By 1855 the Southwark and Vauxhall, the Grand Junction and the West Middlesex Water Companies have all established works at Hampton and these are now collectively known as Hampton Waterworks

The Christmas issue of the Illustrated London News includes chromolithographs, introducing the era of colour journalism

The Kneller Hall Training School closes.

In the cramped sitting room that she shares as a study with Lewes, Marian Evans begins writing her first novel, Adam Bede

Russian exile Alexander Herzen, publishes in London a radical newspaper called Kolokol (The Bell)

The old Cromwell House is demolished and a new one, designed by Robert Philip Pope, is completed by June 1858

Kneller Hall is bought by the War Department and reopened as the Military School of Music, later the Royal Military School of music.

The first block of a new building for the Public Record Office is completed in Chancery Lane, City of London, with further extensions added 1868-1899

The stench in central London, rising from the polluted Thames in a hot summer, creates what becomes known as the Great Stink

Chelsea Bridge opens, designed by Thomas Page

Marian Evans and G.H. Lewes move from Parkshot in Richmond to Holly Lodge in Wandsworth

Joseph Bazalgette is given the task of providing London with a desperately needed new system of sewers

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

After a six-year campaign by Sir William Hooker, the government allocates £10,000 for a new conservatory - the Temperate House - to be built to designs by Decimus Burton.

US artist James McNeill Whistler settles in London, which he makes his home for the rest of his life

Work starts on the Temperate House (after the contractor William Cubitt has altered Burton's designs) and the main block and the octagons are completed by 1863. The government then halts the project because of severe cost overruns.

Mortlake’s brewery becomes prosperous through contracts supplying beer (India Pale Ale) to the British army in India

Cotton's Wharf burns

A suspension bridge is completed at Lambeth

The future Cassel Hospital estate, now with a single mansion, is leased for nine years to HRH Robert Philippe, Duc de Chartres, exiled from France along with his grandfather, King Louis Philippe

After more than a century of growing citrus fruits and other plants, the Orangery is turned into a museum.

The Metropolitan Railway, the world's first to go underground, opens in London using steam trains between Paddington and Farringdon Street

York House is acquired on behalf of the Comte de Paris, exiled Orleanist claimant to the French throne.

The First International is established in London, with Karl Marx soon emerging as the association's leader

The Hungerford Railway Bridge, also known as the Charing Cross Railway Bridge, brings trains to Charing Cross Station