1891 in the United Kingdom

1891 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1889 | 1890 | 1891 | 1892 | 1893

Sport

1891 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

Events from the year 1891 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch — Queen Victoria
• Prime Minister — Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative)

Events

• 14 February — In the FA Cup Quarter Final, a goal is deliberately stopped by handball on the goal line. An Indirect free kick is awarded, since the Penalty kick was proposed that year but not implemented. This event probably changed public opinion on the penalty kick, which was seen as 'an Irishman's motion' before. (See William McCrum.)
• 9–12 March — The Great Blizzard of 1891 in the south and west of England leads to extensive snow drifts and powerful storms off the south coast, with 14 ships sunk and approximately 220 deaths attributed to the weather conditions.^[1][2]
• 17 March — The British steamship SS Utopia sinks in the inner harbour of Gibraltar after collision with the battleship HMS Anson, killing 564.^[3]
• 18 March — Official opening of the London-Paris telephone system.^[4]
• 1 April — The London-Paris telephone system is opened to the general public.^[4]
• 5 April — Census in the United Kingdom.
• 25 June — Arthur Conan Doyle's detective Sherlock Holmes appears in the Strand Magazine for the first time.^[4]

Undated

• Abolition of fees for primary schooling.^[5]
• Baptist Union of Great Britain established by merger of the General and Particular Baptists.^[6]
• Deptford Power Station (designed by Sebastian Z. de Ferranti for the London Electric Supply Corporation) is commissioned, pioneering the use of high voltage (10 kV) alternating current, generating 800 kW for public supply.

Publications

• J. M. Barrie's novel The Little Minister.^[7]
• George Gissing's novel New Grub Street.
• Serialisation of Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
• William Morris' novel News from Nowhere.
• Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Grey.
• Henry James' short story The Pupil published in Longman's Magazine.
• Strand Magazine (January).

Births

• 9 February — Ronald Colman, English actor (died 1958)
• 11 February — J.W. Hearne, English cricketer (died 1965)
• 7 May — Harry McShane, Scottish socialist (died 1988)
• 20 June — John A. Costello, second President of Ireland (died 1976)
• 30 June — Stanley Spencer, painter (died 1959)
• 8 October — Ellen Wilkinson, English socialist (died 1947)
• 20 October — James Chadwick, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1974)

Deaths

• 15 March — Sir Joseph Bazalgette, English civil engineer (born 1819)
• 6 October
  • William Henry Smith, politician and founder of W H Smith (born 1825)
  • Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish nationalist leader (born 1846)
• 15 October — Gilbert Arthur à Beckett, English writer (born 1837)

References

See also