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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 U.K., 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 ]