1893 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – William Ewart Gladstone

Events

• 13 January – The Independent Labour Party has its first meeting, in Bradford, under chairman Keir Hardie.
• 30 January – Old Head coinage introduced.
• 11–19 February – White Star Line sinks without trace in heavy seas on the Liverpool-New York transatlantic passage.
• 10 March – The Government takes control of Uganda from the British East Africa Company.
• 10 May – Colony of Natal given self-governing status.
• 6 June – Wedding of Prince George, Duke of York, and Princess Mary of Teck at St James's Palace in London.
• 13 June – The first British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship is held, at the Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club.
• 22 June – HMS Victoria, flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, collides with HMS Camperdown and sinks in ten minutes, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon going down with it.
• 29 June – Unveiling of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, designed by Alfred Gilbert, at Piccadilly Circus in London.
• 4 July – An underground explosion at Combs Pit, Thornhill, West Yorkshire, kills 135.
• 12 July – Dundee F.C. is formed in Scotland.
• 10 August – Preston, Lancashire, enters the United Kingdom weather records with the highest five-minute total rainfall of 32mm. As of August 2018, this record remains.
• 6 September – Isinglass completes the English Triple Crown by finishing first in the Epsom Derby, 2,000 Guineas and St Leger.
• 7 September – Featherstone 'Massacre': troops fire on locked-out Yorkshire coal miners, killing two.
• 22 September – Elementary Education Act leads to raising of school leaving age in England and Wales to eleven years.
• 13 October – The first students enter St Hilda's College, Oxford, founded for women by Dorothea Beale.
• 28 October – The Royal Navy's first destroyer, HMS Havock, undergoes sea trials.
• 26 November – Arthur Conan Doyle surprises the reading public by revealing in the story "The Adventure of the Final Problem", published in the December issue of The Strand Magazine, that his character Sherlock Holmes had apparently died at the Reichenbach Falls on 4 May 1891.
• 28 November – Law case of Browne v Dunn is decided in the House of Lords, a leading case on the conduct of legal cross-examination.
• 30 November – University of Wales incorporated by Royal charter.
• 5 December – Married Women's Property Act 1893 completes the 19th century process of equalizing property rights for women and men.
• 16 December – Establishment, in Yorkshire, of the Brontë Society, possibly the oldest literary society of this nature, dedicated to establishing what will become the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Undated

• W. Britain invents a process of producing hollow cast lead toy soldiers.
• The University of Exeter Debating Society is founded in England as the Exeter Debating Society at the Royal Albert Memorial College.
• The village of Bermuda, Warwickshire, is built.
• Dulwich Hamlet F.C. is founded in London.

Publications

• Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Refugees.
• Beatrice Harraden's novel Ships That Pass in the Night.
• Stanley J. Weyman's novel A Gentleman of France.

Births

• 12 February – Tom Stephenson, rambler
• 15 January – Ivor Novello, actor and musician
• 5 February – W. E. Johns, writer, creator of Biggles
• 3 March – Ivon Hitchens, painter
• 18 March – Wilfred Owen, soldier and poet
• 3 April – Leslie Howard, film actor
• 9 April – Victor Gollancz, publisher
• 8 May – Teddy Wakelam, English rugby player and sportscaster
• 13 June – Dorothy L. Sayers, author
• 30 June – Harold Laski, political theorist and economist
• 9 July – George Geary, cricketer
• 20 July – George Llewelyn-Davies, one of the 'Lost Boys' who inspired Peter Pan
• 22 August – Wilfred Kitching, 7th General of The Salvation Army
• 7 September – Leslie Hore-Belisha, statesman after whom Belisha beacons are named
• 15 October – Saunders Lewis, Welsh nationalist poet, dramatist and critic
• 21 December – Winifred Nicholson, born Rosa Roberts, impressionist painter
• 23 December – Sholto Douglas, Marshal of the Royal Air Force

Deaths

• 2 January – John O. Westwood, entomologist
• 15 January – Fanny Kemble, actress
• 23 January – William Price, Welsh physician and radical, pioneer of cremation
• 22 February – Lydia Irving, philanthropist, prison visitor
• 18 September – Charles Clay, surgeon
• 18 November – Robert Grosvenor, 1st Baron Ebury, politician
• 11 December – William Milligan, Scottish theologian