1831 in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom-related events during the year of 1831

1831 in the United Kingdom

Other years
1829 | 1830 | 1831 (1831) | 1832 | 1833
Constituent countries of the United Kingdom
England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales
Sport
1831 English cricket season

Events from the year 1831 in the United Kingdom.

## Incumbents

[edit]

* Monarch – William IV
* Prime Minister – Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (Whig)
* Foreign Secretary – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
* Secretary of War – Earl of Ripon

## Events

[edit]

The Opening of New London Bridge by Clarkson Stanfield

* 3 March – Tithe War breaks out in Ireland.
* 7 March – Royal Astronomical Society receives its Royal Charter.[1]
* 12 April – Broughton Suspension Bridge over the River Irwell collapses under marching troops.[2]
* 27 April – End of the First Anglo-Ashanti War (1823–1831).
* 28 April–1 June – General election results in a Whig victory and a mandate for electoral reform.[3]
* May–June – Merthyr Rising in Merthyr Tydfil.
* 30 May – Census in the United Kingdom.
* 1 June – Royal Navy officer and explorer James Clark Ross leads the first expedition to reach the Magnetic North Pole.
* 8 June – Freeminers in the Forest of Dean, led by Warren James, break down enclosures in the Forest.[4]
* 1 August – The new London Bridge is officially opened.[5]
* 18 August – The paddle steamer Rothsay Castle is wrecked at the eastern end of the Menai Strait with the loss of 93 lives.
* 29 August – Michael Faraday demonstrates electromagnetic induction.[6]
* 8 September – Coronation of King William IV.[5]
* 22 September – The House of Commons passes the Great Reform Bill to expand the franchise, but this is later defeated in the Lords.
* 27 September – British Association for the Advancement of Science first meets, in York.[3]
* October – King's College London opens.
* 9–11 October – Reform riots in Nottingham: Nottingham Castle and a silk mill at Beeston are gutted by fire.[7]
* 15 October
* Special Constables Act regularises operation of the Special Constabulary.
* Truck Act prohibits payment of wages other than in cash.[8]
* 26 October – Cholera epidemic begins in Sunderland.
* 28 October – Michael Faraday constructs the first dynamo.[5]
* 29–31 October – 1831 Bristol riots ("Queen Square riots") in Bristol, in connection with the Great Reform Act controversy: 100 city centre properties are destroyed (including the Bishop's palace), at least 120 are estimated to have been killed, 31 of the rioters will be sentenced to death and a colonel facing court-martial for failure to control the riot commits suicide.[9]
* December – First meeting in England of the Plymouth Brethren, organised primarily by George Wigram, Benjamin Wills Newton and John Nelson Darby.[10][11]
* 27 December – Charles Darwin embarks on his historic voyage aboard HMS Beagle[5] from Plymouth.

### Undated

[edit]

* The house which will eventually contain Abbey Road Studios is built in the St John's Wood district of London.

## Publications

[edit]

* January – Joseph Livesey begins publishing The Moral Reformer in Preston, Lancashire, the first publication of the temperance movement in England.
* Mrs Gore's novels Pin Money, Mothers and Daughters,[12] and The Tuileries and her play The School for Coquettes.
* Thomas Hood's poem The Dream of Eugene Aram, the Murderer.
* Thomas Love Peacock's anonymous novel Crotchet Castle.
* Mary Prince's slave narrative The History of Mary Prince.

## Births

[edit]

* 21 March – Dorothea Beale, proponent of women's education (died 1906)
* 7 May – Richard Norman Shaw, architect (died 1912)
* 16 May – David Edward Hughes, musician and professor of music (died 1900)
* 13 June – James Clerk Maxwell, physicist (died 1879)
* 14 October – Samuel Waite Johnson, railway locomotive engineer (died 1912)
* 15 October – Isabella Bird, explorer, writer, photographer and naturalist (died 1904)

## Deaths

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* 14 February – Henry Maudslay, mechanical engineer (born 1771)
* 21 February – Robert Hall, Baptist minister (born 1764)
* 20 April – John Abernethy, surgeon (born 1764)
* 8 June – Sarah Siddons, actress (born 1755 in Wales)
* 17 August – Patrick Nasmyth, Scottish landscape painter (born 1787)

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "A brief history of the RAS". Royal Astronomical Society. Archived from the original on 30 January 2011. Retrieved 6 February 2011.
2. ^ Bishop, R. E. D. (1979). Vibration (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22779-8.
3. ^ a b Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 257–258. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
4. ^ Anstis, Ralph (1986). Warren James and the Dean Forest Riots. Coalway: Albion House. ISBN 978-0-9511371-0-9.
5. ^ a b c d Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
6. ^ "Icons, a portrait of England 1820–1840". Archived from the original on 22 September 2007. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
7. ^ Beckett, John (20 July 2008). "Riot and rebellion". The Nottinghamshire Heritage Gateway. Retrieved 26 December 2016.
8. ^ The History Today Companion to British History. London: Collins & Brown. 1995. p. 762. ISBN 1-85585-178-4.
9. ^ "Revolting riots in Queen Square". Made in Bristol. BBC. 2004. Retrieved 16 February 2011.
10. ^ Burnham, Jonathan D. (2004). "The Emergence of the Plymouth Brethren". A Story of Conflict: the Controversial Relationship Between Benjamin Wills Newton and John Nelson Darby. Carlisle: Paternoster Press. ISBN 978-1-84227-191-9. OCLC 56336926.
11. ^ Livingstone, Elizabeth A. (2000). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280057-2. OCLC 46858944.
12. ^ Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (2nd ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.

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1831 in Europe

Sovereign states|

*   * Andorra
*   *   * Austria
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*   *   *   * Belgium
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * Denmark
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*   *   * United Kingdom
*   *   *   *   *   *

Dependencies, colonies
and other territories

*   *   *   * Gibraltar
* Guernsey
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