1843 in the United Kingdom explained

Events from the year 1843 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – Robert Peel (Conservative)
• Foreign Secretary – George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen

Events

• January – Quaker magazine The Friend begins publication.
• 6 January – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross discovers Snow Hill Island.
• 20 January – Daniel M'Naghten shoots and kills the Prime Minister's private secretary, Edward Drummond, in Whitehall.^[1]
• 4 March – M'Naghten is found not guilty of murder "by reason of insanity", giving rise to the M'Naghten Rules on criminal responsibility, and subsequently committed to Bethlem Hospital.^[1]
• 24 March – Battle of Hyderabad: The Bombay Army led by Major General Sir Charles Napier defeats the Talpur Mirs, securing Sindh province for the British Raj.
• 25 March – Marc Isambard Brunel's Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel under the River Thames, is opened to pedestrians.^[2]
• 27 March – decision in Foss v Harbottle, a leading precedent in English corporate law, declares that in any action in which a wrong is alleged to have been done to a company, the proper claimant is the company itself and not individual shareholders.^[3]
• 4 April – William Wordsworth accepts the office of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom following the death of Robert Southey on 21 March.^[4]
• April – Protestant Martyrs' Memorial erected in Oxford.^{[5] [6]}
• 4 May – Natal proclaimed British colony.
• 18 May – the Disruption of the Church of Scotland takes place in Edinburgh.
• ? May – Blackgang Chine on the Isle of Wight opens as an amusement park.
• 19 July – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's is launched from Bristol.^[7]
• 5 August – Sarah Dazley, the last woman to be executed in public in England, is hanged for mariticide outside Bedford Prison.
• 22 August – Theatres Act ends the virtual monopoly on theatrical performances held by the patent theatres, encouraging the development of popular entertainment.
• September – Ada Lovelace translates and expands Menabrea's notes on Charles Babbage's analytical engine, including an algorithm for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, regarded as the world's first computer program.^{[8] [9] [10]}
• 2 September – The Economist newspaper first published (preliminary issue dated August).
• 1 October – News of the World newspaper first published.^[2] It will survive until 2011.
• 3–4 November – the statue of Nelson is placed atop Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London.^[2]
• 13 December – Basutoland becomes a British protectorate.^[11]
• 17 December – publication of Charles Dickens' novella A Christmas Carol by Chapman & Hall in London at his expense. It introduces the character Ebenezer Scrooge. Released on December 19, the first printing sells out by Christmas Eve^[12] and inspires charitable giving.^[13]
• December – the world's first Christmas cards, commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London from the artist John Callcott Horsley, are sent.^[14]
• Undated
  • The Albert helmet, devised in 1842 by the Prince Consort, is adopted by the Household Cavalry.^{[15] [16] [17]}
  • Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society founded as a burial society.
  • Marlborough College founded in Wiltshire for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy.
  • Alfred Bird produces baking powder for the first time, in Birmingham.^[18]

Publications

• Charles Dickens's novel Martin Chuzzlewit (begins serialisation January) and novella A Christmas Carol.
• John Stuart Mill's book A System of Logic.
• John Ruskin's book Modern Painters, vol. 1.
• Robert Smith Surtees' comic novel Handley Cross.

Births

• 25 April – Princess Alice, member of the royal family (died 1878)
• 30 June – Ernest Satow, diplomat and scholar (died 1929)
• 5 July – Mandell Creighton, historian and Bishop of London (died 1901)
• 4 September – Jabez Balfour, businessman, politician and fraudster (died 1916)

Deaths

• 9 January – William Hedley, inventor and locomotive engineer (born 1779)
• 20 February – Mary Hays, writer and feminist (born 1759)
• 21 March – Robert Southey, poet (born 1774)
• 25 March – Robert Murray M'Cheyne, clergyman (born 1813)
• 21 April – Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (born 1773)
• 1 June – William Abbot, actor (born 1798)
• 25 July – Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist (born 1766)^[19]
• 16 August – Henry Acton, Unitarian minister (born 1797)
• 18 December – Thomas Graham, Lord Lynedoch, Governor-General of India (born 1748)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Richard. Moran. McNaughtan, Daniel (1802/3–1865). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. 2004. 2011-02-02.
2. Book: Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 0-14-102715-0. 2006.
3. News: Gary. Slapper. The cases that changed Britain: 1785-1869. The Times. 19 June 2008. 2011-06-16.
4. Book: Pinion, F. B.. A Wordsworth Chronology. Basingstoke. Macmillan Press. 1988. 0-333-38860-7. 201.
5. Web site: Darcy. Lewis. Timeline: Oxford. TimeTravel-Britain.com. 2006. 2010-10-18.
6. News: The Martyr's Memorial. Jackson's Oxford Journal. 4694. 1843-04-15. 3.
7. News: Royal Visit. The Bristol Mirror. 1–2. 20 July 1843.
8. John. Fuegi. Jo. Francis. Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 25. 4. 16–26. 10.1109/MAHC.2003.1253887. October–December 2003.
9. Web site: Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace. 2010-07-11. https://web.archive.org/web/20100721013509/http://cs-www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/Files/ada-bio.html. 21 July 2010. live.
10. Menabrea. L. F.. Luigi Federico Menabrea. 1843. Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage. Scientific Memoirs. 3. 2010-10-01. https://web.archive.org/web/20100913042032/http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html. 13 September 2010. live.
11. Book: Palmer, Alan. Palmer . Veronica. 1992. The Chronology of British History. Century Ltd. London. 266–267. 0-7126-5616-2.
12. Book: Dickens, Charles. Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert. 2006. A Christmas Carol and other Christmas Books. Oxford University Press. Oxford world's classics. 978-0-19-280694-9.
13. The Man Who Invented Christmas. Film. 2017.
14. György. Buday. 1992. The history of the Christmas card. 8. Omnigraphics.
15. Book: Hoare, Nell. etal. Exploring Museums: The Home Counties. 1990. H.M.S.O. 978-0-11-290471-7. 104.
16. Book: Carman, W. Y.. British Military Uniforms from Contemporary Pictures: Henry VII to the Present Day. 1968. Arco. 132.
17. Book: Rankin. Robert H.. Military Headdress: A Pictorial History of Military Headgear from 1660 to 1914. 1976. Arms & Armour Press. 978-0-85368-310-0. 64.
18. News: Matthew. Cannon. Alfred Bird: Egg-free custard inventor and chemist. Birmingham Mail. 2014-11-03. 2018-02-25.
19. Book: Day . Lance . McNeil . Ian . Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology . 11 September 2002 . Routledge . 978-1-134-65019-4 . 786 . en.