1847 in the United Kingdom

1847 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1845 | 1846 | 1847 | 1848 | 1849

Sport

1847 English cricket season

Events from the year 1847 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Alexandrina Victoria
• Prime Minister – Lord John Russell (Liberal)

Events

16 September: Shakespeare's birthplace is bought for preservation

• 1 January – Britain's first Medical Officer of Health is appointed, Dr. William Henry Duncan in Liverpool.
• 14 January – All thirteen members of the Point of Ayr life-boat crew are drowned when it capsizes off Rhyl.
• 5 March – An explosion at The Oaks in the Barnsley seam in Yorkshire kills 73 men and boys.
• 15 March – New system of county courts, with 60 judicial circuits and 491 courts, comes into operation in England and Wales under terms of the County Courts Act (28 August 1846).
• 5 April – The world's first civic public park, Birkenhead Park in Birkenhead, Merseyside is opened.
• 25 April – The brig Exmouth carrying emigrants from Derry bound for Quebec is wrecked off Islay with only three survivors from more than 250 on board.
• May – The Architectural Association School of Architecture is founded in London.
• 24 May – The Dee bridge disaster: a cast iron girder bridge across the river Dee at Chester, designed by Robert Stephenson for the Chester and Holyhead Railway, collapses under a Shrewsbury and Chester Railway train with five fatalities.
• June – E.H. Booth & Co. Ltd, which becomes the Northern England supermarket chain Booths, is founded when 19-year-old tea dealer Edwin Henry Booth opens a shop called "The China House" in Blackpool.
• 8 June – Factory Act establishes a maximum 10-hour working day for women, and for boys aged 13–18.
• 1 July – Publication of Reports of the Commissioners of Enquiry into the state of Education in Wales containing opinions hostile to Welsh culture, hence known in Wales as the "Treachery of the Blue Books".
• 9 August – The Whig Party under Lord John Russell wins the general election.
• 13 August – John Russell Hind makes the first British discovery of an asteroid, from London, 7 Iris. On 18 October he discovers 8 Flora.
• 16 September
  • William Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon (pictured) is bought by the United Shakespeare Company for preservation.
  • The Band of Hope is established to promote teetotalism among young people by Rev. Jabez Tunnicliff in Leeds.
• 30 September – The Vegetarian Society is formed. It remains the oldest in the world.
• November – Henry Francis Lyte writes the hymn Abide with Me at Brixham.
• 4–8 November – James Young Simpson discovers the anaesthetic properties of chloroform and first uses it, successfully, on a patient, in an obstetric case in Edinburgh.

Undated

• Ongoing – Great Famine (Ireland): This summer's potato crop is free from blight, but inadequate due to the small area sown. The British Relief Association is founded and raises money throughout England, the United States and Australia to relieve distress, with the help of the "Queen's Letters", two letters from Queen Victoria appealing for assistance.
• United Presbyterian Church of Scotland constituted.
• Prince Albert is unsuccessfully challenged for the chancellorship of the University of Cambridge by The Earl of Powis. The winning margin is less than 120 votes.
• The public school Radley College is founded near Oxford.

Publications

• Anne Brontë's novel Agnes Grey under the pen name of Acton Bell.
• Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights under the pen name of Ellis Bell.
• Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre under the pen name of Currer Bell.
• Benjamin Disraeli's "Young England" novel Tancred.
• Frederick Marryat's children's historical novel The Children of the New Forest.
• Christina Rossetti's Verses by Christina G. Rossetti.
• Alfred Tennyson's poetry collection The Princess: a medley.
• William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair.

Births

• 9 February – Hugh Price Hughes, theologian and social reformer (died 1902)
• 3 March – Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-born inventor (died 1922)
• 7 May – Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1929)
• 11 June – Millicent Fawcett, suffragist and feminist (died 1929)
• 1 October – Annie Besant, née Wood, Theosophist, social and political campaigner and feminist (died 1933)
• 8 November – Bram Stoker, novelist (died 1912)
• 7 December – George Grossmith, actor and comic writer (died 1912)

Deaths

• 11 February – Macvey Napier, lawyer and encyclopaedia editor (born 1776)
• 13 February – Sharon Turner, historian (born 1768)
• 9 March – Mary Anning, palaeontologist (born 1799)
• 29 August – William Simson, painter (born 1800)
• 3 October – Charles Hatchett, chemist (born 1765)
• 20 November – Henry Francis Lyte, hymn-writer (born 1793)