VICTORIAN BRITAIN 1837-1901 - A SIMPLE CHRONOLOGY

There are several chronologies of Victorian Britain readily available. C. Cook, The Longman Companion to Britain in the Nineteenth Century, 1815-1914 is divided insto sections - political, social and religious, economic, etc., with sub-sections on elections, education, women, etc. E.J.Evans, The Forging of the Modern State, 1783-1870 and K. Robbins, The Eclipse of a Great Power, 1870-1975, have appendixes entitled "Compendium of Information," which includes (along with other usefal material) chronologies. The most interesting chronology, in many ways, is that provided by G.M.Young, Victorian England; Portrait of an Age, which (in addition to the normal chronological details) has a column entitled "floruit", suggesting when Victorian statesmen, artists, writers, etc., were in their prime. I have not shamelessly plagiarised this!

A) Background

1819	24 May, future Q. Victoria born, only child of Duke of Kent (d. 1820), 4th son of George III
1820	George III (ill for many years) succeeded by George IV (hitherto Prince Regent)
1821	G.A.Williams' libel on the Durham clergy in the Durham Chronicle
1830	George IV dies; succeeded by his brother William IV (hitherto Duke of Clarence)
1830	November; Lord Grey (Whig) replaces Duke of Wellington (Tory) as Prime Minister
1831	First Reform Bill introduced, April
1831	First cholera outbreak in England (begins at Sunderland, October)
1832	First ("Great") Reform Act passed; disfranchising small ("rotten") borough seats, adding new borough and county seats; enfranchising £10 householders in towns
1832	General Election under new franchise; overwhelming "reforming" majority
1833	Irish Church Temporalities Act (incl. clause 147 - the "appropriation clause")
1833	Abolition of slavery in British colonies
1833	First effective Factory Reform Act
1834	Poor Law Amendment Act (amending 1601 Act) - "New Poor Law" - establishing unions of workhouses, abolishing "outdoor" relief
1834	Lord Grey resigns; Lord Melbourne Prime Minister
1834	Nov., William IV dismisses Whig Government; Sir Robert Peel (Conservative) Prime Minister
1835	Jan., General election [the Tamworth "Manifesto"]
1835	April, Peel defeated, Melbourne returns as Prime Minister
1835	Municipal Reform Act, reforming old corporations, extending municipal franchise; allowing establishment of new, corporations; allowing establishment of municipal police forces
1837	20 June, Queen Victoria succeeds to throne following death of William IV

B) Early Victorian Britain, c. 1837-1850

1837	General election; Tories gain, Whigs lose but remain in overall majority
1837	Oliver Twist published
1839	Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle published
1839	Charist disturbances; Newport "Rising"
1839	Privy Council Education Committee established; grant (for England and Wales) increased to £30,000
1839	"Bedchamber" crisis; Queen Victoria insists on retaining Whig ladies of her household; Melbourne remains PM;
1840	February; Queen marries Prince Albert
1840	War vs. China
1841	Melbourne Govt. defeated on Baring's budget (sugar), and vote of "No Confidence"; general election;
1841	Tories under Peel win general election; Peel Prime Minister, Graham Home Secretary
1841	Tract XC (Newman) published
1842	Budget; alters sliding scale on Corn Laws; reduces duties on manufactures; imposes tax on Coal exports; income tax at 7d. in £
1842	Poor Law renewed
1842	Webster-Ashburton Treaty settles Maine/Canada boundary
1842	Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes
1842	Lord Ashley's Coal Mines Act prevents employment of children under 10, women underground in Coal Mines
1842	"Plug Plot" / Staleybridge Turn-out / Chartist disturbances
1843	O'Connell announces "the Repeal year"; monster meetings; arrested following prohibition of Clontarf meeting
1843	Disruption of the Church of Scotland
1843	Newman resigns as vicar of St. Mary's Oxford
1844	Peel's Factory Act
1844	Sugar Act
1844	Bank Charter Act restricts currency
1844	Disraeli's Coningsby published - Conservatism "organised hypocrisy"
1845	Income Tax renewed
1845	Disraeli's Sybil published
1845	Peel extends, makes permanent, grant to Maynooth seminary in Ireland
1845	Onset of Irish potato famine
1845	December; Times announces Peel is to repeal Corn Laws; Cabinet crisis; Peel resigns; Russell fails to form Government; Peel resumes office
1846	Corn Laws suspended; repeal (over 3 years) carried
1846	Peel defeated on Irish Coercion; resigns; Lord John Russell becomes Prime Minister; Palmerston Foreign Secretary
1847	Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte); Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) Tancred (Disraeli) published
1847	Financial crisis; proposal to suspend Bank Charter Act
1847	Judgement by Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter against George Cornelius Gorham
1847	Worst year of Irish famine
1847	Factory Act (10 Hours)
1848	The "Hampden" controversy following R.D.Hampden's appointment as Bishop of Hereford
1848	10 April; Chartist demonstration on Kennington Common
1848	Smith O'Brien's "Young Ireland" rising in Tipperary
1848	Cholera epidemic - first Public Health Act
1849	Repeal of Navigation Laws
1849	Rate-in-Aid levied on solvent Irish Poor Law Unions; Irish famine drawing to close
1850	Death of Peel
1850	Papal Bull establishes Catholic territorial bishoprics - "Papal Aggression"
1850	The "Don Pacifico" debate following the British bombardment of the Piraeus
1850	Public Library Act

C) Mid Victorian Britain, 1850-1870

1851	Ecclesiastical Titles Act
1851	Russell promises further Parliamentary Reform in debate on Locke King's motion
1851	Great Exhibition
1851	Palmerston dismissed as Foreignh Secretary
1852	Russell's Reform Bill; falls with defeat of Government
1852	February; Russell defeated; Earl of Derby Prime Minister; Disraeli Chancellor of the Exchequer
1852	General election; Protectionists fail to gain majority
1852	November; Villiers' resolution (as amended by Palmerston) accepts Free Trade
1852	December; Derby Government defeated on Disraeli's Budget; Aberdeen Coalition Government formed; Lord Aberdeen (Peelite) PM; Palmerston Home Secretary; Russell Foreign Secretary; Gladstone Chancellor of the Exchequer
1854	Crimean War; battles of Alma, Inkerman, Balaclava
1854	Russell's Reform Bill withdrawn because of war
1855	Fall of Aberdeen Coalition, following J.A. Roebuck's motion for inquiry into the Crimean War; Palmerston P.M.
1855	Publication of Anthony Trollope's The Warden
1856	Peace of Paris concludes Crimean War
1856	County and Brorough Police Act
1856	First exhibition of Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat
1857	Indian "Mutiny"
1857	2nd China War
1857	Palmerston defeated; general election; Palmerston returns as PM having defeated the Radicals (Cobden, Bright, etc.) who had opposed the China War
1857	Divorce Act
1857	Financial crisis
1858	Palmerston defeated on Conspiracy to Murder Bill; Lord Derby Prime Minister
1858	Government of British India assumed by Crown (as opposed to East India Company)
1858	Jews admitted to Parliament
1858	Property qualification for MPs abolished
1859	Publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species; John Stuart Mill's On Liberty; and Samuel Smiles' Self-Help.
1859	Tory Reform Bill defeated; general election; Lord Derby's Government defeated; Palmerston resumes as Prime Minister;
1860	Publication of Essays and Reviews
1860	Cobden Treaty with France
1860	Publication of George Elliot's Mill on the Floss; Wilkie Collins' Woman in White; Charles Dickens' Great Expectations; and John Ruskin's Unto This Last.
1861	Mrs. Beeton's Household Management published
1861	"Trent" incident
1861	Russell's Reform Bill
1861	Death of Prince Albert from typhoid
1861	Newcastle Commission on elementary education
1862	Lancashire Cotton Famine; Gladstone's tour of Lancashire (and of NE England)
1862	Frith's Railway Station exhibited
1863	Publication of Lyell's Antiquity of Man
1864	Publication of Mrs. Gaskell's Wives and Daughters
1864	Albert Memorial (Giles Gilbert Scott) unveiled
1865	Jamica Revolt - Governor Eyre controversy begins
1865	General election - Palmerston wins; many candidates stand as "Palmerstonians"; little discussion of parliamentary reform
1865	Death of Palmerston; Lord John Russell becomes Prime Minister
1865	Antiseptic surgery established by Lister
1865	Ford Madox Brown's Work first exhibited
1865	Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland published
1865	Death of Cobden; Mrs. Gaskell; Cardinal Wiseman; Charles Greville
1865	St. Pancras Station completed
1866	Dream of Gerontius first performed
1866	Russell/Gladstone Reform bill defeated by Adullamite/Tory opposition
1866	Russell resigns as PM; Lord Derby's third administration
1866	Financial crisis; collapse of banking house of Overend and Gurney; cholera epidemic
1866	Sheffield "outrages" - bombs against "scab" labour
1866	Hyde Park riots
1867	Second Reform Act
1867	Fenian Rising in Ireland
1867	Walter Bagehot's English Constitution published
1868	Disraeli succeeds Derby as Prime Minister
1868	Gladstone's resolutions on the Irish Church; Disraeli government defeated
1868	General election; Liberals win in each country of UK; Disraeli resigns before Parliament meets; Gladstone's first ministry
1868	Fenian explosion at Clerkenwell prison
1869	Disestablishment of the Irish Church
1869	Publication of John Stuart Mill's Subjection of Women
1869	Foundation of Girton College, Cambridge
1869	Publication of Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy
1870	Forster's education act
1870	First Married Woman's Property Act
1870	First School Board elections (Mrs Garrett Anderson, Miss Emily Davies elected)
1870	Civil service (except Foreign Office) open to competitive examination
1870	Gladstone's first Irish Land Act
1870	Millais' Boyhood of Raleigh exhibited

D) Later Victorian Britain, 1871-1901

1871	Alice Through the Looking Glass published
1871	Trade Union Act; Criminal Law Amendment Act
1871	Newnham College, Cambridge founded
1871	Abolition of purchase of commissions in the army
1872	Ballot Act
1872	Publication of Samuel Butler's Erewhon; George Eliot's Middlemarch
1873	Death of John Stuart Mill; publication of his Auitobiography
1874	General election; Conservative victory; Disraeli succeeds Gladstone as P.M.
1874	Publication of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd
1875	Artisans' Dwelling Act
1875	Disraeli's Trade Union Act
1876	Disraeli goes to Lords as Lord Beaconsfield
1876	Bulgarian atrocities
1877	Queen Victoria made Empress of India
1878	Congress of Berlin
1878	Afghan War
1879	Richmond Commission on agricultural distress
1879	Parnell becomes leader of Home Rule party
1879	Zulu War; battlles of Isandhlwana, Rorke's Drift
1880	General election; Beaconsfield [Disraeli] defeated, retires; Gladstone Prime Minister
1880	Beginnings of Bradlaugh dispute over right of MP to affirm
1880	Irish "Land War"
1880	Publication of Hardy's The Trumpet Major
1881	Bessborough Commission reports / Gladstone's (2nd) Irish Land Act ("3 F's")
1882	Pheonix Park Murders
1882	Invasion of Egypt
1883	Fabian Society founded
1884	Death of General Gordon at Khartoum
1884	3rd Reform Act
1884	Joseph Chamberlain's "Unauthorised Programme"
1885	Redistribution Act
1885	Gladstone government defeated, resigns; Lord Salisbury Prime Minister
1885	General Election; no overall majority; Liberals + Irish = Tories
1885	Herbert Gladstone announces his father's conversion to Home Rule - "the Hawarden Kite"
1886	Salisbury resigns; Gladstone Prime Minister
1886	First Irish Home Rule Bill; defeated; Gladstone calls general election
1886	General Election; Gladstone defeated; Salisbury returns as Prime Minister
1887	Independent Labour party founded
1888	Parnell Commission
1889	London Dock Strike
1890	Booth's Darkest England published
1890	Parnell divorce
1891	William Morris's News from Nowhere published
1891	Liberal "Newcastle Programme"
1892	General election; Salisbury's Government defeated; Gladstone again Prime Minister
1893	Defeat of Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill in House of Lords
1893	Sherlock Holmes appears
1894	Gladstone resigns; Lord Rosebery becomes Prime Minister
1895	Liberal defeat on "cordite"; general election; Tory "landslide"; Salisbury Prime Minister
1896	A.E.Houseman's A Shropshire Lad published
1897	Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee
1898	Fashoda incident
1899	Havelock Ellis's Psychology of Sex published
1899	Outbreak of South African War
1900	Formation of the Labour Representation Committee
1900	Queen Victoria visits Ireland
1900	"Khaki" election; Tory victory
1901	Taff Vale Railway Company legal case
1901	Death of Queen Victoria

E. Aftermath; one or two dates of relevance

1902	Retrirement of Salisbury
1903	Poor Law Commission; minority report recommends abolition of Poor Law
1903	[Herbert] Gladstone/Macdonald Pact; Labour and Liberal agree not to fight against each other at elections
1906	General election - Liberal "landslide"