Victorian Timeline

Timeline borrowed from the Victorian Web

1832	First Reform Bill: adds £10/year householders to the voting rolls and reapportions Parliamentary representation much more fairly, doing away with most "rotten" and "pocket" boroughs. Adds 217,000 voters to an electorate of 435,000.
1833	Slavery abolished throughout the British Empire. Factory Act.
1834	New Poor Law. Houses of Parliament burn down.
Late 1830s	First of the Parliamentary "Blue Books"—facts and figures about England compiled by the Royal Commissioners.
1836-48	Chartist movement.
1837	William IV dies; succeeded by his niece, Victoria.
1838	Regular Atlantic steamship service begins.
1839	Anti-Corn-Law League founded.
1840	Queen Victoria marries her cousin Albert, who becomes Prince Consort. Penny post started. S.F.B. Morse invents the telegraph. Grammar Schools Act.
1842	Chartist Riots. Copyright Act.
1845-6	Potato Failure in Europe; starvation in Ireland. Corn Laws (which had kept up the price of grain) repealed.
1848	Revolutions in Europe. Queen's College (for women) founded in London.
1849	Gold discovered in California and Australia.
1850	Telegraph cable laid under English Channel.
1851	Great Exhibition ("Crystal Palace"). Population of United Kingdom at 21 million.
1853-6	Crimean War.
1855	Livingston discovers Victoria Falls. Civil Service Commissioners appointed.
1857-8	The Mutiny (India).
1858	First Atlantic cable laid.
1860	Garibaldi takes Naples; unification of Italy.
1861	Albert dies; Victoria retires into mourning.
1861-5	American Civil War.
1862	Bismarck becomes Prussian premier.
1864	Geneva Convention establishes Red Cross.
1866	Italy defeated by Austria. Telegraph cable laid under the Atlantic.
1867	Second Reform Bill: enfranchises many workingmen; adds 938,000 to an electorate of 1,057,000 in England and Wales. (Disraeli's legislation) South African diamond fields discovered. Fenian rising in Ireland.
1869	Suez Canal opened. Union Pacific Railway completed in U.S.
1870	Forster's Elementary Education Act establishes School Boards. Vatican Council (establishes the infallibility of the Pope).
1870-1	Franco-Prussian War.
1871	University Tests Act removes religious tests at Oxford and Cambridge. Trade unions legalized. Newcastle engineers strike for a nine-hour day. Germany unified.
1873	Population of the United Kingdom at 26 million (France 36 million).
1876	Victoria named Empress of India. Edison invents the phonograph. Compulsory school attendance in Great Britain.
1877	Transvaal annexed.
1879	Somerville and Lady Margaret Colleges (for women) founded at Oxford. Zulu war.
1880	War with Transvaal.
1881	Cambridge Tripos exams opened to women.
1882	Triple Alliance (Germany, Italy, and Austria). Married Women's Property Act enables women to buy, own, and sell property, and to keep their own earnings.
1883	"Oom Paul" Kruger named president of the South African Republic. Fabian Society founded. Mahdi Rebellion in the Sudan.
1884-5	Third Reform Act and Redistribution Act extend vote to agricultural workers; electorate tripled.
1885	Fall of Khartoum.
1886	First (Irish) Home Rule bill rejected.
1887	Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.
1889	London dock workers and match girls strike for 6d./hour.
1890	Parnell--O'Shea divorce case ends Parnell's influence; no Home Rule for Ireland.
1894	Dreyfus trial in France.
1895	U.S. equals the U.K.'s industrial output.
1897	Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
1898-99	Spanish-American War.
1899-1902	Boer war.
1901	Victoria dies; Edward Prince of Wales succeeds.