1870 in the United Kingdom

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1870 in the United Kingdom
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Sport

Events from the year 1870 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents[]

  • Monarch – Victoria
  • Prime Minister – William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal)
  • Parliament – 20th

Events[]

  • 28 January
    • General Post Office takes over business of private telegraph companies.[1]
    • Inman Line's SS City of Boston departs Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a passage for Liverpool on which it will be lost with all 191 aboard.[2]
  • 5 March – first ever (unofficial) international football match, England v Scotland, takes place under the approval of the Football Association at The Oval, London.
  • 10 May – Jem Mace wins the boxing championship of the world, defeating fellow Englishman Tom Allen at Kenner, near New Orleans.[3]
  • 19 May – the Home Government Association is established in Ireland by Isaac Butt to argue for devolution for Ireland and repeal of the Act of Union 1800.[4]
  • late Spring – allows reduction in length of enlistment to the British Army as part of the Cardwell Reforms.[5]
  • 2 June – competitive examination for entry to the British civil service introduced.[6]
  • 8 June – the final splice to the first telegraph submarine cable to India is made off Porthcurno, Cornwall.
  • 23 June – Keble College, Oxford, opens, the first new college of the University of Oxford in more than a century.
  • 2 August – official opening of the Tower Subway beneath the River Thames in London, the world's first underground passenger "tube" railway.[7] Although this lasts as a railway operation only until November, it demonstrates the technologically successful first use of the cylindrical wrought iron tunnelling shield devised by Peter W. Barlow and James Henry Greathead.[8]
  • 4 August – British Red Cross established as the British National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in War by Lord Wantage.[7]
  • 9 August
    • Elementary Education Act 1870 drafted by William Edward Forster MP encourages elementary education by creating a system of secular School boards in England and Wales at whose schools attendance may be compulsory.[4][7] Women are eligible to stand and vote for local school boards where created.
    • Married Women's Property Act confirms that wives may own property of their own.[6]
  • 27 August – White Star's first ocean liner RMS Oceanic is launched by Harland and Wolff in Belfast.[9]
  • 7 September – masted turret ship HMS Captain capsizes off Cape Finisterre, less than 5 months after commissioning, due to design flaws, with the loss of 481 lives.
  • 1 October – postcards and halfpenny postage stamps introduced by the Post Office.[7]
  • 19 October – SS Cambria (1869) is wrecked on Inishtrahull (Ireland) with the loss of 179 lives.[10]
  • Undated – the David Greig grocery chain begins with a store in London.

Publications[]

  • 1 January – The Northern Echo newspaper launched in Darlington.
  • April–September – serialisation of Charles Dickens' novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, only half complete due to his death on 9 June.
  • Edward Jenkins' satire Ginx's Baby: his birth and other misfortunes.
  • William Robinson's gardening book The Wild Garden.
  • Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems,[11] exhumed from Elizabeth Siddal's grave.

Births[]

  • 7 January – Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart, English judge and politician, 7th Lord Chief Justice of England (died 1943)
  • 25 January – Fred Spiksley, footballer (died 1948)
  • 5 February – C. E. Brock, painter and illustrator (died 1938)
  • 12 February – Marie Lloyd, music-hall singer (died 1922)
  • 4 March – Thomas Sturge Moore, poet, author and artist (died 1944)
  • 17 March – Horace Donisthorpe, entomologist (died 1951)
  • 9 May – Harry Vardon, golfer (died 1937)
  • 4 August – Harry Lauder, Scottish entertainer (died 1950)
  • 11 August – Tom Richardson, cricketer (died 1912)
  • 12 August – Hubert Gough, general (died 1963)
  • 22 August – Bertram Fletcher Robinson, journalist, editor and author (died 1907)
  • 1 September – Leopold Wharton, English-born American film director (died 1927)
  • 22 September – Charlotte Cooper, tennis player (died 1966)[12]
  • 21 October – Horace Hood, admiral (killed in action 1916)
  • 22 October – Lord Alfred Douglas, minor Uranian poet best remembered as a lover of writer Oscar Wilde (died 1945)
  • 30 October – Lawrence Grant, film actor (died 1952 in the United States)
  • 18 November – P. Morley Horder, architect (died 1944)
  • 18 December – Saki (H. H. Munro), short-story writer (killed in action 1916)
  • Doncaster, racehorse (died 1892)

Deaths[]

  • 2 January – Ignatius Bonomi, architect and surveyor (born 1787)
  • 9 January – Elizabeth Sackville-West, Countess De La Warr, peeress (born 1795)
  • 20 January – Sir George Seymour, admiral of the fleet (born 1787)
  • 25 January – Janet Taylor, mathematician and navigational instrument maker (born 1804)
  • 30 March – William Hale, inventor (born 1797)
  • 25 April – Daniel Maclise, historical painter (born 1806)
  • 6 May – Sir James Young Simpson, physician and researcher (born 1811)
  • 14 May – Thomas Dale, Anglican priest, Dean of Rochester (born 1797)
  • 17 May – David Octavius Hill, Scottish painter and pioneer photographer (born 1802)
  • 24 April – Louisa Stuart Costello, miniature-painter, poet, historical novelist and travel writer (born 1799)
  • 9 June – Charles Dickens, novelist (born 1812)
  • 27 June – George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, diplomat and statesman (born 1800)
  • 12 September – Eleanora Atherton, philanthropist in Manchester (born 1782)
  • 25 September – John Braithwaite, engineer, inventor of the first steam fire engine (born 1797)
  • 6 October – James Giles, painter (born 1801)
  • 21 October – Charles George James Arbuthnot, general (born 1801)
  • 8 December – Thomas Brassey, railway contractor (born 1805)
  • 9 December – Patrick MacDowell, sculptor (born 1799)
  • 28 December – Philip Hardwick, architect (born 1792)

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Blake, Richard. The Book of Postal Dates, 1635–1985. Caterham: Marden. p. 15.
  2. ^ "Loss of City of Boston, Halifax to Liverpool, 1870". The Ships List. Archived from the original on 11 May 2008. Retrieved 22 August 2008.
  3. ^ Mace, Ralph. "Jem Mace, Champion of the World". Retrieved 9 August 2010.
  4. ^ a b Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 422–423. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
  5. ^ Ensor, R. C. K. (1936). "England 1870–1914". The Oxford History of England, 14. Oxford University Press. p. 16.
  6. ^ a b Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 291–292. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
  7. ^ a b c d Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
  8. ^ Smith, Denis (2001). Civil Engineering Heritage: London and the Thames Valley. Thomas Telford. pp. 22–23. ISBN 0-7277-2876-8.
  9. ^ Othfors, Daniel (15 March 2018). "Oceanic (I)". The Great Ocean Liners. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
  10. ^ "The Wreck of the Cambria". The New York Times. 28 October 1870. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  11. ^ Cox, Michael, ed. (2004). The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860634-6.
  12. ^ "Olympedia – Charlotte Cooper". www.olympedia.org. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
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