1875 in the United Kingdom

Updated on Dec 11, 2023

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Events from the year 1875 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Monarch — Victoria

Prime Minister — Benjamin Disraeli (Conservative)

Events

1 January — The Midland Railway abolishes Second Class, leaving First Class and Third Class, the latter having passenger facilities upgraded to the former Second Class level. Other British railway companies follow this lead during the year and later. (Third Class is renamed Second Class in 1956.)

21 January — Preston North End F.C. move into their new stadium at Deepdale.

25 March — Trial by Jury, the first surviving Gilbert and Sullivan opera, premières.

1 April — The Times publishes the first daily weather map.

7 May — German liner SS Schiller is wrecked on rocks off the Isles of Scilly with the loss of 311 lives.

29 May — British Arctic Expedition: George Nares sets sail on an expedition to attempt to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound.

6 July — Opening of first passenger funicular in the UK, the South Cliff Lift at Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

31 July — Public Health Act 1875 establishes a code of practice for sanitation across the country.

6 August — Scottish football team Hibernian F.C. founded by Irishmen in Edinburgh.

13 August

Food and Drugs Act makes adulteration of food or drugs an offence.

Offences against the Person Act effectively raises the age of consent in England, Wales and Ireland from twelve to thirteen.

25 August — Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel.

27 September — American merchant sailing ship Ellen Southard is wrecked off Liverpool; 12 crew and life-boatmen are lost.

September

Joseph Bazalgette completes the 30-year construction of London's sewer system.

Association football team Birmingham City F.C. is founded as Small Heath Alliance in Birmingham by a group of cricketers from Holy Trinity Church, Bordesley, playing its first match in November.

26 November — The Times newspaper reveals that Isma'il Pasha has sold Egypt's 44% share in the Suez Canal to Britain in a deal secured by Benjamin Disraeli without the prior sanction of the British Parliament.

6 December

German emigrant ship SS Deutschland (built in Scotland 1866) runs aground at Kentish Knock resulting in the death of 157 passengers and crew and inspiring Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem The Wreck of the Deutschland.

Firedamp explosion at Swaithe Main Colliery in the South Yorkshire Coalfield resulting in the death of 143 miners.

The Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875 is passed to permit slum clearance.

Publications

Helen Mathers' novel Comin' thro' the Rye.

Anthony Trollope's novel The Way We Live Now.

Births

4 January — William Williams, Welsh poet and Archdruid (died 1968)

1 April — Edgar Wallace, born Richard Horatio Edgar, writer (died 1932)

12 May — Charles Holden, architect (died 1960)

26 August — John Buchan, novelist and politician (died 1940)

10 September — John Evans, Welsh politician (died 1961)

18 September — Arthur Henry Knighton-Hammond, watercolourist (died 1970)

12 October — Aleister Crowley, occultist (died 1947)

26 October — Sir Lewis Casson, actor and theatre director (died 1969)

11 November — Johnny Jenkins, Welsh-born racing driver (died 1945)

20 December — T. F. Powys, Anglo-Welsh writer (died 1953)

Deaths

23 January — Charles Kingsley, novelist (born 1819)

25 January — George Myers, master builder (born 1803)

22 February — Sir Charles Lyell, geologist (born 1797)

7 March — James Hope Grant, military leader (born 1808)

22 March — Alexander Thomson, architect in the Greek Revival style (born 1817)

27 July — Connop Thirlwall, bishop (born 1797)

19 August — Robert Ellis (Cynddelw), Welsh language poet, biographer, lexicographer and Baptist minister (born 1812)

19 October — Charles Wheatstone, physicist (born 1802)

References

1875 in the United Kingdom Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA