1840 in the United Kingdom

none August 2020 December 2012 1840 Constituent countries of the United Kingdom England Ireland Scotland Wales Sport 1840 English cricket season Events from the year 1840 in the United Kingdom. Incumbents Monarch – Victoria Prime Minister – William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (Whig) Foreign Secretary – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston Home Secretary – Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of Normanby Events thumb|100px|Penny Black 1 January – Trial of Welsh Chartists John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones for their part in the Newport Rising of 1839 opens at Monmouth before Chief Justice Tindal; this is the first trial where proceedings are recorded in shorthand. 10 January – Uniform Penny Post introduced, replacing the Uniform Fourpenny Post of 1839. 12 January – Chartist rising in Sheffield aborted. 14 January – Chartist rising in the East End of London largely suppressed by police.Malcolm Chase Chartism: A New History Manchester University Press 2007 16 January – Frost, Williams and Jones are all found guilty of high treason for their part in the Chartist riots, and are sentenced to death; the last time the sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering is passed in the UK, although following a nationwide petitioning campaign and direct lobbying of the Home Secretary by the Lord Chief Justice, it is commuted to transportation for life (Frost is eventually pardoned). 22 January – British colonists reach New Zealand. Official founding date of Wellington. 26 January – Chartist rising in Bradford fails to spread. 6 February – Treaty of Waitangi, a document granting British sovereignty in New Zealand, is signed.Penguin Pocket On This Day Penguin Reference Library 0-14-102715-0 2006 10 February – Queen Victoria marries her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in the Royal Chapel at St James's Palace.The wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, 1840 http://www.royal.gov.uk/The%20Royal%20Collection%20and%20other%20collections/TheRoyalArchives/QueenVictoriaeducationproject/TheweddingofQueenVictoriaandPrinceAlbert1840.aspx The British Monarchy The Royal Household 2012-12-01 15 April – King's College Hospital opens in Portugal Street, London. 27 April – The foundation stone of the new Palace of Westminster is laid as its reconstruction following the Burning of Parliament in 1834 begins (completed in 1860).https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/church_state/westminster_later/westminster_new_palace_02.shtml Westminster: A New Palace for a New Age Riding Christine 7 February 2005 BBC 2010-11-15 1 May – Issue of the Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp,http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/icons-timeline/1840-1860 Icons, a portrait of England 1840–1860 2007-09-13 https://web.archive.org/web/20070817165102/http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/icons-timeline/1840-1860 17 August 2007 dead together with Mulready stationery. The stamp becomes valid for prepayment of postage from 6 May.Richard Blake The Book of Postal Dates, 1635–1985 Caterham Marden 10 5 May - Thomas Carlyle gives the first lecture in the series On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History. 11 May – Chartist leader Feargus O'Connor is sentenced to imprisonment in York Castle for seditious libel over speeches published in The Northern Star. 20 May – York Minster's nave roof is destroyed in an accidental fire. 6 June – The first group of British emigrants from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints set sail from Liverpool bound for Nauvoo, Illinois.History of the Church in the British Isles http://www.mormonnewsroom.org.uk/article/history-of-the-mormon-church-in-the-british-isles The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 2013 2014-06-10 10 June – Edward Oxford fires a pistol at Queen Victoria in Hyde Park, London.Palmer Alan Palmer Veronica 1992 The Chronology of British History Century Ltd London 263–264 0-7126-5616-2 12–23 June – The World Anti-Slavery Convention is organised by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society at Exeter Hall in London. July Fresh water is piped to Buxton Market Place by the 6th Duke of Devonshire, beginning the Buxton well dressing festival. Last known great auk in the British Isles caught and later killed on the islet of Stac an Armin, St Kilda, Scotland.Rackwitz Martin Travels to Terra Incognita: the Scottish Highlands and Hebrides in Early Modern Travellers' Accounts c. 1600 to 1800 Waxmann Verlag 2007 347 978-3-8309-1699-4Gaskell Jeremy Who Killed the Great Auk? Oxford University Press 2000 142 https://books.google.com/books?id=tsUzeXV_7jcC 978-0-19-856478-2Fuller Errol The Great Auk: The Extinction of the Original Penguin Bunker Hill Publishing 2003 34 https://books.google.com/books?id=35rGM50pAoAC 978-1-59373-003-1 4 July – The Cunard Line's 700-ton wooden paddle steamer Britannia departs from Liverpool bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the first steam transatlantic passenger mail service. 15 July – Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia sign the London Treaty with the Sublime Porte, ruler of the Ottoman Empire. 23 July The Province of Canada is created by the Act of Union. Vaccination Act 1840 provides for free vaccination for the poor and prohibits variolation. 7 August – Chimney Sweepers and Chimneys Regulation Act 1840 prohibits the employment of children under the age of 21 as chimney sweeps. 10 September – Ottoman and British troops bombard Beirut and land troops on the coast to pressure Egyptian Muhammad Ali to retreat from the country. 16 September – Joseph Strutt hands over the deeds and papers concerning the Derby Arboretum, which is to become England's first public park. 30 September – Foundation of Nelson's Column laid in London, Trafalgar Square being laid out (as a hectare) and paved during the year. 11 October – Maronite leader Bashir Shihab II surrenders to the Ottomans (in alliance with the British) and on 14 October goes into exile, initially in Malta.Farah Caesar E. Centre for Lebanese Studies (Great Britain) Politics of Interventionism in Ottoman Lebanon, 1830-1861 2000 I. B. Tauris https://books.google.com/books?id=Uxkz9D4Ff_sC&q=Falugha+Druze 9781860640568 43 10 November – The boiler of an experimental steam locomotive named Surprise explodes near Bromsgrove station in Worcestershire, killing the driver, Thomas Scaife and fireman, Joseph Rutherford.Rolt L. T. C. L. T. C. Rolt Red For Danger 1966 69 Pan Books 8 December – David Livingstone leaves for Africa.A. D. Roberts Livingstone, David (1813–1873) 2004 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16803 10.1093/ref:odnb/16803 21 December – Stockport Viaduct is completed.Geoffrey O. Holt A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain. Vol. 10: The North West Newton Abbot David & Charles 1978 0-7153-7521-0 117 https://archive.org/details/northwest0010holt/page/117 It is one of the largest brick structures in Europe. Undated The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals gains its Royal status. Smallpox epidemic of 1837–40 ends, leaving more than 41,600 dead.Creighton Charles Charles Creighton (physician) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43671 A History of Epidemics in Britain 1894 Cambridge University Press II Ongoing First Opium War (1839–1842) First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842) Publications W. Harrison Ainsworth's historical novels Guy Fawkes and The Tower of London (both serialised). Charles Dickens' novel The Old Curiosity Shop (serialised). "Thomas Ingoldsby"'s The Ingoldsby Legends (first collected in book form). Agnes Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England begins publication. William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Catherine. William Whewell's book The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their history, in which he introduces the words "Physicist" and (for the second time) "Scientist".William Whewell Introduction The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their history London J. W. Parker 1840 1 71, 113physicist, n. Oxford English Dictionary online version Oxford University Press http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/143131?redirectedFrom=Physicist#eid 2011-12-02 September 2011 scientist, n. Oxford English Dictionary online version Oxford University Press http://www.oed.com/Entry/172698 2011-12-02 September 2011January 2016 Births 135px|thumb|Thomas Hardy 135px|thumb|Victoria, Princess Royal 1 January – Dugald Drummond, Scottish-born railway locomotive engineer (died 1912) 18 January – Henry Austin Dobson, poet and essayist (died 1921) 26 January – John Clayton Adams, landscape painter (died 1906) 5 February – John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish-born inventor (died 1921) 29 February – John Philip Holland, Irish-born submarine designer (died 1914) 30 March – Charles Booth, shipowner and social reformer (died 1916) 31 March – Benjamin Baker, civil engineer (died 1907) 27 April – Edward Whymper, mountaineer (died 1911) 2 June – Thomas Hardy, novelist and poet (died 1928) 20 June – George Selwyn Marryat, fly fisherman (died 1896) 21 June – Edward Stanley Gibbons, philatelic stamp dealer (died 1913) 9 October – Simeon Solomon, painter (died 1905) 21 November – Victoria, Princess Royal (died 1901) 29 November – Rhoda Broughton, fiction writer (died 1920) Deaths 6 January – Frances Burney, novelist (born 1752) 18 February – Sir Jeffry Wyattville, architect and garden designer (born 1766) 30 March – Beau Brummell, arbiter of fashion (born 1778) 7 April – William Heath, caricaturist (born 1794) 15 April – Thomas Drummond, army officer, civil engineer and public official (born 1797) 1 May – Joseph Williamson, philanthropist and builder of Williamson's tunnels (born 1769) 26 May – Sidney Smith, admiral (born 1764) 28 July – John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham (born 1792) 22 September Princess Augusta Sophia of the United Kingdom (born 1768) Anne Lister, landowner, diarist, mountaineer and traveller, "the first modern lesbian" (born 1791) References 1840 Category:Years of the 19th century in the United Kingdom Category:1840 by country Category:1840 in Europe Category:1840s in the United Kingdom