Timeline of London (19th century)

The following is a timeline of the history of London in the 19th century, the capital of England and the United Kingdom.

1800 to 1809 1800 8 January: The first soup kitchens are opened in London. 13 January: The Royal Institution is granted a royal charter. 22 March: The Company of Surgeons is granted a royal charter to become the Royal College of Surgeons in London. 15 May: George III survives 2 assassination attempts in London. In Hyde Park, a bullet intended for him hits a man standing alongside, and later at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 2 bullets fired by an insane man hit the wooden panel behind him. In London, Henry Maudslay develops the first industrially practical screw-cutting lathe, which allows for the standardisation of screw thread sizes for the first time, and at about this date develops a bench micrometer. 1801 1 March: The London Stock Exchange is founded as a regulated institution; its new building is completed on 30 December. 10 March: The first British census is carried out. London's population is 128,129 in the City, 831,181 in the county, and 1,114,644 in Greater London. 25 April: Humphry Davy begins his popular series of scientific lectures at the Royal Institution's Albemarle Street headquarters. 1802 19 April: Joseph Grimaldi first presents his white-faced clown character "Joey", at Sadler's Wells Theatre. May: Marie Tussaud first exhibits her wax sculptures in London. 28 June: The balloonist André-Jacques Garnerin ascends from Chelsea. 5 July: Garnerin and Edward Hawke Locker make a 17-mile (27.4-kilometre) balloon flight from Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood to Chingford in just over 15 minutes. 10 July: The Grand Junction Canal opens its arm to Paddington Basin, and a passenger boat service to Uxbridge starts. 31 July: William Wordsworth witnesses the early morning scene leaving London for Dover and Calais with his sister Dorothy, which he captures in his sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge". 27 August: The West India Docks, the first commercial docks in London, open. 16 November: The ringleaders of the Despard Plot are arrested. On 21 February 1803, 7 are hanged and decapitated publicly at Horsemonger Lane Gaol before a crowd of at least 20,000, making it one of the largest public gatherings ever up to this date. The London Fever Hospital founded. 1803 After April: Richard Trevithick's London Steam Carriage is demonstrated on the roads. 26 July: The Surrey Iron Railway, a horse-worked wagonway between Wandsworth and Croydon, opens, making it the first public railway line in England. Summer: The Stafford Gallery at Cleveland House, the private art collection of the Marquess of Stafford's family, is first opened to the public by invitation. Frederick Albert Winsor gives a demonstration of gas lighting at the old Lyceum Theatre. Trinity Buoy Wharf established. The Globe newspaper begins publication. 1804 3 January: The Hammersmith Ghost murder case takes place. 7 March: The Horticultural Society of London is founded. The rebuilding of Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing by John Soane for his own use is completed. 1805 20 January: The London Docks open. 25 March: Moorfields Eye Hospital is opened as the London Dispensary for Curing Diseases of the Eye and Ear by John Cunningham Saunders. June: The British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom is founded as a group of connoisseurs. On 18 January 1806, it opens the former Boydell Shakespeare Gallery on Pall Mall as the "British Gallery", and it alternates the world's first regular temporary exhibitions of Old Master paintings with sale exhibitions of the work of living artists. 4 June: The first Trooping the Colour ceremony takes place on Horse Guards Parade. September: The merchantman Boddington (1781 ship) is stranded and wrecked in the Thames off Blackwall. 6 November: The news of the victory at Trafalgar and Nelson's death reaches London in the early hours of this morning,The London Gazette, extraordinary edition, 6 November 1805; The Times, 7 November 1805. with the bearer, Lieut. Lapenotière, having made his last change of horses on his post from Falmouth the previous evening at Hounslow. 9 December: City Canal opens across the Isle of Dogs; it is later incorporated into West India Docks. The Bow Street Horse Patrol is re-established as a police force. The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich is given its Royal prefix. 1806 9 January: The funeral procession of Lord Nelson takes place from The Admiralty to St Paul's Cathedral. 18 January: The London Institution is founded to promote higher education. The East India Docks are completed. The Royal Military Academy, Woolwich opens its new building designed by James Wyatt. The Royal Philanthropic Society is incorporated. 1807 28 January: The first demonstration of street gas lighting takes place on Pall Mall. 23 February: 1807 Newgate disaster: Around 40 people are killed in a crush attending a public hanging. 13 March: The dock at Rotherhithe built by the Grand Surrey Canal company opens, and the first section of canal follows. Addington Palace becomes a summer residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, with Croydon Palace being sold. 1808 8 July–18 September: Richard Trevithick's steam locomotive Catch Me Who Can is demonstrated in London. 20 September: The original Theatre Royal, Covent Garden is destroyed by fire along with most of the scenery, costumes, and scripts. Its rebuilding begins in December. 1809 24 February: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is destroyed by fire. On being encountered drinking in the street while watching the conflagration, the proprietor, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is reported as saying: "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside."The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999). Oxford University Press. 18 September: A new Theatre Royal, Covent Garden opens to replace the first burnt down in 1808, with a performance of Macbeth. An increase in ticket prices causes the Old Price Riots which last for 64 days until the manager, John Philip Kemble, reverses the price rise. 19 September: Cabinet ministers Viscount Castlereagh (Secretary of State for War and the Colonies) and George Canning (Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs) fight a duel with pistols on Putney Heath over policy in the Walcheren Campaign. 22 October: The Croydon Canal opens. 10 November: The Berners Street Hoax takes place, in which Theodore Hook manages to attract dozens of people to 54 Berners Street. William Bullock moves his museum of curiosities from Liverpool to become the London Museum in Piccadilly.

1810 to 1819 1810 April: Rioting after the imprisonment of Sir Francis Burdett, MP, who has been charged with libel against Parliament after calling for reform of the House of Commons. 8 July: Vere Street Coterie: Police raid a "molly house" and arrest 27 men for sodomy or attempted sodomy, with a man and a boy being eventually hanged on conviction. The Stepney Academy is established as a Baptist ministry training college. The Rev. Dr. William Pearson establishes Temple Grove School in East Sheen, perhaps the earliest preparatory school in the country. Sake Dean Mahomet opens the Hindoostanee Coffee House, making it the first Indian restaurant in London. Thomas Cubitt sets up his building firm in Gray's Inn Road. Bryanston Square and Montagu Square are laid out on the Portman Estate,. 1811 7–19 December: The Ratcliff Highway murders take place; the principal suspect commits suicide and is buried at a crossroads with a stake through his heart. The building of Regent Street begins John Nash's development of the West End. The building of the Tobacco Dock begins. The music publisher Novello & Co is in business. 1812 13 April: An attempted road tunnel at Archway collapses during construction. 11 May: The Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, is assassinated by John Bellingham in the House of Commons lobby. 10 October: The rebuilt Theatre Royal, Drury Lane opens. Gas street lighting begins. The New North Road is built as a turnpike. The Egyptian Hall is completed in Piccadilly for the display of William Bullock's collection of curiosities. French chef Jacques Mivart founds a hotel in Mayfair that will become Claridge's. 1813 24 January: The Philharmonic Society of London is formed; it holds its first concert on 8 March. 21 August: The Archway Road cutting opens. 25 December: William Debenham joins Thomas Clark in a partnership to manage a draper's store in London, origin of the later Debenhams department stores. 27 December–3 January 1814: A thick fog blankets London causing the Prince Regent to turn back from a trip to Hatfield House and a mail coach to take 7 hours to reach Uxbridge on its way to Birmingham. 31 December: Westminster Bridge is illuminated by gas lighting provided by the Gas Light and Coke Company from the world's first public gasworks nearby. 1814

14 January: The last River Thames frost fair takes place. 12 February: A fire destroys the Custom House. 21 February: The Great Stock Exchange Fraud takes place. 1 April: The Gas Light and Coke Company begins the world's first permanent public gas lighting of streets in the parish of St Margaret's, Westminster, extending to other parts of London by 25 December. April: King Louis XVIII of France visits the city. 20 June: The London Victory Parade of 1814 takes place. 1 August: The Grand Jubilee of 1814 in The Royal Parks takes place, where the re-enactment of a naval battle and pyrotechnics kills 2 people. 28 August: Most of the remains of Winchester Palace in Southwark are destroyed in a fire. 17 October: The London Beer Flood takes place, where a large vat of porter in Meux's Brewery bursts, demolishing buildings and killing 9 people. 1815 23 January: Margery is the first Thames steamer known to enter regular service on the "Long Ferry" to Gravesend. 7 April: Lord Byron and Walter Scott meet for the first time in the offices of the publisher John Murray, 50 Albemarle Street. 21 June: News of the Battle of Waterloo (18 June) reaches London late this evening, and on 23 June, the streets are illuminated in celebration. 4 November: The foundation stone of new building for London Institution in Finsbury Circus is laid, making it the first major building contract for Thomas Cubitt. The London Docks are completed in Wapping. Jones, Watts and Doulton begins life as a stoneware pottery in Lambeth. Cesspits are permitted to be connected to the London sewer system. 1816 4 June: The first Vauxhall Bridge opens, making it the first iron bridge over the Thames. 14 June: The Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace is founded. 22 June: The Regent, designed by Marc Isambard Brunel and built by Henry Maudsley, the first Thames-built steamboat, is demonstrated on the river. She is put into service on the "Long Ferry" to Margate. This year also sees the first steam tug on the Thames, the Majestic. 26 June: Millbank Prison, the National Penitentiary, admits its first prisoners, all of whom are women. 12 August: The Regent's Canal opens from Paddington to Camden. 15 November & 2 December: The Spa Fields riots take place by the supporters of the radical Thomas Spence. The English Opera House opens. The music publisher Boosey moves to Holles Street. The Royal Small Arms Factory is completed in Enfield. The name Griffin Brewery is first applied to the 17th-century site in Chiswick. 1817 4 February: The new St Marylebone Parish Church is consecrated. 18 June: The first Waterloo Bridge, designed by John Rennie, opens.