1861 in the United Kingdom

1861 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1859 | 1860 | 1861 | 1862 | 1863

Sport

1861 English cricket season

Events from the year 1861 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch — Queen Victoria
• Prime Minister — The Viscount Palmerston (Liberal)

Events

• 1 January — First steam-powered merry-go-round recorded, in Bolton.^[1]
• 15 February — About 350 convicts held on St Mary's Island at Chatham Dockyard take over their prison in a riot.^[2]
• 20 February — Storms damage the Crystal Palace in London and cause the collapse of the steeple of Chichester Cathedral.^[3]
• 21 March to 26 March — Major fire in Southwark destroys several buildings.^[4]
• 30 March — William Crookes announces his discovery of thallium.
• 7 April — UK Census.
• 13 May — British government pledges to remain neutral in the American Civil War.^[4]
• 17 May — Thomas Cook runs the first package holiday from London to Paris.^[3]
• 31 July — Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act codifies company law.^[4]
• 27 August — Last execution in Britain for attempted murder — Martin Doyle in Chester.
• 16 September — Post Office Savings Bank opens.^[4]
• 24 October — HMS Warrior, the world's first ocean-going (all) iron-hulled armored 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.^[5]
• 25 November — A tenement collapses in the Old Town of Edinburgh killing 35 with 15 survivors.
• 1 December — Trent Affair: British government dispatches its response, partly drafted by The Prince Consort.^[6]

Undated

The first colour photograph by James Clerk Maxwell.

• Start of Lancashire Cotton Famine (1861–1865).
• James Clerk Maxwell demonstrates the principle of three-colour photography (see picture).^[7]
• Criminal law consolidation Acts: 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.^[8]
• British Empire establishes bases in Lagos to stop the slave trade.
• Construction commences on Royal Museum in Edinburgh.
• William Morris founds the influential furnishing company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.

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 novel Framley Parsonage.
• Mrs Henry Wood's 'sensation novel' East Lynne.
• The anthology Hymns Ancient and Modern.^[9] This includes the setting "Eventide" by the music editor William Henry Monk for the hymn Abide with Me.

Births

• 12 June — William Attewell, cricketer (died 1927)
• 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)
• 23 September — Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, poet and novelist (died 1907)
• 16 October — J. B. Bury, historian (died 1927)

Deaths

• 29 January — Catherine Gore, novelist and dramatist (born 1799)
• 16 March — Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duchess of Kent and mother of Queen Victoria (born 1786, Germany)
• 29 June — Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet (born 1806)
• 14 December — Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria (born 1819)

References

See also