1869 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1869 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

* Monarch – Victoria
* Prime Minister – William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal)
* Parliament – 20th

Events

* 7 January – Amateur Swimming Association formed in London.
* 30 January – the new magazine '' Vanity Fair'' publishes the first of a long series of colour lithographic caricatures of public figures, initially by Carlo Pellegrini, portraying Benjamin Disraeli.
* February – Charity Organization Society established in London as the Society for Organising Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicity.
* February–April – the Conservative local authority in Liverpool opens the first council housing in Europe, St Martin's Cottages (tenement flats).
* 6 March – the first international cycle race is held at Crystal Palace, London.
* 31 March – the Conservative Party holds both seats in the Blackburn by-election.
* 21 April – at least fifteen people are killed by collapse of machinery at Delabole Quarry in Cornwall.
* 15 May – General Examination for Women of the University of London first held, sat by the "London Nine".
* 22 May – Sainsbury's first store opened, in Drury Lane, London.
* 2 June – seven men are tried at Mold for attacking a colliery manager following a pay cut. A riot breaks out as those convicted are being transported to the railway station; soldiers fire on the crowd, killing four people.
* 10 June – an underground explosion at Ferndale Colliery in the Rhondda kills 53.
* 24 June – Sea Birds Preservation Act passed, preventing killing of designated species during the breeding season, the first Act to offer any protection to wild birds in the UK.
* 26 July – Irish Church Act disestablishes the Church of Ireland with effect from 1871.
* 2 August – Municipal Corporation (Election) Act ( Municipal Franchise Act) restores to unmarried women ratepayers the franchise to vote in local elections and enables them to become Poor Law Guardians, through an amendment moved by John Bright.
* 9 August
** Debtors Act abolishes indefinite imprisonment for civil debt in England and Wales with effect from 1870.
** Evidence (Further) Amendment Act permits those taking part in legal proceedings to make an affirmation if they conscientiously object to taking an oath.
* 27 August – Oxford University Boat Club wins the first international boat race held on the River Thames against Harvard University.
* October – the 'Edinburgh Seven', led by Sophia Jex-Blake, start to attend lectures at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, the first women in the UK to do so (although they will not be allowed to take degrees).
* 11 October – Red River Rebellion against British forces in Canada.
* 16 October – England's first residential university-level women's college, the College for Women, predecessor of Girton College, Cambridge, is founded at Hitchin by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon.
* 4 November – the first issue of scientific journal ''Nature'' is published in London, edited by Norman Lockyer.
* 19 November – the Hudson's Bay Company surrenders its claim to Rupert's Land in Canada under its letters patent back to the British Crown.
* 22 November – clipper ship ''Cutty Sark'' is launched in Dumbarton, Scotland; she is one of the last clippers built, and the only one to survive in the UK.
* 31 December – last day on which the half farthing coin is legal tender in the U.K.
* undated – first Home Children child migration to Canada.

Publications

*Matthew Arnold's collected essays ''Culture and Anarchy''.
* R. M. Ballantyne's novel '' Erling the Bold''.
* R. D. Blackmore's novel ''Lorna Doone''.
* John Stuart Mill's book ''The Subjection of Women''.
* Hesba Stretton's novel '' Alone in London''.
*First year of publication of Joseph Whitaker's '' An Almanack for the year''.
*Charlotte M. Yonge's novel '' The Chaplet of Pearls''.
*'' The People's Friend'' weekly magazine launched (13 January).

Births

* 26 January – George Douglas Brown, novelist (died 1902)
* 14 February – C. T. R. Wilson, Scottish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1959)
* 3 March – Henry Wood, conductor (died 1944)
* 14 March – Algernon Blackwood, writer (died 1951)
* 18 March – Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister (died 1940)
* 27 March – J. R. Clynes, politician (died 1949)
* 29 March – Edwin Lutyens, architect (died 1944)
* 9 May – Tyrone Power Sr., actor (died 1931 in the United States)
* 18 May – Lucy Beaumont, actress (died 1937)
* 7 June – Lamorna Birch, born Samuel John Birch, painter (died 1955)
* 11 June – Walford Bodie, stage magician (died 1939)
* 17 June – Flora Finch, comic performer, silent film star (died 1940 in the United States)
* 19 June – Christopher Addison, anatomist and politician (died 1951)
* 12 July – Conrad Noel, Anglican vicar and socialist (died 1942)
* 13 July – Florence Perry, opera singer (died 1949)
* 10 August – Lawrence Binyon, poet and scholar (died 1943)
* 16 August – Vincent Lambert, Suspected Vampire (Unknown date of death)
* 6 September – Walford Davies, composer (died 1941)
* 24 September – Maud Cunnington, archaeologist (died 1951)
* 3 October – Robert W. Paul, pioneer of cinematography (died 1943)
* 15 November – Charlotte Mew, poet (suicide 1928)
* 20 November – Herbert Tudor Buckland, seminal Arts and crafts architect (died 1951)
* 26 November – Princess Maud of Wales, queen consort of Norway (died 1938)
* 30 December – Stephen Leacock, humorist and economist (died 1944 in Canada)

Deaths

* 30 January
** Charlotte Alington Barnard, poet and composer (born 1830)
** Frances Catherine Barnard, author (born 1796)
* 7 February – Henry Paget, 2nd Marquess of Anglesey, peer, Whig politician, courtier and cricketer (born 1797)
* 11 March – F. G. Loring, writer and naval officer (died 1951)
* 20 March – John Pascoe Grenfell, admiral in the Brazilian Navy (born 1800)
* 30 April – Sir Arthur William Buller, politician (born 1808)
* 18 May – Peter Cunningham, literary scholar and antiquarian (born 1816)
* 25 May – Sir Charles Fremantle, Royal Navy officer (born 1800)
* 10 June – Frederick Yeates Hurlstone, painter (born 1800)
* 11 July – William Jerdan, journalist (born 1782)
* 2 August – Thomas Medwin, poet, biographer and translator (born 1788)
* 5 August – Emily Eden, poet and novelist (born 1797)
* 8 August – Roger Fenton, photographer (born 1819)
* 11 September – Thomas Graham, chemist (born 1805)
* 12 September – Peter Mark Roget, lexicographer (born 1779)
* 18 September – Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter (born 1778)
* 20 September – George Patton, Lord Glenalmond, judge and politician, suicide (born 1803)
* 23 October – Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Prime Minister (born 1799)
* 9 November – Harriet Windsor-Clive, 13th Baroness Windsor, landowner and philanthropist in Wales (born 1797)

See also

* 1869 in Scotland

References

{{Year in Europe, 1869

Years of the 19th century in the United Kingdom