1861 in the United Kingdom

none July 2022 1861 Constituent countries of the United Kingdom England Ireland Scotland Wales Sport 1861 English cricket season Events from the year 1861 in the United Kingdom. Incumbents Monarch – Victoria Prime Minister – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (Liberal) Events 1 January – first steam-powered merry-go-round recorded, in Bolton.Fairground Rides – A Chronological Development http://www.nfa.dept.shef.ac.uk/history/rides/history.html National Fairground Archive University of Sheffield 2007 2011-08-24 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20110811021142/https://www.nfa.dept.shef.ac.uk/history/rides/history.html 11 August 2011 15 February – about 350 convicts held on St Mary's Island at Chatham Dockyard take over their prison in a riot.Paul Hastings Ian Coulson Life in Kent Gaols before 1877 http://www.hereshistorykent.org.uk/displaytheme.cfm?pagetype=Themes&themeID=463&category=Life%20in%20Kent%20Gaols%20before%201877 Here's History Kent 2011-08-24 https://web.archive.org/web/20120226000654/http://www.hereshistorykent.org.uk/displaytheme.cfm?pagetype=Themes&themeID=463&category=Life%20in%20Kent%20Gaols%20before%201877 26 February 2012 dead 20 February – storms damage the Crystal Palace in London and cause the collapse of the steeple of Chichester Cathedral.Penguin Pocket On This Day Penguin Reference Library 0-14-102715-0 2006 21 to 26 March – the Tooley Street fire in Southwark destroys several buildings. 30 March – William Crookes announces his discovery of thallium. 7 April – United Kingdom census. The population is more than double that of 1801 and those living in urban areas are in a majority. 12 April – American Civil War breaks out, leading to the Lancashire Cotton Famine (1861–1865). April – in London: The Guards Crimean War Memorial is unveiled, including sculptures of Other Ranks.Guards Crimean War Memorial War Memorials Register Imperial War Museum https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/11608 2025-10-23 William Morris founds the influential furnishing company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.About William Morris https://www.wmgallery.org.uk/collection/about-william-morris/ William Morris Gallery Walthamstow 2025-10-26 13 May – British government resolves to remain neutral in the American Civil War.Palmer Alan Palmer Veronica 1992 The Chronology of British History Century Ltd London 282–283 0-7126-5616-2 17 May A 7-day working men's package holiday to Paris, organised by Thomas Cook, sets out from London Bridge station.K. A. Frost Thomas Cook's great expedition of 1861 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/24/thomas-cook-expedition-travel-archive-1861 The Guardian London 2016-05-24 2025-05-10 Scottish-born physicist James Clerk Maxwell demonstrates the principle of three-colour photography in a lecture at the Royal Institution in London using a photograph captured by Thomas Sutton.1861 - The first colour photograph Photo Museum Ireland https://timeline.photomuseumireland.ie/timeline/the-first-colour-photograph-as-opposed-to-a-painted-black-and-white-photo-was-created-by-james-clerk-maxwell-and-thomas-sutton/ 2025-10-23 31 May – Perpetual Truce of Peace and Friendship signed between Bahrain and the U.K. July – outbreak of yellow fever onboard paddle frigate HMS Firebrand in the West Indies kills 52.HMS Firebrand Memorial. 31 July – Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act codifies company law. 6 August Criminal Law Consolidation Acts (drafted by Charles Sprengel Greaves) granted Royal Assent, generally coming into effect on 1 November. The death penalty is limited to murder, embezzlement, piracy, high treason and to acts of arson perpetrated upon docks or ammunition depots; the age of consent is codified as twelve. The Home Secretary takes over the power to reprieve or commute sentences from the judiciary and Privy Council.http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/timeline.html Timeline of capital punishment in Britain 2011-02-02 Accessories and Abettors Act, codifying the law on accessories and abettors. Coinage Offences Act, codifying the law on counterfeiting of coins. Criminal Statutes Repeal Act. Forgery Act, codifying the law on forgery. Larceny Act, codifying the law on larceny and related offences. Malicious Damage Act, codifying the law on criminal damage. Offences against the Person Act, codifying the law on actual or attempted violent offence against the person and abortion, abolishing the nominal death penalty for buggery and creating the offence of "causing bodily harm by wanton or furious driving". Lagos Treaty of Cession between the British Empire and Dosunmu ("Docemo"), Oba of Lagos, by which the latter, under threat of military bombardment, cedes Lagos Island to Britain, whilst retaining his title and powers, subject to English law, and allowing the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron to have a base there to prevent the slave trade.Smith Robert S. The Lagos Consulate 1851–1861 1978 Macmillan London 978-0-33324053-3 27 August – last execution in Britain for attempted murder – Martin Doyle in Chester. 16 September – Post Office Savings Bank opens. 7 October – the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, Manchester in Salford is consecrated as the oldest purpose-built Greek Orthodox Church in England.Local and Provincial Manchester Courier 12 October 1861 9 23 October – foundation stone of the Royal Museum in Edinburgh laid by Prince Albert.Lynch Michael The Oxford companion to Scottish history Oxford University Press 9780199693054 538 24 October – HMS Warrior, the world's first ocean-going (all) iron-hulled armoured battleship is completed and commissioned. 8 November – Trent Affair: Union-captained ship USS San Jacinto intercepts the British mail packet Trent at sea and removes two Confederate diplomats.Donald Fairfax Fairfax D. Macneil Captain Wilkes’s Seizure of Mason and Slidell Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: North to Antietam Johnson, Robert Underwood Buel, Clarence Clough 1885 136–9 15 November – teaching begins at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, founded by conductor Henry Wylde, the oldest specialist performing arts school in the British Isles.https://www.backstage.com/uk/magazine/article/the-drama-schools-uk-actors-should-know-67213/#section4 The 16 Best Drama Schools all UK Actors Should Know Ross Eleanor Backstage 2024-11-26 2025-08-25 25 November – a tenement collapses in the Old Town, Edinburgh, killing 35 with 15 survivors. 1 December – Trent Affair: the British government dispatches its diplomatic response, partly drafted by the terminally ill Prince Albert.Ferris Norman B. The Trent Affair: a Diplomatic Crisis 1977 0-87049-169-5 52–53 c. December – first appearance of drag pantomime dame character Widow Twankey (Twankay), played by James Rogers in Henry James Byron's burlesque Aladdin or the Wonderful Scamp in London.Clinton-Baddeley V. C. V.C. Clinton-Baddeley 1963 Some Pantomime Pedigrees The Society for Theatrical Research 33–37http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/pantomime-origins/ The story of pantomime Victoria and Albert Museum 2026-01-03 right|thumb|The first colour photograph presented by James Clerk Maxwell. Publications Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations complete in book form. George Eliot's novel Silas Marner. F. T. Palgrave's anthology Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics, 1st edition. Charles Reade's novel The Cloister and the Hearth. Anthony Trollope's novels Framley Parsonage (book form) and Orley Farm (serialisation begins). Mrs Henry Wood's 'sensation novel' East Lynne. The anthology Hymns Ancient and Modern.SCM-Canterbury Press http://www.scm-canterburypress.co.uk/CorpHistory.asp A History of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd 2011-01-03 https://web.archive.org/web/20081205070542/http://www.scm-canterburypress.co.uk/CorpHistory.asp 5 December 2008 dead This includes the setting "Eventide" by the music editor William Henry Monk for the hymn Abide with Me. Births 135px|thumb|Frederick Hopkins 22 January – Maurice Hewlett, historical novelist, poet and essayist (died 1923) 15 February Halford Mackinder, geographer (died 1947) Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician (died 1947) 19 February – Henry Horne, 1st Baron Horne, general (died 1929) 23 April – Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby, soldier, administrator (died 1936) 12 June – William Attewell, cricketer (died 1927) 16 June – Edith Aitken, headmistress (died 1940)10.1093/ref:odnb/58463 Aitken, Edith 17 June – Sidney Jones, musical comedy composer (died 1946) 19 June – Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, soldier (died 1928) 20 June – Frederick Hopkins, biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (died 1947) 9 July – William Burrell, Scottish shipowner and art collector (died 1958) 4 August – Henry Head, neurologist (died 1940) 10 August – Almroth Wright, bacteriologist, immunologist (died 1947) 2 September – Arthur Beresford Pite, architect (died 1934) 23 September – Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, poet and novelist (died 1907) 12 October – Agnes Jekyll, née Graham, artist, writer on domestic matters and philanthropist (died 1937) 16 October – J. B. Bury, historian (died 1927) 23 October – Margaret McKellar, Scottish-born Canadian medical missionary (died 1941) 8 November – William Price Drury, novelist, playwright and Royal Marines officer (died 1949) 10 November – Amy Levy, novelist and essayist (died 1889) 10 December – Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, née Maynard, socialite, socialist, philanthropist and royal mistress (died 1938) 18 December – Lionel Monckton, musical comedy composer (died 1924) 19 December – Constance Garnett, née Black, literary translator (died 1946) Deaths 135px|thumb|Albert, Prince Consort 17 January – Fanny Fleming, actress (born 1796)9692 Fleming, Fanny J. Gilliland 29 January – Catherine Gore, novelist and dramatist (born 1798) 6 February – Bulkeley Bandinel, scholar-librarian (born 1781) 7 February – John Brown, geographer (born 1797) 16 March – Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duchess of Kent, mother of Queen Victoria (born 1786 in Germany) 8 April – John Bartholomew, Sr., Scottish cartographer (born 1805) 24 April – Sir Hedworth Williamson, 7th Baronet, politician (born 1797) 13 June – Henry Gray, anatomist (smallpox) (born 1827) 18 June – Eaton Hodgkinson, structural engineer (born 1789) 29 June – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet (born 1806) 6 July – Sir Francis Palgrave, historian (born 1788) 29 July – Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, politician (born 1797) 3 September – Ernest Edgcumbe, 3rd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, politician (born 1797) 4 October – Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, noble (born 1812) 5 October – William Ranwell, marine painter (born 1797) 13 October – Sir William Cubitt, civil engineer (born 1785) 21 October – Edward Dickinson Baker, United States Senator from Oregon, 1860–1861 (born 1811 in the U.K.) 13 November Arthur Hugh Clough, poet (born 1819) Sir John Forbes, royal physician (born 1787) John Hodgetts-Foley, politician (born 1797) 10 December – Thomas Southwood Smith, physician and sanitary reformer (born 1788) 14 December – Albert, Prince Consort, spouse of Queen Victoria (born 1819 in Germany)Albert, Prince Consort Biography, Children, & Facts https://www.britannica.com/biography/Albert-Prince-Consort Encyclopædia Britannica 10 April 2021 en References 1861 in Category:Years of the 19th century in the United Kingdom Category:1861 by country