1879 in the United Kingdom
UK-related events during the year of 1879
Events from the year 1879 in the United Kingdom
Incumbents
Events
1 January – Benjamin Henry Blackwell opens the first Blackwell 's bookshop in Oxford .[ 1]
8 January – British army occupies Kandahar in Afghanistan .[ 2]
11 January – Anglo-Zulu War begins.
22 January – Zulu troops led by King Cetshwayo massacre British troops at the Battle of Isandlwana . At Rorke's Drift , outnumbered British soldiers drive the attackers away after hours of fighting.[ 3]
3 February – Mosley Street in Newcastle upon Tyne becomes the world's first public highway to be lit by the electric incandescent light bulb , invented by Joseph Swan .[ 4]
March – the standard design of pillar box reverts to a cylindrical shape (the "anonymous" style cast by Andrew Handyside and Company ).[ 5]
2 March – murder of Julia Martha Thomas at Richmond upon Thames .
12 March – Anglo-Zulu War: At the Battle of Intombe , a British force over one-hundred strong is ambushed and destroyed by Zulu forces.
13 March – marriage of The Duke of Connaught and Strathearn , third son of Queen Victoria , to Princess Louise Marguerite of Prussia .
28 March – Anglo-Zulu War: British forces suffer a defeat at the Battle of Hlobane .[ 3]
29 March – Anglo-Zulu War: Battle of Kambula – British forces defeat 20,000 Zulus.
3 April – Anglo-Zulu War: British forces successfully lift the two-month Siege of Eshowe .
12 May – John Henry Newman elevated to Cardinal .
26 May – Russia and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Gandamak establishing an Afghan state .
June–August – the wettest summer in England and Wales since records began in 1766, and the equal seventh-coolest since the CET series begins in 1659.[ 6]
6 June – William Denny and Brothers launch the world's first ocean-going ship to be built of mild steel , the SS Rotomahana , at Dumbarton .[ 7]
14 June – Sidney Faithorn Green , an Anglican priest in the Church of England , is tried and convicted for using Ritualist practices.
4 July – the Anglo-Zulu War effectively ends with British victory at the Battle of Ulundi .[ 2]
16 August – Fulham F.C. founded in London as the Fulham St Andrew's Church Sunday School football club.
19 August – the foundation stone of the fourth Eddystone Lighthouse is laid by The Prince of Wales and The Duke of Edinburgh .[ 3]
September – Doncaster Rovers F.C. formed by railway fitter Albert Jenkins.
18 September – Blackpool Illuminations lit for the first time.[ 3]
2 October – William Denny and Brothers launch the world's first transatlantic steamer to be built of mild steel, the SS Buenos Ayrean , at Dumbarton for Liverpool owners. On 1 December she makes her maiden voyage out of Glasgow for South America.[ 8]
13 October – first female students admitted to study for degrees at the University of Oxford , at the new Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville Hall and with the Society of Oxford Home-Students .[ 2]
17 October – Sunderland A.F.C. is formed as 'Sunderland and District Teachers A.F.C.' in the North East.
27 October – Liverpool Echo [ 3]
November–March 1880 – probably the longest ever fog in the city's history engulfs London .[ 9]
December – the world's first Christmas grotto opens in Lewis's Liverpool department store as 'Christmas Fairyland'.
15–23 December – Second Anglo-Afghan War : British victory at the Siege of the Sherpur Cantonment .
28 December – the Tay Bridge Disaster : The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses in a storm as a train passes over it, killing 78.[ 2]
30 December – the comic opera The Pirates of Penzance Paignton , Devon [ 3] New York City , the only Gilbert and Sullivan work to have its official debut outside England.
1 January to 31 December – the combination of the severest winter since 1814, a late spring, an exceptionally cool summer and a cold dry autumn produces the third-coldest year in the CET series and the coldest since 1740,[ 10]
Undated
Publications
Births
1 January
8 January – Charles Bryant , actor and director (died 1948)
10 January – Bobby Walker , Scottish footballer (died 1930)
13 January – William Reid Dick , sculptor (died 1961)
28 January – Una Duval , née Dugdale, suffragette (died 1975)
26 February – Frank Bridge , composer (died 1941)
5 March – William Beveridge , economist and social reformer (died 1963)
20 April – Robert Wilson Lynd , essayist and writer (died 1949)
26 April – Owen Willans Richardson , physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1959)
29 April – Thomas Beecham , conductor (died 1961)
19 May – Viscount Waldorf Astor , businessman and politician (died 1952)
25 May – Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook , Canadian-British business tycoon, politician and writer (died 1964)
30 May –
4 June – Mabel Lucie Attwell , illustrator (died 1964)
6 June – Patrick Abercrombie , town planner (died 1957)
13 July – Alan Wace , archaeologist (died 1957)
15 July – Joseph Campbell , poet and lyricist (died 1944)
1 August – William Percival Crozier , editor of The Manchester Guardian
7 August – James Peters , black rugby union international (died 1954)
13 August – John Ireland , composer (died 1962)
27 September – Cyril Scott , composer and writer (died 1970)
10 December – E. H. Shepard , artist and book illustrator (died 1976)
23 December – Louise Hampton , English actress (died 1954)[ 13]
27 December – Sydney Greenstreet , actor (died 1954)
Deaths
22 January – John Vivian , Liberal MP, member of the Vivian family , 60[ 14]
18 February – Rayner Stephens , radical reformer and Methodist minister (born 1805)
25 February – Charles Peace , criminal (executed) (born 1832)[ 15]
3 March
22 March – Sir John Woodford , general and archaeologist (born 1785)
23 March – Sir Walter Trevelyan , naturalist and geologist (born 1797)
8 April – Sir Anthony Panizzi , librarian (born 1797 in Italy)
21 April – George Hadfield , radical politician (born 1787)
25 April – Charles Tennyson Turner , poet (born 1808)
4 May – William Froude , hydrodynamicist (born 1810)
8 May – Henry Collen , royal miniature portrait painter (born 1797)
10 May – Robert Thompson Crawshay , ironmaster (born 1817)[ 16]
3 June – Frances Ridley Havergal , religious poet (born 1836)[ 17]
7 June – William Tilbury Fox , dermatologist (born 1836)[ 18]
3 August – Joseph Severn , painter (born 1793)
10 August – George Long , classical scholar (born 1800)
20 August – Sir John Shaw-Lebevre , barrister, Whig politician and civil servant (born 1797)
19 September – Clara Rousby , actress (born 1848)[ 19]
23 September – Francis Kilvert , diarist (peritonitis) (born 1840)[ 20]
26 September – Sir William Rowan , field marshal (born 1789)
5 November – James Clerk Maxwell , physicist (born 1831)[ 21]
6 December – John Bentinck, 5th Duke of Portland (born 1800)
11 December – William Thomas (Gwilym Marles) , minister and poet (born 1834)[ 22]
13 December – William Calcraft , hangman (born 1800)
References
^ "Nos. 48–51: Blackwell's Bookshop" . Broad Street, Oxford . 2008. Archived from the original on 2 July 2011. Retrieved 14 August 2011 .^ a b c d Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History . London: Century Ltd. pp. 303–304. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2 ^ a b c d e f Penguin Pocket On This Day . Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0 ^ "1879" . Co-Curate . Retrieved 21 March 2022 .^ Farrugia, Jean Young (1969). The Letter Box: a history of Post Office pillar and wall boxes . Fontwell: Centaur Press. ISBN 0-900000-14-7 ^ Hadley Centre ranked Seasonal Central England temperature. ^ "SS Rotomahana" . Clydebuilt . Archived from the original on 12 March 2005. Retrieved 14 April 2014 .^ "S/S Buenos Ayrean, Allan Line" . Norway Heritage . Retrieved 11 March 2016 .^ Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher (1995). The London Encyclopaedia . Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-57688-8 ^ Met Office ; Hadley Centre Ranked Central England Temperature. ^ Cumming, Valerie; Cunnington, C. W.; Cunnington, P. E. (2010). The Dictionary of Fashion History . Berg. p. 248. ISBN 978-1-84788-533-3 ^ Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (2nd ed.). London: Chatto & Windus. ^ "Louise Hampton" . Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved 6 July 2024 .^ "In Memoriam". The Cornishman . No. 48. 12 June 1879. p. 4. ^ "Feature". The Historian . Historical Association: 14–16. 1998. ^ Price, Watkin William (1959). "Crawshay family" . Dictionary of Welsh Biography National Library of Wales . Retrieved 3 November 2021 .^ Humphreys, Maggie (1997). Dictionary of composers for the Church in Great Britain and Ireland . London Herndon, VA: Mansell. p. 152. ISBN 9780720123302 ^ "Obituary — Tilbury Fox, M.D". BMJ 1 (963). BMJ Group : 915–916. 14 June 1879. doi :10.1136/bmj.1.963.915-b . S2CID 220233024 . ^ "Rousby, Clara Marion Jessie" Dictionary of National Biography ^ Robert Thomas Jenkins (1959). "Kilvert, Robert Francis (1840-1879), cleric and diarist" . Dictionary of Welsh Biography National Library of Wales . Retrieved 28 February 2022 . ^ Harman, Peter M. (2004). "Maxwell, James". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography doi :10.1093/ref:odnb/5624 . (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) ^ David Jacob Davies. "THOMAS, WILLIAM (Gwilym Marles; 1834–1879), Unitarian minister, social reformer, writer, and schoolmaster" . Dictionary of Welsh Biography . Retrieved 6 March 2019 .