istoryworld
Events relating to england
'Amos Barton' and two other stories are published together, as Scenes of Clerical Life, under the pseudonym George Eliot
The India Act places India under the direct control of the British government, ending the rule of the East India Company
Charles Darwin is alarmed to receive in his morning post a paper by Alfred Russell Wallace, outlining very much his own theory of evolution
Lionel Nathan Rothschild becomes the first Jew to sit in Britain's House of Commons, taking his oath on the Old Testament
Longfellow uses a romantic story of early New England for his narrative poem The Courtship of Miles Standish
The stench in central London, rising from the polluted Thames in a hot summer, creates what becomes known as the Great Stink
English author George Eliot wins fame with her first full-length novel, Adam Bede
Marian Evans reluctantly allows her publisher to admit the truth of rumours that George Eliot is Marian Evans, also known as Mrs Lewes
Joseph Bazalgette is given the task of providing London with a desperately needed new system of sewers
Charles Darwin puts forward the theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species, the result of twenty years' research
Liberal leader Lord Palmerston returns to office as the British prime minister after the collapse of Derby's coalition government
A 13-ton bell is installed above London's Houses of Parliament, soon giving its name (Big Ben) to both the clock and the clock-tower
In On Liberty John Stuart Mill makes the classic liberal case for the priority of the freedom of the individual
Samuel Smiles provides an inspiring ideal of Victorian enterprise in Self-Help, a manual for ambitious young men
Tennyson publishes the first part of Idylls of the King, a series of linked poems about Britain's mythical king Arthur
Charles Dickens publishes his French Revolution novel, A Tale of Two Cities
Edward FitzGerald publishes The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, romantic translations of the work of the Persian poet
US artist James McNeill Whistler settles in London, which he makes his home for the rest of his life
Florence Nightingale opens a training school for nurses in St Thomas's Hospital, establishing nursing as a profession
Charles Dickens begins serial publication of his novel "Great Expectations" (in book form 1861)
George Eliot publishes The Mill on the Floss, her novel about the childhood of Maggie and Tom Tulliver
George Eliot publishes Silas Marner, the story of a miser who loses his gold but finds happiness in adopting a child
English chemist and physicist William Crookes isolates a new element, thallium
Queen Victoria likes Adam Bede so much that she commissions Edward Henry Corbould to paint for her two scenes from the novel
George Eliot is offered £10,000 to write a novel about Savonarola as a 12-part serial in the new Cornhill Magazine
