1824 in the United Kingdom explained
Events from the year 1824 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Events
- 8 January – after much controversy, Michael Faraday is finally elected as a member of the Royal Society with only two votes against him.
- 22 January – First Anglo-Ashanti War: Battle of Nsamankow – forces of the Ashanti Empire crush British forces in the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana), killing the British governor Sir Charles MacCarthy.
- 20 February – Rev. Professor William Buckland becomes the first person to describe a terrestrial dinosaur in a scientific journal.[1]
- 4 March – Sir William Hillary founds the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, after 1854 known as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.[2]
- 5 March – First Anglo-Burmese War begins.
- 17 March – Anglo-Dutch Treaty signed in London.
- 2 April – the British government buys John Julius Angerstein's art collection for £60,000 for the purpose of establishing a National Gallery in London which opens to the public in his former townhouse on 10 May.[3]
- 7 April – the Mechanics' Institute, predecessor of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, is founded.
- May–July – King Kamehameha II of Hawaii and his Queen Consort Kamāmalu make a state visit to London, where they both die of measles before they can meet George IV.
- 10 May – First Burmese War: the British take Rangoon.
- 16 June – Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals established.[4] [5]
- 17 June – the Weights and Measures Act[6] legally abolishes use of many traditional measures in favour of Imperial units.
- 21 June – the Vagrancy Act for the first time makes begging or sleeping in the street criminal offences in England.[7]
- 7 August – First Anglo-Ashanti War ends when forces of the Ashanti Empire flee the field.[8]
- 13 September – with his crew and 29 convicts aboard the Amity, John Oxley arrives at and founds the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement at what becomes Redcliffe City, Queensland in Australia, after leaving Sydney.
- 21 September – the Norfolk and Norwich Festival is inaugurated as a triennial event.
- 10 October – Edinburgh Town Council makes a decision to found a municipal fire brigade under James Braidwood, the first in Britain.[9]
- 15–21 November – Great Fire of Edinburgh, starting in Old Assembly Close, kills 11 residents and 2 firemen, and destroys 24 tenements – leaving 400 families homeless – and other properties, including the spire of Tron Kirk.
- 23 November – Great storm in the English Channel; The Cobb (Lyme Regis) and Chesil Beach are breached.[10]
Undated
Ongoing events
Publications
Births
- 8 January – Wilkie Collins, novelist (died 1889)
- 15 January – Anna Mary Howitt, writer, painter and feminist (died 1884)
- 7 February – William Huggins, astronomer (died 1910)
- 10 February – Samuel Plimsoll, politician and social reformer (died 1898)
- 19 March – William Allingham, author (died 1889)
- 20 June – George Edmund Street, architect (died 1881)
- 26 June – William Thomson, afterwards Lord Kelvin, physicist and engineer (died 1907)
- 6 July – Richard Meux Benson, founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (died 1915)
- 27 October – Edward Maitland, humanitarian writer and occultist (died 1897)
- 10 December – George MacDonald, Scottish-born author, poet and Christian minister (died 1905)
Deaths
- 1 February – John Lemprière, classical scholar (born c. 1765 in Jersey)
- 30 March – Thomas Maurice, poet and scholar (born 1754)
- 13 April – Jane Taylor, poet and novelist (born 1783)
- 19 April – Lord Byron, poet (born 1788)
- 26 May – Capel Lofft, writer (born 1751)
- 25 July – William Sharp, engraver (born 1749)
- 23 September – John Cartwright, political reformer (born 1740)
- 10 October – Thomas Thorne, fictitious poet
- 17 October – Elizabeth Cobbold, poet (born 1767)
- 30 October – Charles Robert Maturin, Irish writer (born 1773)
- 30 November – Henry Fauntleroy, forger executed for fraud (born 1784)
- 21 December – James Parkinson, surgeon (born 1755)
- Undated – William Howgill, organist and composer (born 1768/9)
Notes and References
- Buckland. W.. 1824. Notice on the Megalosaurus or great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield. Transactions of the Geological Society. London. 2. 1. 390–396.
- Book: Penguin Pocket PC On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 0-14-102715-0. 2006.
- Web site: Collection history. National Gallery. 2013-05-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20070206022515/http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about/history/establish/establishment.htm. dead. 6 February 2007.
- Book: Palmer, Alan. Palmer . Veronica. 1992. The Chronology of British History. Century Ltd. London. 252–253. 0-7126-5616-2.
- Web site: The History of the RSPCA. 1972. Animal Legal & Historical Center. 2011-02-04.
- 5° George IV Cap. 74. Book: Great Britain. The Statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1807–1865). 2011-12-31. 1824. His Majesty's Statute and Law Printers. 339–354.
- Web site: An Act for the Punishment of idle and disorderly Persons, and Rogues and Vagabonds, in that Part of Great Britain called England. 2013-11-06.
- Book: Lloyd, Alan. 1964. The Drums of Kumasi: the story of the Ashanti wars. Longmans. London. 5937815M. 65006132. 39–53.
- Book: Reid, Alexander. "Aye Ready!" The History of Edinburgh Fire Brigade, the Oldest Municipal Brigade in Britain. Edinburgh. South Eastern Fire Brigade. 1974. 0950376809. 10.
- Le Pard. G. F.. 1999. The Great Storm of 1824. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society. 121. 23–36.
