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UK-related events during the year of 1858
Events from the year
1858 in the
United Kingdom .
we can conquer India; ...but we cannot clean the River Thames.
[1]
Incumbents
Events
January – first
GPO wall-fitted
post boxes put into place and agreed for general adoption.
[2]
25 January – the "
Wedding March " by
Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional after it is played on this day at the marriage of
Queen Victoria 's daughter
Victoria , "Vicky" the
Princess Royal , to
Prince Friedrich of Prussia in
St James's Palace ,
London .
[3]
30 January –
Hallé Orchestra founded by
Charles Hallé in
Manchester .
[3]
31 January –
I. K. Brunel 's
SS Great Eastern , the largest ship built to date, is launched on the
River Thames .
[4]
13 February –
Richard Francis Burton and
John Hanning Speke become the first Europeans to discover
Lake Tanganyika .
[3]
21 February –
Palmerston resigns as Prime Minister, following the rejection of a
counter-terrorism bill in the wake of the
Orsini affair ; he is replaced by the
Earl of Derby , forming a new Conservative government.
[5]
1 March – The
English Woman's Journal is established by
Barbara Bodichon ,
Matilda Hays ,
Bessie Rayner Parkes (the editor) and others to discuss women's equality issues.
[6]
10 April –
Big Ben , the Great Bell for the Palace of Westminster's clock tower in London, is re
cast at
Whitechapel Bell Foundry .
29 April –
Charles Dickens embarks on his first professional tour giving readings from his works; this will comprise 129 appearances in 49 different towns throughout England, Scotland and Ireland.
[7]
May –
Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes first sits (with Sir
Cresswell Cresswell as judge in ordinary) following coming into effect of the
Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 making civil
divorce without
parliamentary approval legally possible.
3 May –
William Powell Frith 's painting
The Derby Day is first exhibited at the
Royal Academy , attracting crowds.
15 May – new
Royal Opera House ,
Covent Garden , opens.
[5]
24 June –
the Sovereign and Illustrious Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Anglia declared.
1 July – papers by
Charles Darwin and
Alfred Russel Wallace announcing a theory of
evolution by natural selection read at the
Linnean Society of London .
[3]
2 July –
Great Stink : the stench of
sewage from the River
Thames affects work in the
House of Commons .
[5]
17 July – salvage of the
Lutine bell , which is subsequently hung in
Lloyd's of London .
26 July –
Lionel de Rothschild takes his seat as the first Jewish
Member of Parliament .
[8]
28 July – in
Bengal , British official
William Herschel uses a hand impression of Rajyadhar Konai as a
contract
fingerprint signature.
2 August
3 August – explorer
John Hanning Speke discovers
Lake Victoria , source of the
River Nile .
[3]
16 August – US President
James Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic
telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria. However, a weak signal will force a shutdown of the service on 1 September.
26 August – the
Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce signed.
August – reforming educator
Dorothea Beale takes up her duties as Principal of
Cheltenham Ladies' College .
[11]
1 September
30 October –
Bradford sweets poisoning : 21 people are killed and 200 more suffer
arsenic poisoning when
arsenic is accidentally substituted for plaster in adulterating sweets sold in
Bradford market.
1 December – the recently-formed Odontological Society of London opens the
Dental Hospital of London .
[12]
Undated
Publications
Births
22 January
26 January –
Arthur Winnington-Ingram ,
Bishop of London (died 1946)
10 March –
Henry Watson Fowler , lexicographer (died 1933)
23 April –
Ethel Smyth , composer and a leader of the women's suffrage movement (died 1944)
26 May –
Horace Smith-Dorrien , general (died 1930)
8 June –
Charlotte Scott , mathematician (died 1931)
14 July –
Emmeline Pankhurst , suffragette (died 1928)
15 August –
E. Nesbit , children's novelist (died 1924)
19 August
16 September
11 October –
Frederick Kerr , actor (died 1933)
[13]
20 October –
John Burns , trade unionist, politician and historian (died 1943)
Deaths
4 January –
Amelia Griffiths , phycologist (born 1768)
8 January –
Caroline Cornwallis , scholar, writer and reformer (born 1786)
7 April –
Henry Piddington , merchant captain in the East (born 1797)
17 April –
James Abercromby, 1st Baron Dunfermline , politician (born 1776)
10 June –
Robert Brown , botanist (born 1773)
16 June –
John Snow , epidemiologist (born 1813)
28 June –
Jane Marcet , science writer (born 1769)
9 September –
Thomas Assheton Smith , politician and cricketer (born 1776)
3 November –
Harriet Taylor Mill , philosopher and women's rights advocate (born 1807)
17 November –
Robert Owen , founder of the Co-operative Society (born 1771)
20 November –
Sir Joseph Bailey, 1st Baronet , ironmaster (born 1783)
23 November –
Edmund Lyons, 1st Baron Lyons , admiral (born 1790)
28 November –
Robert Pearse Gillies , Scottish poet and writer (born 1789)
29 December –
Richard Cheslyn , cricketer (born 1797)
References
^
The Illustrated London News 26 June 1858 pp. 626–7.
^ Farrugia, Jean Young (1969). The Letter Box: a history of Post Office pillar and wall boxes . Fontwell: Centaur Press.
ISBN
0-900000-14-7 .
^
a
b
c
d
e
f Penguin Pocket On This Day . Penguin Reference Library. 2006.
ISBN
0-14-102715-0 .
^
"ss Great Eastern" . Brunel 200 . 2006.
Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 29 June 2011 .
^
a
b
c Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History . London: Century Ltd. pp. 278–279.
ISBN
0-7126-5616-2 .
^ Merrill, Lisa. "Hays, Matilda Mary".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi :
10.1093/ref:odnb/57829 . (Subscription or
UK public library membership required.)
^
Hobsbaum, Philip (1998) [1972].
A Reader's Guide to Charles Dickens . Syracuse University Press. p.
270 .
ISBN
978-0-8156-0475-4 . Retrieved 20 April 2012 .
^
"Icons, a portrait of England 1840–1860" . Archived from
the original on 17 August 2007. Retrieved 13 September 2007 .
^ Wolpert, Stanley (1989).
A New History of India (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp.
239–40 .
ISBN
0-19-505637-X .
^ Halliday, Stephen (2013).
The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis . Stroud: The History Press.
ISBN
978-0-7509-2580-8 .
^ Shillito, Elizabeth H. (1930).
Dorothea Beale, Principal of the Cheltenham Ladies' College, 1858–1906 . London: SPCK. Retrieved 1 February 2011 .
^ Gelbier, Stanley (1 October 2005).
"Dentistry and the University of London" .
Medical History . 49 (4): 445–462.
doi :
10.1017/s0025727300009157 .
PMC
1251639 .
PMID
16562330 .
^ Clement Scott; Bernard Edward Joseph Capes; Charles Eglington; Addison Bright (1891).
The Theatre: A Monthly Review and Magazine . Wyman & Sons. p. 268.