1879 in the United Kingdom

1879 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1877 | 1878 | 1879 | 1880 | 1881

Sport

1879 English cricket season

1878–79 in English football

Events from the year 1879 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch — Queen Victoria
• Prime Minister — Benjamin Disraeli (Conservative)

Events

• 1 January — Benjamin Henry Blackwell opens the first Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford.^[1]
• 8 January — British army occupies Kandahar in Afghanistan.^[2]
• 11 January — Anglo-Zulu War begins.
• 22 January — Zulu troops massacre British troops at the Battle of Isandlwana. At Rorke's Drift, outnumbered British soldiers drive the attackers away after hours of fighting.^[3]
• March — The standard design of pillar box reverts to a cylindrical shape (the "anonymous" style cast by Andrew Handyside and Company).^[4]
• 2 March — Murder of Julia Martha Thomas at Richmond upon Thames.
• 12 March — Anglo-Zulu War: At the Battle of Intombe, a British force over one-hundred strong is ambushed and destroyed by Zulu forces.
• 13 March — Marriage of The Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, third son of Queen Victoria, to Princess Louise Marguerite of Prussia.
• 28 March — Anglo-Zulu War: British forces suffer a defeat at the Battle of Hlobane.^[3]
• 29 March — Anglo-Zulu War: Battle of Kambula: British forces defeat 20,000 Zulus.
• 3 April — Anglo-Zulu War: British forces successfully lift the two-month Siege of Eshowe.
• 12 May — John Henry Newman elevated to Cardinal.
• 26 May — Russia and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Gandamak establishing an Afghan state.
• 14 June — Sidney Faithorn Green, an Anglican priest in the Church of England, is tried and convicted for using Ritualist practices.
• 4 July — The Anglo-Zulu War effectively ends with British victory at the Battle of Ulundi.^[2]
• 19 August — The foundation stone of the fourth Eddystone Lighthouse is laid by The Prince of Wales and The Duke of Edinburgh.^[3]
• 18 September — Blackpool Illuminations lit for the first time.^[3]
• 13 October — First female students admitted to study for degrees of Oxford University, at the new Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville Hall and with the Society of Oxford Home-Students.^[2]
• November–March 1880 — Probably the longest ever fog in the city's history engulfs London.^[5]
• 27 October — Liverpool Echo newspaper first published.^[3]
• 15 December–23 December — Second Anglo-Afghan War: British victory at the Siege of the Sherpur Cantonment.
• 28 December — The Tay Bridge Disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passes over it, killing 78.^[2]
• 30 December — The Pirates of Penzance is first performed, in Paignton, Devon.^[3]

Undated

• Electric street lighting introduced in London, initially on the Thames Embankment and Waterloo Bridge.^[2]
• Gabardine is invented by Thomas Burberry, founder of the Burberry fashion house in Basingstoke.^[6]
• Fulham F.C. founded as the Fulham St Andrew's Church Sunday School football club.

Publications

• Kate Greenaway's first book, with her own colour illustrations, Under the Window: Pictures & Rhymes for Children.
• Silas Hocking's novel Her Benny.^[7]
• George Meredith's novel The Egoist.
• Serialisation of the Anthony Trollope novel The Duke's Children.
• The Boy's Own Paper first published (January 19).

Births

• 1 January
  • E. M. Forster, writer (died 1970)
  • Ernest Jones, psychoanalyst (died 1958)
• 13 January — William Reid Dick, sculptor (died 1961)
• 26 February — Frank Bridge, composer (died 1941)
• 5 March — William Beveridge, economist and social reformer (died 1963)
• 20 April — Robert Wilson Lynd, essayist and writer (died 1949)
• 26 April — Owen Willans Richardson, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1959)
• 29 April — Thomas Beecham, conductor (died 1961)
• 19 May — Viscount Waldorf Astor, businessman and politician (died 1952)
• 25 May — Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Canadian-British business tycoon, politician and writer (died 1964)
• 30 May — Colin Blythe, cricketer (died 1917)
• 6 June — Patrick Abercrombie, town planner (died 1957)
• 15 July — Joseph Campbell, poet and lyricist (died 1944)
• 13 August — John Ireland, composer (died 1962)
• 27 December — Sydney Greenstreet, actor (died 1954)

Deaths

• 25 February — Charles Peace, criminal (executed) (born 1832)
• 10 August — George Long, classical scholar (born 1800)
• 5 November — James Clerk Maxwell, physicist (born 1831)
• 6 December — William Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, 5th Duke of Portland, (born 1800)

References

See also