1880 in the United Kingdom

1880 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1878 | 1879 | 1880 (1880) | 1881 | 1882

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1880 English cricket season Football: England

Events from the year 1880 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch—Victoria
• Prime Minister—Benjamin Disraeli (Conservative (until 21 April), William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal) (starting 23 April)

Events

• January–March — Great fog continues to engulf London.
• 21 January — An underground firedamp explosion at Fair Lady Pit, Leycett, in the North Staffordshire Coalfield, kills 62 coal miners.
• 2 February — The first successful shipment of frozen mutton from Australia arrives in London aboard the SS Strathleven.
• 8 March — The Conservative Party lose the general election to the Liberal Party.
• 3 April — Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance has its London debut at the Opera Comique on the Strand.
• 18 April — William Ewart Gladstone succeeds Benjamin Disraeli as Prime Minister. This is Gladstone's second term as Prime Minister.
• 19 April — Second Anglo-Afghan War: British victory at the Battle of Ahmed Khel.
• 20 April — Victoria University chartered and incorporates Owens College, Manchester.
• 20 May — Foundation stone laid for Truro Cathedral in Cornwall, the first to be built on a new site since the 13th century.
• 15 July — An underground firedamp explosion at Risca Colliery in the Crosskeys district of Monmouthshire kills 120 coal miners and 69 horses.
• 27 July — Second Anglo-Afghan War: Afghan victory at the Battle of Maiwand.
• 2 August — Time in the United Kingdom: Greenwich Mean Time adopted as the legal standard throughout Great Britain by the Statutes (Definition of Time) Act.
• 1 September — Second Anglo-Afghan War: British victory at the Battle of Kandahar.
• 6–8 September — First cricket Test match held in Britain.
• 8 September — An underground explosion at Seaham Colliery, County Durham, kills 164 coal miners.
• October — Irish tenants ostracise landholder's agent Charles Boycott.
• 29 October — Wells lifeboat disaster: RNLI life-boat Eliza Adams of Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk, capsizes on service; 11 of 13 crew lost.
• 17 November — The University of London awards the first degrees to women.
• 10 December — An underground firedamp explosion at Naval Steam Colliery, Penygraig, in the Rhondda, kills 101 coal miners.
• 15 December — First performance of a play by Henrik Ibsen in English, The Pillars of Society (under the title Quicksands) at the Gaiety Theatre, London.
• 16 December
  • High Court of Justice reorganised into the Chancery, Queen's Bench and the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Divisions, with abolition of the Common Pleas and Exchequer Divisions.
  • The Boers declare independence in Transvaal triggering the First Boer War.
• 20 December — First Boer War: British forces defeated in the Action at Bronkhorstspruit.
• 24 December — First Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols devised by Edward White Benson, at this time Bishop of Truro.

Undated

• Elementary Education Act enforces school attendance up to the age of ten in England and Wales.
• A. & R. Scott begin producing the predecessor of Scott's Porage Oats in Scotland.

Publications

• Benjamin Disraeli's novel Endymion
• Amelia Edwards' novel Lord Brackenbury.
• Thomas Hardy's novel The Trumpet-Major.

Births

• 28 January — Herbert Strudwick, cricketer (died 1970)
• 1 March — Lytton Strachey, writer and biographer (died 1932)
• 17 April — Leonard Woolley, archaeologist (died 1960)
• 25 May — Alf Common, footballer (died 1946)
• 21 June — Josiah Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp, economist (died 1941)
• 12 August — Radclyffe Hall, author and poet (died 1943)
• 13 August — Mary Macarthur, trade unionist (died 1921)
• 16 September — Alfred Noyes, poet (died 1958)
• 22 September — Christabel Pankhurst, suffragette (died 1958)
• 23 September — John Boyd Orr, physician and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (died 1971)
• 15 October — Marie Stopes, birth control advocate, suffragette and palaeontologist (died 1958)
• 2 November — John Foulds, classical music composer (died 1939)
• 10 November — Jacob Epstein, American-born British sculptor (died 1959)
• 25 November — Elsie J. Oxenham, children's novelist (died 1960)
• unknown date — Reginald John Farrer, botanist (died 1920)

Deaths

• 6 May — Charles Meredith, Welsh-born politician in Tasmania (born 1811)
• 15 August — Adelaide Neilson, actress (born 1848)
• 5 October — William Lassell astronomer (born 1799)
• 22 December — George Eliot, writer (born 1819)