1886 in the United Kingdom

1886 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1884 | 1885 | 1886 (1886) | 1887 | 1888

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1886 English cricket season Football: England

Events from the year 1886 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch — Victoria
• Prime Minister —
  • until 28 January: Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative)
  • 1 February-20 July: William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal)
  • starting 25 July: Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative)

Events

• January — Ulster Protestant Unionists begin to lobby against the Irish Home Rule Bill, establishing the Ulster Loyal Anti-Repeal Union in Belfast.
• 13 January — After six years of campaigning, the atheist Charles Bradlaugh is permitted to affirm rather than take the traditional oath, allowing him to take his seat as a Member of Parliament.
• 18 January — The Hockey Association is founded, largely on the initiative of sports clubs in the London area, and codifies the rules for hockey.
• 27 January — Salisbury loses supports of the Irish Party, and resigns as Prime Minister.
• 1 February
  • William Ewart Gladstone becomes Prime Minister for the third time. He appoints as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department Henry Broadhurst, the first person from a working-class labour movement background to be appointed a government minister in the U.K.
  • Mersey Railway opens, linking Birkenhead and Liverpool.
• 7–8 February — Two days of rioting in the West End of London by the unemployed, coinciding with the coldest winter in thirty years.
• March
  • Gladstone announces his support for Irish Home Rule.
  • Linfield F.C. is formed in Belfast.
• 10 March — First Crufts dog show held in London.
• April — New English Art Club mounts its first exhibition.
• 8 April — Gladstone introduces the Government of Ireland Bill (the first Irish Home Rule Bill) in the House of Commons. During the debates on the Bill
  • Financial Secretary to the Treasury H.H. Fowler states his support for the Bill which in his words would bring about a "real Union—not an act of Parliament Union—but a moral Union, a Union of heart and soul between two Sister Nations".
  • Lord Randolph Churchill voices his opposition with the slogan "Ulster will fight, Ulster will be right".
• 11 May — The International Exhibition of Navigation, Commerce and Industry in Liverpool is opened by Queen Victoria.
• 8 June — The Irish Home Rule Bill fails to pass in Parliament on a vote of 343-313. Ulster Protestants celebrate its defeat, leading to renewed rioting on the streets of Belfast and the deaths of seven people, with many more injured.
• 12 June — Gladstone calls for a dissolution of Parliament.
• 25 June
  • Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act grants security of tenure to crofters.
  • Riot (Damages) Act provides for property owners to recover compensation from local police forces in the event of damage due to riot.
• 30 June — Royal Holloway College for women, established by Thomas Holloway, opened by Queen Victoria at Egham in Surrey.
• 12 July–mid-September — Belfast riots: Beginning with the Orange Institution parades and continuing sporadically throughout the summer, clashes take place between Catholics and Protestants, and also between Loyalists and police. Thirteen people are killed in a weekend of serious rioting, with an official death toll of 31 people over the period.
• 23 July — The inaugural Eclipse Stakes, run at Sandown Park in Surrey with a prize fund of £10,000 donated by Leopold de Rothschild, making it at this time the richest British horse race, is won by the stallion Bendigo.
• 27 July — General election won by the Conservative Party under Salisbury but with a Parliamentary majority depending on the support of the new Liberal Unionist Party.
• 1 September — The Severn Tunnel is opened by the Great Western Railway.
• 11 October — Memorial statue to Sister Dora unveiled in Walsall.
• 9 December
  • Southport and St Anne's lifeboats disaster.
  • Beatification of Edmund Campion (executed 1581) by Pope Leo XIII.
• 25 December — Great snow storm in London.

Undated

• Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women founded by Dr Sophia Jex-Blake.
• The following Association football clubs are founded:
  • Arsenal, as Dial Square by workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, south-east London. They play their first match on the Isle of Dogs on 11 December. The club is renamed Royal Arsenal soon afterwards, supposedly on 25 December.
  • Argyle, in Plymouth.
• Ormonde wins the English Triple Crown by finishing first in the Epsom Derby, 2,000 Guineas and St Leger.
• Scotch whisky distiller William Grant & Sons is founded.
• Establishment of the Yorkshire Tea merchants.
• The Maidenhead Citadel Band of The Salvation army is founded by William Thomas.

Publications

• Frances Hodgson Burnett's first children's novel Little Lord Fauntleroy (complete in book form)
• Marie Corelli's first novel A Romance of Two Worlds.
• Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge.
• Henry James' novel The Bostonians.
• Robert Louis Stevenson's novels Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Births

• 10 May — Olaf Stapledon, author and philosopher (died 1950)
• 20 May — John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever, businessman (died 1971)
• 18 June — George Mallory, climber (died 1924)
• 24 June — George Shiels, dramatist (died 1949)
• 26 August — Ronald Niel Stuart, Royal Navy Captain (died 1954)
• 27 August — Rebecca Helferich Clarke, composer and violist (died 1979)
• 27 August — Eric Coates, composer (died 1957)
• 13 September — Robert Robinson, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1975)
• 20 September — Charles Williams, author (died 1945)
• 26 September — Archibald Vivian Hill, physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1977)

Deaths

• 16 April — Andrew Nicholl, painter (born 1804)
• 9 August — Samuel Ferguson, poet and artist (born 1810)