1871 in the United Kingdom

1871 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1869 | 1870 | 1871 (1871) | 1872 | 1873

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1871 English cricket season

Events from the year 1871 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

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

Events

• 1 January — Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland by the Irish Church Act 1869 comes into effect.
• 26 January — Rugby Football Union established in London.
• 10 February — Great Gale in the North Sea: 28 ships wrecked and total fatalities are estimated at over fifty, including six crew of Bridlington life-boat Harbinger.
• 7 March — The first rugby international results in a 4–1 win by Scotland over England.
• 13 March — Britain, Russia, France, Austria, Turkey and Italy agree to abrogate the 1856 Treaty of Paris ending Black Sea neutrality
• 21 March — Marriage of Princess Louise to John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, whose father, the 8th Duke of Argyll, is the serving Secretary of State for India.
• 29 March — The Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.
• 2 April — Census in the United Kingdom, the first to record economic and mental status.
• 24 April — Murder of servant girl Jane Clouson in Eltham.
• 11 May — The first trial in the Tichborne case begins in the Court of Common Pleas (England).
• 26 May — Parliament passes the Bank Holidays Act creating four annual bank holidays (five in Scotland).
• 29 May — First bank holiday held on Whit Monday.
• 6 June — Smith v Hughes, a landmark case in English contract law, is decided in the Court of Queen's Bench, allowing an objective approach to interpretation of the parties' conduct when entering into a contract.
• 18 June — The Universities Tests Act removes restrictions limiting access to Oxford, Cambridge and Durham universities to members of the Church of England.
• 29 June — Trade unions legalised by act of parliament.
• 20 July — C. W. Alcock proposes that 'a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association', giving birth to the FA Cup.
• 17 August — Regulation of the Forces Act centralises and regularises control of the British Army as part of the Cardwell Reforms, creating a structure of regional Brigade (Regimental) Districts.
• 21 August — Pedlars Act requires pedlars to be licensed.
• 1 November — Sale of commissions in the British Army abolished as part of the Cardwell Reforms.
• 7 November — The London—Australia telegraph cable is brought ashore at Darwin.
• 10 November — Welsh-born journalist Henry Morton Stanley locates missing Scottish explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, and allegedly greets him saying "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
• 17 November — George Biddell Airy presents his discovery that astronomical aberration is independent of the local medium.
• 25 November — First performance of The Bells starring Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre, London.

Undated

• Reading Football Club formed.
• Neath RFC founded.
• Streatham-Croydon RFC founded.
• The native-bred red kite becomes extinct in England.

Publications

• William Alexander's realist novel Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk (serialised in Aberdeen Free Press 1869-70).
• William Black's novel A Daughter of Heth.
• Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer's hymnal Christmas Carols, Old and New, 2nd series
• Edward Bulwer-Lytton's (anonymous) novel The Coming Race.
• Lewis Carroll's children's novel Through the Looking-Glass.
• George Tomkyns Chesney's story The Battle of Dorking.
• Charles Darwin's work The Descent of Man.
• George Eliot's novel Middlemarch (begins serialisation).
• Anthony Trollope's novel The Eustace Diamonds (serialisation).
• Edward Burnett Tylor's anthropological study Primitive Culture.

Births

• 18 February — Harry Brearley, inventor (died 1948)
• 19 March — Schofield Haigh, cricketer (died 1921)
• 28 March — Silyn Roberts, Socialist and pacifist writer (died 1930)
• 3 July — W. H. Davies, poet (died 1940)
• 24 September — Lottie Dod, athlete (died 1960)

Deaths

• 4 May — Pablo Fanque, black circus owner, popularized by The Beatles in song (born 1796)
• 11 May — John Herschel, astronomer (born 1792)
• 1 September — James Pennethorne, architect (born 1801)
• 18 October — Charles Babbage, mathematician and inventor (born 1791)
• 22 October — Roderick Murchison, geologist (born 1792)
• 14 December — George Hudson, railway financier (born 1800)
• 28 December — John Henry Pratt, clergyman and mathematician (born 1809)