United Kingdom-related events during the year of 1843
Events from the year 1843 in the United Kingdom.
Events
- January – Quaker magazine The Friend begins publication.
- 6 January – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross discovers Snow Hill Island.
- 20 January – Daniel M'Naghten shoots and kills the Prime Minister's private secretary, Edward Drummond, in Whitehall.[1]
- 4 March – M'Naghten is found not guilty of murder "by reason of insanity", giving rise to the M'Naghten Rules on criminal responsibility, and subsequently committed to Bethlem Hospital.[1]
- 24 March – Battle of Hyderabad: The Bombay Army led by Major General Sir Charles Napier defeats the Talpur Mirs, securing Sindh province for the British Raj.
- 25 March – Marc Isambard Brunel's Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel under the River Thames, is opened to pedestrians.[2]
- 27 March – decision in Foss v Harbottle, a leading precedent in English corporate law, declares that in any action in which a wrong is alleged to have been done to a company, the proper claimant is the company itself and not individual shareholders.[3]
- 4 April – William Wordsworth accepts the office of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom following the death of Robert Southey on 21 March.[4]
- April – Protestant Martyrs' Memorial erected in Oxford.[5][6]
- 4 May – Natal proclaimed British colony.[7]
- 18 May – the Disruption of the Church of Scotland takes place in Edinburgh.
- ? May – Blackgang Chine on the Isle of Wight opens as an amusement park.
- 19 July – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain is launched from Bristol.[8]
19 December: Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol. By Christmas Eve every copy had been sold. Charitable giving soared. - Reference from end of the movie “The Man Who Invented Christmas”