1872 in the United Kingdom

1872 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1870 | 1871 | 1872 (1872) | 1873 | 1874

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1872 English cricket season Football: England

Events from the year 1872 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch — Victoria
• Prime Minister — William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal)

Events

• 1 January — C. P. Scott becomes editor of The Manchester Guardian, a position he will hold until 1929.
• 2 February — British government buys a number of forts on the Gold Coast from the Netherlands.
• 5 March — Tichborne case decided against the impostor Arthur Orton.
• 11 March — Work begins setting up Seven Sisters Colliery in South Wales, located on one of the richest coal sources in Britain.
• 16 March — In the first ever final of the FA Cup, the world's oldest football competition, Wanderers F.C. defeat Royal Engineers A.F.C. 1–0 at The Oval in Kennington, London.
• June
  • American-born painter James McNeill Whistler exhibits Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother, painted the previous year in London, at the Royal Academy summer exhibition.
  • Rangers F.C. play their first ever game on the public pitches of Glasgow Green.
• July — Queen Victoria opens the Albert Memorial in memory of her husband Prince Albert.
• 18 July
  • Ballot Act introduces secret ballots in United Kingdom elections.
  • Philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts, becomes the first woman to be made an Honorary Freeman of the City of London.
• 31 July — Licensing Act establishes licenses for public houses and limits drinking hours.
• 5 August — Hastings Pier opened. Designed by Eugenius Birch, it is the first in Britain with an entertainment pavilion incorporated from new.
• 10 August — Portland Breakwater completed.
• 1 September — A group of Icaiche Maya under Marcos Canul attack Orange Walk Town in British Honduras as part of the Caste War of Yucatán. British troops are sent against them.
• 7 October — An underground explosion at Morley Main Colliery, Morley, West Yorkshire, kills 34.
• 16 November — London Metropolitan Police strike.
• 21 November — Wigan F.C. founded, the first Association football team in Wigan.
• 25 November — Loss of the iron sailing ship Royal Adelaide on Chesil Beach: 60 saved, 7 drowned.
• 30 November — Scotland v England, the first FIFA-recognized international Association football match, takes place at Hamilton Crescent in Scotland. The result is a goalless draw.
• 6 December — Springwell Pit disaster at Dawley in Shropshire: eight coal miners fall to their death when a winding chain snaps.
• 12 December — A meteorite strikes earth near Banbury.
• 21 December — The Challenger expedition sails from Portsmouth on the four year scientific expedition that will lay the foundation for the science of oceanography.

Undated

• Last recorded uses of the stocks for judicial punishment, at Newbury, Berkshire (11 June) and Adpar, Newcastle Emlyn, west Wales.
• University College Wales established at Aberystwyth.
• Exceptionally consistent rain brings the wettest calendar year on record over England and Wales with 1,284.9 millimetres (50.6 in) beating previous record from 1768 by 37.6 millimetres (1.5 in). The nearest approach since has been 2012 with 1,244.3 millimetres (49.0 in) and 2000 with 1,232.5 millimetres (48.5 in).

Publications

• First edition of Chambers's English Dictionary.
• Samuel Butler's anonymous satirical novel Erewhon.
• Charles Darwin's study The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.
• George Eliot's novel Middlemarch (serialisation completed).
• Thomas Hardy's anonymous romantic novel Under the Greenwood Tree.

Births

• 18 May — Bertrand Russell, philosopher and mathematician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (died 1970)
• 31 May — Heath Robinson, cartoonist and illustrator (died 1944)
• 23 July — Edward A. Wilson, explorer, physician, naturalist and ornithologist (died 1912)
• 21 August — Aubrey Beardsley, artist (died 1898)
• 8 October — John Cowper Powys, writer and philosopher (died 1963)
• 12 October — Ralph Vaughan Williams, composer (died 1958)
• 20 November — Alfred Mylne, yacht designer (died 1951)
• 26 December — Norman Angell, politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (died 1967)

Deaths

• 16 February — Henry Fothergill Chorley, critic (born 1808)
• 27 February — John McLeod Campbell, churchman (born 1800)
• 1 April — Frederick Maurice, theologian (born 1805)
• 28 November — Mary Somerville, mathematician (born 1780)
• 15 December — Lady Beaconsfield, wife of Benjamin Disraeli (born 1792)