1826 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – George IV
• Prime Minister – Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (Tory)
• Foreign Secretary – George Canning
• Home Secretary – Robert Peel
• Secretary of War – Lord Bathurst

Events

• 30 January – The Menai Suspension Bridge, built by engineer Thomas Telford, is opened between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales.
• 11 February – University College London is founded, under the name University of London.
• 15 February – Longstone Lighthouse first illuminated as Outer Farne Lighthouse (Joseph Nelson, engineer).
• 24 February – Treaty of Yandabo cedes Arakan peninsula to Britain, ending the First Anglo-Burmese War.
• 1 March – Male Indian elephant Chunee, which was brought to London in 1811, is killed at a menagerie on The Strand after running amok the week before, killing one of his keepers. After arsenic and shooting fail, the animal is stabbed to death.
• April – A number of leading scientists form the Zoological Society of London.
• 24–26 April – Power-loom riots in the Lancashire textile districts: hand-loom weavers protest at the introduction of the power loom in Accrington, Blackburn and finally, Chatterton, where troops fire on the mob, killing at least four.
• 5 May – The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, designed by George Stephenson and Joseph Locke, which in 1830 is to become the world's first purpose-built passenger railway operated by steam locomotives to be opened, is authorised by Parliament.
• 26 May – Country Bankers Act 1826 permits joint-stock banks outside the London area, which may issue banknotes.
• 1 June–31 August – A three-month heat wave and drought grips the country. With a mean temperature of 17.60 C, it is the hottest summer on CET records since 1659, until 1976 and 2025, meaning that it is the third hottest summer in the CET records.
• 19 June – Tories under Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool win a substantial increased majority over the Whigs in the general election.
• 20 June – Burney Treaty increases British control over south-east Asia.
• 1 July – The Conway Suspension Bridge, built by engineer Thomas Telford, is opened in North Wales, completing his improvements to the Holyhead road.
• 10 August – The first Cowes Regatta is held on the Isle of Wight.
• 18 August – Scottish explorer Alexander Gordon Laing becomes the first European to reach Timbuktu, but is murdered there on 26 September.
• 1 October – The Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway opens in Scotland.
• 18 October – The last English state lottery is drawn in a series run since 1769, the next National Lottery will be in 1994.

Ongoing

• Anglo-Ashanti war (1823–1831)

Undated

• Straits Settlements established as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company.
• Construction of the National Monument, Edinburgh on Calton Hill (to the dead of the Napoleonic Wars) is commenced; it will never be completed.

Publications

• Benjamin Disraeli's (anonymous) first novel Vivian Grey.
• Walter Scott's (anonymous) historical novel Woodstock.
• Felicia Dorothea Hemans' poem "Casabianca", in The New Monthly Magazine (August).
• Christian Isobel Johnstone (as Margaret Dods)'s The Cook and Housewife's Manual.
• John C. Loudon's periodical The Gardener's Magazine first issued.

Births

• 24 January – Gifford Palgrave, priest, traveller and Arabist (died 1888)
• 3 February – Walter Bagehot, economist and journalist (died 1877)
• 15 February – George Johnstone Stoney, Irish-born physicist (died 1911)
• 20 April – Dinah Craik, née Mulock, novelist and poet (died 1887)
• 15 or 25 May – Tom Sayers, bare-knuckle boxer (died 1865)
• 26 May – Richard Carrington, astronomer (died 1875)
• 18 June – William Maclagan, Archbishop of York (died 1910)
• 24 June – George Goyder, surveyor-general of South Australia (died 1898)
• 7 July – John Fowler, agricultural engineer (died 1864)
• 20 July – Laura Keene, actress (died 1873)
• 25 August – William Synge, diplomat and author (died 1891)
• 5 September – John Wisden, cricketer, creator of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (died 1884)
• 8 September – Sir James Corry, 1st Baronet, politician (died 1891)
• 24 September – George Price Boyce, Pre-Raphaelite watercolour landscape painter (died 1897)
• 23 December – William Blanchard Jerrold, journalist and biographer (died 1884)

Deaths

• 6 January – John Farey Sr., polymath (born 1766)
• 17 February – John Manners-Sutton, politician (born 1752)
• 7 March – Ann Freeman, Bible preacher (born 1797)
• 10 March – John Pinkerton, antiquarian (born 1758)
• 3 April – Reginald Heber, bishop, poet and travel writer (born 1783)
• 19 April – John Milner, Roman Catholic bishop and religious controversialist (born 1752)
• 23 June – John Taylor, Unitarian hymn writer (born 1750)
• 5 July – Sir Stamford Raffles, colonial governor, founder of Singapore (born 1781)
• 2 August – George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea, cricketer (born 1752)
• 26 August – Lady Sarah Lennox, courtier (born 1745)
• 4 September – Robert Gifford, 1st Baron Gifford, lawyer, judge and politician (born 1779)
• 26 September – Alexander Gordon Laing, Scottish explorer (born 1794)
• 26 November – John Nichols, printer and author (born 1745)
• 7 December – John Flaxman, sculptor (born 1755)
• 31 December – William Gifford, satirist (born 1756)

References

References

1. Rolt, L. T. C.. (1958). "Thomas Telford". Longmans, Green.
2. [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/18217/page/244 ''London Gazette'' issue 18217, 4 February 1826 p.244.]
3. (1992). "The Chronology of British History". Century Ltd.
4. Grigson, Caroline. (2016). "Menagerie: The History of Exotic Animals in England". Oxford University Press.
5. Aspin, Chris. (1995). "The First industrial Society: Lancashire 1750–1850". Carnegie Publishing.
6. Carlson, Robert E.. (1969). "The Liverpool & Manchester Railway Project 1821–1831". David & Charles.
7. "metoffice.com".
8. "Icons, a portrait of England 1820–1840".
9. (2006). "Penguin Pocket On This Day". Penguin Reference Library.
10. Awdry, Christopher. (1990). "Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies". Patrick Stephens Ltd.
11. "Lottery Office records". The National Archives.