1881 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1881 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

*Monarch - Victoria of the United Kingdom
*Prime Minister - William Gladstone, Liberal

Events

* 1 January - Postal orders issued for the first time in Britain.cite book |last=Palmer |first=Alan & Veronica |year=1992 |title= The Chronology of British History|publisher= Century Ltd|location=London|pages= 305-306|isbn= 0-7126-5616-2]
* 18 January - First Boer War: British forces defeated at the Battle of Laing's Nek.cite book|last=Williams|first=Hywel|title=Cassell's Chronology of World History|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|year=2005|isbn=0-304-35730-8|pages=434–435]
* 8 February - First Boer War: British forces defeated at the Battle of Schuinshoogte.
* 27 February - First Boer War: British forces defeated at the Battle of Majuba Hill.
* 1 March - The Cunard Line's "SS Servia", the first steel ocean liner, is launched.
* 5 April - The Treaty of Pretoria gave the Boers self-government in the Transvaal under a theoretical British oversight.
* 18 April - The Natural History Museum is opened.cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=0-141-02715-0|year=2006]
* 19 April - Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury becomes the Conservative Leader in the House of Lords following the death of Benjamin Disraeli.
* 23 April - First performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera "Patience" at the Opera Comique in London.
* 27 April - British troops leave Afghanistan.
* 26 July - First publication of the "London Evening News".
* 16 August - a tribunal is set up under the Second Irish Land Act to examine excessive rents.
* 10 October - The Savoy Theatre opens and is the first electrically lit building in London.
* 13 October - Charles Stewart Parnell imprisoned for to his part in land agitation in Ireland.
* 16 October - "The People" newspaper founded. [cite web|url=http://www.bl.uk/collections/brit19th.html|title=Concise History of the British Newspaper in the Nineteenth Century|accessdate=2008-03-16]

Publications

* Henry James' novel "The Portrait of a Lady".

Births

* 9 January - Lascelles Abercrombie, poet and critic (died 1938)
* 9 March - Ernest Bevin, labour leader, politician, and statesman (died 1951)
* 25 March - Mary Webb, writer (died 1927)
* 1 August - Rose Macaulay, novelist (died 1958)
* 6 August - Alexander Fleming, researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1955)
* 20 August - Edgar Guest, poet (died 1959)
* 16 September - Clive Bell, art critic (died 1964)
* 17 September - Alfred Francis Blakeney Carpenter, soldier (died 1955)
* 15 October
** William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 1944)
** P. G. Wodehouse, writer (died 1975)

Deaths

* 5 February - Thomas Carlyle, writer and historian (born 1795)
* 19 April - Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1804)
* 24 May - Samuel Palmer, artist (born 1805)

References

ee also