1863 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1863 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Events
- 8 January â Yorkshire County Cricket Club is founded at the Adelphi Hotel in Sheffield.
- 10 January â the first section of the London Underground Railway opens to the public (Paddington to Farringdon Street).[1]
- 7 February â HMS Orpheus sinks attempting to enter Manukau Harbour in New Zealand with the loss of 189 lives.
- 25 February â William Thomson enthroned as Archbishop of York.[2]
- 2 March â Clapham Junction railway station opens in London.
- 10 March â marriage of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) to Princess Alexandra of Denmark (later Queen Alexandra) at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.[3]
- Before 30 March â the government rejects the Greek Assembly's choice of The Prince Alfred as the successor to the deposed Otto of Greece.[1]
- 27 May â Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Crowthorne receives its first patients.
- 4 June â the Eton Boating Song is first performed.
- 15â17 August â Bombardment of Kagoshima: Royal Navy bombards the town of Kagoshima in Japan in retribution after the Namamugi Incident of 1862.
- 20 August â Ladies' London Emancipation Society established as an abolitionist group in support of the Union (American Civil War) by Clementia Taylor at Aubrey House.
- 23 October â Ffestiniog Railway in North Wales introduces steam locomotives into general service, the first time this has been done anywhere in the world on a public railway of such a narrow gauge (2 feet (61 cm)).[4]
- 26 October â the Football Association is founded at the Freemasons' Tavern in Long Acre, London.[1]
- 4â7 November â the ChÅshÅ« Five, having left Japan secretly, arrive in England to study at University College London, part of the ending of sakoku.
- 25 November â the case of Byrne v Boadle introduces the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur into English tort law.[5]
- 8 December â the Football Association laws are agreed.[6]
- 10 December â Tom King, Heavyweight Champion of England, wins the last major bare-knuckle boxing match in England, against the American John C. Heenan at Wadhurst, East Sussex.[7]
- 19 December
- Linoleum patented.[1]
- The first game is played under the new Football Association rules at Mortlake between Ebenezer Morley's Barnes Club and Richmond F.C., ending in a goalless draw.[6]
Undated
- Beginning of Second Anglo-Ashanti War (1863â1864).
- A scarlet fever epidemic causes over 30,000 deaths.[1]
- Richard Owen publishes the first description of a fossilised bird, Archaeopteryx,[1][8] from the specimen in London's British Museum.
- Supposed formation of Stoke City F.C. as Stoke Rovers.
Publications
- Henry Walter Bates's work The Naturalist on the River Amazons.[1]
- Charles Kingsley's children's novel The Water Babies (complete in book form).[9]
- Charles Lyell's work Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, endorsing the views of Charles Darwin.[1]
- Mrs Oliphant's novel Salem Chapel, first of The Chronicles of Carlingford (in book form).
- Ouida's novel Held in Bondage.[10]
Births
- 17 January â David Lloyd George, Prime Minister (died 1945)
- 11 March â Andrew Stoddart, sportsman (died 1915)
- 17 March - Olivia Shakespear, novelist, playwright and patron of the arts (died 1938)
- 27 March â Henry Royce, automobile pioneer (died 1933)
- 5 April â Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, member of the Royal Family (died 1950)
- 18 April â Linton Hope, Olympic yachtsman and yacht and aircraft designer (died 1920)
- 15 May â Frank Hornby, inventor, businessman and politician (died 1936)
- 17 May â Charles Robert Ashbee, designer (died 1942)
- 27 May â Arthur Mold, cricketer (died 1921)
- 13 June â Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, fashion designer (died 1942)
- 19 June â John Goodall, footballer (died 1942)
- 6 July â Reginald McKenna, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1915â1916 (died 1943)
- 21 July â C. Aubrey Smith, actor and cricketer (died 1948 in Beverly Hills)
- 13 September â Arthur Henderson, politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (died 1935)
- 16 October â Austen Chamberlain, statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (died 1937)
- 17 December â Violet Bland, suffragette (died 1940)
- 20 December â Margaret Greville, née Anderson, society hostess and philanthropist (died 1942)
Deaths
- 6 January â Harriet Gouldsmith, landscape painter and etcher (born 1787)
- 9 March â John Gully, sportsman and politician (born 1783)
- 13 April â Sir George Cornewall Lewis, statesman (born 1806)
- 14 August â Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde, soldier (born 1792)
- 24 June â Sir George Elliot, admiral (born 1784)
- 17 September â Charles Robert Cockerell, architect, archaeologist and writer (born 1788)
- 26 September â Frederick William Faber, poet, hymnodist, theologian and Catholic convert (born 1814)
- 6 October â Frances Milton Trollope, novelist and writer (born 1779)
- 8 October â Richard Whately, theologian and archbishop (born 1787)
- 28 October â William Cubitt, building and civil engineering contractor and politician (born 1791)
- 24 December â William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (born 1811)
- 29 December â Joseph John Scoles, Catholic architect (born 1798)