istoryworld
Events relating to england
Prince Albert dies of typhoid, plunging Victoria into forty years of widowhood and deep mourning
Mrs Henry Wood publishes her first novel, East Lynne, which becomes the basis of the most popular of all Victorian melodramas
Under the title Romola, George Eliot's story of Savonarola in Florence begins publication (completed in August 1863)
Oxford mathematician Lewis Carroll tells 10-year-old Alice Liddell, on a boat trip, a story about her own adventures in Wonderland
George Eliot, now prosperous, moves with G.H. Lewes into the Priory, a splendid house near Regent's Park
British architect George Gilbert Scott designs a memorial for Prince Albert in Kensington Gardens
English author Charles Kingsley publishes an improving fantasy for young children, The Water-Babies
The Metropolitan Railway, the world's first to go underground, opens in London using steam trains between Paddington and Farringdon Street
48-year-old Julia Margaret Cameron is given a camera by her daughter, in the Isle of Wight, and decides to concentrate on portraits
The Marylebone Cricket Club, arbiter of cricket, finally rules that overarm bowling is legitimate
The First International is established in London, with Karl Marx soon emerging as the association's leader
Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell presents to the Royal Society his discoveries in the field of electromagnetics, now known collectively as Maxwell's Equations
English surgeon Joseph Lister introduces the era of antiseptic surgery, with the use of carbolic acid in the operating theatre
Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a development of the story he had told Alice Liddell three years earlier
A committee to campaign for women's suffrage is formed in Manchester, the first of many in Britain
Palmerston dies in office, and is succeeded as leader of the Liberal government in Britain by his foreign secretary, Earl Russell
A pressure group for penal reform in Britain is named after the great prison reformer John Howard
George Eliot publishes Felix Holt the Radical, based on her childhood memories of the period of the great Reform Bill in 1832
Russell's government falls, and Lord Derby returns for the third time, but again briefly, as Britain's prime minister
Algernon Swinburne scandalizes Victorian Britain with his first collection, Poems and Ballads
Britain's new Reform Act extends the franchise to working men in British towns
The first volume of Das Kapital is completed by Marx in London and is published in Hamburg
The world's first croquet tournament takes place in Evesham and is won by Walter Jones-Whitmore
The Queensberry rules, named after the Marquess of Queensberry, introduce padded gloves in boxing, and rounds of three minutes
Benjamin Disraeli becomes British prime minister for the first time, at the head of a Conservative government, but only for a few months
