1894 in the United Kingdom

1894 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1892 | 1893 | 1894 (1894) | 1895 | 1896

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1894 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland

Events from the year 1894 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch — Victoria
• Prime Minister — William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal) (until 2 March), Earl of Rosebery (Liberal) (starting 5 March)

Events

• 15 February — 04:51 GMT, French anarchist Martial Bourdin attempts to destroy the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London with a bomb.
• 1 March — Local Government Act (coming into effect December 1894–January 1895) creates a system of urban and rural districts with elected councils, with elected parish councils in rural areas, reforms the boards of guardians of poor law unions, and gives women, irrespective of marital status, the right to vote and stand in local (but not national) elections.
• 3 March — William Ewart Gladstone (at the age of 84) resigns as Prime Minister over high Navy estimates.
• 5 March — Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery becomes Prime Minister and forms a minority Liberal Party government.
• 11 April — Britain establishes a Protectorate over Uganda.
• 12 April — The annual Budget establishes death duties.
• 21 April — Debut of the George Bernard Shaw play Arms and the Man in London.
• 14 May — Blackpool Tower opened in Blackpool, Lancashire.
• 21 May — The Manchester Ship Canal is officially opened, linking the previously landlocked city of Manchester to the Irish Sea.
• 23 June — A firedamp explosion at Albion Colliery, Cilfynydd, Glamorgan, kills 290 coal miners and 123 horses underground.
• 30 June — Tower Bridge in London opened for traffic.
• 2 August — Death duties introduced.
• September — British Association for the Advancement of Science inaugurates an Ethnographic Survey of the United Kingdom.
• 28 September — Michael Marks forms the partnership of Marks & Spencer with Thomas Spencer, opening its first store in Manchester.
• 13 October — Everton and Liverpool Football Clubs meet in the first Merseyside derby.
• December — Frederick Bremer, a plumber and gasfitter from Walthamstow, runs the first British four-wheeled petrol-engined motor car (self-built) on the public highway.

Undated

• Argon discovered by Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay.
• Patrick Manson develops the thesis that malaria is spread by mosquitoes.
• Alfred Harmsworth buys the London Evening News newspaper.
• Grace Kimmins founds the Guild of the Poor Brave Things for the education of crippled boys.
• The National College of Music is founded by the Moss family in London.

Publications

• Edward Carpenter's book Homogenic Love, and its place in a free society.
• Arthur Conan Doyle's anthology The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
• George du Maurier's novel Trilby (serialised).
• Robert Hichens' anonymous satirical novel The Green Carnation.
• Anthony Hope's novel The Prisoner of Zenda; also his collected sketches The Dolly Dialogues, the first major commission for the illustrator, Arthur Rackham.
• Rudyard Kipling's story collection The Jungle Book (in book form).
• The Yellow Book begins publication (April).

Births

• 10 February — Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1986)
• 1 June — Percival Mackey, pianist, composer and bandleader (died 1950)
• 6 June — Violet Trefusis, writer and socialite (died 1972)
• 23 June — Prince Edward of York (later Edward VIII, then Duke of Windsor; died 1972)
• 26 July — Aldous Huxley, author (died 1963)
• 13 September — J. B. Priestley, novelist and playwright (died 1984)
• 24 September — Tommy Armour, golfer (died 1968)
• 24 November — Herbert Sutcliffe, cricketer (died 1978)

Deaths

• 20 January — Robert Halpin, mariner and cable layer (born 1836)
• 8 February — R. M. Ballantyne, Scottish author of juvenile fiction (born 1825) (dies in Rome)
• 15 February — Martial Bourdin, French anarchist (born 1868) (accidentally kills himself while attempting to blow up the Royal Observatory, Greenwich)
• 23 May — Brian Houghton Hodgson, civil servant, ethnologist and naturalist (born 1800)
• 1 September — Boston Corbett, Union Army soldier who shot and killed Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth (born 1832)
• 3 December — Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish author (born 1850) (dies in Samoa)
• 24 December — Frances Buss, pioneer of women's education (born 1827)
• 29 December — Christina Rossetti, poet (born 1830)