This article is about the particular significance of the year 1874 to Wales and its people.

Incumbents

• Prince of Wales The Prince Albert Edward, son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
• Princess of Wales Alexandra of Denmark

Events

• 24 January Four pilots and two apprentices are drowned in an accident off Llanddwyn on Anglesey.
• February - In the United Kingdom general election, 1874, newly-elected MPs include David Davies (Llandinam) at Cardigan (returned unopposed).
• 15 July Foundation stone laid for the clock tower at Machynlleth, built to mark the coming of age of Viscount Castlereagh, the eldest son of the 5th Marquess of Londonderry of Plas Machynlleth.
• 20 July In a mining accident at Charles Colliery, Llansamlet, nineteen men are killed.
• October The Western Mail reports a deathbed confession made to a minister in the USA by a man who claimed he carried out the assault for which Dic Penderyn was executed in 1831.
• 16 October The first issue of Yr Ymwelydd is published in Australia under the editorship of William Meirion Evans.
• Coal-owner Sir George Elliot is raised to the baronetcy by the new prime minister, Disraeli.
• Strike at Dinorwig slate quarry.
• The Welsh Flannel Company is established at Holywell.
• Opening of the Powysland Mueum at Welshpool.
• Henry Davis Pochin begins laying out Bodnant Garden.
• John Mathias Berry and his wife Mary move to Merthyr Tydfil. The three sons born to them there will all go on to achieve success in business and be raised to the peerage: Henry Seymour Berry, 1st Baron Buckland, William Ewart Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose and Gomer Berry, 1st Viscount Kemsley.
• Frances Morgan marries Dr George Hoggan. They later open the first husband-and-wife general medical practice in the UK.
• William Basil Jones becomes Bishop of St David's.

Arts and literature

• William Goscombe John begins assisting his father, a wood-carver, in his work at Cardiff Castle.

Awards

• Evan Jones (Gurnos) wins the bardic chair at the Bangor eisteddfod.
• William Thomas (Islwyn) wins a bardic chair at Rhyl.

New books

• Sir William Boyd Dawkins Cave Hunting
• Gwaith Thomas Edwards (ed. Isaac Foulkes)
• Isaac Foulkes Rheinallt ab Gruffydd

Music

• Joseph Parry becomes head of the new music department at University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
• The London Welsh Choral Union presents Sarah Edith Wynne with a bust of herself by Joseph Edwards.

Sport

• Rugby union
  • The first match is played at Cardiff Arms Park, between the Wanderers Club and Glamorgan 2nd XV.
  • Newport RFC and Swansea RFC are founded.

Births

• 4 February Thomas Wallace Fagan, agricultural scientist (died 1951)
• 6 February David Evans, composer (died 1948)
• 20 May (in India) Sir George Lewis Barstow, civil servant (died 1966)
• 2 July George Boots international rugby player (died 1928)
• 15 July Gwyn Nicholls, Wales rugby captain (died 1939)
• 16 July William Alexander Wales international rugby player (died 1937)
• 20 July David Bowen (Myfyr Hefin), minister and author (died 1955)
• 30 July Billy Meredith, footballer (died 1958)
• 31 October James Henry Thomas, politician (died 1949)
• 1 December Dick Hellings, Wales international rugby player (died 1938)
• 30 December Nantlais Williams, poet and religious leader (died 1959)
• date unknown
  • Albert Bethel, politician (died 1935)
  • William Eames, journalist (died 1958)
  • (in USA) Thomas David Edwards, composer (died 1930)

Deaths

• 3 January Morris Williams (Nicander), author, 64
• 19 January - John Parry, editor, 61
• 19 April Owen Jones, architect, 65
• 8 May (in Launceston, Tasmania) Zephaniah Williams, Chartist leader, 78
• 17 June Sir Stephen Glynne, 9th Baronet, 66
• 10 August David Davies (Dai'r Cantwr), Rebecca rioter (born about 1812)
• 19 August Joseph Kenny Meadows, illustrator, 83
• 3 October - Owen Williams (Owen Gwyrfai), poet, 84
• 14 November John Ambrose Lloyd, musician, 59
• 19 November Mary Pendrill Llewelyn, writer and translator (born 1811)