1856 in the United Kingdom explained
Events from the year 1856 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Events
- 12 February – American clipper ships Driver and Ocean Queen leave Liverpool and London respectively; both will be lost without trace in the Atlantic, perhaps due to ice, killing 374 and 123 respectively.[3]
- 5 March – fire destroys Covent Garden Theatre in London.[4]
- 15 March – the Boat Race 1856, first of the annual series rowed between Cambridge and Oxford University Boat Clubs on the River Thames in London; Cambridge wins.
- 31 March – the Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Crimean War.
- 19 April – the iron-hulled paddle steamer (launched on the Clyde, 1855) sets out from Liverpool on a 9-day, 16-hour transatlantic crossing at an average 13.11 knots (24.28 km/h) to regain the Blue Riband for the Cunard Line.
- 9 July – Natal becomes a Crown Colony.[5]
- 29 July – Education Department Act creates the post of Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education.[6]
- 15 July – an underground explosion at the Cymmer Colliery in the Rhondda kills 114 men and boys.[7] [8]
- 3 September – the Royal British Bank collapses with debts in excess of £500,000.[4]
- 22 September – Robert Mushet patents improvements to the Bessemer process for the production of steel.[9]
- 8 October
- 1 November – Anglo-Persian War: War is declared between Britain and Persia in response to a Persian invasion of Afghanistan with the objective of capturing Herat.
- November – the first known rules of modern croquet are registered by Isaac Spratt in London.[10]
- 1 December – under the County and Borough Police Act, in any county or area where a police force has not already been established, the Justices of the Peace must from this date take steps to create one according to nationally defined standards.[11]
- 2 December – National Portrait Gallery, London, formally established.[12]
- 9 December – Bushehr surrenders to the British.
Unknown date events
Publications
Births
- 5 February – Frank Podmore, psychical researcher (died 1910)
- 14 February – Frank Harris, Irish-born author, editor and socialite (died 1931)
- 4 March
- 8 March – Bramwell Booth, Salvation Army General (died 1929)
- 12 April – William Martin Conway, art critic and mountaineer (died 1937)
- 15 April – Tom Mann, trade unionist (died 1941)
- 28 April – Bernhard Gillam, political cartoonist (died 1896)
- 22 June – H. Rider Haggard, adventure novelist (died 1925)
- 26 July – George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born playwright and critic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1950)
- 8 August – Thomas Anstey Guthrie, comic novelist 'F. Anstey' (died 1934)
- 10 August – William Willett, promoter of daylight saving time (died 1915)
- 15 August – Keir Hardie, Scottish trade unionist and politician, founder of the Independent Labour Party (died 1915)
- 6 October – William Shea, actor (died 1918)
- 23 October – William Thomas Turner, Cunard ship's captain (died 1933)
- 14 November – J. M. Robertson, Liberal Party politician, writer and journalist, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (died 1933)
- 1 December – Malcolm Smith, politician (died 1935)
- 11 December – Edward John Bevan, chemist, partner of Charles Frederick Cross (died 1921)
- 18 December – J. J. Thomson, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1940)
- 25 December – Samuel William Knaggs, civil servant in the West Indies (died 1924)
Deaths
- 4 January – Charles Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Marquess of Ailesbury, politician (born 1773)
- 17 February – John Braham, operatic tenor (born c. 1774)
- 25 February – George Don, botanist (born 1797)
- 6 March – Thomas Attwood, economist and political reformer (born 1783)
- 14 June – William Palmer, "The Rugeley Poisoner", physician and probable serial murderer, hanged (born 1824)
- 14 July – Edward Vernon Utterson, lawyer, literary antiquary, collector and editor (born 1775/6)
- 6 August – Robert Lucas de Pearsall, composer (b. 1795)
- 14 August – William Buckland, geologist, palaeontologist and theologian (born 1784)
- 29 August – Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, Christian writer (born 1778)
- 30 August
- 1 September – Sir Richard Westmacott, sculptor (born 1775)
- 19 October – Josceline Percy, admiral (born 1784)
- 1 November – John Urpeth Rastrick, railway engineer (born 1780)
- 21 November – James Meadows Rendel, civil engineer (born 1799)
- 23 November – Thomas Seddon, landscape painter, in Egypt (born 1821)
- 28 November – Frederick William Beechey, explorer (born 1796)
- 23/24 December – Hugh Miller, Scottish geologist, suicide (born 1802)
Notes and References
- Web site: Music-About Wales. Welsh Assembly Government. 2010. 2010-12-03. Visit Wales. https://web.archive.org/web/20101206201656/http://www.visitwales.co.uk/about-wales-guide-to-wales-culture-people-and-language/welsh-music-pop-rock-traditional/. 6 December 2010. dead.
- Web site: Welsh anthem – The background to Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. 2010-12-03. BBC Cymru Wales. 1 December 2008. BBC Cymru Wales history.
- News: Missing Ships – The Gales of the Past Winter - A Melancholy Catalogue. The New York Herald. 12. 3 June 1856. 2019-06-18. Library of Congress.
- Book: Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 0-14-102715-0. 2006.
- Book: Palmer, Alan. Palmer . Veronica. 1992. The Chronology of British History. Century Ltd. London. 276–277. 0-7126-5616-2.
- Web site: Education in England: a history. Derek. Gillard. 2018. HDA. 2020-10-24.
- Web site: Porth & Cymmer. Rhondda Cynon Taf Library Service Heritage Trail. 2010-10-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20110110044120/http://webapps.rhondda-cynon-taf.gov.uk/heritagetrail/rhondda/porth/porth.htm. 10 January 2011. dead.
- Web site: Cymmer Colliery disaster. Welsh Coal Mines. 2010-10-15.
- Book: van Dulken, Stephen. Inventing the 19th Century: the great age of Victorian inventions. London. British Library. 2001. 0-7123-0881-4. 30.
- Book: Hooper, Max. Croquet History. Isaac Spratt, a Forgotten Pioneer of Croquet. Hawaii. Maui Croquet Club.
- Book: Friar, Stephen. The Sutton Companion to Local History. rev.. Stroud. Sutton Publishing. 2001. 0-7509-2723-2. 243.
- Web site: Gallery history. National Portrait Gallery. 2011-08-26. 20 September 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160920220655/http://www.npg.org.uk/about/history.php. dead.
- The Story of Stanley Gibbons. Michael. Briggs. Gibbons Stamp Monthly. 52–59. 2011-01-14. July 2006. https://web.archive.org/web/20070927225330/http://www.gibbonsstampmonthly.com/Journals/GSM/Gibbons_Stamp_Monthly/July_2006/attachments/sgstory.pdf. 27 September 2007. dead.
- Book: Leavis, Q. D.. Fiction and the Reading Public. 2nd. London. Chatto & Windus. 1965.