1870 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1870 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch — Victoria
• Prime Minister — William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal)

Events

• 28 January — General Post Office takes over business of private telegraph companies.^[1]
• 5 March — First ever (unofficial) international football match, England v Scotland, takes place under the approval of the Football Association at The Oval, London.
• 10 May — Jem Mace wins the boxing championship of the world, defeating fellow Englishman Tom Allen at Kenner, near New Orleans.^[2]
• 19 May — The Home Government Association is established in Ireland by Isaac Butt to argue for devolution for Ireland and repeal of the Act of Union 1800.^[3]
• late Spring — Army Enlistment (Short Service) Act allows reduction in length of enlistment to the British Army as part of the Cardwell Reforms.^[4]
• 2 June — Competitive examination for entry to the British civil service introduced.^[5]
• 23 June — Keble College, Oxford, opens, the first new college of the University of Oxford in more than a century.
• 2 August — Official opening of the Tower Subway beneath the River Thames in London, the world's first underground passenger "tube" railway.^[6] Although this lasts as a railway operation only until November, it demonstrates the technologically successful first use of the cylindrical wrought iron tunnelling shield devised by Peter W. Barlow and James Henry Greathead.^[7]
• 4 August — British Red Cross established by Lord Wantage.^[6]
• 9 August
  • Elementary Education Act 1870 drafted by William Edward Forster MP encourages elementary education by creating a system of School boards in England and Wales.^[3][6]
  • Married Women's Property Act confirms that wives may own property of their own.^[5]
• 1 October — Postcards and halfpenny postage stamps introduced by the Post Office.^[6]

Publications

• 1 January — The Northern Echo newspaper launched in Darlington.
• April–September — Serialisation of Charles Dickens' novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, only half complete due to his death on 9 June.
• Edward Jenkins' satire Ginx's Baby: his birth and other misfortunes.
• William Robinson's gardening book The Wild Garden.
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems,^[8] exhumed from Elizabeth Siddal's grave.

Births

• 12 February — Marie Lloyd, music-hall singer (died 1922)
• 4 March — Thomas Sturge Moore, poet, author and artist (died 1944)
• 17 March — Horace Donisthorpe, entomologist (died 1951)
• 9 May — Harry Vardon, golfer (died 1937)
• 11 August — Tom Richardson, cricketer (died 1912)
• 18 December — Saki, writer (died 1916)
• Doncaster, racehorse (died 1892)

Deaths

• 6 May — James Young Simpson, physician and researcher (born 1811)
• 9 June — Charles Dickens, novelist (born 1812)
• 9 December — Patrick MacDowell, sculptor (born 1799)

References

See also