1861 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1861 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Events

1 January – first steam-powered merry-go-round recorded, in Bolton.
15 February – about 350 convicts held on St Mary's Island at Chatham Dockyard take over their prison in a riot.
20 February – storms damage the Crystal Palace in London and cause the collapse of the steeple of Chichester Cathedral.
21 to 26 March – the Tooley Street fire in Southwark destroys several buildings.
30 March – William Crookes announces his discovery of thallium.
7 April – United Kingdom census. The population is more than double that of 1801 and those living in urban areas are in a majority.
12 April – American Civil War breaks out, leading to the Lancashire Cotton Famine.
April – in London:
* The Guards Crimean War Memorial is unveiled, including sculptures of Other Ranks.
* William Morris founds the influential furnishing company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.
13 May – British government resolves to remain neutral in the American Civil War.
17 May
* A 7-day working men's package holiday to Paris, organised by Thomas Cook, sets out from London Bridge station.
* Scottish-born physicist James Clerk Maxwell demonstrates the principle of three-colour photography in a lecture at the Royal Institution in London using a photograph captured by Thomas Sutton.
31 May – Perpetual Truce of Peace and Friendship signed between Bahrain and the U.K.
July – outbreak of yellow fever onboard paddle frigate HMS Firebrand in the West Indies kills 52.
31 July – Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act codifies company law.
6 August
* Criminal Law Consolidation Acts granted Royal Assent, generally coming into effect on 1 November. The death penalty is limited to murder, embezzlement, piracy, high treason and to acts of arson perpetrated upon docks or ammunition depots; the age of consent is codified as twelve. The Home Secretary takes over the power to reprieve or commute sentences from the judiciary and Privy Council.
** Accessories and Abettors Act, codifying the law on accessories and abettors.
** Coinage Offences Act, codifying the law on counterfeiting of coins.
** Criminal Statutes Repeal Act.
** Forgery Act, codifying the law on forgery.
** Larceny Act, codifying the law on larceny and related offences.
** Malicious Damage Act, codifying the law on criminal damage.
** Offences against the Person Act, codifying the law on actual or attempted violent offence against the person and abortion, abolishing the nominal death penalty for buggery and creating the offence of "causing bodily harm by wanton or furious driving".
* Lagos Treaty of Cession between the British Empire and Dosunmu, Oba of Lagos, by which the latter, under threat of military bombardment, cedes Lagos Island to Britain, whilst retaining his title and powers, subject to English law, and allowing the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron to have a base there to prevent the slave trade.
27 August – last execution in Britain for attempted murder – Martin Doyle in Chester.
16 September – Post Office Savings Bank opens.
7 October – the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, Manchester in Salford is consecrated as the oldest purpose-built Greek Orthodox Church in England.
23 October – foundation stone of the Royal Museum in Edinburgh laid by Prince Albert.
24 October – HMS Warrior, the world's first ocean-going iron-hulled armoured battleship is completed and commissioned.
8 November – Trent Affair: Union-captained ship USS San Jacinto intercepts the British mail packet Trent at sea and removes two Confederate diplomats.
15 November – teaching begins at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, founded by conductor Henry Wylde, the oldest specialist performing arts school in the British Isles.
25 November – a tenement collapses in the Old Town, Edinburgh, killing 35 with 15 survivors.
1 December – Trent Affair: the British government dispatches its diplomatic response, partly drafted by the terminally ill Prince Albert.
c. December – first appearance of drag pantomime dame character Widow Twankey, played by James Rogers in Henry James Byron's burlesque Aladdin or the Wonderful Scamp in London.

Publications

Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.
Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations complete in book form.
George Eliot's novel Silas Marner.
F. T. Palgrave's anthology Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics, 1st edition.
Charles Reade's novel The Cloister and the Hearth.
Anthony Trollope's novels Framley Parsonage and Orley Farm.
Mrs Henry Wood's 'sensation novel' East Lynne.
The anthology Hymns Ancient and Modern. This includes the setting "Eventide" by the music editor William Henry Monk for the hymn Abide with Me.

Births

22 January – Maurice Hewlett, historical novelist, poet and essayist
15 February
* Halford Mackinder, geographer
* Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician
19 February – Henry Horne, 1st Baron Horne, general
23 April – Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby, soldier, administrator
12 June – William Attewell, cricketer
16 June – Edith Aitken, headmistress
17 June – Sidney Jones, musical comedy composer
19 June – Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, soldier
20 June – Frederick Hopkins, biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
9 July – William Burrell, Scottish shipowner and art collector
4 August – Henry Head, neurologist
10 August – Almroth Wright, bacteriologist, immunologist
2 September – Arthur Beresford Pite, architect
23 September – Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, poet and novelist
12 October – Agnes Jekyll, née Graham, artist, writer on domestic matters and philanthropist
16 October – J. B. Bury, historian
23 October – Margaret McKellar, Scottish-born Canadian medical missionary
8 November – William Price Drury, novelist, playwright and Royal Marines officer
10 November – Amy Levy, novelist and essayist
10 December – Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, née Maynard, socialite, socialist, philanthropist and royal mistress
18 December – Lionel Monckton, musical comedy composer
19 December – Constance Garnett, née Black, literary translator

Deaths

17 January – Fanny Fleming, actress
29 January – Catherine Gore, novelist and dramatist
6 February – Bulkeley Bandinel, scholar-librarian
7 February – John Brown, geographer
16 March – Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duchess of Kent, mother of Queen Victoria
8 April – John Bartholomew, Sr., Scottish cartographer
24 April – Sir Hedworth Williamson, 7th Baronet, politician
13 June – Henry Gray, anatomist
18 June – Eaton Hodgkinson, structural engineer
29 June – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet
6 July – Sir Francis Palgrave, historian
29 July – Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, politician
3 September – Ernest Edgcumbe, 3rd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, politician
4 October – Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, noble
5 October – William Ranwell, marine painter
13 October – Sir William Cubitt, civil engineer
21 October – Edward Dickinson Baker, United States Senator from Oregon, 1860–1861
13 November
* Arthur Hugh Clough, poet
* Sir John Forbes, royal physician
* John Hodgetts-Foley, politician
10 December – Thomas Southwood Smith, physician and sanitary reformer
14 December – Albert, Prince Consort, spouse of Queen Victoria