19th Century Britain: A Selection
CHRONOLOGY, with films asterisked.
1800-25 Robert Owen (b.Newtown, Wales, 1771) takes over management of New Lanark mills, Scotland, establishes a model community, the first Infant School in the world, a creche for working mothers, free medical care, and a comprehensive education system for children, including evening classes for adults
1801 Acts of Union create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
1804 Trevithick's steam locomotive, the world's first, near Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.
1805 Horatio Nelson (b.1758) dies at the battle of Trafalgar: *That Hamilton Woman*
1806 Birth of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (died 1859), civil engineer : *Great (Isambard Kingdom Brunel)*
1807 The world's first passenger railway, Swansea to Mumbles, Wales
Slave Trade act, following campaign to abolish slavery led by William Wilberforce
1808 William Blake's poem Jerusalem
John Dalton's A New System of Chemical Philosophy
1809-10 The Lines of Torres Vedras, system of defensive forts, built in Portugal on Wellington's orders to repel the French in the Napoleonic wars
1811 Jane Austen's *Sense and Sensibility*
1813 Jane Austen's *Pride and Prejudice*
1815 The Battle of Waterloo: *Waterloo*
Humphrey Davy invents the Miners' Safety lamp
1816 Jane Austen's *Emma*
1817 Jane Austen's *Persuasion*
1818 Mary Shelley's *Frankensten*
1819 The Peterloo Massacre, Manchester.
1820 Death of "mad" King George III: *The Madness of King George*
1821 John Keats dies: *Bright Star*
John Constable's painting The Hay Wain
1823 Birth near Usk, Wales of Alfred Russel Wallace, father of bio-geography, social reformer, co-originator of theory of evolution by natural selection
1824 Lord George "mad, bad and dangerous to know" Byron (b.1788) dies fighting for Greek independence from Turkey
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, physicist, mathematician, engineer, born Belfast
1827-8 Burke and Hare serial murders, Edinburgh, Scotland, with corpses sold for dissection
1829 Sir Robert Peel establishes Metropolitan Police force
George Stevenson's Rocket.
"Captain Swing" riots
1830 Birth in England of Eadweard Muybridge, photographer and film pioneer in USA
1832 Death of Jemima Nicholas (b1755) who led the women of Pembrokeshire, Wales to capture the French in the last invasion of Britain, 1798.
The Great Reform Act, giving more people the vote
1833 Slavery abolished throughout the British Empire
1834 The "Tolpuddle martyrs" convicted and transported to Australia: *Comrades*
Poor Law Amendment Act
1837 Queen Victoria's long reign (to 1901) begins: *Victoria the Great*, *Mädchenjahre einer Königin*
"The People's Charter", advocating working class votes, published.
1837-9 Charles Dickens' *Oliver Twist*
1838 Myall Creek massacre, Australia, is the first Aboriginal massacre (after many) for which British settlers were successfully convicted
1839 J.M.W. Turner's painting The Fighting Temeraire: *Mr.Turner*
1839-42 First Anglo-Chinese Opium War
1842 William Grove of Swansea, Wales, develops the first fuel cell
Friedrich Engels meets Karl Marx in Manchester, where working conditions influence their thinking
Law banning women and children from working in mines
1843 Charles Dickens' *A Christmas Carol*
1845 Elizabeth Barrett meets Robert Browning: *The Barretts of Wimpole Street*
1845-52 The Great Irish Potato Famine
1847 Charlotte Bronte's *Jane Eyre*
Birth of Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish inventor of the telephone
Emily Bronte's *Wuthering Heights*
1849-50 Charles Dickens' *David Copperfield*
1850 William Wordsworth dies, Alfred Lord Tennyson becomes Poet Laureate
1851 The Great Crystal Palace Exhibition
1853-6 The Crimean War: *The Charge of the Light Brigade*
1854 Birth of Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (died 1900): *Wilde*, *The Trials of Oscar Wilde*
1855 Birth of William Friese-Greene (died 1921), film pioneer: *The Magic Box*
Ford Madox Brown's painting The Last of England
1855-57 Dickens' *Little Dorrit*
1856-60 Second Anglo-Chinese Opium War; China forced to continue tolerating British opium trade
1857 Indian Sepoy Rebellion suppressed, beginning of the Raj, rule of India taken over by the Crown from the East India company
1857-8 Expedition of Sir Richard Burton and John Speke in East Africa in search of the source of the Nile: *Mountains of the Moon*
Madeleine Smith is tried for poisoning her secret lover: *Madeleine*
1858 Robert Owen, socialist reformer, father of Cooperative movement, dies.
Theory of evolution by natural selection outlined by Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin
"The Great Stink": with London overwhelmed by an unbearable pong, Joseph Bazalgette starts to design the London sewerage system
1859 Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species
Wilkie Collins' *The Woman in White*
1860-61 Charles Dickens' *Great Expectations*
1861 Prince Albert dies (John Brown becomes Queen Victoria's personal servant): *Mrs Brown*
1862 Birth of John Merrick, *The Elephant Man*
1863 Football Association formed in England
1865 Joseph Lister invents antiseptic surgery
Michael Jones establishes a free Welsh settlement in Patagonia, Argentina
1868 William Gladstone becomes Liberal Prime Minister the first of record 4 times
First Trade Union Congress
1870 Education Act, to provide state education for all
1871 Welsh-American explorer Henry Stanley meets Scottish explorer David Livingstone at Ujiji, Lake Tanganyika
Bank Holiday Act provides workers with holidays
1872 World's first football international match, Scotland v England
1874 George Elliot's (née Mary Anne Evans), Middlemarch
Thomas Hardy's *Far from the Madding Crowd*
Major Walter Wingfield invents lawn tennis- which he named Sphairistikè (Greek for "ball games")- in Wales
1875 Captain Matthew Webb swims the English Channel/La Manche
1877 Trinity Church's lease of Manhattan land from Welsh buccaneer Robert Edwards expires, but his descendants still await their due
1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift in the Anglo-Zulu war : *Zulu*
First electro-magnetic radio waves transmission by David Hughes, Welsh inventor, musician, well before Hertz and Marconi
1880-81 First (Anglo-) Boer war
1881-99 Anglo-Sudanese war: *The Four Feathers*
1882 England lose at home to Australia at cricket and "the Ashes" contest is born
1883 Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson's serialised Treasure Island published as book
1884 Representation of the People Act: male house owners given the vote, the poorest still denied (only in 1918 were all men given the right to vote. Contrary to current popular belief, rich and landowning women had previously been allowed to vote)
1884-5 Battle of Khartoum in Sudan : *Khartoum*
1885 Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado: *Topsy Turvy*
1886 Robert Louis Stevenson's *Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde*
1887 First Sherlock Holmes story (A Study in Scarlet), by Scottish writer, physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: *The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes*
1888 First films of Louis le Prince: *Roundhay Garden Scene*, *Crossing Leeds Bridge*
Local Government Act: after decades of the cruel "Welsh Not", instruction in Welsh in elementary schools becomes the norm in Welsh-speaking areas
1889 Charlie Chaplin born
1890 Future Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George is elected to Parliament
The Forth Rail bridge opens in Scotland
The first electric underground trains in London
1891 Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles: *Tess*
J.M.Barrie's *Little Minister*
1893 Eccentric Welsh physician William Price (b.1800) dies, is controversially cremated
Cadbury model village for workers at Bournville. Birmingham
1895 Oscar Wilde's play *The Importance of being Earnest*
Bill Frost's flying machine in Pembrokeshire, Wales
1896 Alexandre Promio films *Liverpool Scenes*
1897 Dracula published: *Bram Stoker's Dracula*
Marconi sends the first wireless communication over open sea, transversing the Bristol Channel from Lavernock Point (South Wales) to Flat Holm Island
1898 Black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast
1898-1901 "Boxer" rebellion, China, against imperialists and opium traders
1899 Polish-Born Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (transposed as Apocalypse Now)
Alfred Hitchcock born, London
1899-1902 Second Boer War (concentration camps set up by British)
1800-25 Robert Owen (b.Newtown, Wales, 1771) takes over management of New Lanark mills, Scotland, establishes a model community, the first Infant School in the world, a creche for working mothers, free medical care, and a comprehensive education system for children, including evening classes for adults
1801 Acts of Union create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
1804 Trevithick's steam locomotive, the world's first, near Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.
1805 Horatio Nelson (b.1758) dies at the battle of Trafalgar: *That Hamilton Woman*
1806 Birth of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (died 1859), civil engineer : *Great (Isambard Kingdom Brunel)*
1807 The world's first passenger railway, Swansea to Mumbles, Wales
Slave Trade act, following campaign to abolish slavery led by William Wilberforce
1808 William Blake's poem Jerusalem
John Dalton's A New System of Chemical Philosophy
1809-10 The Lines of Torres Vedras, system of defensive forts, built in Portugal on Wellington's orders to repel the French in the Napoleonic wars
1811 Jane Austen's *Sense and Sensibility*
1813 Jane Austen's *Pride and Prejudice*
1815 The Battle of Waterloo: *Waterloo*
Humphrey Davy invents the Miners' Safety lamp
1816 Jane Austen's *Emma*
1817 Jane Austen's *Persuasion*
1818 Mary Shelley's *Frankensten*
1819 The Peterloo Massacre, Manchester.
1820 Death of "mad" King George III: *The Madness of King George*
1821 John Keats dies: *Bright Star*
John Constable's painting The Hay Wain
1823 Birth near Usk, Wales of Alfred Russel Wallace, father of bio-geography, social reformer, co-originator of theory of evolution by natural selection
1824 Lord George "mad, bad and dangerous to know" Byron (b.1788) dies fighting for Greek independence from Turkey
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, physicist, mathematician, engineer, born Belfast
1827-8 Burke and Hare serial murders, Edinburgh, Scotland, with corpses sold for dissection
1829 Sir Robert Peel establishes Metropolitan Police force
George Stevenson's Rocket.
"Captain Swing" riots
1830 Birth in England of Eadweard Muybridge, photographer and film pioneer in USA
1832 Death of Jemima Nicholas (b1755) who led the women of Pembrokeshire, Wales to capture the French in the last invasion of Britain, 1798.
The Great Reform Act, giving more people the vote
1833 Slavery abolished throughout the British Empire
1834 The "Tolpuddle martyrs" convicted and transported to Australia: *Comrades*
Poor Law Amendment Act
1837 Queen Victoria's long reign (to 1901) begins: *Victoria the Great*, *Mädchenjahre einer Königin*
"The People's Charter", advocating working class votes, published.
1837-9 Charles Dickens' *Oliver Twist*
1838 Myall Creek massacre, Australia, is the first Aboriginal massacre (after many) for which British settlers were successfully convicted
1839 J.M.W. Turner's painting The Fighting Temeraire: *Mr.Turner*
1839-42 First Anglo-Chinese Opium War
1842 William Grove of Swansea, Wales, develops the first fuel cell
Friedrich Engels meets Karl Marx in Manchester, where working conditions influence their thinking
Law banning women and children from working in mines
1843 Charles Dickens' *A Christmas Carol*
1845 Elizabeth Barrett meets Robert Browning: *The Barretts of Wimpole Street*
1845-52 The Great Irish Potato Famine
1847 Charlotte Bronte's *Jane Eyre*
Birth of Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish inventor of the telephone
Emily Bronte's *Wuthering Heights*
1849-50 Charles Dickens' *David Copperfield*
1850 William Wordsworth dies, Alfred Lord Tennyson becomes Poet Laureate
1851 The Great Crystal Palace Exhibition
1853-6 The Crimean War: *The Charge of the Light Brigade*
1854 Birth of Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (died 1900): *Wilde*, *The Trials of Oscar Wilde*
1855 Birth of William Friese-Greene (died 1921), film pioneer: *The Magic Box*
Ford Madox Brown's painting The Last of England
1855-57 Dickens' *Little Dorrit*
1856-60 Second Anglo-Chinese Opium War; China forced to continue tolerating British opium trade
1857 Indian Sepoy Rebellion suppressed, beginning of the Raj, rule of India taken over by the Crown from the East India company
1857-8 Expedition of Sir Richard Burton and John Speke in East Africa in search of the source of the Nile: *Mountains of the Moon*
Madeleine Smith is tried for poisoning her secret lover: *Madeleine*
1858 Robert Owen, socialist reformer, father of Cooperative movement, dies.
Theory of evolution by natural selection outlined by Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin
"The Great Stink": with London overwhelmed by an unbearable pong, Joseph Bazalgette starts to design the London sewerage system
1859 Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species
Wilkie Collins' *The Woman in White*
1860-61 Charles Dickens' *Great Expectations*
1861 Prince Albert dies (John Brown becomes Queen Victoria's personal servant): *Mrs Brown*
1862 Birth of John Merrick, *The Elephant Man*
1863 Football Association formed in England
1865 Joseph Lister invents antiseptic surgery
Michael Jones establishes a free Welsh settlement in Patagonia, Argentina
1868 William Gladstone becomes Liberal Prime Minister the first of record 4 times
First Trade Union Congress
1870 Education Act, to provide state education for all
1871 Welsh-American explorer Henry Stanley meets Scottish explorer David Livingstone at Ujiji, Lake Tanganyika
Bank Holiday Act provides workers with holidays
1872 World's first football international match, Scotland v England
1874 George Elliot's (née Mary Anne Evans), Middlemarch
Thomas Hardy's *Far from the Madding Crowd*
Major Walter Wingfield invents lawn tennis- which he named Sphairistikè (Greek for "ball games")- in Wales
1875 Captain Matthew Webb swims the English Channel/La Manche
1877 Trinity Church's lease of Manhattan land from Welsh buccaneer Robert Edwards expires, but his descendants still await their due
1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift in the Anglo-Zulu war : *Zulu*
First electro-magnetic radio waves transmission by David Hughes, Welsh inventor, musician, well before Hertz and Marconi
1880-81 First (Anglo-) Boer war
1881-99 Anglo-Sudanese war: *The Four Feathers*
1882 England lose at home to Australia at cricket and "the Ashes" contest is born
1883 Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson's serialised Treasure Island published as book
1884 Representation of the People Act: male house owners given the vote, the poorest still denied (only in 1918 were all men given the right to vote. Contrary to current popular belief, rich and landowning women had previously been allowed to vote)
1884-5 Battle of Khartoum in Sudan : *Khartoum*
1885 Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado: *Topsy Turvy*
1886 Robert Louis Stevenson's *Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde*
1887 First Sherlock Holmes story (A Study in Scarlet), by Scottish writer, physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: *The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes*
1888 First films of Louis le Prince: *Roundhay Garden Scene*, *Crossing Leeds Bridge*
Local Government Act: after decades of the cruel "Welsh Not", instruction in Welsh in elementary schools becomes the norm in Welsh-speaking areas
1889 Charlie Chaplin born
1890 Future Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George is elected to Parliament
The Forth Rail bridge opens in Scotland
The first electric underground trains in London
1891 Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles: *Tess*
J.M.Barrie's *Little Minister*
1893 Eccentric Welsh physician William Price (b.1800) dies, is controversially cremated
Cadbury model village for workers at Bournville. Birmingham
1895 Oscar Wilde's play *The Importance of being Earnest*
Bill Frost's flying machine in Pembrokeshire, Wales
1896 Alexandre Promio films *Liverpool Scenes*
1897 Dracula published: *Bram Stoker's Dracula*
Marconi sends the first wireless communication over open sea, transversing the Bristol Channel from Lavernock Point (South Wales) to Flat Holm Island
1898 Black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast
1898-1901 "Boxer" rebellion, China, against imperialists and opium traders
1899 Polish-Born Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (transposed as Apocalypse Now)
Alfred Hitchcock born, London
1899-1902 Second Boer War (concentration camps set up by British)
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- 37 titles
- DirectorBill DouglasStarsRobin SoansWilliam GaminaraStephen BatemanThe story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of nineteenth century English farm laborers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages.
- DirectorJack ClaytonStarsDeborah KerrPeter WyngardeMegs JenkinsA young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.
- StarsColin FirthJennifer EhleSusannah HarkerWhile the arrival of wealthy gentlemen sends her marriage-minded mother into a frenzy, willful and opinionated Elizabeth Bennet matches wits with haughty Mr. Darcy.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsJohn MillsValerie HobsonTony WagerA humble orphan boy in 1810s Kent is given the opportunity to go to London and become a gentleman, with the help of an unknown benefactor.
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsAnthony HopkinsJohn HurtAnne BancroftA Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of kindness, intelligence and sophistication.
- DirectorMike LeighStarsJim BroadbentAllan CordunerDexter FletcherSet in the 1880s, the story of how, during a creative dry spell, the partnership of the legendary musical/theatrical writers Gilbert and Sullivan almost dissolves, before they turn it all around and write the Mikado.
- DirectorGeorge CukorStarsFreddie BartholomewFrank LawtonEdna May OliverA gentle orphan discovers life and love in an indifferent adult world.
- DirectorMike LeighStarsTimothy SpallPaul JessonDorothy AtkinsonJ.M.W. Turner, an unconventional British painter, goes down memory lane and recalls his romantic relationship with a seaside landlady and the various accolades he received for his works of art.
- DirectorJane CampionStarsAbbie CornishBen WhishawPaul SchneiderNineteenth-century English poet, John Keats and his dressmaking neighbor, Fanny Brawne, have total disregard for each other. An unlikely romance develops and they fall deeply in love near the end of his life.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsRobert NewtonAlec GuinnessKay WalshIn Charles Dickens' classic tale, an orphan wends his way from cruel apprenticeship to den of thieves in search of a true home.
- DirectorChristine EdzardStarsDerek JacobiAlec GuinnessJoan GreenwoodArthur returns to London after working abroad for many years with his now deceased father. Almost at once he becomes involved in the problems of his mother's seamstress Amy and of her father residing in the Marshalsea debtors' prison.
- DirectorBilly WilderStarsRobert StephensChristopher LeeColin BlakelyWhen a bored Holmes eagerly takes the case of Gabrielle Valladon after an attempt on her life, the search for her missing husband leads to Loch Ness and the legendary monster.
- DirectorWilliam WylerStarsMerle OberonLaurence OlivierDavid NivenA servant in the house of Wuthering Heights tells a traveler the unfortunate tale of lovers Cathy and Heathcliff.
- CreatorJohn HawkesworthStarsJeremy BrettDavid BurkeRosalie WilliamsSherlock Holmes and Dr Watson solve the mysteries of copper beeches, a Greek interpreter, the Norwood builder, a resident patient, the red-headed league, and one final problem.
- StarsAnna Maxwell MartinCarey MulliganDenis LawsonA suspenseful tale about the injustices of the 19th Century English legal system.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsCharles LaughtonJohn MillsBrenda de BanzieWidower Henry Hobson refuses to let his three daughters get married because he doesn't want to pay settlements, so they'll just have to outsmart him.
- DirectorRoman PolanskiStarsNastassja KinskiPeter FirthLeigh LawsonA strong-willed young peasant girl attracts the affection of two men.
- DirectorJames WhaleStarsColin CliveMae ClarkeBoris KarloffDr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses.
- DirectorJames WhaleStarsBoris KarloffElsa LanchesterColin CliveMary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Baron Henry Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.
- DirectorPeter CrawfordStarsTim PreeceTony SteedmanPatrick AllenA docudrama telling the story of Alfred Russel Wallace's travels in the East Indies in the 1850s which lead to the formalisation of his theory of evolution.
- StarsEmma ChambersJulia SawalhaKeith AllenOld Martin Chuzzlewit is nearing his death. Who will inherit his riches? With such a prize to play for, the Chuzzlewit family bring forth all of their cunning, greed and selfishness. Adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens.
- DirectorAng LeeStarsEmma ThompsonKate WinsletJames FleetRich Mr. Dashwood dies, leaving his second wife and her three daughters poor by the rules of inheritance. The two eldest daughters are the title opposites.
- StarsDiana QuickIan RichardsonJohn ShrapnelIn Victorian England, Laura and her half-sister Marian are entwined in a terrifying web of deceit. Laura's doppelganger, a mysterious woman dressed all in white, may hold the key to unlock the mystery.
- StarsJohn McEneryLesley DunlopJane SeymourYoung man's fortune contingent on marrying stranger. Many scheme to claim it, reducing him to fight for her as a secretary.
- DirectorJoe WrightStarsKeira KnightleyMatthew MacfadyenBrenda BlethynSparks fly when spirited Elizabeth Bennet meets single, rich, and proud Mr. Darcy. But Mr. Darcy reluctantly finds himself falling in love with a woman beneath his class. Can each overcome their own pride and prejudice?
