1848 in the United Kingdom

1848 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1846 | 1847 | 1848 | 1849 | 1850

Sport

1848 English cricket season

Events from the year 1848 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – Lord John Russell (Liberal)

Events

10 April: The first photograph of a crowd shows the Chartist Rally.

• 2 February – John Henry Newman founds the first Oratory in the English-speaking world when he establishes the Birmingham Oratory at 'Maryvale', Old Oscott.
• 15 February – The Caledonian Railway is opened throughout between Edinburgh, Carstairs and Carlisle, completing a through rail route from London by the West Coast Main Line and providing the first service of through carriages between Scotland and England.
• 24 February – Amid a revolt, French King Louis-Philippe abdicates and escapes to England.
• 10 April – A 'Monster' Chartist rally is held in Kennington Park, London, headed by Feargus O'Connor. A petition demanding the franchise is presented to Parliament.
• 22 April – Treason Felony Act passed, reducing certain categories of capital high treason to felony punishable by penal transportation.
• 30 May – The Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association is established at Hatton Garden in London to provide loans to professional and working people.
• July – Great Famine (Ireland): Potato blight has returned and outbreaks of cholera are reported. Famine victims on outdoor relief peak this month at almost 840,000 people.
• July – Public Health Act establishes Boards of Health across England and Wales.
• 11 July – London Waterloo station opens.
• 26 July – Matale Rebellion against British rule in Sri Lanka.
• 29 July – Young Irelander Rebellion at Ballingarry in County Tipperary is broken up by the Irish Constabulary.
• 19 August – Moray Firth fishing disaster: 100 fishermen lose their lives in a severe storm off the east coast of Scotland.
• 24 August – The U.S. barque Ocean Monarch is burnt out off the Great Orme, North Wales, with the loss of 178, chiefly emigrants.
• 16 September – William Lassell independently co-discovers Hyperion, one of the moons of Saturn.
• 1 November – First W H Smith bookstall at a railway station opens, at Euston Station, in London.

Undated

• Queen's College, London, founded, the world's first school to award academic qualifications to young women.
• New Anglican sisterhoods founded: Society of the Most Holy Trinity (the 'Devonport Sisters' or Ascot Priory) is established by Lydia Sellon to minister to the poor in the seafaring community of Devonport and the Community of St Mary the Virgin is founded at Wantage.
• Huddersfield workhouse scandal.
• British, Dutch and German governments lay claim to New Guinea.
• John Bird Sumner becomes archbishop of Canterbury.

Publications

• The Communist Manifesto (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx (21 February).
• William Harrison Ainsworth's novel The Lancashire Witches (serialised in The Sunday Times).
• Mrs Cecil Frances Alexander's Hymns for Little Children, including All Things Bright and Beautiful and Once in Royal David's City.
• Anne Brontë's novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
• Edward Bulwer-Lytton's epic fantasy poem King Arthur (1848–9).
• Charles Dickens' novel The Haunted Man.
• Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Mary Barton (anonymous).
• John Henry Newman's novel Loss and Gain: the story of a convert.
• William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Pendennis (serialised).
• Thomas Babington Macaulay's work The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, vol. 1–2.
• John Stuart Mill’s book Principles of Political Economy.

Births

• 27 February – Hubert Parry, composer (died 1918)
• 3 March – Adelaide Neilson, English actress (d. 1880)
• 18 March – Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (died 1939)
• 31 March – William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, financier and statesman (died 1919)
• 7 April – Randall Thomas Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 1930)
• 18 July – W. G. Grace, cricketer (died 1915)
• 25 July
  • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay, Anglo-Indian writer (died 1881)
  • Arthur James Balfour, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1930)
• 2 December – Mary Slessor, missionary (died 1915)

Deaths

• 19 January – Isaac D'Israeli, author (born 1766)
• 11 February – William Howley, archbishop of Canterbury (born 1766)
• 3 August – Edward Baines, newspaperman and politician (born 1774)
• 12 August – George Stephenson, locomotive pioneer (born 1781)
• 23 November – Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet, statesman (born 1764)
• 24 November – William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1779)
• 19 December – Emily Brontë, author (born 1818)