1866 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1866 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (Liberal) (until 28 June); Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (Conservative) (starting 28 June)

Events

• 1 January – London Fire Brigade is formed as The Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
• 12 January
  • Royal Aeronautical Society is formed as 'The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain' in London, the world's oldest such society.
  • Auxiliary steamer SS London (1864) sinks in a storm in the Bay of Biscay on passage from Gravesend to Australia with the loss of 244 people and only 19 survivors.
• 11 May – London bank Overend, Gurney and Company collapses precipitating a financial crisis.^[1]
• 18 June –
  vote of no confidence
  against his government.
• 26 June – Lord Russell resigns as Prime Minister, following splits in the Liberal Party over parliamentary reform. The Earl of Derby takes over, leading a minority Conservative administration.^[2]
• July –
  St Mary's Dispensary in the Marylebone district of London where women can seek medical advice from exclusively female practitioners.^[3]
• 2 July – The Yorkshire Post first published as a daily newspaper in Leeds.
• 5 July – marriage of Princess Helena, third daughter of Queen Victoria, to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein at Windsor.
• 23 to 25 July – demonstrations in Hyde Park, London, in favour of parliamentary reform turn violent.^[2]
• 27 July – the SS Great Eastern successfully completes laying the transatlantic telegraph cable between Valentia Island, Ireland and Heart's Content, Newfoundland, permanently restoring a communications link.^[4]
• end July –
  All-England cricket team against Surrey at the Oval, just after his 18th birthday.^[5][6]
• 1 August – the National Olympian Association (promoted by
  hurdles.^[6]
• 6 September – the
  clipper ship Taeping
  .
• September
  • General Post Office begins erection of hexagonal pillar boxes to the design of John Penfold.^[8]
  • The song Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau – to become the official national anthem of Wales – is sung for the first time at the National Eisteddfod of Wales held at Chester.
• 4 December – the London Conference of 1866 opens to finalise agreements for Canadian Confederation in 1867.
• 12 December –
  colliery or mining disaster in England, and the worst mining accident in the U.K. until 1913
  .

• The last cholera epidemic in London causes over 5,000 deaths.^[3]
• Invention of the
  Thomas Clifford Allbutt.^[3]
• John Langdon Down describes Down syndrome.^[3]
• Worcester College for the Blind Sons of Gentlemen opens as a boarding establishment in Worcester.
• Morris Chair introduced by William Morris.^[3]
• cocoa for drinking.^[10]
• Royal Warrant.^[3]
• General Post Office writes to all urban householders without a front door letter box urging them to provide one.^[8]
• The
  Cowley, Oxford, the first stable Anglican religious order for men since the Reformation.^[11]
• John Graham Chambers founds the Amateur Athletic Club, drawing up rules for athletic competition.^[2]

Publications

• George Eliot's novel Felix Holt, the Radical.^[3]
• Mrs Oliphant's novel Miss Marjoribanks.
• John Robert Seeley's controversial and anonymous work Ecce Homo: A Survey in the Life and Work of Jesus Christ.^[2]
• Hesba Stretton's children's story Jessica's First Prayer serialised in Sunday at Home; as a book, it sells one and half million copies.^[12]
• A. C. Swinburne
  's Poems and Ballads.

Births

• 16 January – Percy Pilcher, inventor and pioneer aviator (died 1899)
• 10 March – Amanda Aldridge, opera singer, teacher and composer (died 1956)
• 17 April – Ernest Starling, physiologist (died 1927)
• 24 February – Arthur Pearson, newspaper publisher (died 1921)
• 16 March – E. K. Chambers, literary scholar (died 1954)
• 26 March – Fred Karno, born Frederick Westcott, music hall impresario (died 1941)
• 7 June –
  Ernest William Hornung
  , author (died 1921)
• 26 June – George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, financier of Egyptian excavations (died 1923)
• 28 July – Beatrix Potter, children's author and illustrator (died 1943)^[13]
• 21 September – H. G. Wells, writer (died 1946)
• 2 October – Charles Ricketts, designer (died 1931)
• 12 October – Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister (died 1937)
• 8 November – Herbert Austin, 1st Baron Austin, car designer (died 1941)
• 11 November – Martha Annie Whiteley, chemist and mathematician (died 1956)
• 30 November – Robert Broom, paleontologist (died 1951)
• 3 December – Ethna Carbery, born Anna Johnston, Irish poet (died 1902)
• 11 December – Jack Southworth, footballer (died 1956)

Deaths

• 19 January – Harriet Ludlow Clarke, wood engraver and stained glass artist
• 23 January – Thomas Love Peacock, satirical novelist (born 1785)
• 27 January – John Gibson, sculptor (born 1790)
• 6 March
  • Sir William Gore Ouseley, diplomat (born 1797)
  • William Whewell, scientist, philosopher and historian of science (born 1794)
• 21 March – Charles Henry Cooper, antiquarian (born 1808)
• 29 March – John Keble, churchman (born 1792)
• 1 April – Elizabeth Jesser Reid, social reformer, promoter of women's higher education (born 1789)
• 4 April – William Dick, Scottish veterinary surgeon (born 1793)
• 5 April – Thomas Hodgkin, physician (born 1798)
• 12 April – Sir Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood, poliltician and developer (born 1801)
• 21 April – Jane Welsh Carlyle, writer (born 1801)
• 5 August – Henry William-Powlett, 3rd Baron Bayning, peer and clergyman (born 1797)
• 21 August – George Shillibeer, coachbuilder (born 1797)
• 10 September – David Ramsay Hay, interior decorator (born 1798)
• 1 December – Sir George Everest, geodesist (born 1790)

References