1865 in the United Kingdom

1865 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1863 | 1864 | 1865 | 1866 | 1867

Sport

1865 English cricket season

Events from the year 1865 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch — Victoria
• Prime Minister — The Viscount Palmerston (Liberal; until 18 October), Lord John Russell (Liberal)

Events

• April — Official opening of Crossness Pumping Station, a major landmark in completion of the new London sewerage system designed by Joseph Bazalgette for the Metropolitan Board of Works.^[1]
• 28 May — The Mimosa sets sail, carrying Welsh emigrants to Patagonia.
• 4 June — The lyrics of the hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers", written by Sabine Baring-Gould as "Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners", are first sung by children processing to St Peter's Church, Horbury, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.^[2]
• 9 June — Staplehurst rail crash in Kent: 10 killed, 49 injured; Charles Dickens is amongst the survivors.
• 25 June — James Hudson Taylor founds the China Inland Mission at Brighton.
• July — General election won by the Liberal Party led by Lord Palmerston.^[3]
• 2 July — The Christian Mission, later renamed The Salvation Army, is founded in Whitechapel, London by William and Catherine Booth.^[1][4]
• 4 July — Lewis Carroll publishes his children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland^[1][5] (first trade edition in December).
• 5 July — First speed limit is introduced in Britain by the Locomotive Act — 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country.^[4]
• 14 July — A party led by Edward Whymper makes the first ascent of the Matterhorn.^[1]
• 23 July — The SS Great Eastern departs on a voyage to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable.^[1]
• September — John Henry Walsh (writing as 'Stonehenge' in the magazine The Field) gives the first definition of a dog breed standard (for the pointer) based on physical form.^[6]
• 28 September — Elizabeth Garrett Anderson graduates as Britain's first woman doctor.^[4]
• 9 to 20 October — Unsuccessful uprising against British rule in Morant Bay, Jamaica; 400 rebels executed.^[5]
• 29 October — Lord John Russell becomes Prime Minister following the death of Lord Palmerston on 18 October.^[1]
• 6 November — American Civil War: Surrender to HMS Donegal at Liverpool of the Confederate commerce raider CSS Shenandoah.
• 11 November — Duar War with Bhutan ends with the Treaty of Sinchula, in which Bhutan cedes control of southern passes to Britain in return for an annual subsidy.^[1]
• 16 December — Edward John Eyre, governor of Jamaica, dismissed and censured for his excessive actions during the suppression of the recent rebellion.^[5]

Illustration by John Tenniel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Undated

• Francis Galton formulates eugenics.^[7]
• James Clerk Maxwell publishes A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field.^[1]
• Joseph Lister discovers the sterilising effects of carbolic acid.^[1]
• Major outbreak of rinderpest in British cattle.
• New Poor Law Act improves conditions in workhouses.^[5]
• Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation founded in Hong Kong by Thomas Sutherland.^[1]
• Jumbo, a large African elephant, is transferred to London Zoo and becomes a popular attraction.
• Gladiateur wins the English Triple Crown by finishing first in the Epsom Derby, 2,000 Guineas and St Leger.

Publications

• Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
• Charles Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend (publication concludes).^[5]
• Robert Smith Surtees' novel Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds (posthumous).
• A. C. Swinburne's narrative poem Atalanta in Calydon.
• Can You Forgive Her? (publication concludes).

Births

• 9 April — Laurence Hope, poet (died 1904)
• 2 June — George Lohmann, cricketer (died 1901)
• 3 June — Prince George of Wales (later George V; died 1936)
• 15 July — Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, newspaper and publishing magnate (died 1922)
• 12 October — Arthur Harden, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1940)
• 20 October — Sir Rhys Rhys-Williams, 1st Baronet, judge (died 1955)
• 27 October — Tinsley Lindley, footballer (died 1940)
• 4 December — Edith Cavell, nurse (died 1915)
• 30 December — Rudyard Kipling, writer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1936)

Deaths

• 6 February — Mrs Isabella Beeton, writer on household management and cookery (born 1836)
• 11 March — Robert Hermann Schomburgk, explorer (born 1804 in Freiburg)
• 27 May — Charles Waterton, naturalist and explorer (born 1782)
• 8 June — Joseph Paxton, gardener and architect (born 1803)
• 25 July — Dr James Barry, military surgeon, revealed on death to be a woman, probably Margaret Ann Bulkley (born 1789-1799).
• 12 August — William Jackson Hooker, botanist (born 1785)
• 9 September — William Henry Smyth, astronomer and admiral (born 1788)
• 18 October — Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister (born 1784)
• 1 November — John Lindley, botanist (born 1799)
• 8 November — Thomas Sayers, boxer (born 1826)
• 12 November — Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell, novelist and biographer (born 1810)

References

See also