1839 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1839 in the United Kingdom.

[edit] Events

19 January - British East India Company captures Aden.
February - Report on the Affairs of British North America published.
26 March - The first Henley Royal Regatta is held.
9 April - The world's first commercial electric telegraph line comes into operation alongside the Great Western Railway line from Paddington station to West Drayton.
19 April - The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom.
May - Bedchamber Crisis: Robert Peel asks that Queen Victoria dismiss her Ladies of the Bedchamber as a condition for forming a government. Victoria refuses to accept the condition, and Peel resigns.
23 July - British forces under Sir John Keane capture the fortress city of Ghazni, Afghanistan in the Battle of Ghazni during the First Anglo-Afghan War. ^[1]
23 August - British forces seized Hong Kong as a base, as it prepared to wage war against Qing China. The ensuing 3-year conflict would become known as the First Opium War.
30 August - the Eglinton Tournament, a recreation of a medieval tourney takes place in Eglinton Castle, North Ayrshire, Scotland.
4 November - Newport Rising: several thousand coal miners march on Newport to liberate Chartist prisoners. ^[2]
December - John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones are transported to Australia for their part in the Newport Rising.
24 December - an enormous landslide occurs in Axmouth, Devon. A report by geologists William Daniel Conybeare and William Buckland is one of the earliest scientific descriptions of a landslide. ^[3]

Michael Faraday publishes "Experimental Researches in Electricity" ^[4] clarifying the true nature of electricity.
The first parallax measurement of the distance to Alpha Centauri is published by Thomas Henderson.
James Clark Ross sets out on the Antarctic expedition of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror which charted much of the coastline of the continent.
Eyre's 1839 expeditions to the interior of South Australia.