1844 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1842 | 1843 | 1844 | 1845 | 1846

Sport

1844 English cricket season

Events from the year 1844 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch Queen Victoria
• Prime Minister Robert Peel (Conservative)

Events

The Royal Exchange (London), opened by Queen Victoria on 28 October

• 28 February The Grand National at Aintree is won by the 5/1 joint favourite Discount.
• 11 April Initiation of the Ragged Schools Union.^[1]
• 11 May Major fire at Lyme Regis.^[2]
• 6 June George Williams founds the Young Men's Christian Association in London.^[3]
• 15 June Factory Act imposes a maximum 12-hour working day for women, and a maximum 6-hour day for children aged 6 to 13.^[4]
• 19 July Bank Charter Act restricts powers of British banks other than the Bank of England to issue banknotes of the pound sterling.^[5][6]
• 9 August Imprisonment for debt abolished in England.^[7]
• 28 September A blackdamp explosion at Haswell Colliery in the Durham Coalfield kills 95, with just four survivors.^[8]
• 28 October The Royal Exchange in London opened by Queen Victoria.^[9]
• 21 December The Rochdale Pioneers, usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, open their store in Rochdale, forming the basis for the modern cooperative movement.^[3]

Undated

• Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge appointed as Governor-General of India.^[10]

Publications

• Robert Chambers' anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which paves the way for acceptance of Darwin's The Origin of Species.
• Charles Dickens' novel Martin Chuzzlewit (complete in book form) and his Christmas novella The Chimes.
• Benjamin Disraeli's novel Coningsby.
• William Makepeace Thackeray's novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon (serialisation).

Births

• 3 May Richard D'Oyly Carte, theatrical impresario (died 1901)
• 22 July William Archibald Spooner, scholar and Anglican priest (died 1930)
• 28 July Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (died 1889)
• 6 August Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, second son of Queen Victoria (died 1900)
• 29 August Edward Carpenter, Socialist poet (died 1929)
• 23 October Robert Bridges, English poet (died 1930)
• 25 October Arthur William Beckett, journalist (died 1909)
• 1 December Alexandra of Denmark, queen of Edward VII (died 1925)

Deaths

• 23 January Francis Burdett, politician (born 1770)
• 15 February Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1757)
• 27 July John Dalton, chemist and physicist (born 1766)
• 2 November Augustus Wall Callcott, landscape painter (born 1779)
• 23 November Thomas James Henderson, astronomer (born 1798)

References

See also