The 1870s was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1870, and ended on December 31, 1879.
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London, at 83 Gower Street. Millais became the most famous exponent of the style, his painting Christ in the House of His Parents (1849–50) generating considerable controversy, and he produced a picture that could serve as the embodiment of the historical and naturalist focus of the group, Ophelia, in 1851–52.
Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 1st Baronet, KCSI was an English lawyer, judge, writer, and philosopher. One of the most famous critics of John Stuart Mill, Stephen achieved prominence as a philosopher, law reformer, and writer.
Allan Octavian Hume, CB ICS was a British political reformer, ornithologist, civil servant and botanist who worked in British India. He supported the idea of self-governance by Indians and founded the Indian National Congress. A notable ornithologist, Hume has been called "the Father of Indian Ornithology" and, by those who found him dogmatic, "the Pope of Indian Ornithology".
Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin was a Russian war artist. The graphic nature of his realist scenes led to many of them never being printed or exhibited.
William Henry Giles Kingston, often credited as W. H. G. Kingston, was an English writer of boys' adventure novels.
Richard Daintree CMG was a pioneering Australian geologist and photographer. In particular, Daintree was the first Government geologist for North Queensland discovering gold fields and coal seams for future exploitation. Daintree was a pioneer in the use of photography during field trips and his photographs formed the basis of Queensland's contribution to the Exhibition of Arts and Industry in 1871. Following the success of the display, he was appointed as Queensland's Agent-General in London in 1872 but was forced to resign in 1876 due to ill-health and malpractice by some of his staff although not Daintree himself. A number of features in North Queensland have been named after Daintree including the town of Daintree, Queensland, the Daintree National Park, the Daintree River, the Daintree Rainforest which has been nominated for the World Heritage List and the Daintree Reef.
Sir Thomas McIlwraith was for many years the dominant figure of colonial politics in Queensland. He was Premier of Queensland from 1879 to 1883, again in 1888, and for a third time in 1893. In common with most politicians of his era, McIlwraith was an influential businessman, who combined his parliamentary career with a prosperous involvement in the pastoral industry.
Sir Arthur Edward Kennedy was a British colonial administrator who served as governor of a number of British colonies, namely Sierra Leone, Western Australia, Vancouver Island, Hong Kong and Queensland.
Archibald Campbell of the Bengal Medical Service was the first superintendent (1840-1862) of the sanatorium town of Darjeeling in north east India. He also took a great interest in ethnology, economic botany and the study of the region and wrote extensively in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal under the name of "Dr Campbell" or "Dr A. Campbell" which has led some authors to misidentify his first name as Arthur or even Andrew. Campbell is credited with the introduction of tea cultivation in Darjeeling and for playing a role in the early experiments on the cultivation of Cinchona. Campbell corresponded with numerous naturalists including B.H. Hodgson and Sir Joseph Hooker. The latter travelled around Sikkim with Campbell on an expedition in which the two were held prisoner by Tsugphud Namgyal, the local ruler. This incident led to the British annexation of the Sikkim Terai region.
The Indian indenture system was a system of indentured servitude, by which more than 1.6 million workers from India were transported to labour in European colonies, as a substitute for slave labor, following the abolition of the trade in the early 19th century. The system expanded after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833, in the French colonies in 1848, and in the Dutch Empire in 1863. British Indian indentureship lasted till the 1920s. This resulted in the development of a large Indian diaspora in the Caribbean, Natal, East Africa, Réunion, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Fiji, as well as the growth of Indo-Caribbean, Indo-African, Indo-Mauritian, Indo-Fijian, Indo-Malaysian, and Indo-Singaporean populations.
George Wallis (1811–1891) was an artist, museum curator and art educator. He was the first Keeper of Fine Art Collection at South Kensington Museum in London.
Henry Young Darracott Scott RE was an English Major-General in the Corps of Royal Engineers, best known for the construction of London's Royal Albert Hall.
John Edward Jenkins, known as Edward Jenkins or J. Edward Jenkins, was a barrister, author and Liberal Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was best known as an author of satirical novels, and also served as the Agent-General of Canada, encouraging emigration to the new Dominion. He contested several parliamentary elections, but won only one, and sat in the House of Commons from 1874 to 1880.
Sir John Bramston,, was a politician in Queensland and a British colonial government administrator in Queensland and Hong Kong. He then served as Assistant Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in London for 20 years.
The New Year Honours 1901 were appointments to various orders and honours of the United Kingdom and British India.
Brondesbury F.C. was an English association football club based in Brondesbury, London.
The Calcutta International Exhibition world's fair was held in Calcutta from the end of 1883 to March 1884.
John Forbes Watson (1827–1892) was a Scottish physician and writer on India.
