1841 in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom-related events during the year of 1841

1841 in the United Kingdom

Other years
1839 | 1840 | 1841 (1841) | 1842 | 1843
Constituent countries of the United Kingdom
England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales
Sport
1841 English cricket season

Events from the year 1841 in the United Kingdom.

## Incumbents

[edit]

* Monarch – Victoria
* Prime Minister – William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (Whig) (until 30 August); Robert Peel (Conservative) (starting 30 August)
* Foreign Secretary – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (until 2 September) George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen (starting 2 September)

## Events

[edit]

* 4 January – City of Dublin Steam Packet Company SS Thames is wrecked on the Western Rocks, Isles of Scilly, with the loss of 61 of the 65 on board;[1] at least 20 other ships run aground round the British Isles today.
* 20 January – Convention of Chuenpi agreed between Charles Elliot and Qishan of the Qing dynasty.
* 26 January – The United Kingdom formally occupies Hong Kong.
* 27 January – The active volcano Mount Erebus in Antarctica is discovered and named by James Clark Ross.[2]
* 28 January – Ross discovers the "Victoria Barrier", later known as the Ross Ice Shelf.
* February – H. Fox Talbot obtains a patent for the calotype process in photography.[3]
* 10 February – Penny Red postage stamp replaces the Penny Black.[4]
* 20 February – The Governor Fenner, carrying emigrants to America, sinks off Holyhead with the loss of 123 lives.
* March – Richard Beard opens England's first commercial photographic studio in London, producing daguerreotype portraits.[5]
* 1 March – Opening throughout of the Manchester and Leeds Railway, the first to cross the Pennines.[6]
* 4 March – First performance of Dion Boucicault's comedy London Assurance, presented by Charles Mathews at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.
* April – Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew first opens to the public[7] and William Hooker appointed director.
* 3 May
* New Zealand becomes a separate British colony,[8] having previously been administered as part of the Colony of New South Wales.
* London Library opens in Pall Mall.[7]
* 6 June
* United Kingdom Census held, the first to record names and approximate ages of every household member and to be administered nationally.
* Marian Hughes becomes the first woman to take religious vows in communion with the Anglican Province of Canterbury since the Reformation, making them privately to E. B. Pusey in Oxford.[9]
* 7 June – Lord Melbourne loses a vote of no confidence against his government.
* 21 June – St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham is dedicated as a Roman Catholic church.[10]
* 29 June–22 July – General election, Sir Robert Peel's Conservatives take control of the House of Commons.
* 30 June – Great Western Railway completed throughout between London and Bristol.[11]
* 5 July – Thomas Cook arranges his first excursion, taking 570 temperance campaigners on the Midland Counties Railway from Leicester to a rally in Loughborough.[8][12]
* 17 July – The first edition of the humorous magazine Punch is published.[13]
* 26 July – The proprietors of The Skerries Lighthouse off Anglesey, the last privately owned light in the British Isles, are awarded £444,984 in compensation for its sale to Trinity House.[14]
* 28 August – Melbourne resigns as Prime Minister; replaced by Robert Peel.[7]
* 2 September – Reconsecration of Leeds Parish Church after reconstruction.[15]
* 21 September – The London and Brighton Railway is opened throughout.[16]
* 24 September – The United Kingdom annexes Sarawak from Brunei; James Brooke is appointed rajah.
* 10 October – First Opium War: Battle of Chinhai – British capture a Chinese garrison.
* 13 October – First Opium War: British occupy Ningbo.
* 27 October – Anglican clergyman Richard Sibthorp becomes the first Tractarian to be received into the Roman Catholic Church, by Nicholas Wiseman at St Mary's College, Oscott (he reconverts two years later).
* 30 October – A fire at the Tower of London destroys its Grand Armoury and causes a quarter of a million pounds worth of damage.[17]
* 13 November – Surgeon James Braid attends his first demonstration of animal magnetism, which leads to his study of the subject he eventually calls hypnotism.
* 23 December – First Anglo-Afghan War: at a meeting with the Afghan general Akbar Khan, the diplomat Sir William Hay Macnaghten is shot dead at close quarters.

### Undated

[edit]

* Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross additionally discovers the Ross Sea, Victoria Land and Mount Terror.
* Chemical Society of London founded by Thomas Graham.
* Ulster Canal completed.[18]

### Ongoing

[edit]

* First Opium War (1839–1842)
* First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842)

## Publications

[edit]

* W. Harrison Ainsworth's novel Old St. Paul's: A Tale of the Plague and the Fire (serialised in The Sunday Times, 3 January – 26 December).
* Thomas Carlyle's lectures On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History.
* Serialisation of Charles Dickens's novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty.
* Mrs Gore's novel Cecil, or Adventures of a Coxcomb.
* John Henry Newman's Tract 90 (Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles, dated 25 January).
* Augustus Pugin's lectures The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture.
* Samuel Warren's novel Ten Thousand a Year.[19]
* Vocal Melodies of Scotland, containing the first publication of the song "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond".
* The Gardeners' Chronicle launched.
* The Jewish Chronicle launched; the first Jewish newspaper in the UK,[8] it will be the oldest continuously published in the world when it ceases publication in 2020 (12 November).[20]

## Births

[edit]

* 25 January – Jackie Fisher, admiral (died 1920)
* 28 January – Henry Morton Stanley, explorer and journalist (died 1904)
* 9 November – King Edward VII (died 1910)[21]
* William George Aston, consular official (died 1911)

## Deaths

[edit]

* 2 February – Olinthus Gregory, mathematician (born 1774)
* 12 February – Astley Cooper, surgeon and anatomist (born 1768)
* 17 February – Joseph Chitty, lawyer and legal writer (born 1775)
* 22 April – Edward Draper, army officer and colonial administrator (born 1776)
* 20 May – Joseph Blanco White, theologian (born 1775)
* 1 June – Sir David Wilkie, Scottish painter (born 1785)
* 3 July – Rosemond Mountain, actress and singer (born 1780s?)
* 24 August – Theodore Hook, author (born 1788)
* 1 December – George Birkbeck, doctor, academic and philanthropist (born 1776)
* 23 December – Sir William Hay Macnaghten, Anglo-Indian diplomat (born 1793)

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Larn, Richard; Bridget (2006). Wreck & Rescue round the Cornish coast. Redruth: Tor Mark Press. p. 48\. ISBN 978-0-85025-406-8.
2. ^ Ross, Voyage to the Southern Seas, 1, pp. 216–8.
3. ^ The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
4. ^ Blake, Richard. The Book of Postal Dates, 1635–1985. Caterham: Marden. p. 10.
5. ^ Heathcote, B. V. & Heathcote, P. F. (1979). "Richard Beard: an ingenious and enterprising patentee". History of Photography. 3 (4): 313–329\. doi:10.1080/03087298.1979.10441125.313-329&rft.date=1979&rft_id=info:doi/10.1080/03087298.1979.10441125&rft.au=Heathcote,+B.+V.&rft.au=Heathcote,+P.+F.&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:1841+in+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988">
6. ^ Marshall, John (1969). The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, vol. 1. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-4352-1.
7. ^ a b c Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 264–266\. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.264-266&rft.pub=Century+Ltd&rft.date=1992&rft.isbn=0-7126-5616-2&rft.aulast=Palmer&rft.aufirst=Alan&rft.au=Palmer,+Veronica&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:1841+in+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988">
8. ^ a b c Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
9. ^ Bonham, Valerie (2004). "Hughes, Marian Rebecca (1817–1912)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39553. Retrieved 26 November 2010. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
10. ^ Stanton, Phoebe. Pugin. pp. 557–66.557-66&rft.aulast=Stanton&rft.aufirst=Phoebe&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:1841+in+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988">
11. ^ Body, Geoffrey (1985). Western Handbook – a digest of GWR and WR data. Weston-super-Mare: British Rail (Western). ISBN 0-905466-70-5.
12. ^ Derby Railway History Research Group (1989). The Midland Counties Railway. Gwernymynydd: Railway and Canal Historical Society. ISBN 0-901461-11-3.
13. ^ Spielmann, Marion Harry (1895). The History of "Punch". p. 27.
14. ^ Thorpe, Trefor. "Between a rock and a wet place". Cadw. Archived from the original on 2 March 2005. Retrieved 23 February 2011.
15. ^ "History". Leeds Parish Church. Archived from the original on 30 April 2011. Retrieved 4 May 2011.
16. ^ Turner, J. T. Howard (1977). The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway: 1, Origins and Formation. London: Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-0275-X.
17. ^ Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher (1995). The London Encyclopaedia. Macmillan. p. 287\. ISBN 0-333-57688-8.
18. ^ Delany, Ruth (1986). A celebration of 250 years of Ireland's Inland Waterways. Belfast: Appletree Press. ISBN 0-86281-200-3.
19. ^ Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (2nd ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.
20. ^ "The Jewish Chronicle and Anglo-Jewry, 1841–1991". Cambridge University Press.
21. ^ "Edward VII". Westminster Abbey. Retrieved 7 October 2022.

* v
* t
* e

1707–1800 ← Years in the United Kingdom (1801–present)

Years in the
United Kingdom
of Great Britain
and Ireland|

* 1801
* 1802
* 1803
* 1804
* 1805
* 1806
* 1807
* 1808
* 1809
* 1810
* 1811
* 1812
* 1813
* 1814
* 1815
* 1816
* 1817
* 1818
* 1819
* 1820
* 1821
* 1822
* 1823
* 1824
* 1825
* 1826
* 1827
* 1828
* 1829
* 1830
* 1831
* 1832
* 1833
* 1834
* 1835
* 1836
* 1837
* 1838
* 1839
* 1840
* 1841
* 1842
* 1843
* 1844
* 1845
* 1846
* 1847
* 1848
* 1849
* 1850
* 1851
* 1852
* 1853
* 1854
* 1855
* 1856
* 1857
* 1858
* 1859
* 1860
* 1861
* 1862
* 1863
* 1864
* 1865
* 1866
* 1867
* 1868
* 1869
* 1870
* 1871
* 1872
* 1873
* 1874
* 1875
* 1876
* 1877
* 1878
* 1879
* 1880
* 1881
* 1882
* 1883
* 1884
* 1885
* 1886
* 1887
* 1888
* 1889
* 1890
* 1891
* 1892
* 1893
* 1894
* 1895
* 1896
* 1897
* 1898
* 1899
* 1900
* 1901
* 1902
* 1903
* 1904
* 1905
* 1906
* 1907
* 1908
* 1909
* 1910
* 1911
* 1912
* 1913
* 1914
* 1915
* 1916
* 1917
* 1918
* 1919
* 1920
* 1921
* 1922
* 1923
* 1924
* 1925
* 1926

Years in the
United Kingdom
of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland|

* 1927
* 1928
* 1929
* 1930
* 1931
* 1932
* 1933
* 1934
* 1935
* 1936
* 1937
* 1938
* 1939
* 1940
* 1941
* 1942
* 1943
* 1944
* 1945
* 1946
* 1947
* 1948
* 1949
* 1950
* 1951
* 1952
* 1953
* 1954
* 1955
* 1956
* 1957
* 1958
* 1959
* 1960
* 1961
* 1962
* 1963
* 1964
* 1965
* 1966
* 1967
* 1968
* 1969
* 1970
* 1971
* 1972
* 1973
* 1974
* 1975
* 1976
* 1977
* 1978
* 1979
* 1980
* 1981
* 1982
* 1983
* 1984
* 1985
* 1986
* 1987
* 1988
* 1989
* 1990
* 1991
* 1992
* 1993
* 1994
* 1995
* 1996
* 1997
* 1998
* 1999
* 2000
* 2001
* 2002
* 2003
* 2004
* 2005
* 2006
* 2007
* 2008
* 2009
* 2010
* 2011
* 2012
* 2013
* 2014
* 2015
* 2016
* 2017
* 2018
* 2019
* 2020
* 2021
* 2022
* 2023
* 2024
* 2025

* v
* t
* e

1841 in Europe

Sovereign states|

*   * Andorra
*   *   * Austria
*   *   * Baden
*   *   *   * Belgium
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * Denmark
*   *   *   *   *   * France
*   * Germany
*   * Greece
*   *   * Hungary
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * Luxembourg
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * Netherlands
*   * Norway
* Ottoman Empire
* Papal States
*   * Portugal
* Prussia
*   * Russia
* San Marino
*   *   *   *   *   *   * Spain
* Sweden
* Switzerland
*   *   * United Kingdom
*   *   *   *   *   *

Dependencies, colonies
and other territories

*   *   *   * Gibraltar
* Guernsey
* Isle of Man
* Jersey
* Malta

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template