1871 in the United Kingdom

1871 in the United Kingdom

Other years

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

Constituent 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)
• Parliament – 20th

Events

• 1 January – disestablishment of the Church of Ireland by the Irish Church Act 1869 comes into effect.[1]
• 26 January – Rugby Football Union established in London.[2]
• 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 (played in Edinburgh) results in a 4–1 win by Scotland over England.[1]
• 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] it incorporates a grand organ by Henry Willis & Sons, the world's largest at this time.
• 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).[2]
• 29 May – first bank holiday held on Whit Monday.[2]
• 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 Trade Union Act.[2]
• 20 July – C. W. Alcock proposes that 'a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association', giving birth to the FA Cup.[2]
• August – Nine Hours Strike begins on Tyneside in favour of a shorter working day.
• 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.[1]
• 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.[3]
• 6 November – MP Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet, delivers a speech critical of the expense of maintaining the monarchy to a radical audience in Newcastle upon Tyne.[4]
• 7 November – the London-Australia telegraph cable is brought ashore at Darwin.[5]
• 10 November – Welsh-born journalist Henry Morton Stanley locates missing Scottish explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika,[2] 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.[6]
• 25 December – Reading Football Club formed.
• 26 December – the Victorian burlesque Thespis, first of the Gilbert and Sullivan light opera collaborations, premières at the Gaiety Theatre, London. It does modestly well, but the two composers will not again work together until 1875.

Undated

• Thomas Lipton opens his first grocery shop, in Glasgow.
• In rugby union, Neath RFC and Streatham-Croydon RFC are founded.
• Teddington Hockey Club formed, the world's first.
• The native-bred red kite becomes extinct in England.[7]

Publications

• William Alexander's realist novel Johnny Gib of Gushetneuk (serialised in Aberdeen Free Press 1869-70).[8]
• William Black's novel A Daughter of Heth.[9]
• 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.[1]
• George Tomkyns Chesney's story The Battle of Dorking.
• Charles Darwin's work The Descent of Man.[1]
• George Eliot's novel Middlemarch (begins serialisation).
• Anthony Trollope's novel The Eustace Diamonds (serialisation).
• Edward Burnett Tylor's anthropological study Primitive Culture.

Births

• 1 January – Montagu Toller, cricketer and lawyer (died 1948)
• 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)
• 10 September – Thomas Adams, urban planner (died 1940)
• 24 September – Lottie Dod, athlete (died 1960)[10]
• 12 October – Lilias Margaret Frances, Countess Bathurst, née Borthwick, newspaper proprietor (died 1965)

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)

References

1. Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 293–294. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
2. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
3. Bruce, Anthony P. C. (1980). The Purchase System in the British Army, 1660–1871. London: Royal Historical Society.
4. Costa, Thomas M. (1996). "Dilke, Charles Wentworth". In Olson, James S.; Shadle, Robert (eds.). Historical Dictionary of the British Empire. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-27917-9.
5. "1871 Java - Port Darwin Cable". History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications. 5 November 2014. Archived from the original on 6 January 2015. Retrieved 3 January 2015.
6. Rowell, George, ed. (1953). Nineteenth Century Plays. World's Classics. Oxford University Press.
7. "Red kite – Population trends". RSPB. Retrieved 29 August 2011.
8. Donaldson, William (2004). "Alexander, William (1826–1894)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39241. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
9. Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (2nd ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.
10. Grasso, John (2011). Historical Dictionary of Tennis. Scarecrow Press. p. 85. ISBN 9780810872370.