1840 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom-related events during the year of 1840
Events from the year 1840 in the United Kingdom .
Incumbents
Events
Penny Black
1 January – trial of Welsh Chartists John Frost , Zephaniah Williams and William Jones for their part in the Newport Rising of 1839 opens at Monmouth before Chief Justice Tindal ; this is the first trial where proceedings are recorded in shorthand .
10 January – Uniform Penny Post introduced, replacing the Uniform Fourpenny Post of 1839.
12 January – Chartist rising in Sheffield aborted.
14 January – Chartist rising in the East End of London largely suppressed by police.[1]
16 January – Frost, Williams and Jones are all found guilty of high treason for their part in the Chartist riots, and are sentenced to death; the last time the sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering is passed in the UK, although following a nationwide petitioning campaign and direct lobbying of the Home Secretary by the Lord Chief Justice, it is commuted to transportation for life (Frost is eventually pardoned).
22 January – British colonists reach New Zealand. Official founding date of Wellington .
26 January – Chartist rising in Bradford fails to spread.[1]
6 February – Treaty of Waitangi , a document granting British sovereignty in New Zealand, is signed.[2]
10 February – Queen Victoria marries her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha [2] in the Royal Chapel at St James's Palace .[3]
15 April – King's College Hospital opens in Portugal Street, London .
27 April – the foundation stone of the new Palace of Westminster is laid as its reconstruction following the Burning of Parliament in 1834 begins (completed in 1860).[4] [5]
1 May – issue of the Penny Black , the world's first postage stamp ,[4] together with Mulready stationery . The stamp becomes valid for prepayment of postage from 6 May.[6]
5 May - Thomas Carlyle gives the first lecture in the series On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History
11 May – Chartist leader Feargus O'Connor is sentenced to imprisonment in York Castle for seditious libel over speeches published in The Northern Star .
20 May – York Minster 's nave roof is destroyed in an accidental fire.
6 June – the first group of British emigrants from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints set sail from Liverpool bound for Nauvoo, Illinois .[7]
10 June – Edward Oxford fires a pistol at Queen Victoria[8] in Hyde Park, London .
12–23 June – the World Anti-Slavery Convention is organised by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society at Exeter Hall in London.
July
4 July – the Cunard Line 's 700-ton wooden paddle steamer RMS Britannia departs from Liverpool bound for Halifax , Nova Scotia , on the first steam transatlantic passenger mail service.[8]
15 July – Austria , Britain, Prussia , and Russia sign the London Treaty with the Sublime Porte , ruler of the Ottoman Empire .
23 July
7 August – Chimney Sweepers and Chimneys Regulation Act 1840 prohibits the employment of children under the age of 21 as chimney sweeps .[2]
10 September – Ottoman and British troops bombard Beirut and land troops on the coast to pressure Egyptian Muhammad Ali to retreat from the country.
16 September – Joseph Strutt hands over the deeds and papers concerning the Derby Arboretum , which is to become England's first public park.
30 September – foundation of Nelson's Column laid in London,[2] Trafalgar Square being laid out (as a hectare ) and paved during the year.[8]
11 October – Maronite leader Bashir Shihab II surrenders to the Ottomans (in alliance with the British) and on 14 October goes into exile, initially in Malta .[12]
10 November – the boiler of an experimental steam locomotive named Surprise explodes near Bromsgrove station in Worcestershire , killing the driver, Thomas Scaife, and fireman, Joseph Rutherford.[13]
8 December – David Livingstone leaves for Africa.[14]
21 December – Stockport Viaduct is completed.[15] It is one of the largest brick structures in Europe .
Undated
Ongoing events
Publications
Births
Thomas Hardy
Victoria, Princess Royal
1 January – Dugald Drummond , Scottish-born railway locomotive engineer (died 1912)
18 January – Henry Austin Dobson , poet and essayist (died 1921)
26 January – John Clayton Adams , landscape painter (died 1906)
5 February – John Boyd Dunlop , Scottish-born inventor (died 1921)
29 February – John Philip Holland , Irish-born submarine designer (died 1914)
30 March – Charles Booth , shipowner and social reformer (died 1916)
31 March – Benjamin Baker , civil engineer (died 1907)
27 April – Edward Whymper , mountaineer (died 1911)
2 June – Thomas Hardy , novelist and poet (died 1928)
20 June – George Selwyn Marryat , fly fisherman (died 1896)
21 June – Edward Stanley Gibbons , philatelic stamp dealer (died 1913)
9 October – Simeon Solomon , painter (died 1905)
21 November – Victoria, Princess Royal (died 1901)
29 November – Rhoda Broughton , fiction writer (died 1920)
Deaths
References
^ a b Chase, Malcolm (2007). Chartism: A New History . Manchester University Press.
^ a b c d Penguin Pocket On This Day . Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0 .
^ "The wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, 1840" . The British Monarchy . The Royal Household. Retrieved 1 December 2012 .
^ a b c "Icons, a portrait of England 1840–1860" . Archived from the original on 17 August 2007. Retrieved 13 September 2007 .
^ Riding, Christine (7 February 2005). "Westminster: A New Palace for a New Age" . BBC . Retrieved 15 November 2010 .
^ Blake, Richard. The Book of Postal Dates, 1635–1985 . Caterham: Marden. p. 10.
^ "History of the Church in the British Isles" . The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 2013. Retrieved 10 June 2014 .
^ a b c Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History . London: Century Ltd. pp. 263–264. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2 .
^ Rackwitz, Martin (2007). Travels to Terra Incognita: the Scottish Highlands and Hebrides in Early Modern Travellers' Accounts c. 1600 to 1800 . Waxmann Verlag. p. 347. ISBN 978-3-8309-1699-4 .
^ Gaskell, Jeremy (2000). Who Killed the Great Auk? . Oxford University Press . p. 142. ISBN 978-0-19-856478-2 .
^ Fuller, Errol (2003). The Great Auk: The Extinction of the Original Penguin . Bunker Hill Publishing. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-59373-003-1 .
^ Farah, Caesar E.; Centre for Lebanese Studies (Great Britain) (2000). Politics of Interventionism in Ottoman Lebanon, 1830-1861 . I. B. Tauris. p. 43. ISBN 9781860640568 .
^ Rolt, L. T. C. Red For Danger (1966 ed.). Pan Books . p. 69.
^ Roberts, A. D. (2004). "Livingstone, David (1813–1873)" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi :10.1093/ref:odnb/16803 . (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^ Holt, Geoffrey O. (1978). A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain. Vol. 10: The North West . Newton Abbot: David & Charles . p. 117 . ISBN 0-7153-7521-0 .
^ Creighton, Charles (1894). A History of Epidemics in Britain . Vol. II. Cambridge University Press .
^ Whewell, William (1840). "Introduction". The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, founded upon their history . Vol. 1. London: J. W. Parker. pp. 71, 113.
^ "physicist, n " . Oxford English Dictionary online version . Oxford University Press. September 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2011 . (subscription or participating institution membership required)
^ "scientist, n " . Oxford English Dictionary online version . Oxford University Press. September 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2011 .[dead link ]