1844 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1844 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Events
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- 28 February â The Grand National at Aintree is won by the 5/1 joint favourite Discount.
- 11 April â Initiation of the Ragged Schools Union.[1]
- 14 April â The murder of Charlotte Dymond in Cornwall.[2]
- 11 May â Major fire at Lyme Regis.[3]
- May â Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge, appointed as Governor-General of India.[4]
- 6 June â George Williams founds the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London.[5]
- 15 June â Factory Act imposes a maximum 12-hour working day for women, and a maximum 6-hour day for children aged 6 to 13.[6]
- 19 July â Bank Charter Act restricts powers of British banks other than the Bank of England to issue banknotes of the pound sterling.[7][8]
- 21 & 27 August â Consecration of two new major urban Roman Catholic churches, both designed by Augustus Pugin, which will in the 1850s be elevated to cathedral status: St Mary's Church, Newcastle upon Tyne and St Barnabas Church, Nottingham. (In October, Pugin occupies The Grange, Ramsgate, a house designed for himself which is influential in the development of domestic Gothic Revival architecture.)[9]
- 28 September â A blackdamp explosion at Haswell Colliery in the Durham Coalfield kills 95, with just four survivors.[10]
- 8 October â Louis-Phillipe, King of the French, arrives in Portsmouth on a visit to Britain.
- 20 October â Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 comes into effect, eliminating many outliers or exclaves of counties in England and Wales for civil purposes.
- 28 October â The Royal Exchange in London opened by Queen Victoria.[11]
- 11 December â Health of Towns Association formed to press for public health improvements.[12]
- 21 December â The Rochdale Pioneers, usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, open their store in Rochdale, forming the basis for the modern cooperative movement.[5]
Undated
- Winsford rock salt mine opens in Cheshire; by 2014 it will be Britain's oldest working mine.[13]
- Ring of bells installed at St John the Evangelist's Church, Kirkham (Lancashire), said to be the first peal rung in an English Roman Catholic church since the Reformation.[14][15]
- "Surplice riots" in Exeter and London break out in opposition to supposed Catholicisation of the Church of England.
- King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony makes an informal summer tour of Britain.
Publications
- Robert Chambers' anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which paves the way for acceptance of Darwin's The Origin of Species.
- Charles Dickens' novel Martin Chuzzlewit (complete in book form) and his Christmas novella The Chimes.
- Benjamin Disraeli's novel Coningsby.
- Henry Fox Talbot's book The Pencil of Nature, the first illustrated with photographs from a camera (publication commences June).
- William Makepeace Thackeray's novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon (serialisation).
Births
- 26 February â Annie Swynnerton, née Robinson, ARA, painter (died 1933)
- 3 May â Richard D'Oyly Carte, theatrical impresario (died 1901)
- 22 July â William Archibald Spooner, scholar, Anglican priest and metathesist (died 1930)
- 28 July â Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (died 1889)
- 6 August â Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, second son of Queen Victoria (died 1900)[16]
- 29 August â Edward Carpenter, socialist poet (died 1929)
- 23 October â Robert Bridges, English poet (died 1930)
- 25 October â Arthur William à Beckett, journalist (died 1909)
Deaths
- 23 January â Sir Francis Burdett, politician (born 1770)
- 15 February â Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1757)
- 6 March â George Meikle Kemp, architect (born 1795)
- 18 March â Paul Storr, silversmith (born 1770)
- 3 April â Edward Bigge, Archdeacon of Lindisfarne (born 1807)
- 27 July â John Dalton, chemist and physicist (born 1766)
- 23 November â Thomas Henderson, Scottish astronomer (born 1798)[17]
- 25 November â Sir Augustus Callcott, landscape painter (born 1779)