1876 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – Benjamin Disraeli

Events

• 1 January – the Bass Brewery Red Triangle becomes the first registered trademark symbol, under the Trade Mark Registration Act 1875.
• April – the Royal Titles Act 1876 grants Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India from 1877.
• 7 April – Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, becomes Viceroy of India.
• 1 May – the Settle-Carlisle Railway is opened to passenger traffic.
• 16 May
• * Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli rejects the Berlin Memorandum.
• * Adam Worth steals the Portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire from Agnew's gallery in Old Bond Street, London three weeks after its sale at Christie's for 10,000 guineas, the highest price ever paid for a painting at auction at this time. It is not recovered until 1901.
• 24 May – Challenger expedition returns to Portsmouth.
• 13 July – the prosecution of Arthur Tooth, an Anglican clergyman, for using ritualist practices begins.
• August
• * The Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, is made Earl of Beaconsfield by Queen Victoria.
• * The Medical Act 1876 repeals the previous Medical Act in the United Kingdom and enables every university or other body in the United Kingdom entitled to grant qualifications for registration to grant such qualifications to all people without distinction of sex.
• 15 August – Elementary Education Act 1876 prevents employment of children under 10; permits local attendance committees to impose compulsory school attendance for ages 5–13; and authorises poor law guardians to pay school fees for the poor and destitute under a system of certificates.
• 5 September – William Gladstone's Bulgarian Horrors pamphlet is published.
• 7 October – first greyhound race to use an artificial hare is held, at Hendon.
• 10 December – the "observant stranger" Henry James arrives at Folkestone and subsequently takes lodgings at 3 Bolton Street, London

Undated

• Charles Wells opens his brewery based in Bedford.
• The Conchological Society of Great Britain & Ireland is founded.
• Mary Sumner founds Christian women's organisation the Mothers' Union.
• Port Vale Football Club is formed.
• Stourbridge Football Club is formed.
• Saracens F.C. is formed in London as a rugby union club.
• Warrington Wolves is formed as Warrington Zingari F.C., a rugby league club.
• Stockport Lacrosse Club, thought to be the oldest existing lacrosse club in the world, is founded at Cale Green Cricket Club Davenport, Greater Manchester, where they will still be playing in the 21st century.
• Henry Wickham smuggles rubber seeds out of Brazil leading to the eventual collapse of the Amazon rubber boom.
• Grey squirrel introduced to England at Henbury Park, Cheshire.

Publications

• Isabella Banks' novel The Manchester Man.
• Walter Besant and James Rice's novel The Golden Butterfly.
• Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark.
• George Eliot's novel Daniel Deronda.
• Anthony Trollope's book The Prime Minister, fifth of the Palliser novels.

Births

• 13 January – Florence Sulman, author and educationalist
• 21 January – James Larkin, trade union leader and socialist politician in Ireland
• 29 January – Havergal Brian, composer
• 16 February – G. M. Trevelyan, historian
• 7 March – Edgar Evans, Welsh sailor, Antarctic explorer
• 11 March – Carl Ruggles, composer
• 23 March – Muirhead Bone, Scottish etcher
• 28 April – Thomas Crisp, Victoria Cross recipient
• 7 May – Samuel Courtauld, art collector
• 27 May – William Stanier, railway engineer and steam locomotive designer
• 13 June – William Sealy Gosset, chemist
• 19 June – Nigel Gresley, railway engineer and steam locomotive designer
• 22 June – Gwen John, Welsh painter
• 8 August
• * Charles Hamilton, children's story writer
• * Sophia Duleep Singh, Princess and suffragette
• 17 August – Eric Drummond, 16th Earl of Perth, politician
• 25 August – Eglantyne Jebb, champion for children
• 1 September – Harriet Shaw Weaver, political activist
• 6 September – John Macleod, Scottish physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 6 October – Githa Sowerby, dramatist
• 2 November – William Haywood, architect
• 3 November – Rupert D'Oyly Carte, hotelier and theatrical impresario
• 7 November – Charlie Townsend, cricketer
• 26 November – Janet Philip, School Secretary at the London School for Economics
• 29 December – Lionel Tertis, violist

Deaths

• 19 January – George Julius Poulett Scrope, political economist
• 3 April – Mary Fildes, political activist
• 19 April – Samuel Sebastian Wesley, organist and composer
• 24 May – Henry Kingsley, novelist
• 27 June – Harriet Martineau, philosopher and social theorist
• 14 July - Thomas Hazlehurst, chemical manufacturer and Methodist chapel builder
• 17 July – Francis Conyngham, 2nd Marquess Conyngham, soldier, courtier and politician
• 19 August – George Smith, Assyriologist
• 24 August – John Roberton, Scottish physician and social reformer
• 16 September – Hedworth Lambton, politician
• 18 October – Sir Thomas Dickson Archibald, judge
• 29 December – Sir Titus Salt, woollen manufacturer and philanthropist