1883 in the United Kingdom

1883 in the United Kingdom

Other years

1881 | 1882 | 1883 (1883) | 1884 | 1885

Constituent countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1883 English cricket season Football: England

Events from the year 1883 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal)
• Parliament – 22nd

Events

• 1 January – Augustus Pitt Rivers takes office as Britain's first Inspector of Ancient Monuments.[1]
• 5 March – Gloucester City A.F.C. is formed.
• 15 March – Fenian dynamite campaign: An explosion at the Local Government Board, Charles Street, Mayfair (Westminster) causes over £4,000 worth of damage and some minor injuries to people nearby. A second bomb at The Times newspaper offices in Queen Victoria Street, London does not explode.[2]
• 29 March – Edward Benson enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 31 March – Blackburn Olympic beat Old Etonians F.C. 2–1 in the FA Cup Final at The Oval, the Etonians being the last amateur team to reach the final[3] and Olympic being the first northern working-class team to do so.
• 7 May – Royal College of Music opens in London with George Grove as first Director.[4]
• 16 June – Victoria Hall disaster: A rush for treats results in 183 children being asphyxiated in a concert hall in Sunderland.[5]
• 3 July – the SS Daphne sinks on launch in Glasgow, leaving 124 dead.[6]
• 1 August – GPO introduces the Parcels Post service.[7]
• 4 August – first electric railway opens, the Volk's Railway at Brighton.[4]
• 29 August – Dunfermline Carnegie Library, the first Carnegie library is opened in Andrew Carnegie's hometown, Dunfermline.
• 11 September – Major Evelyn Baring becomes Consul-General of Egypt under British rule.
• September – Bristol Rovers F.C. is founded as "Black Arabs F.C."
• October
  • GPO officially replaces the title "letter carrier" by "postman".[7]
  • Dunstable Town F.C. formed.
• October–November – Primrose League established in support of the Conservative Party.
• 4 October – the Boys' Brigade is founded in Glasgow. It is the first uniformed youth organisation in existence.[8]
• 24 October – Cardiff University opens under the name of University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire.[9]
• 30 October – two Clan na Gael dynamite bombs explode in the London Underground, injuring several people. Next day Home Secretary William Vernon Harcourt drafts 300 policemen to guard the underground and introduces the Explosives Bill.
• 3 November–5 November – Mahdist War: Anglo-Egyptian forces defeated at the Battle of El Obeid in Sudan.[10]
• Undated – Home and Colonial Stores established as grocers, in London.

Publications

• G. A. Henty's novels Friends Though Divided: a tale of the Civil War, Jack Archer: a tale of the Crimea and Under Drake's Flag: a tale of the Spanish Main.
• William Robinson's gardening book The English Flower Garden.
• J. R. Seeley's study of the growth of the British Empire The Expansion of England.
• Robert Louis Stevenson's historical adventure novels Treasure Island (in book form) and The Black Arrow (in serial form).

Sport

Rugby football

• England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales take part in the inaugural Home Nations Championship.[11]

Births

• 1 January – Mary Forbes, actress (died 1974)
• 3 January – Clement Attlee, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1967)
• 17 January – Compton Mackenzie, novelist and Scottish nationalist (died 1972)
• 20 January – Bertram Ramsay, admiral (died 1945)
• 15 February – Sax Rohmer, author (died 1959)
• 16 February – Elizabeth Craig, writer (died 1980)
• 25 February – Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone (died 1981)
• 19 March – Walter Haworth, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1950)
• 5 June – John Maynard Keynes, economist (died 1946)
• 23 August – Jesse Pennington, footballer (died 1970)
• 8 November – Arnold Bax, composer (died 1953)
• 25 November – Percy Marmont, actor (died 1977)

Deaths

• 9 March – Arnold Toynbee, economic historian (born 1852)
• 14 March – Karl Marx, political philosopher and economist (born 1818)
• 20 May – William Chambers of Glenormiston, publisher and politician (born 1800)
• 26 December – Thomas Holloway, philanthropist (born 1800)

References

1. Thompson, M. W. (1977). General Pitt-Rivers: evolution and archaeology in the nineteenth century. Bradford-on-Avon: Moonraker Press. p. 64. ISBN 0-239-00162-1.
2. "Terrific Explosion In London". The Cornishman (245). 22 March 1883. p. 7.
3. Slee, Christopher (1994). The Guinness Book of Lasts. Enfield: Guinness Publishing. ISBN 0-85112-783-5.
4. Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 307–308. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
5. "The Victoria Hall Disaster of 1883". BBC. 17 December 2002. Retrieved 26 May 2007.
6. "SS Daphne". Clydebuilt Database. Archived from the original on 7 July 2006. Retrieved 23 June 2014.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)
7. Blake, Richard. The Book of Postal Dates, 1635–1985. Caterham: Marden. p. 17.
8. "History". The Boys' Brigade. Archived from the original on 23 March 2010. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
9. "Milestones". About Cardiff University. Cardiff University. Archived from the original on 19 September 2010. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
10. Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 436–437. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
11. Godwin, Terry (1984). The International Rugby Championship 1883-1983. London: Willow Books. ISBN 0 00 218060 X.

See also