1850 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1850 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

*Monarch - Victoria of the United Kingdom
*Prime Minister - John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, Liberal

Events

* 5 March - Opening of the Britannia Bridge across the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales.cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=0-141-02715-0|year=2006]
* 19 April - Clayton-Bulwer Treaty signed between the United Kingdom and the United States that both nations were not to colonize or control any Central American republic. The purpose was to prevent one country from building a canal across Central America that the other would not be able to use.cite book|title=The Pocket Date Book|publisher=Chapman and Hall|author=William L. R. Cates|year=1863]
* 3 July - the Koh-i-Noor diamond presented to Queen Victoria.
* 5 August - Colonies of South Australia, Tasmania, and Victoria granted representative government.cite book |last=Palmer |first=Alan & Veronica |year=1992 |title= The Chronology of British History|publisher= Century Ltd|location=London|pages= 270-271|isbn= 0-7126-5616-2]
* 14 August - Irish Franchise Act 1850 increases the rural electorate in Ireland.
* 27 August - a telegraph cable is laid beneath the English Channel running from Dover to Cap Gris Nez in France.
* 19 November - Alfred Tennyson appointed as Poet Laureate.

Undated

* Pacifico incident: Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, sends a Royal Navy squadron to the Aegean Sea causing a diplomatic incident with Russia and France. [cite web|url=http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/guide19/timeline26.html|title=Don Pacifico affair, Time traveller's guide to Victorian Britain|accessdate=2007-09-13]
* Public Libraries Act, Interpretation Act, Police of Scotland Act and Factories Act of 1850 passed by parliament.
* The bowler hat is created for Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester.cite web|url=http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/icons-timeline/1840-1860|title=Icons, a portrait of England 1840-1860|accessdate=2007-09-13]

Publications

* Alfred Tennyson's poem "In Memoriam A.H.H.".
* Elizabeth Barrett Browning's collection "Sonnets from the Portuguese" containing the well known poem which begins "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."

Births

* 4 January - Frederick York Powell, historian and scholar (died 1904)
* 15 January - Leonard Darwin, son of the naturalist Charles Darwin (died 1943)
* 19 January - Augustine Birrell, author and politician (died 1933)
* 27 January - John Collier, writer and painter (died 1934)
* 27 January - Edward Smith, Captain of the Titanic (died 1912)
* 29 January - Ebenezer Howard, urban planner (died 1928)
* 18 February - George Henschel, musician (died 1934)
* 9 March - Hamo Thornycroft, sculptor (died 1925)
* 9 April - Julius Wernher, German-born British businessman and art collector (died 1912)
* 13 April - Arthur Matthew Weld Downing, astronomer (died 1917)
*16 April - Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, inventor (died 1885)
* 26 April - Harry Bates, sculptor (died 1899)
* 1 May - Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, member of the Royal Family (died 1942)
* 10 May - Thomas Lipton, merchant and yachtsman (died 1931)
* 12 May - Charles McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway, Liberal politician and jurist (died 1934)
* 18 May - Oliver Heaviside, engineer (died 1925)
* 26 May - James Kenyon, pioneer of cinematography (died 1925)
* 28 May - Frederic William Maitland, jurist and historian (died 1906)
* 2 June - Jesse Boot, 1st Baron Trent, businessman (died 1931)
* 24 June - Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, field marshal and statesman (died 1916)
* 13 August - Philip Bourke Marston, poet (died 1887)
* 14 August - W. W. Rouse Ball, mathematician (died 1925)
* 9 September - Jane Ellen Harrison, classical scholar and feminist (died 1928)
* 17 September - Cuthbert A. Brereton, civil engineer (died 1910)
* 18 October - Basil Hall Chamberlain, Japanologist (died 1935)
* 13 November - Robert Louis Stevenson, writer (died 1894)
* 13 November - Sir John Benn, 1st Baronet, politician (died 1922)
* 11 December - Mary Victoria Hamilton, Scottish-German-French great-grandmother of Prince Rainier III of Monaco (died 1922)
* 24 December - Brandon Thomas, actor and playwright (died 1914)

Deaths

* 26 January - Francis Jeffrey, judge and literary critic (born 1773)
* 13 March - Owen Stanley, naval officer and explorer of New Guinea (born 1811)
* 7 April - William Lisle Bowles, poet and critic (born 1762)
* 9 April - William Prout, chemist and physician (born 1785)
* 23 April - William Wordsworth, poet (born 1770)
* 24 May - Jane Porter, novelist (born 1776)
* 9 June - John Green Crosse, surgeon (born 1790)
* 2 July - Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1788)
* 4 July - William Kirby, entomologist (born 1759)
* 7 July - Timothy Hackworth, steam locomotive engineer (born 1786)
* 8 July - Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, member of the Royal Family (born 1774)
* 12 July - Robert Stevenson, lighthouse engineer (born 1772)
* 27 August - Thomas Kidd, classical scholar and schoolmaster (born 1770)
* 2 September - Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn, Tory politician (born 1775)
* 2 October - Sarah Biffen, painter (born 1784)
* 4 December
** Robert Gilfillan, poet (born 1798)
** William Sturgeon, physicist and inventor (born 1783)

References

ee also