• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen (Coalition) (until 30 January); Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (Whig) (starting 6 February)

• 9 January – the Earl of Aberdeen loses a vote of no confidence against his government over the management of the Crimean War.
• 22 January – French political exile Emmanuel Barthélemy is hanged after being convicted of murdering a London man. Barthélemy had previously killed a fellow Frenchman in the last fatal duel in England, but had only been convicted of manslaughter on that occasion.
• 29 January – Aberdeen resigns as Prime Minister.
• 5 February – Viscount Palmerston becomes Prime Minister.
• 8 February – the Devil's Footprints, a series of mysteriously hoof-like marks, appear in the snow in Devon and continue throughout the countryside for over 100 miles (160 km).
• 19 February – bread riots in Liverpool break out.^[1]
• 28 February – Society of the Holy Cross (SSC) established as an association of Anglo-Catholic priests with a mission to the urban poor under the mastership of Charles Lowder.
• 11 April – the first pillar boxes in London are installed, at the suggestion of Rowland Hill.^[2]
• 18 April – The Bowring Treaty is signed between the UK and the kingdom of Siam, allowing foreigners to trade freely in Bangkok.^[3]
• 15 May – Great Gold Robbery from a train between London Bridge and Folkestone.^[4]
• 15 June – stamp duty is removed from newspapers creating mass market media in the UK.^[5]
• 29 June – The Daily Telegraph newspaper begins publication in London.^[2]
• 16 July – Australian colonies granted self-governing status.^[5]
• 31 July – Limited Liability Act protects investors in the event of corporate collapse.^[5]
• 3 September – last Bartholomew Fair in London.^[6]
• 9 September – Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55) (Crimean War): Sevastopol falls to the British and their allies.
• 17 October – Henry Bessemer files his patent for the Bessemer process for the production of steel.^[7]
• 17 November – explorer David Livingstone discovers Victoria Falls in Africa.^[2]
• 22 December – Metropolitan Board of Works established in London.

Undated edit

• James Clerk Maxwell unifies electricity and magnetism into a single theory, classical electromagnetism, thereby showing that light is an electromagnetic wave.
• The London School of Jewish Studies opens as the Jews' College, a rabbinical seminary, in London.
• Last minting of the fourpence coin (groat) for use in the U.K.
• The island of Samson, in the Isles of Scilly, is evacuated.^[8]

• Samuel Orchart Beeton's weekly The Boys' Own Magazine (begins publication January).
• Mrs Archer Clive's novel Paul Ferroll.^[9]
• Serialisation of Charles Dickens' novel Little Dorrit.
• Mrs Gaskell's novel North and South.
• Charles Kingsley's novel Westward Ho!^[5]
• William Makepeace Thackeray's novel The Newcomes.
• Anthony Trollope's novel The Warden.^[5]
• The Ancient Music of Ireland, including the first published version of the Londonderry Air.

• 21 January – Henry B. Jackson, admiral (died 1929).
• 1 May – Marie Corelli, novelist (died 1924).
• 23 May – Isabella Ford, socialist, feminist, trade unionist and writer (died 1924).
• 2 June – Archibald Berkeley Milne, admiral (died 1938).
• 28 August – Alexander Bethell, admiral (died 1932).
• 17 December – Frank Hedges Butler, wine merchant and founding member of the Aero Club of Great Britain (died 1928).

• 3 January – Julius Hare, theological writer (born 1795).
• 10 January – Mary Russell Mitford, novelist and dramatist (born 1787).
• 25 January – Dorothy Wordsworth, poet and diarist (born 1771).
• 20 February – Joseph Hume, doctor and politician (born 1777).
• 27 February – Bryan Donkin, engineer and inventor (born 1768).
• 3 March – Copley Fielding, watercolour landscape painter (born 1787).^[10]
• 31 March – Charlotte Brontë, author (born 1816).^[11]
• 13 April – Sir Henry De la Beche, geologist (born 1796).
• 15 April – William John Bankes, MP, explorer and Egyptologist (born 1786; died in Venice).
• 5 May – Sir Robert Inglis, 2nd Baronet, politician (born 1786).
• 23 May – Charles Robert Malden, explorer (born 1797).
• 28 June – Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Lord Raglan, commander of British forces in the Crimean War (born 1788).
• 6 July – Andrew Crosse, 'gentleman scientist', pioneer experimenter in electricity and poet (born 1784).^[12]
• 8 July – Sir Edward Parry, Arctic explorer (born 1790).
• 30 August – Feargus O'Connor, political radical and Chartist leader (born 1794 in Ireland).
• 4 September – Emma Tatham, poet (born 1829).
• 18 September – James Finlay Weir Johnston, chemist (born 1796).
• 27 September – John Adamson, antiquary and expert on Portuguese (born 1787)
• 3 December – Robert Montgomery, poet (born 1807).
• 18 December – Samuel Rogers, poet (born 1763).
• 20 December – Thomas Cubitt, master builder (born 1785).