1873 in the United Kingdom
UK-related events during the year of 1873
Events from the year 1873 in the United Kingdom .
Incumbents
Events
January – Jane Senior is appointed an assistant inspector of workhouses, making her Britain's first female civil servant.[ 1]
22 January – Northfleet Dungeness after being rammed by a Spanish steamship with the death of 293 and 86 survivors.
3 March – first performance of W. S. Gilbert and Gilbert Arthur à Beckett 's play The Happy Land Royal Court Theatre , London . The play creates a scandal by breaking regulations against the portrayal of public characters, parodying William Ewart Gladstone , Robert Lowe , and Acton Smee Ayrton , respectively the prime minister , Chancellor of the Exchequer , and First Commissioner of Works .
13 March – Gladstone resigns as Prime Minister but the Conservatives fail to form a government and Gladstone returns to office two days later.[ 2]
31 March – Supreme Court of Judicature Act reforms the judiciary, establishing the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal of England and Wales and abolishing the Court of Common Pleas as a separate institution and, with it, the office of attorney at law .[ 2]
April – Ashanti attack British forts in the Gold Coast .[ 2]
c. April – J. S. Fry & Sons produce the UK's first chocolate Easter eggs .
1 April – the White Star liner RMS Atlantic sinks off Nova Scotia , 547 die.
2 April – the first sleeping car is introduced in Britain, on the Glasgow to London night express.[ 2]
4 April – the Kennel Club , the world's first kennel club , is founded in London by Sewallis Shirley (MP) .
20 May – in Chipping Norton , Oxfordshire, rioters attempt to free the Ascott Martyrs – sixteen women sentenced to imprisonment for attempting to dissuade strikebreakers in an agricultural labour dispute.
June – Britain puts pressure on Sultan Sayyid Barghash bin Said of Zanzibar to enforce closure of the slave market in Zanzibar .
9 June – Alexandra Palace entertainment venue in north London is destroyed by fire only a fortnight after its opening.[ 3]
18 June – Alice Vickery passes the Royal Pharmaceutical Society 's examination, becoming the first qualified female pharmacist in the U.K.[ 4]
27 September – Third Anglo-Ashanti War : Royal Engineers land on the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) to prepare for an attack on the Kingdom of Ashanti 's ruler Kofi Karikari , who has been involved in the trading of slaves .
October – Girton College opens as the first women's college in Cambridge .
26 November – British troops invade Ashanti territory.[ 2]
Undated
Publications
Births
7 February – Thomas Andrews , Irish shipbuilder (died 1912 in sinking of the Titanic )[ 6]
17 March – Margaret Bondfield , politician and trade unionist (died 1953)
19 April – Sydney Barnes , cricketer (died 1967)
25 April – Walter de la Mare , poet, short story writer and novelist (died 1956)
26 April – Roy Redgrave , silent film actor (died 1922)
8 May – Nevil Sidgwick , chemist (died 1952)
17 May – Dorothy Richardson , feminist writer (died 1957)
15 June – Leonora Cohen , née Throp, suffragette, trade unionist and feminist (died 1978)
21 July – Sir Morley Fletcher , physiologist and administrator (died 1933)
11 August – Bertram Mills , circus manager (died 1938)
25 September – Fawcet Wray , British admiral (died 1932)
21 November – Sir Vernon Kell ('K'), first director of MI5 (died 1942)
22 November – Johnny Tyldesley , cricketer (died 1930)
17 December – Ford Madox Ford , né Hueffer, novelist and literary editor (died 1939)
21 December – Bertram Dickson , Scottish soldier, explorer and pioneer aviator; involved in the world's first mid-air collision (died 1913)
22 December – Lily Montagu , pioneer of reform Judaism (died 1963)
26 December – Thomas Wass , Nottinghamshire cricketer (died 1953)
Deaths
9 January – Napoleon III , deposed Emperor of the French (born 1808 in France)
18 January – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton , novelist (born 1803)
27 January – Adam Sedgwick , geologist (born 1875)
7 February – Sheridan Le Fanu , Irish Gothic fiction writer (born 1814)
7 March – Evelyn Denison, 1st Viscount Ossington , statesman (born 1800)
24 March – Mary Ann Cotton , serial poisoner (born 1832; hanged)
27 April – William Macready , actor (born 1793)
1 May – David Livingstone , Scottish explorer of Africa (born 1813)
7 May – John Stuart Mill , philosopher (born 1806)
19 June – David Robertson, 1st Baron Marjoribanks , stockbroker and politician (born 1797)
13 July – Caroline Clive , poet, novelist and letter-writer (born 1801; died in fire)
18 July – Sir David Salomons , banker and campaigner for emancipation of the Jews in England (born 1797)
20 July – Richard Bethell, 1st Baron Westbury , Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (born 1800)
24 July – George Glyn, 1st Baron Wolverton , banker (born 1797)
28 July – Frederick Sullivan , cricketer (born 1797)
17 September – Alexander Berry , adventurer and Australian pioneer (born 1781)
1 October – Sir Edwin Landseer , animal painter (born 1802)
9 October – John Evan Thomas , Welsh sculptor (born 1810)
17 October – Admiral Sir Robert McClure , Irish-born Arctic explorer (born 1807)
References
^ Oldfield, Sybil (2008). Jeanie, an 'army of one': Mrs Nassau Senior, 1828–1877, the first woman in Whitehall . Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-84519-254-9 ^ a b c d e f Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History . London: Century Ltd. pp. 295– 296. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2 ^ Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher (1995). The London Encyclopaedia . Macmillan. p. 288. ISBN 0-333-57688-8 ^ "Alice Vickery" . rpharms.com . Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 25 July 2013 .^ Elston, M. A. (2004). "Anderson, Elizabeth Garrett (1836–1917)" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Retrieved 28 January 2011 . ^ "Thomas Andrews | Irish ship designer | Britannica" . Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved 15 April 2022 .
