1849 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1849 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Events
- 13 January â Second Anglo-Sikh War: British forces retreat from the Battle of Chillianwala.
- 22 January â Second Anglo-Sikh War: The city of Multan falls to the British East India Company following the Siege of Multan.
- FebruaryâMay â Shareholder enquiries into the conduct of railway financier George Hudson begins his downfall.
- 1 February â Abolition of the Corn Laws by the Importation Act 1846 comes fully into effect.
- 17 February â 65 people, almost all under the age of 20, are crushed to death in a panic caused by a small fire in the Theatre Royal, Glasgow.[1]
- 21 February â Second Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Gujrat â British East India Company forces defeat those of the Sikh Empire in Punjab.
- 1 March â Nathaniel Cooke registers the design of the Staunton chess set, which is first marketed in September by Jaques of London with an endorsement by Howard Staunton.
- 3 March â The Arana-Southern Treaty with the Argentine Confederation ends British involvement in the Anglo-French blockade of the RÃo de la Plata.
- 30 March â The Second Anglo-Sikh War ends with the U.K. annexing the Punjab.
- 21 April â Great Famine (Ireland): 96 inmates of the overcrowded Ballinrobe Union Workhouse die over the course of the preceding week from illness and other famine-related conditions, a record high. This year's potato crop again fails and there are renewed outbreaks of cholera.[2]
- May â First exhibition of paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in London: John Everett Millais' Isabella and Holman Hunt's Rienzi at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Girlhood of Mary Virgin at the Free Exhibition on Hyde Park Corner.
- 19 May â Irishman William Hamilton arrested after shooting blank shots at Queen Victoria on Constitution Hill, London.[3]
- 26 June â Navigation Acts repealed.[4]
- Summer
- The Buckinghamshire Assizes are removed from Buckingham to Aylesbury.[5]
- Karl Marx moves from Paris to London, where he will spend the remainder of his life.
- 2â12 August â Visit of Queen Victoria to Cork, Dublin and Belfast.[6]
- 9 August â "The Bermondsey Horror": Swiss-born Marie Manning and her husband, Frederick, murder her lover Patrick O'Connor in London. On 13 November, they are hanged together publicly before a large crowd by William Calcraft outside Horsemonger Lane Gaol for the crime.[7]
- 13 December â A foundation stone of Llandovery College is laid.
- 17 December â A customer, probably Edward Coke, collects the first bowler hat (devised by London hatmakers Thomas and William Bowler) from hatters Lock & Co. of St James's.[8]
Undated
- Two shilling coin (florin), depicting the Queen crowned, introduced, partly to test public opinion on possible decimalization of the currency.[9]
- Bedford College (London) founded by Elizabeth Jesser Reid as the Ladies College in Bedford Square, a non-sectarian higher education institution to provide a liberal female education.
- The drapers' store of Arthur & Fraser, predecessor of the House of Fraser, is established in Glasgow by Hugh Fraser and James Arthur.[10]
Ongoing
- The 1846â1860 cholera pandemic claims 52,000 lives in England and Wales between 1848 and 1850.
Publications
- Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley (published as by Currer Bell).
- Thomas De Quincey's essay The English Mail-Coach (in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, OctoberâDecember).
- Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield begins serialisation (May).
- J. A. Froude's controversial novel of religious doubt The Nemesis of Faith.[11][12][13]
- John Ruskin's essay The Seven Lamps of Architecture (May).
- Notes and Queries first published (November).
- Who's Who first published.
Births
- 13 February â Lord Randolph Churchill, statesman (died 1895)
- 22 May â Aston Webb, architect (died 1930)
- 11 July
- N. E. Brown, English plant taxonomist (died 1934)
- Rollo Russell, son to the serving Prime Minister (died 1914)
- 24 November â Frances Hodgson Burnett, author (died 1924)
- 29 November â John Ambrose Fleming, electrical engineer and inventor (died 1945)
Deaths
- 9 January â William Siborne, Army officer and military historian (born 1797)
- 19 February â Bernard Barton, poet (born 1784)
- 20 March â James Justinian Morier, diplomat and novelist (born 1780)
- 22 May â Maria Edgeworth, novelist (born 1767)
- 25 May â Sir Benjamin D'Urban, general and colonial administrator (born 1777)
- 28 May â Anne Brontë, author (born 1820)[14]
- 30 June â William Ward, cricketer (born 1787)
- 12 July â Horace Smith, poet (born 1779)
- 31 August â Peter Allan of Marsden, eccentric (born 1799)
- 6 September â Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich (born 1779)
- 16 September â Thomas Jones, missionary (born 1810)
- 20 October â Richard Ryan, biographer (born 1797)
- 13 November â William Etty, painter (born 1787)
- 27 November â Henry Seymour (Knoyle), politician (born 1776)
- 2 December â Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, queen dowager of William IV (born 1792)
- 12 December â Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, engineer (born 1769 in France)