1869 in the United Kingdom

1869 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1867 | 1868 | 1869 | 1870 | 1871

Sport

1869 English cricket season

Events from the year 1869 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch — Victoria
• Prime Minister — William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal)

Events

• 6 March — The first international cycle race is held at Crystal Palace, London.
• 31 March — The Conservative Party holds both seats in the Blackburn by-election
• 22 May — Sainsbury's first store opened, in Drury Lane, London.
• 2 June — Seven men are tried at Mold for attacking a colliery manager following a pay cut. A riot breaks out as those convicted are being transported to the railway station; soldiers fire on the crowd, killing four people.
• 10 June — An underground explosion at Ferndale Colliery in the Rhondda kills 53.
• 26 July — Irish Church Act disestablishes the Church of Ireland with effect from 1871.
• 9 August — Evidence (Further) Amendment Act permits those taking part in legal proceedings to make an affirmation if they conscientiously object to taking an oath.
• 27 August — Oxford University Boat Club wins the first international boat race held on the River Thames against Harvard University.
• October — The 'Edinburgh Seven', led by Sophia Jex-Blake, start to attend lectures at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, the first women in the UK to do so (although they will not be allowed to take degrees).
• 11 October — Red River Rebellion against British forces in Canada.
• 16 October — England's first residential university-level women's college, the College for Women, predecessor of Girton College, Cambridge, is founded at Hitchin by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon.
• 4 November — The first issue of scientific journal Nature is published in London, edited by Norman Lockyer.
• 19 November — The Hudson's Bay Company surrenders its claim to Rupert's Land in Canada under its letters patent back to the British Crown.
• 22 November — In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper ship Cutty Sark is launched (she is one of the last clippers built, and the only one to survive into the 21st century).

Undated

• Debtors Act abolishes indefinite imprisonment for civil debt.
• Municipal Franchise Act gives women ratepayers the right to vote in local elections.
• Basutoland becomes a British protectorate.
• First Home Children child migration to Canada.
• Amateur Swimming Association established.
• Charity Organization Society established in London as the Society for Organising Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicity.

Publications

• Matthew Arnold's book Culture and Anarchy
• R. M. Ballantyne's novel Erling the Bold.
• R. D. Blackmore's novel Lorna Doone.
• John Stuart Mill's book The Subjection of Women.
• Hesba Stretton's novel Alone in London.
• First year of publication of Joseph Whitaker's An Almanack for the year.
• Charlotte M. Yonge's novel The Chaplet of Pearls.
• The People's Friend weekly magazine launched.

Births

• 14 February — Charles Wilson, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1959)
• 3 March — Henry Wood, conductor (died 1944)
• 14 March — Algernon Blackwood, writer (died 1951)
• 18 March — Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister (died 1940)
• 29 March — Edwin Lutyens, architect (died 1944)
• 10 August — Lawrence Binyon, poet and scholar (died 1943)
• 3 October — Robert W. Paul, pioneer of cinematography (died 1943)
• 20 November — Herbert Tudor Buckland, seminal Arts and crafts architect (died 1951)

Deaths

• 12 September — Peter Mark Roget, lexicographer (born 1779)
• 23 October — Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Prime Minister (born 1799)