1843 in the United Kingdom
| 1843 in the United Kingdom |
| Other years |
| 1841 | 1842 | 1843 | 1844 | 1845 |
| Constituent countries of the United Kingdom |
| England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales |
| Sport |
| 1843 English cricket season |
Events from the year 1843 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
[edit]- Monarch – Victoria
- Prime Minister – Robert Peel (Conservative)
- Foreign Secretary – George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen
Events
[edit]- January – Quaker magazine The Friend begins publication.
- 6 January – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross discovers Snow Hill Island.
- 20 January – Daniel M'Naghten shoots and kills the Prime Minister's private secretary, Edward Drummond, in Whitehall.[1]
- 4 March – M'Naghten is found not guilty of murder "by reason of insanity", giving rise to the M'Naghten Rules on criminal responsibility, and subsequently committed to Bethlem Hospital.[1]
- 24 March – Battle of Hyderabad: The Bombay Army led by Major General Sir Charles Napier defeats the Talpur Mirs, securing Sindh province for the British Raj.
- 25 March – Marc Isambard Brunel's Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel under the River Thames, is opened to pedestrians.[2]
- 27 March – decision in Foss v Harbottle, a leading precedent in English corporate law, declares that in any action in which a wrong is alleged to have been done to a company, the proper claimant is the company itself and not individual shareholders.[3]
- 4 April – William Wordsworth accepts the office of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom following the death of Robert Southey on 21 March.[4]
- April – Protestant Martyrs' Memorial erected in Oxford.[5][6]
- 4 May – Natal proclaimed British colony.[7]
- 18 May – the Disruption of the Church of Scotland takes place in Edinburgh.
- ? May – Blackgang Chine on the Isle of Wight opens as an amusement park.
- 19 July – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain is launched from Bristol.[8]
- 5 August – Sarah Dazley, the last woman to be executed in public in England, is hanged for mariticide outside Bedford Prison.
- 22 August – Theatres Act ends the virtual monopoly on theatrical performances held by the patent theatres, encouraging the development of popular entertainment.[7]
- September – Ada Lovelace translates and expands Menabrea's notes on Charles Babbage's analytical engine, including an algorithm for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, regarded as the world's first computer program.[9][10][11]
- 2 September – The Economist newspaper first published (preliminary issue dated August).
- 1 October – News of the World newspaper first published.[2] It will survive until 2011.
- 3–4 November – the statue of Nelson is placed atop Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London.[2]
- 13 December – Basutoland becomes a British protectorate.[7]
- 17 December – publication of Charles Dickens' novella A Christmas Carol by Chapman & Hall in London at his expense. It introduces the character Ebenezer Scrooge. Released on December 19, the first printing sells out by Christmas Eve[12] and inspires charitable giving.[13]
- December – the world's first Christmas cards, commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London from the artist John Callcott Horsley, are sent.[14]
- Undated
- The Albert helmet, devised in 1842 by the Prince Consort, is adopted by the Household Cavalry.[15][16][17]
- Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society founded as a burial society.
- Marlborough College founded in Wiltshire for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy.
- Alfred Bird produces baking powder for the first time, in Birmingham.[18]
Publications
[edit]- Charles Dickens's novel Martin Chuzzlewit (begins serialisation January) and novella A Christmas Carol.
- John Stuart Mill's book A System of Logic.
- John Ruskin's book Modern Painters, vol. 1.
- Robert Smith Surtees' comic novel Handley Cross.
Births
[edit]- 25 April – Princess Alice, member of the royal family (died 1878)
- 30 June – Ernest Satow, diplomat and scholar (died 1929)
- 5 July – Mandell Creighton, historian and Bishop of London (died 1901)
- 4 September – Jabez Balfour, businessman, politician and fraudster (died 1916)
Deaths
[edit]- 9 January – William Hedley, inventor and locomotive engineer (born 1779)
- 20 February – Mary Hays, writer and feminist (born 1759)
- 21 March – Robert Southey, poet (born 1774)
- 25 March – Robert Murray M'Cheyne, clergyman (born 1813)
- 21 April – Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (born 1773)
- 1 June – William Abbot, actor (born 1798)
- 25 July – Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist (born 1766)[19]
- 16 August – Henry Acton, Unitarian minister (born 1797)
- 18 December – Thomas Graham, Lord Lynedoch, Governor-General of India (born 1748)
References
[edit]- ^ a b Moran, Richard (2004). "McNaughtan, Daniel (1802/3–1865)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39433. Retrieved 2 February 2011. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ a b c Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
- ^ Slapper, Gary (19 June 2008). "The cases that changed Britain: 1785-1869". The Times. Retrieved 16 June 2011.[dead link]
- ^ Pinion, F. B. (1988). A Wordsworth Chronology. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. p. 201. ISBN 0-333-38860-7.
- ^ Lewis, Darcy (2006). "Timeline: Oxford". TimeTravel-Britain.com. Retrieved 18 October 2010.
- ^ "The Martyr's Memorial". Jackson's Oxford Journal. No. 4694. 15 April 1843. p. 3.
- ^ a b c Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 266–267. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
- ^ "Royal Visit". The Bristol Mirror. 20 July 1843. pp. 1–2.
- ^ Fuegi, John; Francis, Jo (October–December 2003). "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 25 (4): 16–26. doi:10.1109/MAHC.2003.1253887.
- ^ "Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace". Archived from the original on 21 July 2010. Retrieved 11 July 2010.
- ^ Menabrea, L. F. (1843). "Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage". Scientific Memoirs. 3. Archived from the original on 13 September 2010. Retrieved 1 October 2010.
- ^ Dickens, Charles (2006). Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert (ed.). A Christmas Carol and other Christmas Books. Oxford world's classics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280694-9.
- ^ The Man Who Invented Christmas (Film). 2017.
- ^ Buday, György (1992). "The history of the Christmas card". Omnigraphics: 8.
- ^ Hoare, Nell; et al. (1990). Exploring Museums: The Home Counties. H.M.S.O. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-11-290471-7.
- ^ Carman, W. Y. (1968). British Military Uniforms from Contemporary Pictures: Henry VII to the Present Day. Arco. p. 132.
- ^ Rankin, Robert H. (1976). Military Headdress: A Pictorial History of Military Headgear from 1660 to 1914. Arms & Armour Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-85368-310-0.
- ^ Cannon, Matthew (3 November 2014). "Alfred Bird: Egg-free custard inventor and chemist". Birmingham Mail. Retrieved 25 February 2018.
- ^ Day, Lance; McNeil, Ian (11 September 2002). Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology. Routledge. p. 786. ISBN 978-1-134-65019-4.