1831 in the United Kingdom

1831 in the United Kingdom

Other years

1829 | 1830 | 1831 (1831) | 1832 | 1833

Constituent countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1831 English cricket season

Events from the year 1831 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – William IV
• Prime Minister – Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (Whig)
• Foreign Secretary – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
• Secretary of War – Earl of Ripon

Events

The Opening of New London Bridge by Clarkson Stanfield

• 3 March – Tithe War breaks out in Ireland.
• 7 March – Royal Astronomical Society receives its Royal Charter.^[1]
• 12 April – Broughton Suspension Bridge over the River Irwell collapses under marching troops.^[2]
• 27 April – End of the First Anglo-Ashanti War (1823–1831).
• 28 April–1 June – General election results in a Whig victory and a mandate for electoral reform.^[3]
• May–June – Merthyr Rising in Merthyr Tydfil.
• 30 May – Census in the United Kingdom.
• 1 June – Royal Navy officer and explorer James Clark Ross leads the first expedition to reach the Magnetic North Pole.
• 8 June – Freeminers in the Forest of Dean, led by Warren James, break down enclosures in the Forest.^[4]
• 1 August – The new London Bridge is officially opened.^[5]
• 18 August – The paddle steamer Rothsay Castle is wrecked at the eastern end of the Menai Strait with the loss of 93 lives.
• 29 August – Michael Faraday demonstrates electromagnetic induction.^[6]
• 8 September – Coronation of King William IV.^[5]
• 22 September – The House of Commons passes the Great Reform Bill to expand the franchise, but this is later defeated in the Lords.
• 27 September – British Association for the Advancement of Science first meets, in York.^[3]
• October – King's College London opens.
• 9–11 October – Reform riots in Nottingham: Nottingham Castle and a silk mill at Beeston are gutted by fire.^[7]
• 15 October
  • Special Constables Act regularises operation of the Special Constabulary.
  • Truck Act prohibits payment of wages other than in cash.^[8]
• 26 October – Cholera epidemic begins in Sunderland.
• 28 October – Michael Faraday constructs the first dynamo.^[5]
• 29–31 October – 1831 Bristol riots ("Queen Square riots") in Bristol, in connection with the Great Reform Act controversy: 100 city centre properties are destroyed (including the Bishop's palace), at least 120 are estimated to have been killed, 31 of the rioters will be sentenced to death and a colonel facing court-martial for failure to control the riot commits suicide.^[9]
• December – First meeting in England of the Plymouth Brethren, organised primarily by George Wigram, Benjamin Wills Newton and John Nelson Darby.^[10][11]
• 27 December – Charles Darwin embarks on his historic voyage aboard HMS Beagle^[5] from Plymouth.

Undated

• The house which will eventually contain Abbey Road Studios is built in the St John's Wood district of London.

Publications

• January – Joseph Livesey begins publishing The Moral Reformer in Preston, Lancashire, the first publication of the temperance movement in England.
• Mrs Gore's novels Pin Money, Mothers and Daughters,^[12] and The Tuileries and her play The School for Coquettes.
• Thomas Hood's poem The Dream of Eugene Aram, the Murderer.
• Thomas Love Peacock's anonymous novel Crotchet Castle.
• Mary Prince's slave narrative The History of Mary Prince.

Births

• 21 March – Dorothea Beale, proponent of women's education (died 1906)
• 7 May – Richard Norman Shaw, architect (died 1912)
• 16 May – David Edward Hughes, musician and professor of music (died 1900)
• 13 June – James Clerk Maxwell, physicist (died 1879)
• 14 October – Samuel Waite Johnson, railway locomotive engineer (died 1912)
• 15 October – Isabella Bird, explorer, writer, photographer and naturalist (died 1904)

Deaths

• 14 February – Henry Maudslay, mechanical engineer (born 1771)
• 21 February – Robert Hall, Baptist minister (born 1764)
• 20 April – John Abernethy, surgeon (born 1764)
• 8 June – Sarah Siddons, actress (born 1755 in Wales)
• 17 August – Patrick Nasmyth, Scottish landscape painter (born 1787)

References

1. "A brief history of the RAS". Royal Astronomical Society. Archived from the original on 30 January 2011. Retrieved 6 February 2011.
2. Bishop, R. E. D. (1979). Vibration (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22779-8.
3. Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 257–258. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
4. Anstis, Ralph (1986). Warren James and the Dean Forest Riots. Coalway: Albion House. ISBN 978-0-9511371-0-9.
5. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
6. "Icons, a portrait of England 1820–1840". Archived from the original on 22 September 2007. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
7. Beckett, John (20 July 2008). "Riot and rebellion". The Nottinghamshire Heritage Gateway. Retrieved 26 December 2016.
8. The History Today Companion to British History. London: Collins & Brown. 1995. p. 762. ISBN 1-85585-178-4.
9. "Revolting riots in Queen Square". Made in Bristol. BBC. 2004. Retrieved 16 February 2011.
10. Burnham, Jonathan D. (2004). "The Emergence of the Plymouth Brethren". A Story of Conflict: the Controversial Relationship Between Benjamin Wills Newton and John Nelson Darby. Carlisle: Paternoster Press. ISBN 978-1-84227-191-9. OCLC 56336926.
11. Livingstone, Elizabeth A. (2000). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280057-2. OCLC 46858944.
12. Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (2nd ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.