1870 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1870 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

 * Monarch – Victoria
 * Prime Minister – William Ewart Gladstone (Liberal)

Events

 * 28 January
 * General Post Office takes over business of private telegraph companies.
 * Inman Line's SS City of Boston departs Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a passage for Liverpool on which it will be lost with all 191 aboard.
 * 5 March – first ever (unofficial) international football match, England v Scotland, takes place under the approval of the Football Association at The Oval, London.
 * 10 May – Jem Mace wins the boxing championship of the world, defeating fellow Englishman Tom Allen at Kenner, near New Orleans.
 * 19 May – the Home Government Association is established in Ireland by Isaac Butt to argue for devolution for Ireland and repeal of the Act of Union 1800.
 * late Spring – Army Enlistment (Short Service) Act 1870 allows reduction in length of enlistment to the British Army as part of the Cardwell Reforms.
 * 2 June – competitive examination for entry to the British civil service introduced.
 * 8 June – the final splice to the first telegraph submarine cable to India is made off Porthcurno, Cornwall.
 * 23 June – Keble College, Oxford, opens, the first new college of the University of Oxford in more than a century.
 * 2 August – official opening of the Tower Subway beneath the River Thames in London, the world's first underground passenger "tube" railway. Although this lasts as a railway operation only until November, it demonstrates the technologically successful first use of the cylindrical wrought iron tunnelling shield devised by Peter W. Barlow and James Henry Greathead.
 * 4 August – British Red Cross established as the British National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in War by Lord Wantage.
 * 9 August
 * Elementary Education Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 75) drafted by William Edward Forster MP encourages elementary education by creating a system of secular school boards in England and Wales at whose schools attendance may be compulsory. Women are eligible to stand and vote for local school boards where created.
 * Married Women's Property Act 1870 grants wives the ability to retain any earnings as their own; and provides that in future they may inherit and retain property in their own right.
 * 27 August – White Star's first ocean liner RMS Oceanic is launched by Harland and Wolff in Belfast.
 * 7 September – masted turret ship HMS Captain capsizes off Cape Finisterre, less than 5 months after commissioning, due to design flaws, with the loss of 481 lives.
 * 1 October – postcards and halfpenny postage stamps introduced by the Post Office.
 * 19 October – SS Cambria (1869) is wrecked on Inishtrahull (Ireland) with the loss of 179 lives.
 * Undated – the David Greig grocery chain begins with a store in London.

Publications

 * 1 January
 * Completion of the Ordnance Survey one-inch-to-the-mile "Old Series" maps of England.
 * The Northern Echo newspaper launched in Darlington.
 * April–September – serialisation of Charles Dickens' novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, only half complete due to his death on 9 June.
 * Edward Jenkins' satire Ginx's Baby: his birth and other misfortunes.
 * William Robinson's gardening book The Wild Garden.
 * Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems, exhumed from Elizabeth Siddal's grave.

Births

 * 7 January – Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart, English judge and politician, 7th Lord Chief Justice of England (died 1943)
 * 25 January – Fred Spiksley, footballer (died 1948)
 * 5 February – C. E. Brock, painter and illustrator (died 1938)
 * 8 February – Millie Hylton, actress, dancer and male impersonator (died 1920)
 * 12 February – Marie Lloyd, music-hall singer (died 1922)
 * 4 March – Thomas Sturge Moore, poet, author and artist (died 1944)
 * 17 March – Horace Donisthorpe, entomologist (died 1951)
 * 9 May – Harry Vardon, golfer (died 1937)
 * 27 May – Lionel Palairet, cricketer (died 1933)
 * 4 August – Harry Lauder, Scottish entertainer (died 1950)
 * 11 August – Tom Richardson, cricketer (died 1912)
 * 12 August – Hubert Gough, general (died 1963)
 * 22 August – Bertram Fletcher Robinson, journalist, editor and author (died 1907)
 * 1 September – Leopold Wharton, English-born American film director (died 1927)
 * 22 September – Charlotte Cooper, tennis player (died 1966)
 * 21 October – Horace Hood, admiral (killed in action 1916)
 * 22 October – Lord Alfred Douglas, minor Uranian poet best remembered as a lover of writer Oscar Wilde (died 1945)
 * 30 October – Lawrence Grant, film actor (died 1952 in the United States)
 * 18 November – P. Morley Horder, architect (died 1944)
 * 18 December – Saki (H. H. Munro), short-story writer (killed in action 1916)
 * Doncaster, racehorse (died 1892)

Deaths

 * 2 January – Ignatius Bonomi, architect and surveyor (born 1787)
 * 9 January – Elizabeth Sackville-West, Countess De La Warr, peeress (born 1795)
 * 20 January – Sir George Seymour, admiral of the fleet (born 1787)
 * 25 January – Janet Taylor, mathematician and navigational instrument maker (born 1804)
 * 30 March – William Hale, inventor (born 1797)
 * 25 April – Daniel Maclise, historical painter (born 1806)
 * 6 May – Sir James Young Simpson, physician and researcher (born 1811)
 * 14 May – Thomas Dale, Anglican priest, Dean of Rochester (born 1797)
 * 17 May – David Octavius Hill, Scottish painter and pioneer photographer (born 1802)
 * 24 April – Louisa Stuart Costello, miniature-painter, poet, historical novelist and travel writer (born 1799)
 * 9 June – Charles Dickens, novelist (born 1812)
 * 27 June – George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, diplomat and statesman (born 1800)
 * 12 September – Eleanora Atherton, philanthropist in Manchester (born 1782)
 * 25 September – John Braithwaite, engineer, inventor of the first steam fire engine (born 1797)
 * 6 October – James Giles, painter (born 1801)
 * 11 October – Margaret Waters, serial killer, hanged (born 1835)
 * 21 October – Charles George James Arbuthnot, general (born 1801)
 * 8 December – Thomas Brassey, railway contractor (born 1805)
 * 9 December – Patrick MacDowell, sculptor (born 1799)
 * 28 December – Philip Hardwick, architect (born 1792)