigade." "Knowledge comes, but wisdom
lingers."
(HN, 8/6/98)(AP, 10/6/00)
1809 Sep 18, The London Royal
Opera House opened.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1809 Sep, The Old Price Riots
broke out in England when Covent Garden manager John Philip Kemble
raised ticket prices. The riots continued to December.
(SFC, 12/31/08, p.E2)
1809 Nov 27, Frances Anne "Fanny"
Kemble (d.1893), Shakespearian actress, writer and anti-slavery
activist, was born in London, England. Her work included "Journal
of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation.
(WSJ, 9/21/00,
p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Kemble)
1809 Dec 29, William
Gladstone (1809-1898), British statesman and four times Prime Minister
from 1868-1894, was born. He was called the Grand Old Man of Victorian
England. He began as a devout Tory but moved over to the liberal camp.
A biography by Roy Jenkins, "Gladstone," was published in 1995.
(CFA, '96, p.60)(AHD, p.559)(WSJ, 1/14/03, p.D6)
1809 Lord Byron (1788-1824)
traveled to Spain, Albania and Greece with John Cam Hobhouse and soon
met with Ali Pasha.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron)
1809 Bourne’s Pottery in Denby,
Derbyshire, England, dates to this time. In 1850 it began using the J.
Bourne & Son mark.
(SFC, 4/12/06, p.G4)
1809-1891 Alexander William Kinglake, historian.
(WUD, 1994, p.788)
1810 Aug 14, Samuel Sebastian
Wesley (d.1876), English composer, was born in London.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1810 Dec 22, British frigate
Minotaur sank killing 480.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1810 In Bristol the Commercial
Rooms were constructed under architect C.A. Busby.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.T3)
1810 The British Bullion Committee
pronounced that it was folly to let governments print as much money as
they wanted and not expect inflation.
(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A24)
1810 The British wrestled
Mauritius from France. Indians were brought in as indentured laborers
and later waves of Chinese immigrants arrived.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A8)
1810 Peter Durand, a British
merchant, was granted a patent by King George III for his idea of
preserving food in "vessels of glass, pottery, tin (tin can), or other
metals or fit materials."
(www.cancentral.com/history.htm)
1810 Sake Dean Mahomed founded the
Hindoostane Coffee House, London's first known curry establishment.
Born in Patna, India in 1759, Mahomed was also the first known Indian
to write a book in English. Published in 1786, it describes his
adventures as a soldier with the East India Company's army, his journey
to Europe, his marriage to an Irish woman and their move to London.
(AP, 9/29/05)
1810-1862 The Regency Period in English architecture.
Oriental curves and cupolas influenced English architecture.
(SFC, 9/30/98, Z1 p.3)
1811 Feb 5, George, Prince of
Wales, was named the Prince Regent due to the insanity of his father,
Britain's King George III. George Augustus Frederick became prince
regent after his father, George III, slipped permanently into dementia.
In 1999 Saul David published "The Prince of Pleasure: The Prince of
Wales and the Making of the Regency."
(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W10)(AP, 2/5/08)
1811 Feb 11, Pres. Madison
prohibited trade with Britain for 3rd time in 4 years.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1811 Mar 11, Ned Ludd led a group
of workers in a wild protest against mechanization. Members of the
organized bands of craftsmen who rioted against automation in 19th
century England were known as Luddites and also "Ludds." The movement,
reputedly named after Ned Ludd, began near Nottingham as craftsman
destroyed textile machinery that was eliminating their jobs. By the
following year, Luddites were active in Yorkshire, Derbyshire,
Lancashire and Leicestershire. Although the Luddites opposed violence
towards people (a position which allowed for a modicum of public
support), government crackdowns included mass shootings, hangings and
deportation to the colonies. It took 14,000 British soldiers to quell
the rebellion. The movement effectively died in 1813 apart from a brief
resurgence of Luddite sentiment in 1816 following the end of the
Napoleonic Wars.
(HN, 3/11/01)(HNQ, 5/14/01)(WSJ, 3/29/04, p.A1)
1811 Jul 18, William Makepeace
Thackeray (d.1863), English novelist and satirist, was born. His books
were published as monthly serials. "Next to excellence is the
appreciation of it."
(HN, 7/18/98)(AP, 10/28/00)
1811 Nov 16, John Bright, British
Victorian radical, was born. He founded the Anti-Corn Law League.
(HN, 11/16/99)
1811 The Dulwich Picture Gallery
opened at Dulwich College. It contained an art collection gathered by
Noel Desenfans and Francis Bourgeois, who had put it together for the
Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, king of Poland, before he was forced
to abdicate.
(WSJ, 2/15/00, p.A24)
1811 Francis Cabot Lowell, an
American industrialist, moved to England and gathered information on
mill details. He returned to the US and started the textile industry in
New England and the Massachusetts mill town of his name.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)
1811 In England John Williams, the
Highway Hacker, murdered 2 whole families in the Docklands section of
London. He committed suicide while awaiting trial. A crowd stole his
body and drove a stake through his heart and buried him in a lime pit
off Cannon St. The murder later inspired Thomas De Quincey’s essay “On
Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.”
(SFEC, 10/17/98, p.T9)(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.P8)
1811 The British began a period of
sovereignty in Java (Indonesia).
(WSJ, 9/13/08, p.W18)
1811-1816 The Luddite bands of workman destroyed
manufacturing machinery in England under the belief that their use
diminished employment. They were named after Ned Ludd, the 18th cent.
Leicestershire worker who originated the idea. Opponents of technology
harken back to the English weavers who broke textile machinery,
apparently at the urging of their leader, Ned Ludd. [see May 3, 1811]
(WUD, 1994, p.852)(WSJ, 4/12/96, p.B-1)
1812 Feb 7, Charles Dickens,
English novelist, was born in Portsmouth, England. His stories
reflected life in Victorian England. In his novel "Dombey & Son,"
Dickens confronted the subject of money, and its use as a measure of
success. His work also included "Master Humphrey’s Clock," published in
installments like most of his novels. The closing line of A Christmas
Carol: "And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!" Some of
his more famous novels include "Oliver Twist" and "A Tale of Two
Cities."
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.E3)(AP, 2/7/97)(HN, 2/7/99)
1812 Feb 7, Lord Byron made his
maiden speech in House of Lords.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1812 May 7, Poet Robert Browning
was born in London.
(AP, 5/7/97)
1812 May 11, The Waltz was
introduced into English ballrooms. Most observers considered it
disgusting and immoral.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1812 May 11, British PM Spencer
Perceval was shot by a bankrupt banker in the lobby of the House of
Commons. Lord Liverpool (1770-1828) was asked to serve as PM of Britain
and he served until 1827.
(HN, 5/11/99)(WSJ, 2/9/05,
p.D10)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRliverpool.htm)
1812 May 25, A series of coal mine
explosions took place around the Felling Colliery in Durhamshire,
England. 92 miners were killed. This prompted local clergymen to
organize the Society for Preventing Accidents in Coal Mines.
(ON, 12/01, p.6)
1812 Jun 18, The War of 1812 began
as the United States declared war against Great Britain and Ireland.
The term "war hawk" was first used by John Randolph in reference to
those Republicans who were pro-war in the years leading up to the War
of 1812. These new types of Republicans, who espoused nationalism and
expansionism, included Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Most of them
came from the agrarian areas of the South and West. In 2004 Walter R.
Borneman authored “1812: The War That Forged a Nation.”
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)(HNQ, 5/13/99)(WSJ,
12/16/04, p.D8)
1812 Jul 18, Great Britain signed
the Treaty of Orebro, making peace with Russia and Sweden.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1812 Jul 22, English troops under
the Duke of Wellington defeated the French at the Battle of Salamanca
in Spain.
(AP, 7/22/97)(HN, 7/22/98)
1812 Jul, British troops under the
Duke of Wellington pillaged the Spanish town of Badajos. This prompted
Wellington to call his troops "the scum of the earth."
(WSJ, 1/6/95, A-10)
1812 Aug 12, British commander the
Duke of Wellington occupied Madrid, Spain, forcing out Joseph Bonaparte.
(HN, 8/12/98)
1812 Aug 16, Detroit fell to
British and Indian forces in the War of 1812.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1812 Aug 18, Returning from a
cruise into Canadian waters Captain Isaac Hull's USS Constitution of
the fledgling U.S. Navy encountered British Captain Richard Dacre's HMS
Guerriere about 750 miles out of Boston. After a frenzied 55-minute
battle that left 101 dead, Guerriere rolled helplessly in the water,
smashed beyond salvage. Dacre struck his colors and surrendered to
Hull's boarding party. In contrast, Constitution suffered little damage
and only 14 casualties. The fight's outcome shocked the British
Admiralty while it heartened America through the dark days of the War
of 1812. [see Aug 19]
(HNPD, 8/18/98)
1812 Aug 19, The USS Constitution,
also known as Old Ironsides, got its name when it defeated the British
warship Guerriere off Nova Scotia in a slugfest of broadsides, when
cannonballs were said to have bounced off her sides. The USS
Constitution won more than 30 battles against the Barbary pirates off
Africa’s coast in the War of 1812. [see Aug 18]
(SFEC, 7/13/97, Par p.14)(AP, 8/19/97)
1812 Oct 13, At the Battle of
Queenston Heights, a Canadian and British army defeated the Americans
who had tried to invade Canada.
(HN, 10/13/98)
1812 Oct 13, Isaac Brock, English
general (conquered Detroit), died in battle.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1812 Oct 22, The Duke of
Wellington abandoned his 1st siege of Burgos, Spain.
(http://www.napoleonguide.com/battle_burgos.htm)
1812 Oct 25, The U.S. frigate
United States captured the British vessel Macedonian during the War of
1812.
(AP, 10/25/98)
1812 Edward Lear, English writer,
was born (d.1888).
(HFA, '96, p.30)(WUD, 1994, p.815)
1812 Mary Anning of Lyme Regis in
Dorcetshire, England, excavated a 17-foot-long skeleton and sold it to
Henry Hoste Henley, Lord of the Manor of Colway for £23. The
fossil was later named Icthyosaurus.
(ON, 3/01, p.5)
1813 Jan 4, Isaac Pitman, inventor
(stenographic shorthand), was born in Britain.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1813 Jan 22, During the War of
1812, British forces under Henry Proctor defeated a U.S. contingent
planning an attack on Fort Detroit.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1813 Feb 24, Off Guiana, the
American sloop Hornet sank the British sloop Peacock.
(HN, 2/24/98)
1813 Mar 8, The 1st concert of
Royal Philharmonic.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1813 Mar 15, John Snow (d.1858),
obstetrician, was born in York, England. He worked on the epidemiology
of cholera.
(ON, 5/05,
p.8)(www.johnsnowsociety.org/johnsnow/facts.html)
1813 Jun 1, The U.S. Navy gained
its motto as the mortally wounded commander of the U.S. frigate
"Chesapeake", Captain James Lawrence was heard to say, "Don't give up
the ship!", during a losing battle with a British frigate "Shannon";
his ship was captured by the British frigate.
(DTnet, 6/1/97)
1813 Jul 6, Granville Sharp
(b.1735), biblical scholar and English abolitionist, died.
(ON, 12/08,
p.9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granville_Sharp)
1813 Aug 14, British warship
Pelican attacked and captured US war brigantine Argus.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1813 Sep 10, Oliver H. Perry sent
the message, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours," after an
American naval force defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Erie in
the War of 1812.
(AP, 9/10/97)
1813 Oct 5, The Battle of
Moraviantown was decisive in the War of 1812. Known as the Battle of
the Thames in the United States, the US victory over British and Indian
forces near Ontario at the village of Moraviantown on the Thames River
is know in Canada as the Battle of Moraviantown. Some 600 British
regulars and 1,000 Indian allies under English General and Shawnee
leader Tecumseh were greatly outnumbered and quickly defeated by US
forces under the command of Maj. Gen. William Henry Harrison. Tecumseh
(45) was killed in this battle.
(HN, 10/5/98)(PC, 1992 ed, p.378)
1813 Dec 19, British forces
captured Fort Niagara during the War of 1812.
(AP, 12/19/06)
1813 Dec 30, The British burned
Buffalo, N.Y., during the War of 1812.
(AP, 12/30/06)
1813 William Charles Wells
presented a paper to the Royal Society in which he introduced the idea
of natural selection to explain why people might vary in skin color in
different climates.
(Econ, 2/7/09, p.73)
1813-1843 Robert Southey was the poet laureate of
England over this period. He was the author of "The Three Bears."
(SFEC, 2/15/98, Z1 p.8)
1814 Feb, A man claiming to be an
aide-de-camp to the armies fighting Napoleon landed in Dover and
claimed that Cossacks had butchered Napoleon and that Paris had fallen.
Stock prices soared and conspirators sold shares at a 15% profit before
the fraud was unmasked.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1814 Mar 30, Britain and allies
marched into Paris after defeating Napoleon.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1814 May 5, The British attacked
Ft. Ontario, Oswego, New York.
(HN, 5/5/98)
1814 May 11, Americans defeated
the British at Battle of Plattsburgh.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1814 May 30, The First Treaty of
Paris was declared, after Napoleon's first abdication. It returned
France to its 1792 borders and secured for the British definite
possession of the Cape of Good Hope.
(HN, 5/30/98)(HN, 5/30/99)(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1814 Jul 5, US troops under Gen.
Jacob Brown and Gen. Winfield Scott defeated a superior British force
under Maj. Gen. Phineas Riall near the Niagara River at Chippewa,
Canada. British casualties exceeded 500 compared to some 300 Americans.
(AH, 10/07, p.53)
1814 Jul 18, The British captured
Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1814 Jul 22, Five Indian tribes in
Ohio made peace with the United States and declared war on Britain.
(HN, 7/22/98)
1814 Jul 25, British and American
forces fought each other to a stand off at Lundy's Lane (Niagara
Falls), Canada, in some of the fiercest fighting in the War of 1812.
(HN, 7/25/98)
1814 Aug 13, Treaty of
London-Netherland was signed to stop the transport of slaves. By
agreement Britain paid the Dutch £6 million in compensation for
the Cape of Good Hope. [see May 30]
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)(MC, 8/13/02)
1814 Aug 24, 5,000 British troops
under the command of General Robert Ross marched into Washington, D.C.,
after defeating an American force at Bladensburg, Maryland. It was in
retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York
(Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. Meeting no resistance from the
disorganized American forces, the British burned the White House, the
Capitol and almost every public building in the city before a downpour
extinguished the fires. President James Madison and his wife fled from
the advancing enemy, but not before Dolly Madison saved the famous
Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. This wood engraving of
Washington in flames was printed in London weeks after the event to
celebrate the British victory.
(AP, 8/24/97)(HNPD,
8/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bladensburg)
1814 Aug 25, British forces
destroyed the Library of Congress, containing some 3,000 books.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1814 Sep 11, An American fleet led
by Thomas Macdonough scored a decisive victory over the British in the
Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812.
(AP, 9/11/97)(HN, 9/11/98)
1814 Sep 12, The Battle of North
Point was fought near Baltimore during War of 1812. British General
Ross was killed by a sniper’s bullet in a skirmish just prior to the
main battle. The battle proved to be strategic American victory, but
since they left the field in the hands of the British, tactically it
was a defeat for the Americans.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_North_Point)
1814 Sep, The Congress of Vienna
convened in late September and continued to June 8, 1815. Friedrich von
Gentz of Austria served as secretary to the Congress. It was held after
the banishment of Napoleon to Elba. The congress aimed at territorial
resettlement and restoration to power of the crowned heads of Europe
with Prince Metternich of Austria as the dominant figure. Viscount
Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington represented Britain. Alexander I
stood for Russia. Talleyrand stood for France. Prince von Hardenberg
stood for Prussia. In 2007 Adam Zamoyski authored “Rites of Peace: The
Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna.” In 2008 David King
authored “Vienna 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War
and Peace at the Congress of Vienna.
(Econ, 4/14/07,
p.94)(www.bartleby.com/65/vi/Vienna-C.html)(SSFC, 4/6/08, Books p.4)
1814 Oct 17, Two giant porter vats
at the Horse Shoe Brewery on London’s Tottenham Court Road burst when
the securing hoops failed. The 25-foot-high vats were owned by Sir
Henry Meux and. Several lives were lost along with an estimated
8,000-9,000 barrels of porter.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meux%27s_Brewery)(http://tinyurl.com/2v43jm)
1814 Oct 23, The 1st plastic
surgery was performed in England.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1814 Nov 7, Andrew Jackson
attacked and captured Pensacola, Florida, defeating the Spanish and
driving out a British force.
(HN, 11/7/98)
1814 Dec 24, The Treaty of Ghent
between the United States and Great Britain, terminating the War of
1812, was signed at Ghent, Belgium. The news did not reach the United
States until two weeks later (after the decisive American victory at
New Orleans). The treaty, signed by John Quincy Adams for the US,
committed the US and Britain "to use their best endeavors" to end the
Atlantic slave trade.
(AP, 12/24/97)(WSJ, 12/31/97, p.A11)(HN,
12/24/98)(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.T10)
1815 Jan 8, US forces led by Gen.
Andrew Jackson and French pirate Jean Lafitte led some 3,100
backwoodsmen to victory against 7,500 British veterans at Chalmette in
the Battle of New Orleans in the closing engagement of the War of 1812.
A British army marched on New Orleans without knowing that the War of
1812 had ended on Christmas Eve of 1814. A massacre ensued, as 2,044
British troops, including three generals, fell dead, wounded or missing
before General Andrew Jackson's well-prepared earthworks, compared with
only 71 American casualties. Among the British victims were Gen. Sir
Edward Pakenham and the Highlanders of the 93rd Regiment of Foot. In
2000 Robert V. Remini published "The Battle of New Orleans."
(AP, 1/8/98)(HN, 1/8/99)(WSJ, 1/26/00, p.A20)(AH,
2/05, p.16)
1815 Mar 20, Napoleon Bonaparte
entered Paris, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule. He had escaped from
his imprisonment on the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany. He
gathered his veterans and marched on Paris. At Waterloo, Belgium, he
met the Duke of Wellington, commander of the allied anti-French forces
and was resoundingly defeated. Napoleon was then imprisoned on the
island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic. In 1997 Gregor Dallas
published: The Final Act: The Roads to Waterloo." the book includes a
good account of the Congress of Vienna.
(AP, 3/20/97)(V.D.-H.K.p.232)(SFEC,11/2/97, Par p.10)
1815 Apr 6, At Dartmoor Prison in
southwest England 7 American prisoners were killed by British soldiers
under the command of Captain Thomas G. Shortland. Some 6,000 prisoners
were awaiting return to the US. A farmer’s jury with no victims or
witnesses issued a verdict on April 8 of "justifiable homicide."
(AH, 10/02, p.36)
1815 Apr 24, Anthony Trollope
(d.1882), British novelist, was born. His 47 novels included "The
American Senator." His 33rd novel was "The Way We Live Now." "Nobody
holds a good opinion of a man who has a low opinion of himself." An
essay by Cynthia Ozick on the novel is in her 1996 book "Fame and
Folly."
(WUD, 1994, p.1517)(WSJ, 5/22/96, p.A-18)(AP,
10/13/97)(WSJ, 6/9/00, p.W17)(HN, 4/24/01)
1815 Apr, British General Arthur
Wellesley, duke of Wellington, began assembling troops at Brussels,
Belgium. 73,000 British troops were joined by 33,000 German, Dutch and
Belgian troops preparing to face Napoleon. Prussian Gen. Gebhard
Leberecht von Blucher gathered an army of 120,000 southeast of Brussels.
(ON, 4/06, p.1)
1815 Jun 18, British and Prussian
troops under the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and his
forces at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium. The French elite troops of
the Imperial Guard wore bearskins to appear more intimidating.
Afterwards Britain established towering bear skin hats for soldiers in
ceremonial duties and to guard royal residencies and the Tower of
London. Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher made a short speech
to his troops saying that he was pregnant and about to give birth to an
elephant. He was taken from the front in protective custody and missed
the battle. Napoleon lost over 40,000 men at Waterloo; the British and
Belgians lost 15,000; the Prussians lost 7,000. The total losses in 3
days of fighting was later estimated at 91,800. In 2002 Andrew Roberts
authored "Napoleon and Wellington." In 2005 Andrew Roberts authored
“Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Gamble.”
(SFEC, 2/28/99, Z1p.10)(WSJ, 9/13/02, p.W10)(Econ,
2/12/05, p.81)(ON, 4/06, p.5)
1815 Jul 15, Napoleon Bonaparte
was captured by the British Navy at Rochefort, France, while attempting
to escape to America.
(ON, 4/06,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon)
1815 Sep 26, Russia, Prussia and
Austria signed a Holy Alliance. "Justice, charity and peace" were to be
the precepts that guided the Holy Alliance as envisioned by Czar
Alexander I of Russia. The alliance of Russia, Austria and Prussia was
formed after the downfall of Napoleon and later all European rulers
signed the agreement except the prince regent of Great Britain, the
pope and the sultan of Turkey. With no specific aims beyond mutual
assistance, the provisions of the Holy Alliance were so vague that it
had little effect on European diplomacy. Metternich quietly replaced
the entire alliance by the purely political alliance of 20 November,
1815, between Austria, Prussia, Russia and England.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/07398a.htm)(HNQ, 7/7/98)
1815 Oct 31, Sir Humphrey Davy of
London patented miner's safety lamp after being hired by the Society
for Preventing Accidents in Coal Mines.
(MC, 10/31/01)(ON, 12/01, p.7)
1815 Nov 2, George Boole (d.1864),
English-Irish mathematician and logician (Boolean algebra), was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.170)(SFC, 12/2/97, p.C3)(MC, 11/2/01)
1815 Nov 20, The treaties known
collectively as the 2nd Peace of Paris were concluded. Austria’s
chancellor Klemens von Metternich helped create a “Concert of Europe,”
a system by which 4-5 big powers kept miscreants in check and managed
the affairs of smaller states for over a decade.
(http://tinyurl.com/2sqgp9)(Econ, 6/9/07,
p.68)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/07398a.htm)
1815 Dec 10, Ada Lovelace (d. Nov
27, 1852), Lord Byron’s daughter and the inventor of computer language,
was born. In 1998 the sci-fi film, "Conceiving Ada," was directed by
Lynn Hershman-Leeson.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.D7)(SFC, 4/30/98, p.E1)
1815 William Smith (d.1839),
British geologist, made the 1st geological map of England and became
impoverished in the process. In 2001 Simon Winchester authored "The Map
That Changed the World."
(RTH, 8/28/99)(WSJ, 8/17/01, p.W6)(SSFC, 8/26/01, DB
p.86)
1815 Britain passed a law severely
restricting grain imports from European neighbors. Austria retaliated
with tariffs on wool and cotton. Sicily raised tariffs on textiles,
Sweden raised tariffs on silk, wool, cotton, iron steel and copper.
English manufacturers formed the anti-Corn-Law League to lobby against
the measure.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)
1815 Following the wars with
Napoleon John Barrow, 2nd secretary to the admiralty, directed the
British Navy to a campaign of exploration. In 2000 Fergus Fleming
authored "Barrow’s Boys," an account of the expeditions he generated.
(WSJ, 4/18/00, p.A16)
1815 Britain took action against
pirate sheikhs protected by the Wahabis, later rulers of Saudi Arabia,
because ships of the East India Company were attacked in int’l. waters.
Britain allied with the ruler of Muscat and Oman and Mohamed Ali of
Egypt.
(WSJ, 10/9/01, p.A22)
1815 The British took over Ceylon
(Sri Lanka).
(Arch, 7/02, p.34)
1815 British debt reached 745
million pounds.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.105)
1815 Nepalese soldiers, later
known as Gurkhas, began serving in the British military.
(Econ, 5/2/09, p.58)
1816 Apr 21, Charlotte Bronte
(d.1855), English novelist, writer of "Vilette" and "Jane Eyre," was
born in Thornton, England. "Better to be without logic than without
feeling." In 1999 Brian Wilks published "Charlotte in Love: The
Courtship and Marriage of Charlotte Bronte."
(WP, 1952, p.37)(AP, 9/13/99)(HN, 4/21/98)(WSJ,
7/28/99, p.A21)
1816 May 12, Lord Grimthorpe was
born. He was the designer of "Big Ben," the most recognized structure
in London.
(HN, 5/12/99)
1816 Aug 14, Great Britain annexed
Tristan da Cunha.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1816 Aug 27, Admiral Sir Edward
Pellew, a noble from Devon, England, bombed Algiers, a refuge for
Barbary pirates. He flew the green, white and black flag of St. Petroc.
In 1836 the battle was pictured in a painting by George Chambers,
Senior. Pellew was subsequently named Lord Exmouth.
(http://tinyurl.com/gjooc)(Econ, 9/30/06, p.66)
1816 Dec, Henry “Orator” Hunt made
a speech in Spa fields in East London which was disrupted by a group of
revolutionaries who murdered a gunsmith plundered his shop. They then
set off for London, but the insurrection was quickly put down.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.104)
1816 In London, England, William
Cobbett brought out twopenny version of his Weekly Political Register
on a single sheet of paper to avoid the stamp duty.
(Econ, 12/23/06,
p.103)(www.nndb.com/people/245/000049098/)
1816 Robert Stirling, British
clergyman, proposed a sealed heated air engine to compete with the
ubiquitous steam engine. His Stirling engine converted heat into
mechanical energy by compressing and expanding a fixed quantity of gas.
(Econ, 8/14/04, p.72)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.24)
1816 Lord Elgin sold his Parthenon
sculptures to the British government for 35,000 pounds. A request in
1811 for 62,400 pounds had been rejected. Elgin later fled to France to
avoid his creditors.
(ON, 11/99, p.4)
1816 Lord Byron (George Gordon),
English romantic poet, separated from his wife Annabella (d.1860)
following an incestuous relationship with his half-sister Augusta Leigh
(d.1851). In 2002 David Crane authored "The Kindness of Sisters:
Annabella Milbanke and the Destruction of the Byrons."
(SSFC, 10/27/02, p.M2)
1816 Two British naval ships under
Captain Basil Hall landed at Okinawa, in the Ryukyu archipelago, which
was then known as Loo-Choo. In 1818 Hall published an account of his
voyage: “Account of a Voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Corea,
and the Great Loo-Choo Island.”
(Econ, 10/29/05,
p.44)(www.polybiblio.com/bibliotrek/BT000004..html)
1817 Feb 2, John Glover, English
chemist (sulfuric acid), was born.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1817 Jul 18, Jane Austen (b.1775),
English writer, died at age 41.
(SFEC,11/9/97, BR
p.3)(www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/janelife.html)
1817 Dec 7, William Bligh (63),
British naval officer of "Bounty" infamy, died.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1817 Dec 28, Benjamin Robert
Haydon (d.1846), British painter, threw a dinner party in London to
show his nearly completed painting "Christ’s Entry Into Jerusalem" and
to introduce poet John Keats to William Wordsworth. Other guests
included essayist Charles Lamb. In 2002 Penelope Hughes-Hallett
authored "The Immortal Dinner."
(WSJ, 9/13/02, p.W10)
1817 Dec, The book “Northanger
Abbey,” by English novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817), was published
following her death in July. It was written around 1798-1799 and
revised in 1803.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northanger_Abbey)
1817 Thomas Love Peacock, a friend
and neighbor of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, authored his comic novel
“Melincourt.” A character in the novel was based on Shelley.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.94)
1817 David Ricardo (1772-1823)
published "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation." In this he
argued for the labor theory of value. Ricardo here explained why the
best farmland often makes money for the landlord, not the farmer.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.91)
1817 Britain banned private coins.
They had been issued to address a major shortage of government coinage.
From 1787 to 1797 and again from 1811 to 1818, the greater part of
Great Britain's stock of coins came not from the Royal Mint in London
but from a score of private mints in Birmingham.
(WSJ, 1/5/09, p.A11)(http://mises.org/story/3168)
1818 Jan 1, The novel
"Frankenstein" by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was published
anonymously. It was an attack on industrialization. The work stemmed
from a contest in 1816 at Byron’s Villa Diodati in Geneva, between
Byron, Shelley and Mary to produce a ghost story. In 1998 Joan Kane
Nichols published "Mary Shelley: Frankenstein’s Creator." In 2006
Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler authored “The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the
Curse of Frankenstein.” In 2007 Susan Tyler Hitchcock authored
“Frankenstein: A Cultural History.”
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(SSFC, 5/21/06, p.M6)(WSJ,
10/30/07, p.D6)(ON, 11/07, p.8)
1818 Jan 2, Lord Byron (George
Gordon) completed "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (4th canto).
(MC, 1/2/02)
1818 Apr 16, U.S. Senate ratified
the Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed U.S.-Canada border. The
Rush-Bagot Agreement between Great Britain and the U.S. had to do with
mutual disarmament on the Great Lakes. In the exchange of notes between
British minister to the U.S. Charles Bagot and Richard Rush, Acting
Secretary of State, the countries agreed to limits on their inland
naval forces. A sequel to the Treaty of Ghent, the agreement was
approved by the U.S. Senate on April 16, 1818.
(HN, 4/16/98)(HNQ, 6/7/00)
1818 Apr, Dr. John William
Polidori published “The Vampyre,” a novel based on an unpublished story
fragment by Lord Byron. Polidori was Byron’s personal physician.
(ON, 11/07, p.8)
1818 Jun 2, The British army
defeated the Maratha alliance in Bombay, India.
(HN, 6/2/98)
1818 Jul 30, Emily Bronte
(d.1848), English author of "Wuthering Heights," was born. She was the
younger sister of Charlotte Bronte and died of tuberculosis.
(WP, 1952, p.38)(HN, 7/30/98)(WSJ, 7/28/99, p.A21)
1818 Aug 22, Warren Hastings (85),
1st governor-general of India (1773-84), died.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1818 Oct 8, 2 English boxers were
1st to use padded gloves.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1818 Oct 20, The United States and
Britain established the 49th Parallel as the boundary between Canada
and the United States.
(HN, 10/20/98)
1818 Copley Fielding painted a
landscape of Stonehenge.
(ON, 4/02, p.11)
1818 John Keats published his poem
"Endymion."
(WSJ, 1/15/98, p.A17)
1818 Dr. James Blundell
(1791-1878), a British obstetrician, performed the first successful
transfusion of human blood, for the treatment of postpartum hemorrhage.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_transfusion)
1818-1820 John Keats (d.1821), English poet, lived in
Hampstead and wrote "The Eve of St. Agnes," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and
"Ode to a Nightingale."
(SFC, 12/24/96, p.E4)(WSJ, 1/15/98, p.A17)
1819 May 24, Queen Victoria
(d.1901) was born in London. Her reign (1836-1901) restored dignity to
the British crown. She had nine children. "Great events make me quiet
and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves."
(AP, 5/24/97)(HN, 5/24/99)(AP, 2/24/99)
1819 May 26, The first
steam-propelled vessel to attempt a trans-Atlantic crossing, the
350-ton Savannah, departed from Savannah, Ga., May 26 and arrived in
Liverpool, England, Jun 20. [HNQ set May 24 for the departure]
(AP, 5/22/97)(HNQ, 3/18/02)
1819 Aug 16, English police
charged unemployed demonstrators at St. Peter's Field in the Manchester
Massacre. 11 people were killed in the Peterloo massacre. The press
responded with a volley of attacks that included “The Political House
that Jack Built” by William Hone and illustrator George Cruikshank.
(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1819peterloo.html)(Econ, 12/23/06, p.104)
1819 Aug 26, Albert "Bertie" von
Saxon-Coburg-Gotha (d.1861), husband of queen Victoria, was born at
Schloss Rosenau, near Coburg, Bavaria.
(WUD, 1994,
p.34)(http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com)
1819 Nov 22, George Eliot
(d.1880), English writer, was born. Her books included “Adam Bede” and
“Silas Marner.” She was driven out of England with her companion, G.H.
Lewes, for a while for not being married. Her books tore away the
curtain of Victorian life and revealed its bitter small-mindedness for
anyone to see. "The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no
history."
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gelliot.htm)(HN, 11/22/98)
1819 J.M.W. Turner (44), English
artist (1775-1851), visited Venice for the 1st time. He returned in
1833 and 1840. His 1st oil painting with a Venetian setting was done in
1833.
(WSJ, 3/17/04, p.D4)
1819 Singapore was declared a free
port after it was taken over by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, an officer
of the British East India Co. Sultan Hussein was enthroned by the
British but he never ruled. Raffles laid out the city into ethnic zones.
(WSJ, 11/12/96, p.A18)(WSJ, 7/22/99,
p.A23)(SFCM, 3/11/01, p.70)(SSFC, 2/07/04, p.C9)
1820 Jan 12, Royal Astronomical
Society was founded in England.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1820 Jan 20-1820 Jan 29, As George
IV was about to become King of England, his wife Caroline (the German
princess of Brunswick) returned to claim her rights. She had been
living on the continent and was rumored to have had as lovers such men
as: the politician George Canning, the admiral Sir Sydney Smith, the
painter Sir Thomas Lawrence. The House of Lords introduced a Bill of
Pains and Penalties, which sought to strip Caroline of her title of
Queen on the grounds of her scandalous conduct. George had previously
married Maria Anne Fitzherbert in secret. A trial ensued, but witnesses
refused to speak against the queen and the bill had to be amended.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_of_Brunswick)(WSJ, 5/23/96,
p.A-10)(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W10)
1820 Jan 29, Britain's King George
III (b.1760) died insane at Windsor Castle at age 81, ending a
reign that saw both the American and French revolutions. He was
succeeded by his son George IV (1762-1830), who as Prince of Wales had
been regent for 9 years during his father’s insanity. In 2005
scientists reported high levels of arsenic in the hair of King George
III and said the deadly poison may be to blame for the bouts of
apparent madness he suffered. In 2006 Stella Tillyard authored “A Royal
Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings” and Jeremy Black
authored “George III: America’s Last King.”
(http://tinyurl.com/gsbuj)(AP, 1/29/98)(WSJ,
12/26/06, p.D8)(Econ, 1/28/06, p.80)
1820 Jan 30, Edward Bransfield
discovered Antarctica and claimed it for the UK.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1820 Feb 28, John Tenniel
(d.1914), illustrator of "Alice in Wonderland," was born. He was an
English caricaturist.
(HN, 2/28/98)(WUD, 1994, p.1463)
1820 Feb, The Cato Street
Conspiracy, organized by revolutionary Arthur Thistlewood, was
the. assassination of the entire British Cabinet. Earlier,
in 1816, Thistlewood helped plan the Spa Fields Riots, during which the
Bank of England and Tower of London were to be seized. In February,
1820, Thistlewood learned the entire British Cabinet planned to dine at
the Earl of Harrowby’s house in London’s Grosvenor Square. His plot for
murder was revealed to the police, who apprehended Thistlewood and a
number of accomplices as they prepared to leave a room on Cato Street
for Grosvenor Square. Thistlewood was tried for high treason and
hanged, along with four others.
(HNQ, 6/28/99)
1820 Mar 30, Anna Sewell, English
novelist, was born. Her "Black Beauty" has become the classic story
about horses.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1820 Jun 19, Joseph Banks, English
natural historian (Cook, Australia), died.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1820 Aug
2, John Tyndall (d.1893), British physicist, was born. He was the first
scientist to show why the sky is blue. "It is as fatal as it is
cowardly to blink (at) facts because they are not to our taste."
(AP, 9/25/99)(HN, 8/2/00)
1820 Aug 13, George Grove,
biblical scholar, musicographer (Grove's Dictionary), was born in
London, England.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1820 Sep 28, Friedrich Engels,
socialist who collaborated with Karl Marx on The Communist Manifesto
and Das Kapital, was born.
(HN, 9/28/98)
1820 Oct 15, Florence Nightingale
(d.1910), English hospital reformer and nursing pioneer, was born.
"Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world
would never reach anything better."
(AP, 11/12/97)(HN, 10/15/98)
1820 Anne Bronte (d.1849), younger
sister of Charlotte and Emily, was born. Her novels included "Agnes
Grey" and "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall."
(WSJ, 7/28/99, p.A21)
1820 Constable made his painting
of Salisbury Cathedral.
(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A19)
1820 Scotsman Gregor MacGregor
(1791-1845), later known as His Serene Highness Gregor I, Prince of
Poyais, returned to London from Venezuela and began selling land in the
fictional kingdom of Poyais. He served 8 months in jail after English
and French expeditions revealed the hoax. In 1839 he returned to
Venezuela. In 2004 David Sinclair authored "The Land That Never Was:
Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Most Audacious Land Fraud in History."
(SSFC, 1/18/04, p.M2)
c1820 In London Thomas Hancock
sliced up a rubber bottle from the Americas to create garters and
waistbands.
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.E3)
1820 Some 4,000 British colonists,
the Albany settlers, settled in the eastern coastal region of the Cape
of Good Hope.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1820-1827 Humphrey Davy served as president of the
Royal Society.
(ON, 12/01, p.7)
1820s Grain prices collapsed.
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)
1821 Feb 3, Elizabeth Blackwell
(d.1910), first woman to get an MD from a U.S. medical school, was born
in Bristol, England.
(HN, 2/3/99)(ON, 4/03, p.3)
1821 Feb 23, John Keats, English
poet, died of tuberculosis at the age of 26. In 1998 the biography
"Keats" by Andrew Motion was published. Earlier biographies included
one by Walter Jackson Bate (1963), and a novelistic psychological
portrait by Aileen Ward (1963). The standard work on Keats was written
by Robert Gittings in 1968.
(WP, 1951, p.11)(WSJ, 1/15/98, p.A17)(SFEC, 3/29/98,
BR p.6)
1821 Mar 19, Sir Richard Burton
(d.1890), English explorer, was born.
(HN, 3/19/01)
1821 Jul 19, The coronation of
George IV of England was held. His wife, Caroline, was refused
admittance. She died Aug 7.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_IV_of_the_United_Kingdom)
1821 Aug 7, Caroline of Brunswick
(b.1768), wife of England’s King George IV, died. In 2006 Jane Robins
authored “The Trial of Queen Caroline: The Scandalous Affair that
Nearly Ended a Monarchy.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_IV_of_the_United_Kingdom)(Econ,
8/5/06, p.76)
1821 William Playfair, Scottish
engineer, political economist and scoundrel, published a visual chart
that displayed the “weekly wages of a good mechanic” along with the
price of a “quarter of wheat” with the reigns of monarchs displayed
along the top.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.74)
1822 Feb 16, Francis Galton
(d.1911), English scientist, was born. He was one of the first moderns
to present a carefully considered eugenics program.
(NH, 6/97, p.18)(SFC, 8/28/97,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton)
1822 May, Dr. Gideon Mantell
published his book “The Fossils of South Downs,” based on his studies
of huge teeth and bones found at the Tilgate Forest quarry.
(ON, 7/06, p.1)
1822 Jun 14, Charles Babbage
(1792-1871), a young Cambridge mathematician, announced the invention
of a machine capable of performing simple arithmetic calculations in a
paper to the Astronomical Society. His 1st Difference Engine could
perform up to 60 error-free calculation in 5 minutes. Babbage and
engineer John Clement completed the calculator portion of a new engine
in 1832, but the project lost funding and remained unfinished.
(I&I, Penzias, p.94)(ON, 5/05, p.5)
1822 Jul 8, Percy Bysshe Shelley
(b.1792), English poet, drowned while sailing in Italy at age 29.
(HN, 7/8/01)
1822 Sep 6, John Constable,
English painter, painted his “Cloud Study, 6 September 1822.” He
painted some 100 studies of the sky between 1821-1822.
(MC, 3/31/02)(WSJ, 6/9/04, p.D8)
1822 Oct 20, The 1st edition of
the London Sunday Times was published.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1822 Dec 4, Frances Crabbe,
English feminist and founder of the Anti-Vivisection Society, was born.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1822 Dec 14, John Christie,
English patron of music, was born. He founded the Glyndebourne Festival
Opera.
(HN, 12/14/99)
1822 A bronze Achilles cast from
cannons from the Napoleonic wars was unveiled at the residence of the
Duke of Wellington. A strategic fig leaf was soon added.
(SFEM, 3/21/99, p.24)
1822-1888 Matthew Arnold, English poet and critic.
His books included "Culture and Anarchy." His best known poem is Dover
Beach." In 1999 Ian Hamilton wrote "A Gift Imprisoned: The Poetic Life
of Matthew Arnold."
(WSJ, 3/25/99, p.A24)
1823 May 8, "Home Sweet Home" was
1st sung in London.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1823 Lord Byron returned to Greece
to provide moral support to insurgents and draw attention to Ottoman
massacres of Greek civilians.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron)(SFC,
9/7/08, Books p.5)
1823 English poet Lord Byron spent
a summer on the Ionian island of Cephalonia.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.T3)
1823 Philip Cazenova founded a
British banking firm partnership. It incorporated in 2001.
(Econ, 11/13/04, p.82)
1823 British Major Dixon Denham
and Captain Hugh Clapperton entered Northern Nigeria from the north,
crossing the desert from Tripoli.
(Econ, 1/7/06,
p.74)(www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/nigeria.htm)
1823-1871 Charles Buxton, English author: "You will
never 'find' time for anything. If you want time you must make it."
(AP, 10/21/99)
1824 Jan 8, William Wilkie
Collins, English novelist (Woman in White), was born.
(www.qub.ac.uk/en/imperial/india/wilkie-background.htm)
1824 Jan 8, Tom Spring defeated
Jack Langan in a British championship boxing match that lasted
2½ hours.
(SFC, 2/1/06,
p.G6)(www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/spring-t.htm)
1824 Jan 22, A British force was
wiped out by an Asante army under Osei Bonsu on the African Gold Coast.
This was the first defeat for a colonial power.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1824 Apr 19, George Gordon, (6th
Baron Byron, b.1788) aka Lord Byron, English poet, died of malaria in
Greece at Missolonghi on the gulf of Patras preparing to fight for
Greek independence. In 1999 Benita Eisler published the biography
"Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame." In 2002 Fiona MacCarthy
authored "Byron : Life and Legend." In 2009 Edna O’Brien authored
“Byron in Love.”
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.D3)(WSJ, 4/26/99, p.A16)(HN,
4/1901)(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M2)(SSFC, 6/21/09, Books p.J5)
1824 Jun 16, The Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was formed at Old Slaughter’s Coffee
House in London under the direction of Arthur Broome.
(www.animallaw.info/historical/articles/arukrspcahist.htm)
1824 Jul 20, Marc Brunel (55) was
appointed as engineer for the Thames Tunnel Company. He hired his son,
Isambard Brunel, as his assistant. Brunel senior, a royalist, had fled
the French Revolution to become, briefly, official engineer to the city
of New York, and then, having settled in London, a consultant engineer
to the Royal Navy. Educated and trained in both French and English
schools and workshops, Brunel junior served his practical
apprenticeship assisting his father in the building of the first tunnel
under the Thames, which later carried the Underground between Wapping
and Rotherhithe.
(HN,
6/26/01)(www.bris.ac.uk/is/services/specialcollections/brunelchronology.html)
1824 Sep 23, Captain Richard
Charlton was appointed British Consul to Hawaii. He arrived in
Hawaii and assumed his post in April, 1825.
(Hawaii state archives)
1824 Oct 21, Joseph Aspdin
patented Portland cement in Yorkshire, England.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1824 John Hayter painted portraits
of Hawaii’s King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamamalu in London shortly
before they died there of measles.
(AH, 10/01, p.14)
1824 In England the first animal
welfare group was founded.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.A20)
1824 The Royal National Lifeboat
Institution was established in England.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.87)
1824 Newfoundland became a British
colony. It became a province of Canada in 1949.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, BR p.6)
1824-1889 (William) Wilkie Collins, English novelist.
His work included the 1860 mystery: "The Woman in White." It was later
made into a TV version on both "Mystery" (1985) and "Masterpiece
Theater" (1998).
(WUD, 1994, p.290)(WSJ, 2/19/98, p.A20)
1825 Jan 1, Dr. Gideon Mantell
presented his paper “Notice on the Iguanodon” to members of England’s
Philosophical Society. His paper linked the large hypothetical “Sussex
lizard” to a modern species of reptile. This work led to his induction
to the Royal Society on Dec 25, 1825.
(ON, 7/06, p.3)
1825 Feb 22, Russia and Britain
established the Alaska/Canada boundary.
(HN, 2/22/98)
1825 May 4, Thomas Henry Huxley
(d.1895), British biologist, naturalist and author, was born. "God give
me strength to face a fact though it slay me." "My experience of the
world is that things left to themselves don't get right." His work
includes the collected Essays in nine volumes: 1. Method and Results,
2. Darwiniana, 3. Science and Education, 4. Science and the Hebrew
Tradition, 5. Science and the Christian Tradition, 6. Hume, with Helps
to the Study of Berkeley, 7. Man’s Place in Nature, 8. Discourses,
Biological and Geological, 9. Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays. In
1997 Adrian Desmond wrote the biography: "Huxley." "God give me
strength to face a fact though it slay me."
(OAPOC-TH, p.71)(WSJ, 10/10/97, p.A20)(AP,
11/1/97)(AP, 1/26/99)(HN, 5/4/01)
1825 Sep 27, The Stockton and
Darlington rail line opened in England. The first locomotive to haul a
passenger train was operated by George Stephenson in England. The
British engineers Richard Trevithick and George Stevenson were the
first innovators of the technology.
(AP,
9/27/97)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RAstephensonG.htm)
1825 Dec 27, The 1st public
railroad using steam locomotive was completed in England.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1825 Clark Shoes began operations
in Britain.
(Econ, 6/18/05, Survey p.53)
1826 Feb 11, London University was
founded.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1826 Apr 12, Karl Maria von
Weber's opera "Oberon," premiered in London.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1826 Aug 7, Marc Brunel hired his
son, Isambard, to replace William Armstrong as chief engineer for
building the tunnel under England’s Thames River.
(ON, 4/06,
p.8)(www.bris.ac.uk/is/services/specialcollections/brunelchronology.html)
1826 Englishmen scientist James
Smithson (1765-1829) drew up his will and named his nephew as
beneficiary. In the will he stated that should his nephew die without
heirs, the estate should go to the US of America to found at
Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institute, an
establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)
1826 John James Audubon
(1785-1851), painter and ornithologist, arrived in Britain to oversee
the production of his "Birds of America." Although the 1st engravings
were done in Edinburgh the project was soon transferred to London and
completed over the next 12 years.
(WSJ, 3/26/04, p.W6)(AH, 10/04, p.75)
1826 The British Cape Colony was
extended northward to the Orange River.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.885)
1826-1852 The Duke of Wellington served as Constable
of the Tower of London.
(Hem, 9/04, p.71)
1826-1877 Walter Bagehot, English editor and
economist: "One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a
new idea." "It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be
without temptation."
(AP, 5/22/97)(AP, 9/2/98)
1827 Apr 2, William Holdman Hunt,
English painter (Light of the World), was born.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1827 Apr 5, Joseph Lister, English
physician, was born. He founded the idea of using antiseptics during
surgery.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1827 Apr 7, English chemist John
Walker invented wooden matches.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1827 May 4, John Hanning Speke,
English explorer, was born. He discovered Lake Victoria and the source
of the Nile.
(HN, 5/4/99)
1827 Aug 12, William Blake
(b.1757), English visionary engraver and poet, died. In 2001 G.E.
Bentley Jr. authored "The Stranger From Paradise: A Biography of
William Blake."
(SSFC, 5/27/01, DB p.73)(MC, 8/12/02)
1827 Oct 15, Charles Darwin
reached Christ's Counsel, Cambridge.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1827 Oct 20, British, French and
Russian squadrons entered the harbor at Navarino, Greece, and destroyed
most of the Egyptian fleet there. The Ottomans demanded reparations.
(EWH, 4th ed,
p.770)(www.ipta.demokritos.gr/erl/navarino.html)
1827 Joseph Niepce, French
inventor, met with English botanist Francis Bauer, who agreed to
present Niepce’s ground breaking photographic work to the Royal
Society, which rejected the bid. Before leaving London Niepce made a
gift of his 1826 pewter image to Bauer. The pewter image was
re-discovered in 1952 by photo historian Helmut Gernsheim.
(ON, 10/08, p.8)
1828 May 16, Sir William Congreve
(b.1772), British artillerist and inventor, died. In 1805 he developed
the Congreve Rocket.
(MC, 5/16/02)(WUD, 1994 p.310)
1828 Aug, England’s Thames Tunnel
Company was forced to halt operations due to accidents and loss of
financial support. Work was halted for 7 years.
(ON, 4/06, p.9)
1828 Nov 8, Thomas Bewick
(b.1753), English engraver and ornithologist, died. In 2007 Jenny Uglow
authored “Nature’s Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick.”
(Econ, 5/26/07,
p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bewick)
1828-1830 Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), the duke of
Wellington, served as British prime minister. He blocked badly needed
political reform and was later considered one of England’s worst prime
ministers.
(WSJ, 1/6/95, A-10)(ON, 4/06, p.5)
1828-1896 Elizabeth Charles, British writer: "To know
how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets
or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men
martyrs or reformers -- or both."
(AP, 12/13/98)
1828-1909 George Meredith, English poet: "Cynicism is
intellectual dandyism."
(AP, 10/20/98)
1829 Apr 13, English Emancipation
Act granted freedom of religion to Catholics.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1829 May 29, Humphrey Davy (84),
scientist, inventor (Miner's safety lamp), died at age 50. In 1963 Anne
Treneer authored "The Mercurial Chemist: A Life of Sir Humphrey Davy."
(ON, 12/01, p.7)(SC, 5/29/02)
1829 Jun 8, John Everett Millais,
painter (Order of Release), was born in England.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1829 Jun 19, Sir Robert Peel
founded the London Metropolitan Police (Bobbies). [see Sep 29]
(MC, 6/19/02)
1829 Jun 27, James Smithson
(b.1765), Englishmen scientist, died. His 1926 will he stated that
should his nephew die without heirs, the estate should go to the US of
America to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian
Institute, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge
among men. In 2003 Nina Burleigh authored "The Stranger and the
Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams and the Making of
America's Greatest Museum, The Smithsonian." [see 1836]
(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)(SC, 6/27/02)(SSFC, 12/21/03,
p.M1)(SSFC, 12/21/03, p.A1)
1829 Sep 26, Scotland Yard, the
official British criminal investigation organization, was formed. [see
Sep 29 and June, 1842]
(HN, 9/26/99)
1829 Sep 29, London's reorganized
police force, "bobbies", which became known as Scotland Yard, went on
duty. [see Sep 26]
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/29/97)
1829 Dec 4, Britain abolished
"suttee" in India. This was the practice of a widow burning herself to
death on her husband's funeral pyre.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1829 William Cobbett, British
writer, authored “The Emigrant’s Guide,” offering advice on settling in
the New World.
(WSJ, 12/22/08, p.A17)
1829 The ban on Catholic voting
was lifted.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, BR p.5)
1929 Oxford and Cambridge held
their first boat race on the River Thames at Henley in Oxfordshire. The
second race occurred in 1836, with the venue moved to be from
Westminster to Putney.
(Econ, 3/28/09,
p.95)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_Race)
1830 Feb 3, Robert Cecil, Marquess
of Salisbury (C), British PM (1885-1902), was born.
(MC, 2/3/02)
1830 Mar 16, London reorganized
its police force, Scotland Yard.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1830 Apr 9, Edward Muybridge,
pioneered study of motion, photography, was born in England. In 2002
Rebecca Solnit authored "River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the
Technological Wild West."
(MC, 4/9/02)(SSFC, 1/26/03, p.M1)
1830 May 18, Edwin Beard Budding
of England signed an agreement for the manufacture of his invention,
the lawn mower. He adopted the rotary blade in the cloth industry to
grass.
(SC, 5/18/02)(Econ, 12/20/03, p.118)
1830 Jun 26, Britain’s King George
IV (b.1762) died. George Augustus Frederick of Hanover, Prince of
Wales, was called Prinny by his friends. He was succeeded by his
brother, King William IV. In 2002 Steven Parissien authored "George
IV." The crown passed to George's brother who became William IV.
(WSJ, 4/5/02,
p.W12)(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/george_iv_king.shtml)(ON,
4/09, p.7)
1830 Jul-1830 Aug, In Britain the
June 26 death of Britain’s King George IV triggered elections. Polling
took place in July and August and the Tories won a majority over the
Whigs, but division among Tory MPs allowed Earl Grey to form an
effective government and take the question of electoral reform to the
country the following year.
(ON, 4/09,
p.7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1830)
1830 Sep 15, British MP William
Huskisson (b.1770) was killed under the wheels of the “Rocket” train at
the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. He was the 1st
person to be run-over by a railroad train.
(SFEC,12/21/97, Z1
p.5)(www.wordiq.com/definition/William_Huskisson)
1830 Sep 18, William Hazlitt
(b.1778), in his time England’s finest essayist, died. "A nickname is
the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man." In 2008 Duncan
Wu authored “William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man.”
(AP, 11/10/99)(WSJ, 1/16/09,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hazlitt)
1830 Nov 15, In Britain Lord Grey
used his majority in the House of commons to defeat the government of
Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. Wellington resigned the next
day.
(ON, 4/09, p.8)
1830 Dec 5, Christina Rossetti
(d.1894), poet (Winter Rain, Passing Away), was born in London. She
wrote devotional verse, curious fairy tales and category defying poems.
Her brothers, William Michael and Dante Gabriel, helped found the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whose professed aim was to revive the
purity and vividness they admired in late medieval art. Her story is
told by Jan Marsh in "Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life." "Better by
far you should forget and smile, Than that you should remember and be
sad."
(WSJ, 7/25/95, p.A-10)(AP, 12/11/98)(MC, 12/5/01)
1830s Thomas Babington Macaulay
(1800-1859), English essayist, historian and politician, served as a
member of the British Supreme Council in India.
(www.britannica.com)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.48)
1830-1859 Alfred King worked as a jeweler and
clockmaker in Chippenham, England, during this time. He signed his work
"A. King." His clocks fetch $2-3k.
(SFC, 7/9/97, Z1 p.3)
1831 Aug 1, London Bridge opened
to traffic.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1831 Aug 24, John Henslow asked
Charles Darwin to travel with him on HMS Beagle.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1831 Aug 29, Michael Faraday,
British physicist, demonstrated the 1st electric transformer. Faraday
had discovered that a changing magnetic field produces an electric
current in a wire, a phenomenon known as electromagnetic induction.
(www.acmi.net.au/AIC/FARADAY_BIO.html)(WSJ, 9/17/01,
p.R6)
1831 Nov 8, Edward R.L.
Bulwer-Lytton, English writer, was born.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1831 Dec 27, HMS Beagle departed
from Plymouth. Naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a voyage to the
Pacific aboard the HMS Beagle. (Darwin's discoveries during the
voyage helped formed the basis of his theories on evolution.)
(HN, 12/27/98)(AP, 12/27/97)
1831 Dec 28, Samuel Sharp
(1801-1832) led a slave uprising that was put down at great cost by the
British. The Rebellion lasted for eight days and resulted in the death
of around 186 Africans and 14 white planters or overseers. The white
vengeance convicted over 750 rebel slaves, of which 138 were sentenced
to death.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.73)(http://tinyurl.com/3cu2ds)
1831 In London a 9-bedroom
residence was built for a nobleman that in 1931 became the Abbey Road
recording studio.
(Sky, 9/97, p.53)
1831 The Garrick Club was founded
in London for actors, writers and politicians.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A20)(NW, 4/24/03, p.55)
1831 The Game Act was enacted
under William IV. It extended hunting rights to anyone who obtained a
license.
(HNQ, 11/18/01)
1831 The lawn mower was invented
in England.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.4)
1831 A cholera epidemic broke out
in London.
(ON, 5/05, p.8)
1831-1832 Animals from the Tower of London menagerie
created the core of the London Zoo.
(Hem, 9/04, p.71)
1832 Jan 27, Charles Lutwidge
Dodgson (d.1898), who wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" under
the pen name Lewis Carroll, was born in Cheshire, England. He was also
know as a skilled photographer and did nude photography with an
"intense focus on his subjects' personalities." Dodgson lectured on
mathematics at Oxford from 1855 to 1881 and made up the stories about
Alice in Wonderland for his daughter Alice and her sisters. He wrote
"Through the Looking Glass" in 1872 and other children's books. His
most important mathematical work was the 1879 "Euclid and His Modern
Rivals." "If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can
possibly find fault with, you will not do much." In 1995 Morton N.
Cohen published an authoritative biography titled "Lewis Carroll: A
Biography."
(WSJ, 11/9/95, p.A-20)(AP, 1/14/98)(AP,
1/27/98)(HNQ, 6/12/98)
1832 Feb, A cholera epidemic ended
in Great Britain. Some 800 people died of the disease in London. Dr.
John Snow eventually traced the London epidemic to a water pump on
Broad Street. [see 1849] In 2006 Steven Johnson authored “The Ghost
Map,” a history of London’s cholera outbreak.
(www.mernick.co.uk/thhol/1832chol.html)(WSJ,
10/21/06, p.P8)
1832 Mar 24, The British Reform
Act passed the House of Commons under the Whig government. It
introduced the first changes to electoral franchise legislation in
almost one hundred and fifty years. On June 4 it passed the House of
Lords and on June 7 received Royal Assent.
(www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/refact/campaign.htm)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.93)
1832 Apr 13, James Wimshurst,
British designer, inventor (electric static generator), was born.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1832 Jun 6, Jeremy Bentham
(b.1748), social reformer, died. He had his body preserved at the Univ.
College, London. Bentham was later considered the father of
utilitarianism.
(NG, 1990, p. 121)(WSJ, 4/15/99,
p.A20)(www.britannica.com)
1832 Jun 7, The British Reform Act
received royal assent and became law. The act, pressed through by PM
Earl Grey, forestalled a revolution by increasing the number of people
who were eligible to vote.
(ON, 4/09, p.10)
1832 Fanny Trollope (53) published
her first book "Domestic Manners of the Americans."
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)
1832 Britain passed the Anatomy
Act, which allowed hospitals and workhouses to hand over for dissection
bodies left unclaimed for two days.
(Econ, 11/15/08, p.99)
1833 Jan 3, Britain seized control
of the Malvina Islands (Falkland Islands) in the South Atlantic. In
1982 Argentina seized the islands, but Britain took them back after a
74-day war.
(AP, 1/3/98)(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A7)
1833 Jan 28, Charles George
"Chinese" Gordon, general (China, Khartoum), was born in London.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1833 Feb 17, Lt. George Back
(1796-1878) departed Liverpool, England, on the packet ship Hibernia
with 4 men to search for missing Arctic explorer Captain John Ross.
Ross had left England in 1829 to seek a Northwest Passage by way of the
Arctic Ocean.
(ON, 5/04,
p.10)(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9011650)
1833 Apr 22, Richard Trevithick
(b.1771), British engineer, died in Kent, England. In 1804 he built the
first steam locomotive.
(ON, 4/04, p.6)(WSJ, 4/11/09,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Trevithick)
1833 May 15, Edmund Kean (46),
English actor (Shylock), died.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1833 Jul 29, William Wilberforce
(b.1759), English abolitionist, died. He was best known for his efforts
relating to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. A
politician and philanthropist, Wilberforce was prominent from 1787 in
the struggle to abolish the slave trade and slavery itself in British
overseas possessions. He was an ardent and eloquent sponsor of
anti-slavery legislation in the House of Commons until his retirement
in 1825. Wilberforce University in Ohio, an African Methodist Episcopal
Church institution (f.1856), was named for William Wilberforce. In 2008
William Hague authored “William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great
Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner.”
(www.nndb.com/people/824/000049677/)(WSJ, 7/25/08,
p.A13)
1833 Aug 23, The British
Parliament ordered the abolition of slavery in its colonies by Aug 1,
1834. This would free some 700,000 slaves, including those in the West
Indies. The Imperial Emancipation Act also allowed blacks to enjoy
greater equality under the law in Canada as opposed to the US.
(V.D.-H.K.p.276)(MT, 3/96, p.14)(PC, 1992,
p.412)(AH, 10/02, p.54)
1833 Aug 28, Edward Burne-Jones,
British painter, was born.
(RTH, 8/28/99)
1833 Sep 8, Charles Darwin
departed to Buenos Aires.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1833 Oct, Capt. John Ross
(1877-1856), Arctic explorer, returned to England.
(www.collectionscanada.ca/explorers/h24-1810-e.html)
1833 J.M.W. Turner completed his
1st oil painting "Bridge of Sighs and the Ducal Palace," his 1st
exhibited painting of Venice.
(WSJ, 3/17/04, p.D4)
1833 James Boardman (1801-1855),
English traveler and writer, authored “America and the Americans.”
(http://tinyurl.com/2olhxh)
1833 England passed stronger
measures regulating child labor.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R28)
1834 Jan 10, Lord Acton [John E.E.
Dalberg], English historian and editor of The Rambler, a Roman Catholic
monthly, was born.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1834 Mar 24, William Morris,
English craftsman, poet, socialist, was born.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1834 Apr 18, William Lamb became
the prime minister of England.
(HN, 4/18/98)
1834 Apr, England’s Parliament
approved a loan of 270,000 pounds to continue the Thames tunnel project
under the direction of engineer Isambard Brunel.
(ON, 4/06, p.9)
1834 Jul 15, Lord Napier of
England arrived at Macao, China as the first chief superintendent of
trade.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1834 Jul 25, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (b.1772), English poet, died. He and his friend William
Wordsworth were among the founders of the Romantic Movement in England
and later identified, along with Robert Southey, as the Lake School of
poets. Coleridge’s work included "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,"
"Frost at Midnight" and "Kubla Khan." In his later life he authored the
"Bibliographia Literaria," a work of literary theory. In 1999 Richard
Holmes published "Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 1804-1834," which
focused on the poet's later life. His volume "Coleridge: Early Visions"
was published in 1989. In 2007 Adam Sisman authored “The Friendship:
Wordsworth & Coleridge.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Coleridge-Taylor)(WSJ, 4/15/99,
p.A20)(WSJ, 2/20/07, p.D8)
1834 Aug 1, The British
Emancipation Act began. This ended slavery in the West Indies and all
Caribbean holdings. Slavery was abolished throughout the British
Empire. Some 35,000 salves were freed in the Cape Colony.
(NH, 7/98, p.29)(HN, 8/1/98)(EWH, 4th ed, p.885)
1834 Sep 9, Parliament passed the
Municipal Corporations Act, reforming city and town governments in
England.
(HN, 9/9/98)
1834 Oct 16, In London the Houses
of Parliament caught fire and many historic documents were burned.
J.M.W. created two oil paintings of the burning of the Houses of
Parliament.
(www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/england/london/parliament/barry.html)(Econ,
9/29/07, p.90)
1834 Dec 10, Robert Peel
(1788-1850) became prime minister of Britain after launching the first
national election manifesto in British history.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Peel)
1834 Dec 23, Joseph Hansom of
London received a patent for Hansom cabs. Hansom put his Hansom cabs
onto the streets.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 12/23/01)
1834 Dec 29, Thomas R. Malthus
(b.1766), English vicar, economist ("Essay On Population"), died.
(Internet)
1834 William Bentinck, India's
governor-general, wrote to his superiors in London that Indian
cloth-makers were suffering severe hardship due to the efficiency of
the English textile industry.
(WSJ, 3/29/04, p.A1)
1834 Lord Sandys, English governor
of Bengal, took a sample of an Indian sauce to an apothecary in
Worcester, 100 miles northwest of London, and asked the pharmacists
John Wheeley Lea and William Perrins to make a similar batch. The new
batch tasted awful until it was allowed to age for a while. They then
put together what became known worldwide as Worcestershire Sauce. [2nd
source gave an 1835 date]
(WSJ, 7/22/96, p.A1)(SFC, 4/12/97, p.E3)
1834-1894 Philip G. Hamerton, English artist and
essayist: "Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a
wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original
author?"
(AP, 5/2/99)
1834-1902 Lord Acton, English historian: "Liberty is
not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest
political end."
(AP, 10/4/99)
1835 Mar 29, Elihu Thomson, the
English-born American inventor of electric welding and arc lighting,
was born.
(HN, 3/29/99)
1835 May 13, John Nash, British
town planner, architect (Regent's Park), died.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1835 Nov 16, Charles Darwin's
voyage account was published in Cambridge Philosophical Society.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1835 Nov 26, HMS Beagle left
Tahiti for NZ.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1835 Madame Tussaud opened her
London Wax Museum.
(SFEC, 7/18/99, Par p.4)
1835 Alexander Forbes served as
the British vice-consul in Monterey, Ca.
(SFC, 12/5/03, p.D6)
1835-1902 Samuel Butler, English author: "There are
two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The
first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants if he only
tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every
individual is more or less an exception to the general rule." "A hen is
only an egg’s way of making another egg." "Life is one long process of
getting tired."
(AP, 4/25/97)(SFEC, 3/1/98, Z1 p.8)(AP, 4/22/98)
1836 Feb 7, The essays "Sketches
by Boz" were published by Charles Dickens.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1836 Mar 31, The first monthly
installment of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens was published in
London.
(HN, 3/31/01)
1836 Aug 14, Walter Besant
(d.1901), English writer, philanthropist (Rebel Queen), was born.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1836 Oct 2, Darwin returned to
England aboard HMS Beagle after 5 years abroad. He visited Brazil, the
Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand. His studies were important to his
theory of evolution, which he put forth in his groundbreaking
scientific work of 1859, "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection."
(MC, 10/2/01)
1836 Augustus Pugin (1812-1852),
English Gothic architect and designer, authored “Contrasts,” the first
ever architectural manifesto.
(WSJ, 3/20/09,
p.W14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Pugin)
1836 The London-based Anti Slavery
International human rights group was founded.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R28)
1836 Britain’s Peninsula and
Oriental Steam Navigation (P&O Line) was founded to carry mail
among Portugal, Spain and England and later expanded to passenger
service. In 2005 Dubai’s DP World purchased the company for $5.7
billion.
(www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/pando.html)(SFC,
11/30/05, p.C2)
1836 The US Congress voted to
accept the 100,000 gold sovereign donation of Englishman James Smithson
and establish the Smithsonian Institution for the increase and
diffusion of knowledge among men. The actual Institution was not
established until 1846. [see 1826 and 1846]
(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)
1836 Nathan Rothschild, financier
and son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, died in London. His younger
brother James took charge of the business.
(WSJ, 11/17/98, p.21)
1837 Feb 12, Thomas Moran
(d.1926), American painter, was born in Bolton, England. His paintings
of Yellowstone helped persuade Congress to designate it a national park.
(WSJ, 5/11/95, p. A-14)(SFC,10/15/97, p.D3)
1837 Mar 31, John Constable (60),
English painter, water colors painter, died. His work included some 100
studies of the sky done between 1821-1822. In 2009 Martin Gayford
authored “Constable in Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a
Great Painter.”
(WSJ, 6/9/04, p.D8)(Econ, 3/21/09,
p.92)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Constable)
1837 Apr 5, Algernon Charles
Swinburne (d.1909), English poet (Atalanta in Calydon), was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1837 Jun 20, Queen Victoria (18)
ascended the British throne following the death of her uncle, King
William IV (b.1765). She ruled for 63 years to 1901.
(AP, 6/20/97)(WSJ, 4/27/00, p.A24)(HN, 6/20/01)
1837 Aug 18, The Great Western, a
steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was towed out of the
Bristol shipyard and proceeded under sail to London to be fitted with
engines.
(ON, 8/07, p.6)
1837 Dec 2, Dr. Joseph Bell,
British physician, was born. He is believed to be the prototype of Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle's detective 'Sherlock Holmes.'
(HN, 12/2/99)
1837 Tennyson (1809-1892) wrote
his poem “Locksley Hall.” It included a vision of a tranquil world
“lapt in universal law.” It was published as part of a collection in
1842. The poem embodied the pain of lost love and looked forward to a
time when the nations of the world would abandon war and form a
“parliament of man.”
(WSJ, 6/28/06,
p.D10)(www.firstscience.com/site/POEMS/tennyson4.asp)
1837 The Dickens novel "Great
Expectations" was set in this year. A 1998 version of the novel by
Australian writer Peter Carey was titled "Jack Maggs."
(WSJ, 2/4/98, p.A20)
1837 English plumber Thomas
Crapper came out with a flush model, valve controlled, water closet.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow installed one in his home in 1840 and
sparked public attention. Thomas Crapper, popularly credited with
inventing the water closet, held three patents, although he may simply
have bought the siphon discharge system patent from Albert Giblin and
marketed it himself. In 1969 Wallace Reyburn authored “Flushed with
Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper.”
(HNQ, 11/25/00)(http://tinyurl.com/2ws5w)
1837 In London construction began
on the new Palace of Westminster. Architect Charles Barry and his
assistant A.W.N. Pugin had won the open competition for the design.
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.W14)
1837-1901 The reign of Queen Victoria in England.
(USAT, 2/14/97, p.8D)
1837-1901 The Victorian Era is covered by Peter Gay
in his 5-volume work: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud." The
5th volume "Pleasure Wars" came out in 1998. Other volumes were titled:
Education of the Sense," "The Tender Passion," and "The Cultivation of
Hatred."
(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.9)
1838 Mar 18, Randal Cremer,
British trade unionist, pacifist (Nobel 1903), was born.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1838 Apr 8, The British steamship
"Great Western" set out on its maiden voyage from Bristol,
England, to NYC.
(ON, 8/07, p.7)
1838 Apr 22, The English steamship
"Sirius" docked in NYC after a record Atlantic crossing.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Riband)
1838 Apr 23, The British steamship
"Great Western" arrived in NYC on its maiden voyage from Bristol,
England, just hours after the retrofitted steamship Sirius, which had
departed Cork on April 4. The Great Western crossed the Atlantic in a
record 15 days and 12 hours.
(ON, 8/07, p.7)
1838 Jul 1, Charles Darwin
presented a paper on his theory of evolution to the Linnaean Society in
London.
(HN, 7/1/01)
1838 Jun 28, Britain's Queen
Victoria was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
(AP, 6/28/98)(http://tinyurl.com/zezjg)
1838 Oct 1, Lord Auckland, British
governor general in India, issued the Simla Manifesto, setting forth
the necessary reasons for British intervention in Afghanistan. This led
to the 1st Anglo-Afghan War.
(Econ, 10/7/06,
p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War)
1838 Dec, India’s British governor
general dispatched to Kabul the Army of the Indus to protect British
interests from growing Russian influence.
(SSFC, 10/28/01,
p.C8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War)
1838 Charlotte Bronte authored her
novella "Stancliffe’s Hotel." It was published for the 1st time in 2003.
(SFC, 3/15/03, p.A2)
1838 Dr. Gideon Mantell published
his book “The Wonders of Geology” with a dramatic illustration of “The
Country of the Iguanadon,” depicting the plant-eating reptile under
attack by the carnivorous Megalosaurus.
(ON, 7/06, p.4)
1838 The London Prize Ring Rules
were instituted with bare-knuckle rounds of unspecified length. Rounds
ended when a fighter touched ground with a knee. The rules were based
on those drafted by Britain's Jack Broughton in 1743, and governed the
conduct of prizefighting/bare-knuckle boxing for over 100 years. They
were later superseded by the Marquess of Queensberry rules (1865), the
origins of the modern sport of Boxing.
(AH, 2/06,
p.32)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Prize_Ring_rules)
1838 The National Gallery opened
on Trafalgar Square. It was designed by William Wilkins. A 10-year
renovation was completed in 1999.
(SFC, 9/22/99, p.E3)
1838 William Ridgway, Son &
Co. began using the "Humphrey clock" mark on its dishware.
(SFC, 3/11/98, Z1 p.5)
1839 Jan 24, Charles Darwin was
elected member of Royal Society.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1839 Jan 28, William Henry Fox
Talbot (1800-1877), English inventor, presented his discoveries and
methods of photography to the Royal Society of London. His callotype, a
negative to positive process, allowed multiple reproductions of a
single image for the 1st time. Talbot suggested a daguerreotype camera
with extra parts to hold mercury.
(ON, 4/00, p.10)(SFC, 6/12/96, Z1 p.5)(SFC,
12/26/02, p.E9)
1839 Jan 29, Charles Darwin
married Emma Wedgwood.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1839 May 25, John Eliot, English
meteorologist, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1839 Jul 5, British naval forces
bombarded Dingai on Zhoushan Island in China and occupy it.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1839 Jul 27, Chartist riots broke
out in Birmingham, England.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1839 Aug 23, The British captured
Hong Kong from China.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1839 Aug 28, William Smith,
British geologist, died. He made the 1st geological map of England and
became impoverished in the process. In 2001 Simon Winchester authored
"The Map That Changed the World."
(RTH, 8/28/99)(WSJ, 8/17/01, p.W6)
1839 Oct 1, The British government
decided to send a punitive naval expedition to China.
(HN, 10/1/98)
1839 Nov 3, The first Opium War
between China and Britain broke out in and around Guangzhou. Lin Zexu,
a Qing official, started the Opium War when he ordered the dumping of 3
million pounds of Western-owned opium into the sea. 2 British frigates
engaged several Chinese junks.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.D4)(AP, 11/3/97)(SSFC, 8/30/09,
p.A21)
1839 The British and Foreign
Anti-Slavery Society was founded.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.13)
1839 A British army marched to
Kabul and replaced Dost Mohammad, the Amir of Afghanistan, with a more
docile ruler. Britain had decided that Persian and Russian intrigues
posed a threat to their control of India.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1839 The British & North
America Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. formed. It later became Cunard and
then a unit of Carnival Corp.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.B4)
1839 The Elder Pottery in
Cobridge, Staffordshire, began operating and continued to 1846. John
and George Alcock created platters there.
(SFC, 10/10/07, p.G3)
1839 Joseph Bourne began making
salt glazed pottery at Denby, England. A line called Danesbury Ware was
begun in the 1920s. It later became known as the Denby Pottery Co.
(SFC, 10/29/08, p.G2)
1839-1842 First Anglo-Afghan War. After some
resistance, Amir Dost Mohammad Khan surrendered to the British and was
deported to India. In 1990 John H. Waller (1923-2004) authored “Beyond
the Khyber Pass: The Road to British Disaster in the First Afghan War.”
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)(SSFC, 11/7/04, p.A23)
1839-1842 Shah Shuja was installed as Afghan "puppet
king" by the British.
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
1839-1842 The Opium War between Britain and China
started when Beijing tried to stop Western imports of the narcotic. The
British won by steaming gunboats up the Yangtze River to the Grand
Canal an then cutting off grain and other supplies to Beijing.
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.D4)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R51)
1839-1846 Richard Cobden, 'the Apostle of free
trade,' led the Anti-Corn League to remove price controls and import
barriers for wheat.
(HN, 6/3/99)(Econ, 6/5/04, p.10)
1840 Feb 10, Britain's Queen
Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
(HN, 2/10/97)(AP, 2/10/97)
1840 Mar 30, "Beau" Brummell
(b.1778), English dandy and former favorite of the prince regent, died
of syphilis in a French lunatic asylum for paupers. In 2006 Ian Kelly
authored the biography “Beau Brummel.”
(HN, 3/30/99)(WSJ, 5/7/06, p.P9)
1840 May 1, The 1st adhesive
postage stamps, the" Penny Blacks" from England, were issued.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1840 May 21, New Zealand was
declared a British colony. Treaty of Waitangi, signed by Maori chiefs
of New Zealand granted sovereignty over all New Zealand to Queen
Victoria, but only guaranteed the Maoris the land they wished to retain.
(NG, Aug., 1974, C. McCarry, p.197)(AP, 5/21/97)
1840 Jun 2, Thomas Hardy (d.1928),
English novelist and poet, was born in Higher Bockhampton and almost
given up for dead until an observant midwife noticed he was breathing.
He was driven by a sense of somber doom by the failure of his readers
to wake up to the dreary fraud of their beliefs, and he devoted the
last half of his long life to writing poems that expressed his haunted
vision. When Hardy died (1928) his heart was removed and buried in the
churchyard of St. Michael’s in Stinsford in the grave of his first
wife, Emma, and his second wife, Florence. His ashes were buried in the
Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey in London. His work included "Tess
of D'Ubervilles" and "Jude the Obscure."
(SFC, 12/4/94, p. T-4)(V.D.-H.K.p.279)(HN, 6/2/99)
1840 Jul 4, The Cunard Line took
just over 14 days to make its first Atlantic crossing with the paddle
steamer "Britannia", which embarked from Liverpool.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1840 Aug 17, Wilfrid Scawen,
writer (Irish Land League), was born in Blunt, England.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1840 Nov 5, Afghanistan
surrendered to the British.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1840 In London the World
Anti-Slavery Convention was held. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton were denied seats because of their sex.
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.30)
1840 The world's first postage
stamp, "penny black," was issued with a picture of Queen Victoria. Up
to this time postage was collected from the recipient.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1840 William Hislop established
himself as a clockmaker in Biggar, England.
(SFC, 3/16/05, p.G4)
1840 Fanny Burney (b.1752),
English writer, died. Her books included "Evelina." In 1911 she
underwent a mastectomy without anesthesia. In 2001 Claire Harman
authored the biography: "Fanny Burney."
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.M5)
1840s The Duchess of Bedford,
Anna, introduced the first afternoon snack break, the afternoon tea.
(SFC, 5/27/00, p.B3)
1840-1870 In 2005 Liza Picard authored “Victorian
London: The Life of a City 1840-1870.”
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.79)
1840-1911 Henry Broadhurst, English politician:
"Praise undeserved is satire in disguise."
(AP, 1/22/00)
1841 Jan 20, The island of Hong
Kong was ceded to Great Britain from China as part of the concessions
from the Opium War. It became a capitalist bastion as opposed to the
rest of China. The British won the first Opium War and forced China to
open markets to foreign trade. Britain soon established a formal police
force commanded mostly by British officers. Hong Kong returned to
Chinese control in July 1997.
(WSJ, 10/26/95, p.A-1)(SFEC, 11/10/96, Par
p.14)(SFC, 3/11/97, p.A12)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)(AP, 1/20/98)(HN,
1/20/99)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)(WSJ, 2/2/04, p.A12)
1841 Feb 10, Upper Canada and
Lower Canada were proclaimed united under an Act of Union passed by the
British Parliament.
(AP, 2/10/07)
1841 Mar 4, Dion Boucicault's
"London Assurance" premiered in London.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1841 Jul 5, Thomas Cook (b.1808)
opened the 1st travel agency.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1841 Jul 17, The British humor
magazine Punch was first published.
(AP, 7/17/97)
1841 Aug 30, Robert Peel
(1788-1850) became PM of Britain for a 2nd time. This was the 1st
occasion in which Britain’s government was brought down by the votes of
the electorate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Peel)
1841 Nov 2, Following the
British occupation of Kabul during the 1st Afghan War (1839-1842),
Afghans revolted and murdered British envoy, Lt. Col. Sir Alexander
Burnes (1805-1841) and some 23 others. By Jan 1842 the British army
decided to withdraw with its 4,500 Anglo-Indian troops and 10,000 camp
followers. The column was wiped out by Ghilzai tribesmen with their
long-barreled rifles called jezails.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(HN,
11/2/98)(www.indhistory.com/afghan-war-1.html)
1841 Nov 9, Edward VII, King of
England, was born. He succeeded his mother Victoria and served from
1901-1910.
(HN, 11/9/00)
1841 J.M.W. Turner painted his
watercolor “The Blue Rigi: Lake of Lucerne, Sunrise” following a visit
to Switzerland. In 1942 it sold for 1,500 guineas (about $94,000 in
2006 money). In 2006 it sold at auction for $11 million.
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.D4)
1841 Charles Barry laid out
Trafalgar Square.
(WSJ, 4/27/00, p.A24)
1842 cJan 2-12, Akbar Khan, Afghan
hero, was victorious against the British. Out of 4,500 (16,500)
soldiers and 12,000 dependents only one survivor, of a mixed
British-Indian garrison, reached the fort in Jalalabad, on a stumbling
pony. The British retreated from Kabul to Jalalabad. The incident is
the backdrop for George MacDonald Fraser’s novel "Flashman." [see Jan
13]
(WSJ, 4/10/95, A-16)(www.afghan, 5/25/98)(WSJ,
9/20/01, p.A12)
1842 Jan 13, Dr. William Brydon,
badly wounded, reached Jalalabad as the only survivor of a 16,000
person retreat from Kabul. In the 1st British-Afghan War British troops
retreating from Kabul were ambushed and nearly all slaughtered at the
Khyber Pass, even though the Afghans had promised them safe passage
during their withdrawal from the Afghan capital. [see Jan 2-12]
(SSFC, 10/28/01, p.C8)(MC, 1/13/02)
1842 May 13, Composer Sir Arthur
Sullivan was born in London. He collaborated with Sir William Gilbert
in writing 14 comic operas that included "HMS Pinafore."
(AP, 5/13/99)(HN, 5/13/99)
1842 May 14, 1st edition of London
Illustrated News.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1842 Aug 29, Britain & China
signed the Treaty of Nanking and ended the Opium war. The Treaty of
Nanking opened the port of Shanghai to foreigners. The 1997 Chinese
film "The Opium War" was directed by Xie Jin. It was about the events
leading up to the Treaty of Nanking. The treaty of Nanking ceded Hong
Kong Island to Britain in perpetuity.
(AMNHDT, 5/98)(SFC, 5/20/98,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanjing)
1842 Nov 17, Gaetano Donizetti's
Opera "Linda di Chamounix" was produced (London).
(MC, 11/17/01)
1842 Joseph Mallord William Turner
(1775-1851), English painter and printmaker, created his painting “Snow
Storm.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner)
1842 In England the Criminal
Investigation Department, consisting of eight plainclothes detectives,
was set up in London. It later became known as Scotland Yard after its
location in rooms on land around the Great Scotland Yard.
(WSJ, 1/31/08, p.W8)
1842 The British forced their way
through the Khyber Pass. They recaptured Kabul and burned down the
Great Bazaar in retribution before marching back to India.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1842-1924 Alfred Marshall, English economist. He was
the chief founder of the neoclassical school of economics. This school
studies both human behavior and wealth to understand human choices. He
introduced such concepts as consumer's surplus, quasi-rent, elasticity
of demand and the representative firm.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)
1843 Mar 21, Robert W. Southey
(b.1774), British poet laureate and historian, died. In 2006 W. A.
Speck authored the biography “Robert Southey.”
(WSJ, 8/12/06,
p.P8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southey)
1843 Mar 25, England’s Thames
Tunnel opened 18 years after construction began. It was completed under
engineer Isambard Brunel, the son of Marc Brunel, who began the project
in 1824.
(ON, 4/06,
p.9)(www.bris.ac.uk/is/services/specialcollections/brunelchronology.html)
1843 Apr 5, Queen Victoria
proclaimed Hong Kong a British crown colony.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1843 Apr 15, Henry James (d.1916),
US novelist, writer and critic, was born in England. His older brother
was William James, the psychologist and philosopher. Henry James Sr. in
the 1850s dragged his 4 sons and daughter across Europe in search a
“sensual education.” Henry’s first 40 years are documented by Sheldon
M. Novick in "Henry James: The Young Master." There is also a 5-vol.
biography by William Edel. His novels included "The Princess
Casamassima," a work about the folly of radical politics. "It takes a
great deal of history to produce a little literature." In 2008 Paul
Fisher authored “House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James
Family.”
(WSJ, 10/17/96, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/24/97, p.A20)(HN,
4/15/98)(AP, 8/3/98)(WSJ, 6/17/08, p.A21)
1843 Jun 21, The Royal College of
Surgeons was founded from the original Barber-Surgeons Company.
(Camelot, 6/21/99)
1843 Sep, James Wilson
(1805-1860), a Scottish hat maker, founded “The Economist” in London,
England, a magazine devoted to free trade and laissez-faire principles
from its very beginning.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist)(WSJ,
6/6/95, p.A-14)(Econ, 6/28/03, p.13)
1843 Nov 27, Balfe's opera
"Bohemian Girl" was produced in London.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1843 Dec 13, "A Christmas Carol"
by Charles Dickens was published and 6,000 copies were sold. [see Dec
19]
(MC, 12/13/01)
1843 Dec 19, British author
Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, the delightful tale of
miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and his miraculous Yuletide transformation.
Although the story was conceived and written in only a few weeks
because his growing family was in need of money, Dickens' tale of Tiny
Tim, Bob Cratchit and the Spirit of Christmas established a literary
genre and captivated readers. In a review, William Makepeace Thackeray
called A Christmas Carol "...a national benefit, and to every man and
woman who reads it a personal kindness." Dickens went on to write many
more Christmas stories, but his first remains the favorite. [see Dec 13]
(AP, 12/19/97)(HNPD, 12/19/98)
1843 Nelson’s column and the
equestrian statue of George IV were erected in Trafalgar Square.
(WSJ, 4/27/00, p.A24)
1844 May 3, Richard D'Oyly Carte,
opera impresario (Gilbert & Sullivan operas, Ivanhoe), was born in
England.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1844 Jun 6, The
Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was founded in London by
George Williams.
(AP, 6/6/97)(www.ymca.int/index.php?id=15)
1844 Jul 22, William Archibald
Spooner, Anglican clergyman whose slips of the tongue caused words and
syllables to be transposed and gave rise to the term "spoonerisms," was
born in London.
(AP, 7/22/02)
1844 Jul 28, Gerard Manley
Hopkins, English poet and Jesuit priest, was born.
(HN, 7/28/01)
1844 Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
authored his novel “Coningsby.” Disraeli used his young friend George
Smythe as the model for the novel’s scrupulously upright hero.
(WSJ, 9/2/06,
p.P9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coningsby_%28novel%29)
1844 Friedrich Engels (1820-1895),
English socialist, authored “The Condition of the working Class in
England.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Condition_of_the_Working_Class_in_England_in_1844)
1844-1847 Britain experienced a “railway mania” as
Parliament during this period approved 9,500 miles of new railway
lines. About a third never materialized. By 1847 railways soaked up
investments of almost 7% of GDP.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.116)
1845 Mar 17, The rubber band was
patented by Stephen Perry of London.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1845 May 19, The HMS Erebus and
Terror sailed from England under Sir John Franklin to navigate through
the Arctic and find the elusive Northwest passage. All 133 men in the
expedition perished. By 1847 the British Admiralty had received no
reports of Franklin. [see Franklin Jun 11, 1847]
(WSJ, 2/10/95, p.A-7)(www.coolantarctica.com)
1845 Jul 17, Earl Grey (b.1764),
former British prime minister (1830-1834), died. A member of the Whig
Party, he backed significant reform of the British government and was
among the primary architects of the Reform Act of 1832. In addition to
his political achievements, Earl Grey famously gives his name to an
aromatic blend of tea.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grey,_2nd_Earl_Grey)
1845 Oct 12, Elizabeth Fry
(b.1780), English Quaker prisoner reform advocate, died. In 1827 she
published a book called “Observations, on the visiting superintendence
and government of female prisoners.” Since 2002 she has been depicted
on the Bank of England £5 note.
(www.quakerinfo.com/fry.shtml)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Fry)
1845 Benjamin Disraeli, future
British prime minister, authored his novel “Sybil,” a look at class
through the lens of a romance between the daughter of a working class
activist and the aristocratic hero.
(WSJ, 1/10/08, p.W2)
1845 George Smythe (27) stood as
the most articulate of Disraeli’s “Young England” political cabal, a
group of Tories determined to forge an alliance between the laboring
classes and the aristocracy.
(WSJ, 9/2/06, p.P9)
1845 Walter Potter, English
taxidermist, opened his stuffed animal museum in Bramble, south of
London. Admission was 2 cents.
(SFC, 11/29/02, pK8)
1845 The Economist Magazine began
tabulating a food price index.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.11)
1845 The moat of the Tower of
London, built by Edward I, was drained and filled.
(Hem, 9/04, p.71)
1845-1932 Albert Goodwin, a brilliant watercolorist
who traveled widely.
(Hem., 3/97, p.94)
1846 Jan 21, 1st edition of
Charles Dickens' "Daily News."
(MC, 1/21/02)
1846 Jan 25, The dreaded Corn
Laws, which taxed imported oats, wheat and barley, were repealed by the
British Parliament in response to the Irish potato famine of
1845.
(HN, 1/25/99)(WSJ, 3/29/04, p.A8)
1846 Feb 10, British General Sir
Hugh Gough decisively routed Tej Singh’s Sikhs in the Battle of Sobraon.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1846 Jun 15, The United States and
Britain signed a treaty settling a boundary dispute between Canada and
the United States in the Pacific Northwest at the 49th parallel. Great
Britain and the U.S. agreed on a joint occupation of Oregon Territory.
President Polk agreed to a compromise border along the 49th parallel.
The debate over the northwestern border of the United States. The
campaign slogan "54-40 or fight" referred to the debate over the
northwestern border of the United States. The slogan "54-40 or fight"
refers to the north latitude degree and minute where many Americans
wanted to place the border between the U.S. and then Great Britain in
the Pacific Northwest.
(AP, 6/15/97)(HN, 6/15/98)(SFC, 1/25/99, p.A3)(HNQ,
3/28/00)
1846 Aug 10, The US Congress
chartered the Smithsonian Institution, named after English scientist
James Smithson (1765-1836), whose bequest of $500,000 made it possible.
The Smithsonian Institute was born and Joseph Henry became its first
secretary.
(AP, 8/10/97)(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)
1846 Sep 19, Elizabeth Barrett and
Robert Browning eloped.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.T8)(MC, 9/19/01)
1846 A British parliamentary
commission decided on a national railway standard with rails separated
by less than 5 feet. This was a cheaper option than the 7-foot spacing
used by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) for the Royal Albert
railway bridge linking Cornwall and Devon.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.60)
1846 Britain passed the “Public
Baths and Wash Houses Act,” which gave local authorities the power to
raise funds to keep the working classes clean and healthy.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.55)
1846-1852 Lord John Russel was Prime Minister of
England from 1846 to 1852 in his first term.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1847 Jun 11, Dame Millicent
Garrett Fawcett, leader of English women's movement, was born.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1847 Jun 11, A written record was
found in 1859, indicating that Sir John Franklin died on this day, and
that Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848. The crews' deaths
have been attributed to either scurvy or lead poisoning originating
from the solder on food tins. Both ships and the remains of most of the
129 crewmen have never been found. After commissioning three
unsuccessful search expeditions, the British Admiralty posted a reward
for anyone who could ascertain the fate of the crewmen of the HMS
Erebus and Terror, who had sailed from England in May 1845 to navigate
through the Arctic and find the elusive Northwest passage. Success was
anticipated with Franklin commanding well-equipped crews and ships, but
by 1847, the British Admiralty had received no reports of Franklin.
Subsequent expeditions found evidence of the Franklin Expedition. Three
graves dug into the permafrost were discovered in 1850 on Devon Island,
their headstones dated 1846. [see May 1845 and 1850]
(HNQ, 6/11/98)(HN, 6/11/99)(ON, 11/03, p.12)
1847 Oct 6, Charlotte Bronte’s
novel "Jane Eyre" was published in London. [see Oct 16]
(SFEC, 12/8/96, p.C21)(HN, 10/6/00)
1847 Oct 16, Charlotte Bronte's
book "Jane Eyre" was published. [see Oct 6]
(MC, 10/16/01)
1847 Anthony Trollope published
his first novel.
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)
1847 John Edwards began operating
a pottery in Longton and later Fenton, Staffordshire, England.
Operations continued to 1900.
(SFC, 12/5/07, p.G2)
1847 Britain passed a Vagrancy Act
to combat begging as famine swept Ireland.
(AP, 11/25/08)
1847 In Ireland a new British Poor
Law dumped the cost of relief on the already strapped Irish landlords.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A1)
1847 Mauritius, a British ruled
island nation, issued the two-pence “Post Office” Blue Mauritius
postage stamp along with a similar one penny orange stamp. They became
very rare and in 1904 Britain’s King George V acquired a Blue Mauritius
for £1,450.
(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W9)
1848 Feb 26, Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels published "The Communist Manifesto".
(HN, 2/26/98)
1848 Feb 27, Charles Hubert H.
Parry, musicologist, composer (Jerusalem), was born in England.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1848 Jul 18, W.G. Grace (d.1915),
British cricket player, was born in Bristol. He has been widely
acknowledged as the greatest cricket player of all time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._G._Grace)
1848 Jul 25, Arthur James Balfour
(d.1930), the First Earl of Balfour and prime Minister of Great Britain
(1902-1905), was born: "A religion that is small enough for our
understanding would not be large enough for our needs."
(AP, 11/14/97)(HN, 7/25/98)
1848 Jul 29, An Irish rebellion
against British rule was put down in a cabbage patch in Tipperary,
Ireland. Irish Nationalists under William Smith O'Brien were overcome
and arrested.
(HN, 7/29/98)(MC, 7/29/02)
1848 Aug, Henry Walter Bates,
British naturalist, traveled the rain forest of the Amazon estuary.
(NH, 6/97, p.30)
1848 Sep 24, Branwell Bronte,
brother of the Bronte sisters and the model for Hindley Earnshaw in
Emily's novel "Wuthering Heights," died of tuberculosis.
(www.bronte.info/brontes/Patrick_Branwell_Bronte.asp)
c1848 Ellen Terry (d.1928), one of
the great English actresses of the 19th century, was born. Her parents,
Ben and Sarah Terry, lived on the edge of poverty, earning meager wages
as strolling theatrical players who traveled from town to town. Ellen
was their second child; six more children survived. All the Terry
children expected to follow their parents on to the stage and by the
age of nine, Ellen appeared on the London stage as Mamillius, the son
of King Leontes in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.
(WUD, 1994 p.1466)(HNQ, 8/31/01)
1848 Anne Bronte wrote her novel
"The Tenant of Wildfell Hall."
(WSJ, 10/16/97, p.A20)
1848 England passed a Public
Health Act to improve the lot of the working classes.
(Econ, 5/1/04, p.59)
1848 Britain introduced khaki
uniforms for British colonial troops in India.
(WSJ, 5/28/02, p.B1)
1848 A new cholera epidemic struck
in London.
(ON, 5/05, p.8)
1848-1887 Richard Jefferies, English author: "The
very idea that there is another idea is something gained."
(AP, 9/21/98)
1849 Feb 13, Lord Randolph
Churchill, was born. He was an English politician, Winston Churchill's
father and member of Parliament.
(HN, 2/13/99)
1849 Feb 21, In the Second Sikh
War, Sir Hugh Gough’s well placed guns won a victory over a Sikh force
twice the size of his at Gujerat on the Chenab River, assuring British
control of the Punjab for years to come.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1849 May 28, Anne Bronte,
novelist, died.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1849 Dec 12, Marc Brunel (b.1769),
the initiating engineer of England’s Thames Tunnel, died.
(ON, 4/06,
p.9)(www.bris.ac.uk/is/services/specialcollections/brunelchronology.html)
1849 John Snow (1813-1858),
English obstetrician, authored his 39-page pamphlet “On the Mode of
Communication of Cholera.” He presented evidence that the disease was
spread through contaminated water.
(ON, 5/05,
p.8)(www.johnsnowsociety.org/johnsnow/facts.html)
1849 Water-borne cholera killed
some 14,000 people in London.
(Hem., 12/96, p.127)
1850 Jan 29, Ebenezer Howard,
pioneer of garden cities, was born in London.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1850 Apr 16, Thomas Sidney
Gilchrist, British metallurgist and inventor, was born.
(HN, 4/16/01)
1850 Apr 23, William Wordsworth
(b.1770), English poet, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth)
1850 May, An American expedition,
organized by shipping magnate Henry Grinnell, departed to the Canadian
Arctic to search for Sir John Franklin and his 1845 Expedition. In late
August it joined with British rescue ships. They soon found 3 graves
dug into the permafrost of Beechey Island with headstones dated 1846. A
written record was found in 1859, indicating that Franklin died on June
11, 1847, and that Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848. The
crews’ deaths have been attributed to either scurvy or lead poisoning
originating from the solder on food tins. Both ships and the remains of
most of the 129 crewmen have never been found.
(HNQ, 6/11/98)(ON, 6/09, p.3)
1850 Jul 2, Sir Robert Peel
(b.1788), former British prime minister (1834-35 and 1841-46), died. He
founded the Conservative Party and the London Police Force whose
officers were called "bobbies." In 2007 Douglas Hurd authored “Robert
Peel: A Biography.”
(HN, 2/5/99)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.93)
1850 Jun 4, A self deodorizing
fertilizer was patented in England.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1850 Jul 26, The final design for
London’s Great Council Exhibition, the first-ever World’s Fair, was
officially approved. The structure of the glass and iron
building, designed by Joseph Paxton, was essentially completed by
Jan 1, 1851. The Exhibition opened May 1.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A16)(ON, 7/04, p.12)
1850 Nov 19, Lord Tennyson became
the British poet laureate.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1850 England established its 1st
public libraries.
(Econ, 5/1/04, p.59)
1850 A mob in Athens burned down
the home of a British citizen. In response Viscount Palmerston,
Britain’s foreign secretary, called for a blockade of Greece.
(Econ, 7/15/06, p.56)
1850-1933 Augustine Birrell, English author and
statesman: "History is a pageant and not a philosopher."
(AP, 9/10/97)
1850s English inventor Alexander
Parkes is credited with being the first to make plastic in the 1850s.
Parkes' plastic was a cellulosic made by treating a mixture of cotton
and nitric acid with camphor. In the United States, John and Isaiah
Hyatt developed a similar plastic in 1869 as a substitute for ivory in
the manufacture of billiard balls, which they called celluloid. The
first completely synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was produced in 1909 by
Dr. Leo H. Bakeland.
(HNQ, 5/8/98)
1851 Feb 1, Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley (53), novelist (Frankenstein), died.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1851 May 1, The Great Council
Exhibition, the first-ever World’s Fair, opened in London’s Hyde Park.
Some 6 million people came to see the new glass and iron Crystal
Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton (1823-1865). Paxton used roof
ventilators and underground air-cooling chambers to regulate indoor
temperature.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A16)(ON, 7/04, p.12)(Econ, 12/4/04,
TQ p.17)
1851 Jul 8, Sir Arthur John Evans,
English archaeologist who excavated Knossos, Crete, was born.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1851 Aug 22, The Schooner America
outraced the Aurora in the Solent, a stretch of sea separating the Isle
of Wight from England proper, to win a trophy that became known as the
America’s Cup. For 132 years the New York Yacht Club defeated all
challengers to retain the prestigious America’s Cup, the record for the
longest winning streak in sports history. The Liberty lost it to the
Australia II in 1983.
(AP, 8/22/97)(SFEC, 10/1/00, p.T4)(SSFC, 4/15/07,
p.G4)
1851 Oct 10-1851 Oct 31, In
London, England, Richard Manks began his feat of walking 1,000 miles in
1,000 hours at the Surrey cricket ground.
{Britain, World Record}
(ON, 12/05, p.6)
1851 Nov 13, The London-to-Paris
telegraph opened.
(HN, 11/13/98)
1851 Dec 19, Joseph Mallord
William Turner, English painter and printmaker, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner)
1851 Matthew Coates Wyatt created
his dog sculpture of the Earl of Dudley’s Newfoundland Bashaw. It was a
star exhibit at the Great Exhibition.
(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A19)
1851 Big Ben, the tower clock of
the House of Parliament in London, was designed by Edmund Beckett
Denison. He was assisted by clockmaker Edward John Dent and Sir George
Airy, the royal astronomer. Originally the name "Big Ben" referred only
to the clock’s huge bell.
(SFC, 9/30/98, Z1 p.3)
1851 Paul Julius Reuter
(1816-1899), a German-born immigrant, began transmitting stock-market
quotes between London and Paris over the new Dover-Calais submarine
telegraph cable.
(http://about.reuters.com/home/aboutus/history/informationandinnovation.aspx)
1852 Jan 17, At the Sand River
Convention, the British recognized the independence of the Transvaal
Board.
(HN, 1/17/99)
1852 Feb 11, The 1st British
public female toilet opened at Bedford Street in London.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1852 Feb 26, The British frigate
Birkenhead sank off South Africa and 458 died.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1852 Apr 29, The first edition of
Peter Mark Roget’s Thesaurus was published. Roget (1779-1869) was a
London physician of French-Swiss ancestry who began to collect and
organize English words to improve his public speaking.
(HN, 4/29/98)(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.B1)
1852 Sep 14, Augustus Pugin
(b.1812), English Gothic architect and designer, died. He had just this
year helped oversee the completion of the new Palace of Westminster and
sketched a design for the clock tower shortly before his death. In 2007
Rosemary Hill authored “God’s Architect: Pugin and the Building of
Romantic Britain.
(Econ, 8/11/07,
p.74)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Pugin)(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.W14)
1852 Sep 14, Arthur Wellesley
(b.1769), General and Duke of Wellington, died at 83.
(http://en.wikipedia.org)
1852 Nov 10, Dr. Gideon Mantell
(b.1790), obstetrician and English fossil hunter, died from an overdose
of opium.
(ON, 7/06,
p.4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Mantell)
1852 Nov 27, Ada Lovelace
(b.1815), Lord Byron’s daughter and the inventor of computer language,
was bled to death by physicians at age 36. She had helped Charles
Babbage develop his "Analytical Engine," that performed mathematical
calculations through the use of punched cards.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.D7)(SFC, 4/30/98, p.E1)
1852 In England the Victoria and
Albert Museum was founded by Henry Cole as the South Kensington Museum
and later named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. It was the
first museum to collect and exhibit photography. Charles Thurston
Thompson was the first "superintendent of photography."
(WSJ, 11/4/97, p.A20)(WSJ, 3/24/98, p.A20)
1852 Lady Charlotte Guest took
over the helm of Dowlais Iron Co. after her husband died. [see 1759]
(SFC, 2/16/04, p.A1)
1852-1853 Charles Dickens (1812-1870) authored his
novel Bleak House in 20 monthly installments. It castigated the
insufferable delays of the legal process in Britain. In the novel he
describes a fictional court case, Jarndyce v Jarndyce, which concerns
the fate of a large inheritance. It has dragged on for many generations
prior to the action of the novel, so that, by the time it is resolved
late in the narrative, legal costs have devoured nearly the entire
estate. The case is thus a byword for an interminable legal proceeding.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarndyce_and_Jarndyce)(WSJ, 2/24/07,
p.P10)
1853 Apr 7, Dr. John Snow
administered chloroform to Queen Victoria at the birth of her 8th
child, Prince Leopold.
(ON, 5/05, p.9)
1853 Oct 13, Lillie Langtry
(d.1929), British actress, was born. "The sentimentalist ages far more
quickly than the person who loves his work and enjoys new challenges."
She started the California Guenoc and Langtry Estate wineries.
(AP, 7/27/98)(HN, 10/13/00)(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.C8)
1853 Oct, Henry Bessemer
(1813-1898), English mechanical engineer, invented a new type of
artillery shell. He presented it to the War Department for use in the
Crimean War, but they were not interested. He then offered it to
France’s Napoleon III, who agreed to test the shells. The larger shells
demanded a new type of cannon made of stronger metal, which led to his
experiments in making iron.
(ON, 9/06, p.4)
1853 Matthew Arnold wrote his poem
"Scholar Gypsy."
(SFEC, 8/20/00, p.T9)
1853 Hormuzd Rassam (1826-1910),
Mosul-born Assyrian, and Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894), British
archeologist, uncovered ancient Assyrian tablets at Nineveh (Iraq).
Layard published his paper on Assyrian-Egyptian Cross-Dating. By using
seal-impressions of rulers occurring on the same piece of clay, Layard
was able to assign a date to the Assyrian dynasty because the Egyptian
ruler’s reign was firmly dated.
(RFH-MDHP, 1969, p.59)(ON, 11/07,
p.4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormuzd_Rassam)
1853-1902 Cecil Rhodes, imperialist. He discovered a
vast lode of diamonds at Kimberley and founded the De Beers Mining Co.
He ran for Cape parliament in 1881 and was prime minister of the Cape
Colony from 1890-1896. He founded Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) for mineral
speculation and endowed the Rhodes scholarships upon his death with
£3 million.
(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)
1854 Feb 23, Great Britain
officially recognized the independence of the Orange Free State.
(HN, 2/23/99)
1854 Mar 1, The SS City of
Glasgow, a steamship of the Inman Line, left Liverpool harbor with 480
passengers and was never seen again.
(SC, 3/1/02)(WSJ, 7/1/03, p.D8)
1854 Mar 28, During the Crimean
War, Britain and France declared war on Russia.
(AP, 3/28/97)
1854 May 5, English pirate
Plumridge robbed along pro-English Finnish coast.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1854 May 24, Louis Mountbatten,
admiral (WW I), was born.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1854 Jun 21, The first Victoria
Cross was awarded to Charles Lucas, an Irishman and mate aboard the HMS
Hecla for conspicuous gallantry at Bomarsrund in the Baltic. The medal
was made from metal from a cannon captured at Sebastopol.
(Camelot, 6/21/99)
1854 Sep 14, Allied armies,
including those of Britain & France, landed in Crimea.
(MC, 9/14/01)
1854 Oct 16, Oscar Wilde,
dramatist, poet, novelist and critic, was born. [see 1856-1900]
(HN, 10/16/98)
1854 Oct 25, During the Crimean
War, a brigade of British light infantry was destroyed by Russian
artillery as they charged down a narrow corridor in full view of the
Russians. The Crimean War is largely remembered for the Charge of the
Light Brigade, a hopeless but gallant British cavalry charge against a
heavily defended Russian force. The battle began when the Russians
attacked the British-French supply depot at Balaclava near Chersonesos,
some eight miles from Sevastopol, on the Black Sea Crimean Peninsula.
Taken by surprise, the British counterattacked but failed to follow up.
Through a staff error, Gen. Lord Cardigan's Light Brigade of 673
horsemen was ordered to charge the Russian position through a mile-long
valley and prevent them from carrying away some captured cannon. The
Light Brigade advanced up the valley, taking casualties all the way,
and reached the guns. But once there, they could not hold their
position and were forced to retreat. Of the 673 men who took part in
the senseless charge, only 195 were present at roll call that night.
The Charge of the Light Brigade ended the battle, but Balaclava
remained in the hands of the British-French Allies. The event was
described in a poem by Tennyson.
(SFC,12/190/97, p.F6)(AP, 10/25/97)(HNPD,
10/25/98)(HN, 10/25/98)
1854 Nov 5, The British and French
defeated the Russians at Inkerman, Crimea.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1854 Nov, A wooden boat called
Mystery set sail from Cornwall, bound for Australia with seven
Cornishmen hoping to escape their lives of poverty and dig for gold
Down Under, a trip that eventually took 116 days.
(AFP, 10/21/08)
1854 Dec 9, Alfred, Lord
Tennyson's poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," was published in
England.
(AP, 12/9/97)
1854 Charles Wheatstone, British
cryptologist, invented cipher to be used by diplomats, but a government
official worried that it was too complicated. In 2006 Stephen Pincock
authored “Codebreaker” a tale of codes and ciphers as well as their
creators and crackers.
(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.P12)
1854 Phillip Morris began making
cigarettes in London.
(SFC, 9/27/97, p.E3)
1854 Florence Nightingale
(1820-1910) nursed wounded soldiers at Scutari Hospital in Turkey
during the Crimean War.
(HNQ, 4/29/01)
1854 Cholera broke out in London
again. Dr. John Snow traced it to cesspool near a public water pump on
Broad Street.
(ON, 5/05, p.9)
1854 Robert Swinhoe (1836-1877),
English naturalist, became the British council in Amoy (later Xiamen,
China). Over the next 2 decades he collected and counted some 650
Chinese species of birds. In 1860 He became the first British
representative on Formosa (later Taiwan).
(Econ, 12/20/08,
p.67)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Swinhoe)
1855 Jan 25, Dorothy Wordsworth
(b.1771), English prose writer and the sister of poet William
Wordsworth (1770-1850), died. In 2009 Frances Wilson authored “The
Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth.”
(WSJ, 2/19/09,
p.A17)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dwordsw.htm)
1855 Feb 5, Viscount Palmerston
(70) became Britain's prime minister and served until his death in 1865.
(PC, 1992, p.273)
1855 Mar 31, Charlotte Bronte
(b.1816), English author (Jane Eyre), died.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1855 Jun 15, Stamp duty on British
newspapers was abolished.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1855 Jun 17, Heavy French-British
shelling of Sebastopol killed over 2000.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1855 Aug 4, John Bartlett, a
Cambridge bookseller, published the 1st edition of "Bartlett’s Familiar
Quotations."
(WSJ, 10/18/02, p.W17)(MC, 8/4/02)
1855 The English Commons voted for
an inquiry into the conduct of the Crimean campaign.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.67)
1855 In England Edward Agar led
the Great Bullion Robbery of a mail train with a railroad guard as an
accomplice. In 1998 Donald Thomas published "The Victorian Underworld,"
on the emergence of the urban criminal class in Britain.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, BR p.8)
1856 Feb 14, Frank Harris,
journalist, writer (My Life & Loves), was born in England.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1856 Mar 5, Covent Garden Opera
House was destroyed in a fire.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1856 Apr 29, A peace treaty
between England and Russia was signed.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1856 Jun 8, The British resettled
194 people from Pitcairn Island onto Norfolk Island.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.66)
1856 Jul 26, George Bernard Shaw
(d.1950), Irish-born, English dramatist, critic and social reformer
(Pygmalion-Nobel 1925), was born in Dublin. "The worst sin toward our
fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them;
that's the essence of inhumanity."
(V.D.-H.K.p.237)(HN, 7/26/98)(AP, 3/15/00)
1856 Aug, Henry Bessemer, English
mechanical engineer, presented a paper titled “The Manufacture of Iron
Without Fuel.” In 1860 he established the Bessemer Steel Works in
Sheffield. His Bessemer conversion process revolutionized the steel
industry.
(ON, 9/06, p.6)
1856 Oct 8, Chinese police boarded
the British vessel Arrow, arrested 12 Chinese crewmen on suspicion of
piracy and lowered the British flag. This began the 2nd Anglo-Chinese
War.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.911)(MC, 10/8/01)
1856 Dec 18, Joseph John Thomson,
English physicist, was born. He discovered the electron and won a Nobel
Prize in 1906.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1856 General limited liability was
introduced in Britain.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.117)
1856 The British Board of Ordnance
(BO) mark was replaced by the War Department (WD) mark.
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.44)
1856 The Victoria Cross was
created to honor soldiers of the British Empire during the Crimean War
who showed particular gallantry in the face of enemy attack. All the
crosses were made from the bronze of Russian cannons captured in the
Crimea.
(AP, 4/27/05)
1856 William Thomson, later Lord
Kelvin, discovered the property of magneto-resistance. The change in
some materials of electrical resistance under a magnetic field was
later used in data storage systems.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.89)
1856-1900 Oscar Wilde, English [Irish] writer, poet
and dramatist, a rebel of every kind, ended up playing the part of a
mocking fool. He despaired of his countrymen ever waking up, but they
did, for they became enraged by his mockery and jailed him, ruining his
life. He wrote the play "The Importance of Being Ernest." He was found
guilty of violating the Criminal Law Amendment Act which prohibited
indecent relations between consenting adult males. He served 2 years in
prison where he read the whole of Dante and wrote the letter "De
Profundis," and the poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." "At every single
moment of one's life one is what one is going to be no less than what
one has been." [see 1854]
(V.D.-H.K.p.279)(HT, 3/97, p.71)(AP, 10/10/99)
1857 Feb 22, Lord Robert
Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout Movement, was born in London.
(AP, 2/22/07)
1857 Mar 3, Under pretexts,
Britain and France declared war on China.
(HN, 3/3/99)
1857 Apr, The Royal Society held
their first meeting in Burlington House in London after moving over
from Somerset House. They were soon joined by the Linnean Society and
the Royal Society of Chemistry.
(Econ, 9/15/07,
p.104)(www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=41482)
1857 May 10, The Seepoys of India
revolted against the British Army. The Bengal Army, Indian soldiers in
the British army, staged a revolt in what is viewed as the first
attempt at independence.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(HN, 5/10/98)
1857 May 11, Indian mutineers
against the British seized Delhi.
(HN, 5/11/98)
1857 Jun 2, Edward Elgar
Broadheath, English composer (Pomp & Circumstance), was born in
Worcester, England.
(AP, 6/2/07)
1857 Jun 30, Charles Dickens read
from "A Christmas Carol" at St. Martin's Hall in London--his first
public reading. [see 1843]
(HN, 6/30/01)
1857 Jul 15, British women and
children were murdered in the second Cawnpore Massacre during the
Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1857 Jul 29, James Holman (1786),
former British lieutenant in the Royal Navy, died in London. An illness
in 1810 left him blind. In 1822 he set off on a journey to travel
around the world. In 2006 Jason Roberts authored “A Sense of the World:
How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler.”
(SSFC, 6/4/06, p.M1)
1857 Sep 5, Charles Darwin first
outlined his theory of evolution in a letter to American botanist Asa
Gray dated September 5, 1857. The leading botanist of his time, Gray
was one of the founders of the National Academy of Science.
(HNQ, 3/14/99)
1857 Nov 23, George Smythe
(b.1818), 7th Viscount Strangford, died. In 2006 Mary S. Millar
authored “Disraeli’s Disciple: The Scandalous Life of George Smythe.”
(http://tinyurl.com/mhqn3)(WSJ, 9/2/06, p.P9)
1857 Dec 31, Britain's Queen
Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1857 Charles Dickens (1812-1870),
English novelist, completed his serial novel “Little Dorrit.”
(WSJ, 7/19/08,
p.W6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Dorrit)
1857 Thomas Hughes authored "Tom
Brown’s School Days."
(WSJ, 7/111/00, p.A26)
1857 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882),
British novelist, authored his novel “Barchester Towers," which
explored the mixed motives of various characters. The book established
his fame.
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.P9)
1857 The Reading Room of the
British National Library opened. It was designed by Sydney Smirke. His
brother, Sir Robert Smirke, had designed the British Museum 7 years
earlier. The design met the wishes of Sir Anthony Panazzi, the Italian
librarian. Its copper dome, supported by 20 cast iron ribs,
measured 140 feet.
(SFC,10/23/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 2/9/00, p.A24)
1857 The British Matrimonial
Causes Act proclaimed that a husband’s legal responsibilities went on
after a marriage ended.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.E3)
1857 Dean Richard Trench lectured
on the need for a complete English dictionary at the London Library and
the project was soon undertaken by The Philological Society.
(WSJ, 9/14/98, p.A30)
1858 Jan 25, Britain's Princess
Victoria (the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert),
married Crown Prince Frederick William (the future German Emperor and
King of Prussia) at St. James's Palace. The ceremony's
tradition-setting music, personally selected by the Princess Royal,
included the "Bridal Chorus" from Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin" and the
"Wedding March" by Felix Mendelssohn.
(AP, 1/25/08)
1858 Feb, British explorers Sir
Richard Burton and John Speke (1827-1864) explored Lake Tanganyika,
Africa.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/speke_john_hanning.shtml)
1858 Mar 21, British forces in
India lifted the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 3/21/99)
1858 Apr 10, London’s Big Ben bell
was cast at the Whitechapel Foundry in East London. It was placed into
St. Stephen’s Tower at the Houses of Parliament.
(SFC, 4/11/08, p.A16)
1858 May 28, Dion Boucicault's
"Foul Play," premiered in London.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1858 Jun 16, Dr. John Snow
(b.1813), English obstetrician, died of a stroke. He is considered the
father of epidemiology for his efforts in documenting the spread of
cholera in London epidemics.
(ON, 5/05, p.10)
1858 Jul 1, The Darwin-Wallace
theory of evolution was 1st read at a meeting of the Linnaean Society
of London.
(NH, 2/02, p.75)
1858 Jul 14, Emmeline Pankhurst,
British suffragist and founder of the Women's Social and Political
Union, was born in Manchester, England.
(HN, 7/14/98)(AP, 7/14/08)
1858 Jul 23, Jewish Disabilities
Removal Act was passed by British Parliament.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1858 Jul 26, Baron Lionel de
Rothschild became the 1st Jew elected to British Parliament.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1858 Jul-1858 Aug, The summer
Great Stink, aka The Big Stink, took place when the smell of untreated
sewage almost overwhelmed people in central London, England. This
persuaded the government to commission Sir Joseph Bazalgette to lay
down a new network of sewers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink)(WSJ,
10/21/06, p.P8)
1858 Aug 16, A telegraphed message
from Britain’s Queen Victoria to President Buchanan was transmitted
over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable. The cable linked Ireland
and Canada and failed after a few weeks.
(AP,
8/16/97)(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/e_inquiry.html)
1858 Henry Gray (1827-1861),
English anatomist and surgeon, authored the textbook “Gray’s Anatomy.”
It defined the genre and dissected the body along thematic lines. The
illustrations were by Henry Vandyke (1831-1897) In 2008 Ruth Richardson
authored “The Making of Mr Gray’s Anatomy: Bodies, Books, Fortune,
Fame.”
(http://streetanatomy.com/blog/?p=48)(Econ,
11/15/08, p.99)(WSJ, 3/27/09, p.W6)
1858 Florence Nightingale
published her “Notes on matters affecting the health, efficiency and
hospital administration of the British army,” in which she presented a
new form of data display later known as “Nightingale’s Rose” or
Nightingale’s coxcomb.” This year she also became the first female
fellow of the Statistical Society of London.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.74)
1858 In England the Covent Garden
Royal Opera House was constructed in London. In 1997 it was scheduled
for a $361 million refurbishment and slated to reopen in Dec, 1999.
(SFC, 7/14/97, p.E3)
1858 The East India Company was
abolished and the British government assumed the administration of
India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1858-1943 Beatrice Potter Webb, English sociologist:
"Religion is love; in no case is it logic."
(AP, 11/8/98)
1859 Mar 26, A.E. Houseman
(d.1936), critic, classics scholar and poet, was born. He is best
known for his work "A Shropshire Lad." A 1997 fictionalized portrait of
Houseman, "The Invention of Love: Memory Play," was written by Tom
Stoppard.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.T9)(SFC, 1/15/00, p.B1)(HN,
3/26/01)
1859 Apr 14, Charles Dickens' "A
Tale Of Two Cities" was published.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1859 May 22, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle (d.1930), author of the Sherlock Holmes series, was born in
Edinburgh, Scotland. He wrote 4 novels featuring Sherlock Holmes.
"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly
recognizes genius." In 1999 Daniel Stashower published the biography:
"Teller of Tales."
(AP, 6/17/97)(HN, 5/22/98)(WSJ, 4/12/99, p.A21)
1859 Aug 28, Leigh Hunt (b.1784),
English poet and essayist, died. He is remembered for his immortal
couplet: “The Two divinist things this world has got: / A lovely women
in a rural spot. In 2005 Nicholas Roe authored “Fiery Heart: The first
Life of Leigh Hunt.” Anthony Holden authored “The Wit in the Dungeon:
The Life of Leigh Hunt.”
(RTH, 8/28/99)(Econ, 1/29/05, p.80)(WSJ, 12/6/05,
p.D8)
1859 Sep 15, Isambard Brunel
(b.1806), engineer of England’s Thames Tunnel, died. He was the son of
Marc Brunel, the engineer who initiated the project. Isambard is best
known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous
steamships, including the first with a propeller, and numerous
important bridges and tunnels. In 2002 R. Angus Buchanan authored
“Brunel: The Life and Times of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel)(ON, 8/07, p.7)
1859 Nov 24, British naturalist
Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," which explained
his theory of evolution.
(V.D.-H.K.p.280)(WSJ, 2/24/97, p.A20)(AP, 11/24/97)
1859 Dec 8, Thomas De Quincey
(b.1785), English essayist, died. In 2006 his essays on murder were
collected and published under the title “On Murder.” He is best know
for his famous “Confessions of an Opium Eater” (1821).
(WSJ, 6/9/07,
p.P8)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029613/Thomas-De-Quincey)
1859 Dec 28, Thomas Babington
Macaulay (b.1800), English essayist, historian and politician, died. He
was one of the first to advocate Indian independence, albeit on the
grounds of English commercial self interest.
(www.britannica.com)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.48)
1859 There was a rain of tiny fish
over England.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.E4)
1859-1927 Jerome K. Jerome, English author and
humorist: "It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has
plenty of work to do."
(AP, 5/30/97)
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1860