Events
- 1 January – the Midland Railway abolishes Second Class, leaving First Class and Third Class, the latter having passenger facilities upgraded to the former Second Class level. Other British railway companies follow this lead during the year and later. (Third Class is renamed Second Class in 1956.)
- 21 January – Preston North End F.C. move into their new stadium at Deepdale. [1]
- 25 March – Trial by Jury , the first surviving Gilbert and Sullivan opera, premières.
- 1 April – The Times publishes the first daily weather map. [2]
- 16 April – Martha Merington becomes the first woman member of a Board of guardians under the Poor Law, in the London Borough of Kensington. [3]
- 7 May – German liner SS Schiller is wrecked on rocks off the Isles of Scilly with the loss of 311 lives.
- 27 May – Standard for the modern British Bulldog breed published.
- 29 May – British Arctic Expedition: George Nares sets sail on an expedition to attempt to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound.
- 29 June – Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875 is passed to permit slum clearance.
- 6 July – opening of first passenger funicular in the UK, the South Cliff Lift at Scarborough, North Yorkshire. [4]
- 31 July – Public Health Act 1875 establishes a code of practice for sanitation across the country. [5]
- 6 August – Scottish football team Hibernian F.C. is founded by Irishmen in Edinburgh. [6]
- 11 August
- Food and Drugs Act makes adulteration of food or drugs an offence. [5]
- Offences against the Person Act effectively raises the age of consent in England, Wales and Ireland from twelve to thirteen.
- 25 August – Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel. [2]
- 27 September – American merchant sailing ship Ellen Southard is wrecked off Liverpool; 12 crew and life-boatmen are lost.
- September
- Joseph Bazalgette completes the 30-year construction of London's sewer system. [5]
- Association football team Birmingham City F.C. is founded as Small Heath Alliance in Birmingham by a group of cricketers from Holy Trinity Church, Bordesley, playing its first match in November. [7]
- 5 November – Blackburn Rovers F.C. is founded by two old-boys of Shrewsbury School following a meeting at the Leger Hotel, Blackburn. [8]
- 26 November – The Times newspaper reveals that Isma'il Pasha has sold Egypt's 44% share in the Suez Canal to Britain in a deal secured by Benjamin Disraeli without the prior sanction of the British Parliament.
- 6 December
- German emigrant ship SS Deutschland (built in Scotland 1866) runs aground on Kentish Knock resulting in the death of 157 passengers and crew and inspiring Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem The Wreck of the Deutschland .
- A firedamp explosion at Swaithe Main Colliery in the South Yorkshire Coalfield results in the death of 143 miners. [9]
- At Wimbledon, Henry Cavendish Jones convinces the All England Croquet Club to replace a croquet court with a lawn tennis court.
- William Morris's Acanthus wallpaper design is produced.
