1819 in the United Kingdom
Events from the year 1819 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
- Monarch – George III
- Regent – George, Prince Regent
- Prime Minister – Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool
- Foreign Secretary – Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
- Home Secretary – Lord Sidmouth
- Secretary of War – Lord Bathurst
Events
- 6 February – Formal treaty between Sultan Hussein of Johor and the British Sir Stamford Raffles establishes a trading settlement in Singapore.
- 19 February – William Smith discovers the South Shetland Islands in the Antarctic.
- 20 March – Burlington Arcade opens in London.
- 13 April – The Mansfield and Pinxton Railway, a wagonway, opens for coal traffic.
- 14 April – The streets of Birmingham are lit by gas for the first time by the Birmingham Gas Light and Coke Company.
- 21 April–late May – John Keats writes "La Belle Dame sans Merci" and most of his major odes.
- 20 June – The, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, arrives at Liverpool from Savannah, Georgia, United States, although only a fraction of the trip is made under steam.
- 22 June – Act of Parliament to abolish private appeals following acquittals in criminal cases and to abolish trial by combat, in the aftermath of Ashford v Thornton.
- 2 July – Cotton Mills and Factories Act passed, a first attempt to regulate employment of young children in textile mills.
- 24 July – A cabinet meeting convened by Prime Minister Lord Liverpool discusses an investigative report of an adulterous affair involving Caroline of Brunswick and her servant Bartolomeo Pergami; the cabinet concludes that the trial of Caroline for adultery would be an embarrassment to the nation.
- 16 August – Peterloo Massacre in St. Peter's Field, Manchester: a cavalry charge into a crowd of radical protesters results in eleven deaths and over 400 injuries.
- 19 September – Keats writes his ode "To Autumn" at Winchester.
- 23 November–30 December – Six Acts passed by Parliament to suppress assemblies promoting radical reform.
Undated
- Britannia Monument to Admiral Lord Nelson at Great Yarmouth is completed.
- The Travellers Club is established in London.
Publications
- The exiled Lord Byron's narrative poem Mazeppa and satirical epic poem Don Juan.
- John William Polidori's short story The Vampyre.
- Walter Scott's anonymous historical Waverley Novels Ivanhoe, The Bride of Lammermoor and A Legend of Montrose.
Births
- 1 January – Arthur Hugh Clough, poet
- 9 January – William Powell Frith, genre painter
- 8 February – John Ruskin, writer, artist and social critic
- 11 March – Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet, sugar merchant and philanthropist
- 28 March
- * Joseph Bazalgette, civil engineer
- * Roger Fenton, pioneer of photography, early war photographer
- 24 May – Queen Victoria
- 5 June – John Couch Adams, astronomer
- 12 June – Charles Kingsley, novelist
- 8 July – Leopold McClintock, Irish-born Arctic explorer and admiral
- 1 August – Richard Dadd, painter
- 13 August – George Stokes, Irish-born mathematician and physicist
- 26 August – Albert, Prince Consort to Queen Victoria
- 5 September – Stillborn child to the Duke of Clarence and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
- 26 September – Edward Watkin, railway manager and politician
- 22 November – George Eliot, born Mary Ann Evans, novelist
- Undated – Baxter Langley, radical political activist
Deaths
- 14 January – John Wolcot, satirist and poet
- 17 February – Henry Constantine Jennings, collector and gambler
- 13 March – Charles Wyatt, politician and architect
- 2 May – Mary Moser, painter
- 8 June – George Barclay, politician
- 20 July – John Playfair, natural philosopher
- 25 August – James Watt, Scottish inventor
- 7 September – Lumpy Stevens, cricketer
- 1 October – William Speechly, horticulturalist
- 30 October – John Bowles, conservative writer and lawyer
- 22 November – John Stackhouse, botanist
- 17 December – Hon. Charles Finch, politician
- 19 December – Sir Thomas Fremantle, admiral and politician