Richmond's railway bridge, the first to cross the Thames, is built to continue the line on towards Windsor

The Palm House, today "the world's most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure" is completed. Although originally told to hide it among trees, Kew's director William Hooker succeeds in placing it in a prominent position, thanks to support from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Prince Albert is the driving force behind the plans for a Great Exhibition in London

Local painter and photographer George Hilditch sets up his easel under Richmond's new railway bridge

Expelled from Germany after the year of revolutions, Marx makes his home in tolerant London

Whitton Place is demolished and the grounds are rejoined with Whitton Park.

The Kneller Hall Training School for the Teaching of Pauper and Criminal Children opens with Dr Frederick Temple as Principal.

Lord and Lady Russell of Pembroke Lodge found the Russell School in Petersham

Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace, built in London in six months, is the world's first example of prefabricated architecture

Marian Evans (her new spelling of her name) moves to London and gets a job as subeditor of Westminster Review

In London's Great Exhibition numerous examples of Pugin's designs and craftsmanship are displayed by different exhibitors

The Great Exhibition attracts six million visitors to London's new Crystal Palace in a period of only six months

After the establishment of the Royal Botanical Gardens, a library and herbarium is opened at Hunter’s House on north-west side of Kew Green.

The first Metropolis Water Act is passed which forbids the taking of water by the water companies from the tidal Thames and this leads to the establishment of what was to become Hampton Waterworks

Queen Victoria opens the new Houses of Parliament, designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Welby Pugin

The church of St Mary Magdalen in Mortlake, designed in Gothic style by Gilbert Blount, is completed

The Mortlake brewery, after passing through several hands, is acquired by the Phillips family

London physician Peter Mark Roget publishes his dictionary of synonyms, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases

The Fleet sewer is in need of repair

The Russian revolutionary and exile Alexander Herzen spends much of this year in St Helena Terrace before moving to Twickenham

English physician John Snow proves that cholera is spread by infected water (from a pump in London's Broad Street)

A London editor decides to send a reporter, William Howard Russell ('Russell of The Times'), to the Crimean front

Calling themselves Mr and Mrs Lewes, Marian and George move into lodgings at 7 Clarence Row in East Sheen

Marian Evans (George Eliot) and G.H. Lewes move into lodgings at 8 Parkshot in Richmond, with Mrs Croft as their landlady

Frances restores and enlarges Strawberry Hill including the addition of the Waldegrave Drawing Room, spending in excess of £100,000.