1844 in the United Kingdom

1844 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1842 | 1843 | 1844 | 1845 | 1846

Sport

1844 English cricket season

Events from the year 1844 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – Robert Peel (Conservative)

Events

The Royal Exchange (London), opened by Queen Victoria on 28 October

• 28 February — The Grand National at Aintree is won by the 5/1 joint favourite Discount.
• 11 April — Initiation of the Ragged Schools Union.^[1]
• 11 May — Major fire at Lyme Regis.^[2]
• 6 June — George Williams founds the Young Men's Christian Association in London.^[3]
• 15 June — Factory Act imposes a maximum 12-hour working day for women, and a maximum 6-hour day for children aged 6 to 13.^[4]
• 19 July — Bank Charter Act restricts powers of British banks other than the Bank of England to issue banknotes of the pound sterling.^[5][6]
• 9 August — Imprisonment for debt abolished in England.^[7]
• 28 September — A blackdamp explosion at Haswell Colliery in the Durham Coalfield kills 95, with just four survivors.^[8]
• 28 October — The Royal Exchange in London opened by Queen Victoria.^[9]
• 21 December — The Rochdale Pioneers, usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, open their store in Rochdale, forming the basis for the modern cooperative movement.^[3]

Undated

• Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge appointed as Governor-General of India.^[10]
• Winsford rock salt mine opens in Cheshire; by 2014 it will be Britain's oldest working mine.^[11]
• Ring of bells installed at St John the Evangelist's Church, Kirkham (Lancashire), said to be the first peal rung in an English Roman Catholic church since the Reformation.^[12][13]

Publications

• Robert Chambers' anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which paves the way for acceptance of Darwin's The Origin of Species.
• Charles Dickens' novel Martin Chuzzlewit (complete in book form) and his Christmas novella The Chimes.
• Benjamin Disraeli's novel Coningsby.
• Henry Fox Talbot's book The Pencil of Nature, the first illustrated with photographs from a camera (publication commences June).
• William Makepeace Thackeray's novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon (serialisation).

Births

• 3 May — Richard D'Oyly Carte, theatrical impresario (died 1901)
• 22 July — William Archibald Spooner, scholar and Anglican priest (died 1930)
• 28 July — Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (died 1889)
• 6 August — Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, second son of Queen Victoria (died 1900)
• 29 August — Edward Carpenter, Socialist poet (died 1929)
• 23 October — Robert Bridges, English poet (died 1930)
• 25 October — Arthur William à Beckett, journalist (died 1909)
• 1 December — Alexandra of Denmark, queen of Edward VII (died 1925)

Deaths

• 23 January — Francis Burdett, politician (born 1770)
• 15 February — Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1757)
• 27 July — John Dalton, chemist and physicist (born 1766)
• 2 November — Augustus Wall Callcott, landscape painter (born 1779)
• 23 November — Thomas James Henderson, astronomer (born 1798)

References

1. Berry, George (1970). Discovering Schools. Tring: Shire Publications. ISBN 0-85263-091-3.
2. The Illustrated London News 18 May 1844.
3. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
4. Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 266–267. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
5. "The Bank Charter Act 1844" (PDF). OPSI. Retrieved 2010-10-19.
6. Bank of England. "A brief history of banknotes". Retrieved 2007-10-08.
7. Munsell, Joel (1858). The Every Day Book of History and Chronology. D. Appleton & Co.
8. "Haswell — the 1844 Pit Disaster". A history of Haswell. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
9. "Royal Exchange History". Archived from the original on 14 August 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-28.
10. Cates, William L. R. (1863). The Pocket Date Book. Chapman and Hall.
11. "Welcome to Winsford Rock Salt Mine". Salt Union Ltd. Retrieved 2012-07-29.
12. "St John the Evangelist, Kirkham". Taking Stock. Retrieved 2014-06-02.
13. "History". Parish of the Holy Cross. Retrieved 2014-06-02.