• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (Liberal)

• 1 January – first steam-powered merry-go-round recorded, in Bolton.^[1]
• 15 February – about 350 convicts held on St Mary's Island at Chatham Dockyard take over their prison in a riot.^[2]
• 20 February – storms damage the Crystal Palace in London and cause the collapse of the steeple of Chichester Cathedral.^[3]
• 21 to 26 March – major fire in Southwark destroys several buildings.^[4]
• 30 March – William Crookes announces his discovery of thallium.
• 7 April – United Kingdom census. The population is more than double that of 1801 and those living in urban areas are in a majority.
• 12 April – American Civil War breaks out, leading to Lancashire Cotton Famine (1861–1865).
• 13 May – British government resolves to remain neutral in the American Civil War.^[4]
• 17 May – Thomas Cook runs the first package holiday from London to Paris.^[3]
• July – outbreak of yellow fever onboard paddle frigate HMS Firebrand in the West Indies kills 52.^[5]
• 31 July – Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act codifies company law.^[4]
• 6 August – Criminal Law Consolidation Acts (drafted by Charles Sprengel Greaves) granted Royal Assent, generally coming into effect on 1 November. The death penalty is limited to murder, embezzlement, piracy, high treason and to acts of arson perpetrated upon docks or ammunition depots; the age of consent is codified as twelve. The Home Secretary takes over the power to reprieve or commute sentences from the judiciary and Privy Council.^[6]
  • Accessories and Abettors Act, codifying the law on accessories and abettors.
  • Coinage Offences Act, codifying the law on counterfeiting of coins.
  • Criminal Statutes Repeal Act.
  • Forgery Act, codifying the law on forgery.
  • Larceny Act, codifying the law on larceny and related offences.
  • Malicious Damage Act, codifying the law on criminal damage.
  • Offences against the Person Act, codifying the law on violent offence against the person and abortion and creating the offence of "causing bodily harm by wanton or furious driving".
• 27 August – last execution in Britain for attempted murder – Martin Doyle in Chester.
• 16 September – Post Office Savings Bank opens.^[4]
• 24 October – HMS Warrior, the world's first ocean-going (all) iron-hulled armoured battleship is completed and commissioned.
• 8 November – Trent Affair: Union captained ship USS San Jacinto intercepts the British mail packet Trent at sea and removes two Confederate diplomats.^[7]
• 25 November – a tenement collapses in the Old Town, Edinburgh, killing 35 with 15 survivors.
• 1 December – Trent Affair: British government dispatches its response, partly drafted by The Prince Consort.^[8]

Undated edit

• James Clerk Maxwell demonstrates the principle of three-colour photography (see picture).^[9]
• British Empire establishes bases in Lagos to stop the slave trade.
• Perpetual Truce of Peace and Friendship signed between Bahrain and the U.K.
• The Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, Manchester in Salford is consecrated as the oldest purpose-built Greek Orthodox Church in England.
• Construction commences on Royal Museum in Edinburgh.
• Crimean War Memorial unveiled in London, including sculptures of Other Ranks.
• William Morris founds the influential furnishing company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.

• Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.
• Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations complete in book form.
• George Eliot's novel Silas Marner.
• F. T. Palgrave's anthology Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics, 1st edition.
• Charles Reade's novel The Cloister and the Hearth.
• Anthony Trollope's novels Framley Parsonage (book form) and Orley Farm (serialisation begins).
• Mrs Henry Wood's 'sensation novel' East Lynne.
• The anthology Hymns Ancient and Modern.^[10] This includes the setting "Eventide" by the music editor William Henry Monk for the hymn Abide with Me.

• 22 January – Maurice Hewlett, historical novelist, poet and essayist (died 1923)
• 15 February
  • Halford Mackinder, geographer (died 1947)
  • Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician (died 1947)
• 19 February – Henry Horne, 1st Baron Horne, general (died 1929)
• 23 April – Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby, soldier, administrator (died 1936)
• 12 June – William Attewell, cricketer (died 1927)
• 16 June – Edith Aitken, headmistress (died 1940)^[11]
• 17 June – Sidney Jones, musical comedy composer (died 1946)
• 19 June – Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, soldier (died 1928)
• 20 June – Frederick Hopkins, biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (died 1947)
• 9 July – William Burrell, Scottish shipowner and art collector (died 1958)
• 4 August – Henry Head, neurologist (died 1940)
• 10 August – Almroth Wright, bacteriologist, immunologist (died 1947)
• 2 September – Arthur Beresford Pite, architect (died 1934)
• 23 September – Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, poet and novelist (died 1907)
• 12 October – Agnes Jekyll, née Graham, artist, writer on domestic matters and philanthropist (died 1937)
• 16 October – J. B. Bury, historian (died 1927)
• 23 October – Margaret McKellar, Scottish-born Canadian medical missionary (died 1941)
• 8 November – William Price Drury, novelist, playwright and Royal Marines officer (died 1949)
• 10 November – Amy Levy, novelist and essayist (died 1889)
• 10 December – Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, née Maynard, socialite, socialist, philanthropist and royal mistress (died 1938)
• 18 December – Lionel Monckton, musical comedy composer (died 1924)
• 19 December – Constance Garnett, née Black, literary translator (died 1946)

• 17 January – Fanny Fleming, actress (born 1796)^[12]
• 29 January – Catherine Gore, novelist and dramatist (born 1798)
• 6 February – Bulkeley Bandinel, scholar-librarian (born 1781)
• 7 February – John Brown, geographer (born 1797)
• 16 March – Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Duchess of Kent, mother of Queen Victoria (born 1786 in Germany)
• 8 April – John Bartholomew, Sr., Scottish cartographer (born 1805)
• 24 April – Sir Hedworth Williamson, 7th Baronet, politician (born 1797)
• 13 June – Henry Gray, anatomist (smallpox) (born 1827)
• 18 June – Eaton Hodgkinson, structural engineer (born 1789)
• 29 June – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet (born 1806)
• 6 July – Sir Francis Palgrave, historian (born 1788)
• 29 July – Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, politician (born 1797)
• 3 September – Ernest Edgcumbe, 3rd Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, politician (born 1797)
• 4 October – Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, noble (born 1812)
• 5 October – William Ranwell, marine painter (born 1797)
• 13 October – Sir William Cubitt, civil engineer (born 1785)
• 21 October – Edward Dickinson Baker, United States Senator from Oregon, 1860–1861 (born 1811 in the U.K.)
• 13 November
  • Arthur Hugh Clough, poet (born 1819)
  • Sir John Forbes, royal physician (born 1787)
  • John Hodgetts-Foley, politician (born 1797)
• 10 December – Thomas Southwood Smith, physician and sanitary reformer (born 1788)
• 14 December – Albert, Prince Consort, spouse of Queen Victoria (born 1819 in Germany)^[13]