1879 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1879 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Events
- 1 January â Benjamin Henry Blackwell opens the first Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford.[1]
- 8 January â British army occupies Kandahar in Afghanistan.[2]
- 11 January â Anglo-Zulu War begins.
- 22 January â Zulu troops led by King Cetshwayo massacre British troops at the Battle of Isandlwana. At Rorke's Drift, outnumbered British soldiers drive the attackers away after hours of fighting.[3]
- 3 February â Mosley Street in Newcastle upon Tyne becomes the world's first public highway to be lit by the electric incandescent light bulb, invented by Joseph Swan.[4]
- March â the standard design of pillar box reverts to a cylindrical shape (the "anonymous" style cast by Andrew Handyside and Company).[5]
- 2 March â murder of Julia Martha Thomas at Richmond upon Thames.
- 12 March â Anglo-Zulu War: At the Battle of Intombe, a British force over one-hundred strong is ambushed and destroyed by Zulu forces.
- 13 March â marriage of The Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, third son of Queen Victoria, to Princess Louise Marguerite of Prussia.
- 28 March â Anglo-Zulu War: British forces suffer a defeat at the Battle of Hlobane.[3]
- 29 March â Anglo-Zulu War: Battle of Kambula â British forces defeat 20,000 Zulus.
- 3 April â Anglo-Zulu War: British forces successfully lift the two-month Siege of Eshowe.
- 12 May â John Henry Newman elevated to Cardinal.
- 26 May â Russia and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Gandamak establishing an Afghan state.
- JuneâAugust â the wettest summer in England and Wales since records began in 1766, and the equal seventh-coolest since the CET series begins in 1659.[6]
- 6 June â William Denny and Brothers launch the world's first ocean-going ship to be built of mild steel, the SS Rotomahana, at Dumbarton.[7]
- 14 June â Sidney Faithorn Green, an Anglican priest in the Church of England, is tried and convicted for using Ritualist practices.
- 4 July â the Anglo-Zulu War effectively ends with British victory at the Battle of Ulundi.[2]
- 16 August â Fulham F.C. founded in London as the Fulham St Andrew's Church Sunday School football club.
- 19 August â the foundation stone of the fourth Eddystone Lighthouse is laid by The Prince of Wales and The Duke of Edinburgh.[3]
- September â Doncaster Rovers F.C. formed by railway fitter Albert Jenkins.
- 18 September â Blackpool Illuminations lit for the first time.[3]
- 2 October â William Denny and Brothers launch the world's first transatlantic steamer to be built of mild steel, the SS Buenos Ayrean, at Dumbarton for Liverpool owners. On 1 December she makes her maiden voyage out of Glasgow for South America.[8]
- 13 October â first female students admitted to study for degrees at the University of Oxford, at the new Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville Hall and with the Society of Oxford Home-Students.[2]
- 17 October â Sunderland A.F.C. is formed as 'Sunderland and District Teachers A.F.C.' in the North East.
- 27 October â Liverpool Echo newspaper first published.[3]
- NovemberâMarch 1880 â probably the longest ever fog in the city's history engulfs London.[9]
- December â the world's first Christmas grotto opens in Lewis's Liverpool department store as 'Christmas Fairyland'.
- 15â23 December â Second Anglo-Afghan War: British victory at the Siege of the Sherpur Cantonment.
- 28 December â the Tay Bridge Disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses in a storm as a train passes over it, killing 78.[2]
- 30 December â the comic opera The Pirates of Penzance is first presented in Paignton, Devon[3] in a token performance for U.K. copyright reasons; the world première is given the following day in New York City, the only Gilbert and Sullivan work to have its official debut outside England.
- 1 January to 31 December â the combination of the severest winter since 1814, a late spring, an exceptionally cool summer and a cold dry autumn produces the third-coldest year in the CET series and the coldest since 1740,[10] with an annual mean of 7.44 °C or 45.39 °F.
Undated
- Gabardine is invented by Thomas Burberry, founder of the Burberry fashion house in Basingstoke.[11]
- School meals provided for destitute and poorly nourished children in Manchester.
Publications
- Kate Greenaway's first book, with her own colour illustrations, Under the Window: Pictures & Rhymes for Children.
- Silas Hocking's novel Her Benny.[12]
- George Meredith's novel The Egoist.
- Anthony Trollope's last Palliser novel The Duke's Children (serialised in All the Year Round).
- The Boy's Own Paper first published (19 January).
Births
- 1 January
- E. M. Forster, novelist (died 1970)
- Ernest Jones, psychoanalyst (died 1958)
- 8 January â Charles Bryant, actor and director (died 1948)
- 10 January â Bobby Walker, Scottish footballer (died 1930)
- 13 January â William Reid Dick, sculptor (died 1961)
- 28 January â Una Duval, née Dugdale, suffragette (died 1975)
- 26 February â Frank Bridge, composer (died 1941)
- 5 March â William Beveridge, economist and social reformer (died 1963)
- 20 April â Robert Wilson Lynd, essayist and writer (died 1949)
- 26 April â Owen Willans Richardson, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1959)
- 29 April â Thomas Beecham, conductor (died 1961)
- 19 May â Viscount Waldorf Astor, businessman and politician (died 1952)
- 25 May â Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Canadian-British business tycoon, politician and writer (died 1964)
- 30 May â
- Colin Blythe, bowler (cricket) (killed on active service 1917)
- Vanessa Bell, painter (died 1961)
- 4 June â Mabel Lucie Attwell, illustrator (died 1964)
- 6 June â Patrick Abercrombie, town planner (died 1957)
- 13 July â Alan Wace, archaeologist (died 1957)
- 15 July â Joseph Campbell, poet and lyricist (died 1944)
- 1 August â William Percival Crozier, editor of The Manchester Guardian (died 1944)
- 7 August â James Peters, black rugby union international (died 1954)
- 13 August â John Ireland, composer (died 1962)
- 27 September â Cyril Scott, composer and writer (died 1970)
- 10 December â E. H. Shepard, artist and book illustrator (died 1976)
- 23 December â Louise Hampton, English actress (died 1954)[13]
- 27 December â Sydney Greenstreet, actor (died 1954)
Deaths
- 22 January â John Vivian, Liberal MP, member of the Vivian family, 60[14]
- 18 February â Rayner Stephens, radical reformer and Methodist minister (born 1805)
- 25 February â Charles Peace, criminal (executed) (born 1832)[15]
- 3 March
- William Kingdon Clifford, geometer and philosopher (born 1845)
- William Howitt, historical writer and poet (born 1792)
- Annie Keary, novelist, poet and children's writer (born 1825)
- 22 March â Sir John Woodford, general and archaeologist (born 1785)
- 23 March â Sir Walter Trevelyan, naturalist and geologist (born 1797)
- 8 April â Sir Anthony Panizzi, librarian (born 1797 in Italy)
- 21 April â George Hadfield, radical politician (born 1787)
- 25 April â Charles Tennyson Turner, poet (born 1808)
- 4 May â William Froude, hydrodynamicist (born 1810)
- 8 May â Henry Collen, royal miniature portrait painter (born 1797)
- 10 May â Robert Thompson Crawshay, ironmaster (born 1817)[16]
- 3 June â Frances Ridley Havergal, religious poet (born 1836)[17]
- 7 June â William Tilbury Fox, dermatologist (born 1836)[18]
- 3 August â Joseph Severn, painter (born 1793)
- 10 August â George Long, classical scholar (born 1800)
- 20 August â Sir John Shaw-Lebevre, barrister, Whig politician and civil servant (born 1797)
- 19 September â Clara Rousby, actress (born 1848)[19]
- 23 September â Francis Kilvert, diarist (peritonitis) (born 1840)[20]
- 26 September â Sir William Rowan, field marshal (born 1789)
- 5 November â James Clerk Maxwell, physicist (born 1831)[21]
- 6 December â John Bentinck, 5th Duke of Portland (born 1800)
- 11 December â William Thomas (Gwilym Marles), minister and poet (born 1834)[22]
- 13 December â William Calcraft, hangman (born 1800)