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1864 in the United Kingdom
Last updated
August 03, 2025
Contents
Incumbents
Events
Publications
Births
Deaths
References
1864 in the United Kingdom
Other years
1862
1863
1864
(
1864
)
1865
1866
Constituent countries of the United Kingdom
England
|
Ireland
|
Scotland
|
Wales
Sport
1864 English cricket season
Events from the year
1864
in the
United Kingdom
.
Incumbents
Monarch
–
Victoria
Prime Minister
–
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
(
Liberal
)
Events
11 January –
Charing Cross railway station
in
London
opens.
[
1
]
11 March –
Great Sheffield Flood
: the
Dale Dike Dam
bursts devastating
Sheffield
.
29 March –
Treaty of London
: Britain voluntarily cedes control of the
United States of the Ionian Islands
to the
Kingdom of Greece
with effect from 2 May.
[
2
]
1 April –
Barrow Hematite Iron and Steel Company
registered to take over and expand the works at
Barrow-in-Furness
,
[
3
]
which will become the world's largest
steel mill
.
April –
Giuseppe Garibaldi
visits England.
7 May –
City of Adelaide
is launched at
Sunderland
by
William Pile, Hay and Co.
for the Australia trade; by 2014 she will be the world's oldest surviving
clipper
.
c. May–June – Ending of Second
Anglo-Ashanti war
.
June –
overarm bowling
legalised in
cricket
.
20 August –
John Alexander Reina Newlands
produces the
first periodic table
of the
chemical elements
.
[
4
]
5–6 September –
Bombardment of Shimonoseki
: An American, British,
Dutch
and French alliance engages the powerful feudal Japanese warlord or
daimyō
Lord
Mōri Takachika
of the
Chōshū
clan based in
Shimonoseki
, Japan.
15 September – The explorer of Africa,
John Hanning Speke
, 37, accidentally shoots himself at
Neston Park
, his estate in Wiltshire.
28 September –
International Workingmen's Association
founded in London.
[
1
]
10 October –
Quebec Conference
to discuss plans for the creation of a Dominion of
Canada
, begins.
[
2
]
18 October – abolition of
squadron colours
in the
Royal Navy
, reserving the
White Ensign
to the Navy, the
Red Ensign
to the
Merchant Navy
and the
Blue Ensign
to military vessels.
[
5
]
22 October – the predecessor of
Wrexham A.F.C.
plays its first match, making it the oldest
association football
club in Wales and the world's sixth
oldest football club
and third oldest professional team.
[
6
]
2 November –
HMS
Victoria
(1859)
, the Royal Navy's last, largest and fastest wooden
first-rate
three-decker
ship of the line
to see sea service, enters active service.
10 November – first match played on the newly laid out
Royal North Devon Golf Club
course, the oldest surviving in England.
[
7
]
8 December
The
Clifton Suspension Bridge
across the
Bristol Avon
, designed by
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
and completed as a memorial to him, opens to traffic.
[
1
]
James Clerk Maxwell
presents his paper
A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field
to the
Royal Society
, concluding that light is an
electromagnetic wave
.
[
8
]
Undated
Joseph Hepworth
sets up his tailoring business in
Leeds
, predecessor of
Next plc
.
[
9
]
Oriel Chambers
,
Liverpool
, the world's first metal-framed glass
curtain walled
building, designed by
Peter Ellis (architect)
, is built.
[
10
]
Publications
Harry Clifton's song "
Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green
".
Charles Dickens
's last completed novel
Our Mutual Friend
(serialisation begins, May).
Amelia Edwards
' novel
Barbara's History
.
John Henry Newman
's spiritual autobiography
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
.
James Payn
's novel
Lost Sir Massingberd
(in
Chambers's Journal
).
[
11
]
Anthony Trollope
's novel
The Small House at Allington
(publication concludes) and
Can You Forgive Her?
(publication commences).
John Wisden
publishes
The Cricketer's Almanack for the year 1864
(February) which will go on to become the major annual cricket reference publication.
Births
8 January –
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence
(died 1892)
21 January –
Israel Zangwill
, novelist and playwright (died 1926)
20 February –
Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson
, general (died 1925)
12 March –
W. H. R. Rivers
, psychiatrist (died 1922)
6 April –
William Bate Hardy
, biologist and food scientist (died 1934)
9 April –
Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti
, electrical engineer and inventor (died 1930 in Switzerland)
22 April –
Phil May
, caricaturist (died 1903)
4 May –
Marie Booth
, third daughter of
William
and
Catherine Booth
(died 1937)
5 May –
Sir Henry Wilson, 1st Baronet
, field marshal (died 1922)
25 May –
Herbie Hewett
, cricketer (died 1921)
10 June –
Ninian Comper
, architect (died 1960)
18 July –
Philip Snowden
politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (died 1937)
11 September –
Mark Sheridan
, music-hall performer (suicide 1918)
14 September –
Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood
, politician and diplomat, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize
(died 1958)
31 October –
Cosmo Lang
,
Archbishop of Canterbury
(died 1945)
26 November –
Edward Higgins
, 3rd General of
The Salvation Army
(died 1947)
Deaths
29 January
Lucy Aikin
, writer (born 1781)
Julia Maitland
, writer on India and for children (born 1808)
2 February –
Adelaide Anne Procter
, poet (born 1825)
10 February –
William Henry Hunt
, watercolour painter (born 1790)
14 February –
William Dyce
, painter (born 1806)
11 March –
Richard Roberts
, mechanical engineer (born 1789)
16 March –
Robert Smith Surtees
, novelist and sporting writer (born 1805)
21 March –
Luke Howard
,
meteorologist
and manufacturing chemist (born 1772)
5 April –
Alaric Alexander Watts
, poet and journalist (born 1797)
16 April –
George Webster
, architect (born 1797)
26 April –
John Shuttleworth
, industrialist and political campaigner (born 1786)
5 May –
Elizabeth Andrew Warren
, Cornish botanist, marine
algolologist
(born 1786)
20 May –
John Clare
, Northamptonshire "peasant poet" (born 1793)
4 June –
Nassau W. Senior
, economist (born 1790)
17 June –
William Cureton
, Orientalist (born 1808)
6 August –
Catherine Sinclair
, Scottish novelist and children's writer (born 1800)
15 September –
John Hanning Speke
, explorer (born 1827; accident)
17 September –
Walter Savage Landor
, writer and poet (born 1775)
1 October –
Ignatius Spencer
, priest (born 1799)
25 November –
David Roberts
, painter (born 1796)
4 December –
John Fowler
, agricultural engineer (born 1826)
8 December –
George Boole
, mathematician and philosopher (born 1815)
21 December –
Joshua Fawcett
, clergyman and writer (born 1809)
23 December –
James Bronterre O'Brien
,
Chartist
leader,
reformer
and journalist (born 1804)
24 December –
Princess Caraboo
, impostor (born 1791)
References
1
2
3
Penguin Pocket On This Day
. Penguin Reference Library. 2006.
ISBN
0-14-102715-0
.
1
2
Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992).
The Chronology of British History
. London: Century Ltd. pp.
284–
285.
ISBN
0-7126-5616-2
.
↑
Previously Schneider, Hannay & Co.
↑
Newlands, John A. R. (20 August 1864).
"On Relations Among the Equivalents"
.
Chemical News
.
10
:
94–
95.
Archived
from the original on 21 July 2011
. Retrieved
30 August
2011
.
↑
By
Order in Council
9 July.
"The Birth of Todays Royal Navy's Ensign"
.
Historical Flags of Our Ancestors
. NAVA
. Retrieved
10 August
2013
.
↑
"Wrexham football club could be older than thought"
.
BBC News
. 21 February 2012.
↑
"North Devon and West of England Golf Club".
Exeter & Plymouth Gazette
. 18 November 1864. p.
7.
↑
Maxwell, J. Clerk (1865).
"A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field"
(PDF)
.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London
.
155
:
459–
512.
doi
:
10.1098/rstl.1865.0008
. Retrieved
30 August
2011
.
↑
"Next history"
. Next plc
. Retrieved
12 October
2010
.
↑
"History"
. Oriel Chambers
. Retrieved
27 July
2009
.
↑
Leavis, Q. D.
(1965).
Fiction and the Reading Public
(2nd
ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.
v
t
e
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t
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1864 in Europe
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