English actor Henry Irving plays what becomes one of his most famous parts, that of Mathias in the melodrama The Bells

Stanley, finding Livingstone at Ujiji, greets him with four words which become famous – 'Dr Livingstone, I presume'

George Eliot publishes Middlemarch, in which Dorothea makes a disastrous marriage to the pedantic Edward Casaubon

Whistler begins to paint his Nocturnes, a revolutionary series of night-time images on the river Thames

The Ballot Act adds to the British electoral system the essential element of secrecy in voting

Conservative leader Benjamin Disraeli, at the age of 70, begins a 6-year term of office as Britain's prime minister

Major Walter Wingfield secures a patent for Sphairistike, a game he has developed at his home in Wales, from which lawn tennis evolves

English author Thomas Hardy has his first success with his novel Far from the Madding Crowd

Charles Stewart Parnell takes his seat in the House of Commons at Westminster and immediately adds zest to the campaign for Home Rule

William Crookes invents the radiometer, in which light causes four vanes to rotate in a bulb containing gas at low pressure

After spending much time in Europe in recent years, Henry James moves there permanently and settles first in Paris

Benjamin Disraeli buys for Britain a controlling share in the Suez Canal, with money borrowed from Lionel Nathan de Rothschild

An agreement is signed between France and Britain to cooperate in the construction of a tunnel beneath the Channel

Henry James's early novel Roderick Hudson is serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and is published in book form in 1876

The chaotic government finances of Egypt are placed under joint French and British control

William Gladstone's pamphlet Bulgarian Horrors, protesting at massacre by the Turks, sells 200,000 copies within a month

Henry James moves to London, which remains his home for the next 22 years

India becomes the 'jewel in the crown' of Queen Victoria when Benjamin Disraeli secures for her the title Empress of India

English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins develops a new verse form that he calls 'sprung rhythm'

English cricketer W.G. Grace scores a record 344 runs, playing for the Marylebone Cricket Club against Kent at Canterbury

Lewis Carroll publishes The Hunting of the Snark, a poem about a voyage in search of an elusive mythical creature

The first Test match is played in Melbourne between English and Australian cricket teams, with victory going to Australia

The first lawn-tennis championships are organized by the All-England Croquet Club at Wimbledon

On a wave of jingoism Benjamin Disraeli sends six British ironclads, in support of Turkey, to confront the Russians near Istanbul

William Crookes develops a special tube, now known as the Crookes tube, for the study of cathode rays