1865 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1865 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
- Monarch â Victoria
- Prime Minister â Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (Liberal) (until 18 October); John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (Liberal) (starting 29 October)
Events
- 3 March â Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, founded by Scottish businessman Thomas Sutherland, begins operation in British Hong Kong.[1]
- 4 April â official opening of Crossness Pumping Station, a major landmark in completion of the new London sewerage system designed by Joseph Bazalgette for the Metropolitan Board of Works.[1]
- 28 May â the Mimosa sets sail, carrying Welsh emigrants to Patagonia.
- May â national outbreak of rinderpest in British cattle first appears in Islington; it continues until September 1867.[2]
- JuneâAugust â Francis Galton formulates eugenics.[3]
- 4 June â the lyrics of the hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers", written by Sabine Baring-Gould as "Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners", are first sung by children processing to St Peter's Church, Horbury, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.[4]
- 7 June â Rednal rail crash in Shropshire: 13 killed, 30 injured.
- 9 June â Staplehurst rail crash in Kent: 10 killed, 49 injured; Charles Dickens is amongst the survivors.
- 25 June â James Hudson Taylor founds the China Inland Mission at Brighton.
- 26 June â Jumbo, a young male African elephant, arrives at London Zoo and becomes a popular attraction.
- 29 June â new Poor Law Act improves conditions in workhouses.[5]
- 2 July â the Christian Mission, later renamed The Salvation Army, is founded in Whitechapel, London by William and Catherine Booth.[1][6]
- 4 July â Lewis Carroll's children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published by Macmillan in London for Daresbury-born Oxford don Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Carroll),[1][5] three years after it was first narrated to Alice Liddell and her sisters. He and his illustrator, John Tenniel, withdraw this edition from UK distribution[7] and the first trade editions are published on 26 November and released in December (dated 1866).
- 5 July
- Speed limit in Britain originally introduced by the Locomotive Act 1861 is reduced by the Locomotives Act 1865 â becoming 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country.[6]
- Legal case of St Helen's Smelting Co v Tipping decided in the House of Lords: a landowner is entitled to recover damages for harm done to his trees by fumes from a copper smelter.[8]
- 14 July â a party led by Edward Whymper makes the first ascent of the Matterhorn.[1]
- 23 July â the SS Great Eastern departs on a voyage to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable.[1]
- 11â24 July â general election won by the Liberal Party led by Lord Palmerston.[9]
- September â John Henry Walsh (writing as 'Stonehenge' in the magazine The Field) gives the first definition of a dog breed standard (for the pointer) based on physical form.[10]
- 13 September â Gladiateur completes the English Triple Crown by finishing first in the 2,000 Guineas, Epsom Derby and St Leger.
- 28 September â Elizabeth Garrett Anderson becomes the first woman openly to qualify as a doctor in the UK,[6] by licence from the Society of Apothecaries in London (which immediately amends its regulations in a way that prevents other women from following her example). By the end of the year, she establishes her own medical practice in the West End of London.[11]
- 11 October â Morant Bay rebellion: An unsuccessful uprising against British rule at Morant Bay, Jamaica, is brutally suppressed with 400 rebels executed.[5]
- 29 October â Lord John Russell becomes Prime Minister following the death of Lord Palmerston on 18 October.[1]
- 6 November â American Civil War: Surrender to HMS Donegal at Liverpool of the Confederate commerce raider CSS Shenandoah.
- 11 November â Duar War with Bhutan ends with the Treaty of Sinchula, in which Bhutan cedes control of its southern passes to Britain in return for an annual subsidy.[1]
- 16 December â Edward John Eyre, governor of Jamaica, is dismissed and censured for his excessive actions during the suppression of the recent rebellion.[5]
Undated
- James Clerk Maxwell publishes A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field.[1][12]
- Joseph Lister begins to experiment with antiseptic surgery in Glasgow using carbolic acid.[1]
- Fisherman's Friend menthol remedy developed by pharmacist James Lofthouse of Fleetwood.
- Aveling and Porter produce the world's first steam roller at Rochester, Kent.[13]
- Nottingham Forest F.C. is founded, playing its first match in 1866.
Publications
- Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
- Charles Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend (publication concludes).[5]
- Robert Smith Surtees' novel Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds (posthumous).
- A. C. Swinburne's narrative poem Atalanta in Calydon.
- Anthony Trollope's novel Can You Forgive Her? (publication concludes).
Births
- 23 January â Connie Gilchrist, Countess of Orkney, child actress and model (died 1946)
- 9 April â Violet Nicolson ('Laurence Hope'), poet (suicide 1904)
- 2 June â George Lohmann, cricketer (died 1901)
- 3 June â King George V (died 1936)
- 15 July â Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, newspaper and publishing magnate (died 1922)
- 15 August â Louisa Aldrich-Blake, surgeon (died 1925)
- 26 August â Arthur James Arnot, Scottish-Australian electrical engineer, inventor (d. 1946)
- 12 October â Arthur Harden, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1940)
- 20 October â Sir Rhys Rhys-Williams, 1st Baronet, judge (died 1955)
- 27 October â Tinsley Lindley, footballer (died 1940)
- 4 December â Edith Cavell, nurse (executed 1915)[14]
- 30 December â Rudyard Kipling, writer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1936)
Deaths
- 8 January â John Dobson, architect (born 1787)
- 6 February â Mrs Isabella Beeton, writer on household management and cookery (born 1836)
- 11 March â Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk, explorer (born 1804 in Freiburg)
- 2 April â John Cassell, publisher and entrepreneur (born 1817)
- 30 April â Robert FitzRoy, meteorologist and admiral (born 1805; suicide)
- 27 May â Charles Waterton, naturalist and explorer (born 1782)
- 8 June â Sir Joseph Paxton, gardener and architect (born 1803)
- 25 July â Dr James Barry, military surgeon, revealed on death to be a woman, probably Margaret Ann Bulkley (born 1789â1799)
- 28 July â William Henry Smith, businessman (born 1792)
- 12 August â Sir William Hooker, botanist (born 1785)
- 24 August â Charles Baillie-Hamilton, politician (born 1800)
- 8 September â William Henry Smyth, astronomer and admiral (born 1788)
- 18 October â Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister (born 1784)
- 19 October â William King, physician and philanthropist (born 1786)
- 1 November â John Lindley, botanist (born 1799)
- 8 November â Tom Sayers, boxer (born 1826)
- 12 November â Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell, novelist and biographer (born 1810)
- 16 November â Sir Horatio Thomas Austin, naval officer and explorer (born 1800)
- 24 December â Sir Charles Eastlake, painter (born 1793)