Date |
Event |
20th June 1837 |
Queen Victoria starts her reign over Great Britain and Ireland. |
19th July 1837 |
The SS Great Western is launched, designed by Brunel. |
1838 |
The pedal-driven bicycle is invented by Kirkpatrick Macmillan. |
28th June 1838 |
Queen Victoria’s coronation takes place. |
4th July 1838 |
26 children are killed in an accident at Huskar Colliery in Yorkshire. |
April 1839 |
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens is fully published. |
9th April 1839 |
The first commercial telegraph line is set up, running along the Great Western Railway line. |
1840 |
The Birmingham back-to-back houses are founded. |
10th January 1840 |
The Penny Post starts. |
10th February 1840 |
Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert. |
6th May 1840 |
The Penny Black postage stamp is introduced. |
31st August 1840 |
The Great Western Main Line railway from London to Bristol opens, designed by Brunel. |
23rd September 1840 |
William Fox Talbot invents the calotype positive/negative process for using light sensitive photographic paper to produce photographs. |
5th July 1841 |
The first Thomas Cook tour takes place. |
17th July 1841 |
Punch magazine is founded. |
December 1841 |
Prince Albert brings a Christmas tree over from Germany, decorates it and puts it in Windsor Castle. |
1842 |
The 1842 Mines and Collieries Act prohibits all underground work for women and girls, and for boys under 10. |
25th March 1843 |
Brunel's Thames Tunnel opens to the public. |
19th July 1843 |
The SS Great Britain is launched. |
17th December 1843 |
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is published. |
1844 |
The Ragged School Union is set up, headed by Lord Shaftsbury. |
1844 |
The first co-operative movement is set up in Rochdale. |
1845 |
The New Zealand Maori Wars start over the selling of land to British immigrant settlers. |
1845 |
The Great 'Potato' Famine starts in Ireland - a period of mass starvation caused mostly by their potato crop becoming diseased. |
1845 |
The rubber pneumatic tyre is invented by Robert Thomson. |
1845 |
The first road in the UK is covered with tarmac. |
1847 |
The 1847 Factories Act sets the limit that women and children could not work for more than ten hours per day. |
1849 |
The first glider is built by George Caley. |
October 1850 |
The first Wenlock Olympic Games are held. |
1st May 1851 |
Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations at the Crystal Palace in London. |
1851 |
George Jennings installs the first public toilets at the Great Exhibition. |
22nd June 1852 |
Victoria and Prince Albert buy Balmoral Castle in Scotland. |
1853 |
The Saltaire 'model' village is founded in Yorkshire for workers in a textile factory. |
October 1853 |
The Crimean War starts. |
1854 |
Henry Bessemer finds a way to convert iron into steel. |
25th October 1854 |
The Battle of Balaclava takes place. There are lots of British casualties as the Charge of the Light Brigade takes place. |
November 1854 |
Florence Nightingale arrives at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari, Turkey. |
March 1855 |
Mary Seacole opens the British Hotel near the Crimean War battlefield. |
1st February 1856 |
The Crimean war ends. |
March 1856 |
William Perkin makes a purple dye (aniline) from coal tar - the first artificial dye. |
1857 |
All cities in the UK are required to form their own police force. |
1857 |
Construction starts on developing marsh lands in Llandudno Bay into a holiday resort. |
24th April 1857 |
Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes is published. |
1858 |
Llandudno pier opens to the public. |
31st January 1858 |
The SS Great Eastern steam ship is launched, designed by Brunel. |
16th August 1858 |
Queen Victoria sends one of the first messages across the transatlantic telegraph cable to the US president James Buchanan. |
1859 |
Construction starts on the London sewer system. |
1859 |
Gas lights are installed in the Houses of Parliament in London. |
1859 |
Francis Frith & Co. is opened, the world's first photographic publisher. |
1859 |
A National Standard post box is introduced. |
22nd November 1859 |
Charles Darwin publishes his book On Origin of Species. |
14th December 1861 |
Prince Albert dies. |
1862 |
William Morris designs his first repeating pattern for wallpaper. |
10th January 1863 |
The first London Underground railway opens. |
21st May 1863 |
North Pier in Blackpool is opened. |
1864 |
The first jelly babies are manufactured by Herr Steinbeck in Lancashire. |
8th December 1864 |
Brunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge is opened. |
4th July 1865 |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is published. |
1866 |
The SS Great Eastern is used to lay the first, lasting transatlantic telegraph cable. |
18th November 1869 |
The Suez Canal opens, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean. |
1870 |
Portcurno, in the far west of Cornwall, becomes the hub for international cable communications. The first link stretches from the UK to India. |
1870 |
The 1870 Elementary Education Act gives power to local school boards to start schools. |
1870 |
The first of Dr Barnardo's Homes for poor children is opened. |
1871 |
Joseph List introduces antiseptic (germ-killing) spray. |
1871 |
The 1871 Bank Holidays Act establishes the first Bank Holidays. |
1872 |
The New Zealand Maori Wars end. |
1872 |
The penny-farthing bicycle is invented by James Stanley. |
1873 |
The first chocolate Easter Egg is produced. |
1875 |
Liberty department store opens in London selling decorative furnishing objects. |
1876 |
The safety bicycle is designed by John Lawson. |
7th March 1876 |
Alexander Graham Bell invents the first practical telephone. |
1st May 1876 |
Queen Victoria is given the title Empress of India. |
1877 |
Manchester Town Hall is completed. |
1878 |
The 1878 Factory and Workshops Act stops children under the age of 10 from working. |
1878 |
Joseph Swan invents the first incandescent light bulb. |
1879 |
Listerine mouthwash is created. |
1880 |
The 1880 Elementary Education Act makes it law for every child between the ages of 5 and 10 to go to school. |
20th December 1880 |
The first Boer War starts between the UK and the South African Republic. |
23rd March 1881 |
The first Boer War ends. |
1882 |
The Egypt and Sudan War starts. |
7th March 1883 |
John Brown, Queen Victoria’s personal servant, dies. |
23rd May 1883 |
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is published. |
1885 |
Thomas Twyford invents the single piece, ceramic toilet. |
29th September 1885 |
The first electric street tramway opens in Britain, the Blackpool Tramway. |
1st October 1885 |
Lord Shaftsbury dies. |
1887 |
The first Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is published. |
1891 |
The 1891 Elementary Education Act makes education free for all children. |
1892 |
The 'Snakes and Ladders' board game is introduced.
|
1893 |
Construction starts on the Bournville 'model' town for workers at the Cadbury chocolate factory. |
1893 |
The 1893 Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act raises the school leaving age to 11 years. |
1894 |
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling is published. |
1897 |
Queen Victoria celebrates her Diamond Jubilee for being on the throne for 60 years. |
1898 |
The Egypt and Sudan War ends. |
11th October 1899 |
The second Boer War starts. |
1899 |
The 1893 Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act is amended to raise the school leaving age to 12 years. |
May 1899 |
The Palace Pier in Brighton opens to the public. |
22nd January 1901 |
Queen Victoria dies at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. |