1895 in the United Kingdom

1895 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1893 | 1894 | 1895 (1895) | 1896 | 1897

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1895 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland

Events from the year 1895 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – Lord Rosebery (Liberal) (until 22 June), Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative) (starting 25 June)

Events

Toulouse-Lautrec's portrait of Oscar Wilde on the night before his trial opens^[1]

• January–February – "Great Frost".^[2][3]
• 3 January – Première of Oscar Wilde's comedy An Ideal Husband at the Haymarket Theatre in London.
• 5 January - Guy Domville, a play by Henry James has its premiere at the newly renovated St James theatre in London.
• 12 January – The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is founded in England by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley.^[4]
• 25 January – First international hockey match: Wales v. Ireland.^[5]
• 11 February — The lowest ever UK temperature of −27.2 °C (measured as −17 °F) is recorded at Braemar in Aberdeenshire. (This UK Weather Record is equalled in 1982 and again in 1995.)
• 14 February – Première of Oscar Wilde's last play, the comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, at St. James' Theatre, London.^[6]
• 18 February – The Marquess of Queensberry (father of Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar Wilde's lover), leaves his calling card at the Albemarle Club in London, inscribed: "For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite", i.e. a sodomite, inducing Wilde to charge him with criminal libel.^[7]
• 16 March – First international hockey match played by an England team: England v. Ireland at Richmond, Surrey. England win 5–0.^[8]
• 29 March – The National Trust acquires, by donation, its first landholding for preservation, Dinas Oleu, above Barmouth in Wales.^[9]
• 30 March – Birt Acres films The Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race.
• 3–5 April – Libel case of Wilde v Queensberry at the Old Bailey in London: Queensberry, defended by Edward Carson, is acquitted. Evidence of Wilde's homosexual relationships with young men renders him liable to criminal prosecution under the Labouchere Amendment, while the Libel Act 1843 renders him legally liable for the considerable expenses Queensberry has incurred in his defence, leaving Wilde penniless.
• 6 April – Oscar Wilde is arrested at the Cadogan Hotel, London, for "unlawfully committing acts of gross indecency with certain male persons" and detained on remand in Holloway Prison.
• 2 May – British South Africa Company's territory south of the Zambesi renamed 'Rhodesia'.^[5]
• 25 May
  • Criminal case of Regina v. Wilde: After a retrial at the Old Bailey, Oscar Wilde is convicted of gross indecency and is taken to Pentonville Prison to begin his two years' sentence of hard labour.^[10] On 21 November he is transferred to Reading Gaol.
  • Henry Irving becomes the first actor invested with a knighthood.^[11]
• 21 June – Lord Rosebery resigns as Prime Minister after defeat in a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons over the supply of cordite to the army. Lord Salisbury takes over the office.^[5]
• 6 July – Hon Evelyn Ellis makes the first trip in England with an imported motor car, driving his Panhard from Micheldever railway station to his home in Datchet.^[12]
• 15 July – Archie MacLaren scores a County Championship record innings of 424 for Lancashire against Somerset at Taunton.
• 7 August – General election is won by the Conservative Party under Lord Salisbury.
• 10 August
  • Bolton Wanderers F.C. move into their new Burnden Park stadium.^[13]
  • The first ever indoor promenade concert, origin of The Proms, is held at the Queen's Hall, Langham Place, London, opening a series promoted by impresario Robert Newman with 26-year-old Henry Wood as sole conductor.^[6]
• 29 August – The Northern Rugby Football Union is formed at a meeting in the George Hotel, Huddersfield. This is now the governing body for the sport of Rugby League, known as the Rugby Football League.
• 11 September – The FA Cup is stolen from a shop window in Birmingham; it is never recovered.^[6]
• 14 September – Derby County F.C. move into the Baseball Ground, which was built five years ago to serve the town's unsuccessful baseball team.^[14]
• October – The London School of Economics holds its first classes
• 4 October – English golfer Horace Rawlins, 21, wins the first U.S. Open golf tournament.^[6]
• 15 October – First motor show in Britain held at Tunbridge Wells.^[5]
• 1 November – The last turnpike toll-gates in the UK are removed, from Llanfairpwllgwyngyll on Anglesey.
• December – Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War begins.
• 24 December – Kingstown Lifeboat Disaster: In Ireland, the Kingstown Life-boat capsizes on service: all fifteen crew are lost.^[15]
• 29 December – The Jameson Raid: invasion of Transvaal.^[5]

Undated

• Percy Pilcher flies in several versions of his hang glider Bat at Cardross, Argyll, the first person to make repeated heavier-than-air flights in the U.K.^[16][17]
• The name 'HP Sauce' is first registered.
• Lifebuoy soap first marketed by Lever Brothers.
• The Lee–Enfield rifle is adopted as standard issue by the British army, remaining in service until the 1960s.^[18]
• North British Aluminium Company builds Britain's first aluminium smelting plant on the shore of Loch Ness at Foyers, Scotland.
• First-class cricket as defined by the MCC is first played in England from this season.
• All England Women's Hockey Association founded, the first women's national sporting governing body.^[8]

Publications

• Grant Allen's "New Woman" novel The Woman Who Did.
• Hilaire Belloc's poetry collection Verses and Sonnets.
• Joseph Conrad's novel Almayer's Folly.
• Kenneth Grahame's reminiscences The Golden Age (complete in book form).
• Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure (conclusion of expurgated serialisation and complete in book form (dated 1896)).
• H. G. Wells' novella The Time Machine.
• Times Atlas of the World.

Births

• 29 April – Malcolm Sargent, conductor (died 1967)
• 30 May – Maurice Tate, cricketer (died 1956)
• 24 July – Robert Graves, writer (died 1985)
• 7 September – Brian Horrocks, general (died 1985)
• 31 October – Basil Liddell Hart, military historian (died 1970)
• 1 November – David Jones, artist and poet (died 1974)
• 1 December – Henry Williamson, author (died 1977)
• 2 December – Harriet Cohen, pianist (died 1967)
• 14 December – Prince Albert, later George VI (died 1952)
• 30 December – L. P. Hartley, novelist (died 1972)

Deaths

• 24 January – Lord Randolph Churchill, statesman (born 1849)
• 10 March – Charles Frederick Worth, fashion designer (born 1825)
• 15 May – Joseph Whitaker, publisher (born 1820)
• 29 June – Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (born 1825)
• 5 August - Friedrich Engels, Marxist thinker (born 1820)

References

See also