1838 in the United Kingdom

Other years
1836 | 1837 | 1838 (1838) | 1839 | 1840
Constituent countries of the United Kingdom
England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales
Sport
1838 English cricket season

Events from the year 1838 in the United Kingdom.

## Incumbents

[edit]

* Monarch – Victoria
* Prime Minister – William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (Whig)
* Foreign Secretary – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

## Events

[edit]

* 10 January – A fire destroys Lloyd's Coffee House and the Royal Exchange in London.[1]
* 20 January – With a daily average of −11.9 °C (10.6 °F), this day sees the coldest daily Central England temperature value on record.[2]
* 17 March – Four of the pardoned Tolpuddle Martyrs return to England, arriving at Plymouth.[3]
* 4–22 April – The paddle steamer SS Sirius (1837) makes the Transatlantic Crossing to New York from Cork in eighteen days, though not using steam continuously.[4]
* 8–23 April – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's paddle steamer SS Great Western (completed on 31 March) makes the Transatlantic Crossing to New York from Avonmouth in fifteen days, inaugurating a regular steamship service.[5]
* 8 April – The National Gallery first opens to the public in the building purpose-designed for it by William Wilkins in Trafalgar Square, London.
* 1 May – Jenners department store established as drapers in Princes Street, Edinburgh.[6]
* 9 May – Royal Agricultural Society of England founded.
* 21 May – Chartism: The People's Charter is launched by members of the London Working Men's Association at a mass meeting on Glasgow Green calling for universal suffrage for male voters.[5][7]
* 31 May – Battle of Bossenden Wood: In Kent, self-declared Messiah John N. Thom, calling himself "Sir William Courtenay", and a band of around 35 agricultural labourers are surrounded by soldiers of the 45th Regiment of Foot sent to arrest them following the earlier murder of a policeman. Thom and ten followers, together with an officer and a constable, are killed in what is sometimes described as the last battle on English soil.[8]
* 4 June – The first section of the Great Western Railway, engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, opens from London Paddington station to Maidenhead.[9]
* 18 June – The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway opens, the first line across England.[10]
* 28 June – The Coronation of Queen Victoria takes place at Westminster Abbey.[11] However, Lord Melbourne denies her the traditional medieval banquet due to budget constraints and critics refer to it as "The Penny Crowning".[12] The Imperial State Crown is remade for her.
* July – Chichester Theological College is founded by Bishop William Otter in West Sussex as the first such college of the Anglican Communion in England.
* 4 July – Huskar Pit disaster in the South Yorkshire Coalfield results in the deaths by drowning of 26 children working underground in the mine aged 7 to 17.[13]
* 4 August – The Court Journal prints a rumour that Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton is going to host a great jousting tournament at his castle in Scotland. A few weeks later, he confirms this.[14]
* 6 August – The Polytechnic Institution, Britain's first polytechnic, opens in Regent Street, London.[15]
* 16 August – The Tin Duties Act converts the tin coinage taxation system of the mines of Devon and Cornwall into an annual payment to the Duchy of Cornwall.
* 7 September – Grace Darling rescues nine survivors from the wreck of the paddle steamer SS Forfarshire (1834) off the Farne Islands.[11]
* 17 September – The opening of the London and Birmingham Railway throughout, the first trunk line in England.[16][17]
* 18 September – Anti-Corn Law League founded by Richard Cobden and John Bright in Manchester.[11]
* 24 September – "Monster meeting" on Kersal Moor, Salford, in support of Chartism.
* 1 October – First Anglo-Afghan War begins when Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India, issues a manifesto from Simla giving Britain's reasons for intervening in Afghanistan.[16]

### Undated

[edit]

* The Peculiar People, a nonconformist Christian movement, is established in Rochford, Essex, by preacher James Banyard.[18]
* Probable date – Hackpen White Horse cut in Wiltshire.

### Ongoing

[edit]

* Smallpox epidemic of 1837–40.[19]

## Publications

[edit]

* Charles Dickens' novels Oliver Twist (in book form) and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (serialisation begins).
* Lady Charlotte Guest begins publication of her translation into English of the Welsh traditional tales known as the Mabinogion.
* Robert Smith Surtees' collected sporting stories Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities.

## Births

[edit]

* 6 February – Henry Irving, actor (died 1905)
* 9 February – Evelyn Wood, field marshal, Victoria Cross recipient (died 1919)
* 12 March – William Henry Perkin, chemist (died 1907)
* 13 April – J. D. Sedding, ecclesiastical architect (died 1891)
* 14 April – John Thomas, Welsh photographer (died 1905)
* 20 July – Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, statesman and historian (died 1928)
* 30 September – Emily Soldene, comic opera singer-manager and gossip columnist (died 1912)
* 25 October – Annie Hall Cudlip, novelist, journalist and editor (died 1918)
* 3 December – Octavia Hill, social reformer (died 1912)
* 20 December – Edwin Abbott Abbott, theologian and author (died 1926)

## Deaths

[edit]

* 13 January – John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (born 1751)
* 5 February – Thomas Creevey, politician (born 1768)
* 17 February – John Bonham-Carter, politician and barrister (born 1788)
* 4 March
* William Fennex, cricketer (born 1763)
* Sir James Carmichael Smyth, colonial administrator (born 1779)
* 19 March – Sir Edward Barnes, British Army officer and governor of Ceylon (born 1776)
* 21 March – George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie, colonial Governor (born 1770)
* 24 March – Thomas Attwood, composer (born 1765)
* 11 May – Thomas Andrew Knight, horticulturalist (born 1759)
* 19 May – Richard Colt Hoare, antiquarian, artist, traveller and archaeologist (born 1758)
* 20 May – William Stephenson, Geordie printer, publisher, auctioneer, poet and songwriter (born 1797)
* 19 July – Christmas Evans, Welsh Nonconformist minister (born 1766)
* 25 August – William Annesley, 3rd Earl Annesley, noble and Member of Parliament (born 1772)
* 18 September – Robert Smith, 1st Baron Carrington, Member of Parliament (born 1752)
* 15 October – Letitia Elizabeth Landon, poet and novelist (born 1802)
* 7 November – Anne Grant, Scottish poet and author (born 1755)
* 16 November – Robert Cutlar Fergusson, lawyer and politician (born 1768)
* 10 December – Augustus Earle, painter (born 1793)
* 22 December – John Villiers, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, Member of Parliament (born 1757)

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher (1995). The London Encyclopaedia. Macmillan. p. 287\. ISBN 0-333-57688-8.
2. ^ CET Record-Breakers.
3. ^ Loveless, James; Brine, James; Standfield, John; Standfield, Thomas (1838). A Narrative of the sufferings of J. Loveless, J. Brine, and T. & J. Standfield, four of the Dorchester Labourers; displaying the horrors of transportation, written by themselves. London: John Cleave.
4. ^ "Steamship Curaçao". Archived from the original on 24 December 2010. Retrieved 2 February 2011.
5. ^ a b "Icons, a portrait of England 1820–1840". Archived from the original on 22 September 2007. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
6. ^ A Hundred Years in Princes Street 1838-1938. Edinburgh: Jenners. 1938.
7. ^ "Where History Happened: Chartism". History Extra. BBC. 12 May 2010. Retrieved 17 December 2014.
8. ^ "Battle of Bosenden Wood". Hernhill Parish. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
9. ^ MacDermot, E. T. (1964). History of the Great Western Railway. London: Ian Allan.
10. ^ Whittle, G. (1979). The Newcastle & Carlisle Railway. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-7855-4.
11. ^ a b c Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
12. ^ Anstruther, Ian (1963). The Knight and the Umbrella: an Account of the Eglinton Tournament – 1839. London: Geoffrey Bles Ltd. p. 1.
13. ^ Gallop, Alan (2003). Children of the Dark: Life and Death Underground in Victorian England.
14. ^ Girouard, Mark (1981). The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman. Yale University Press. p. 92.
15. ^ "University of Westminster". London: Beginnings Project. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 9 February 2011.
16. ^ a b Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 262–263\. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.262-263&rft.pub=Century+Ltd&rft.date=1992&rft.isbn=0-7126-5616-2&rft.aulast=Palmer&rft.aufirst=Alan&rft.au=Veronica&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:1838+in+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988">
17. ^ Reed, M. C. (1996). The London & North Western Railway: a history. Penryn: Atlantic. ISBN 0-906899-66-4.
18. ^ "A Very Peculiar Preacher: James Banyard". Rochford District Community Archive. Retrieved 7 November 2020.
19. ^ Creighton, Charles (1894). A History of Epidemics in Britain. Vol. II. Cambridge University Press.

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