1847 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – Lord John Russell
• Parliament – 14th, 15th

  Events

• 1 January – Britain's first Medical Officer of Health is appointed, Dr. William Henry Duncan in Liverpool.
• 14 January – all thirteen members of the Point of Ayr life-boat crew are drowned when it capsizes off Rhyl.
• 5 March – an explosion at The Oaks in the Barnsley seam in Yorkshire kills 73 men and boys.
• 15 March – new system of county courts, with 60 judicial circuits and 491 courts, comes into operation in England and Wales under terms of the County Courts Act.
• 5 April – the world's first civic public park, Birkenhead Park in Birkenhead, Merseyside is opened.
• 15 April – the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster, designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin, is opened.
• 25 April – the brig Exmouth carrying emigrants from Derry bound for Quebec is wrecked off Islay with only three survivors from more than 250 on board.
• May – the Architectural Association School of Architecture is founded in London.
• 24 May – the Dee bridge disaster: a cast iron girder bridge across the river Dee at Chester, designed by Robert Stephenson for the Chester and Holyhead Railway, collapses under a Shrewsbury and Chester Railway train with five fatalities.
• June – E.H. Booth & Co. Ltd, which becomes the Northern England supermarket chain Booths, is founded when 19-year-old tea dealer Edwin Henry Booth opens a shop called "The China House" in Blackpool.
• 8 June – Factory Act establishes a maximum 10-hour working day for women, and for boys aged 13–18.
• 1 July – publication of Reports of the Commissioners of Enquiry into the state of Education in Wales containing opinions hostile to Welsh culture, hence known in Wales as the "Treachery of the Blue Books".
• 22 July – Town Police Clauses Act 1847 provides powers to regulate urban streets, some of which remain in force into the 21st century.
• 9 August – the Whig Party under Lord John Russell wins the general election.
• 13 August – John Russell Hind makes the first British discovery of an asteroid, from London, 7 Iris. On 18 October he discovers 8 Flora.
• 16 September
• * William Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon is bought by the United Shakespeare Company for preservation.
• * The Band of Hope is established to promote teetotalism among young people by Rev. Jabez Tunnicliff in Leeds.
• 30 September – the Vegetarian Society is formed. It remains the oldest in the world.
• November – Henry Francis Lyte writes the hymn Abide with Me at Brixham.
• 4–8 November – James Young Simpson discovers the anaesthetic properties of chloroform and first uses it, successfully, on a patient, in an obstetric case in Edinburgh.
• December – the Christmas cracker is marketed by Tom Smith of London.

  Undated

• Ongoing – Great Famine : this summer's potato crop is free from blight, but inadequate due to the small area sown. The British Relief Association is founded and raises money throughout England, the United States and Australia to relieve distress, with the help of the "Queen's Letters", two letters from Queen Victoria appealing for assistance.
• Panic of 1847: A crisis in the banking sector prompted largely by the collapse of Railway Mania.
• Military General Service Medal and Naval General Service Medal, the first British campaign medals, are introduced.
• United Presbyterian Church of Scotland constituted.
• Prince Albert is unsuccessfully challenged for the chancellorship of the University of Cambridge by The Earl of Powis. The winning margin is less than 120 votes.
• The public school Radley College is founded near Oxford.
• The public school Ratcliffe College is founded near Leicester.

  Publications

• Anne Brontë's novel Agnes Grey under the pen name of Acton Bell.
• Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights under the pen name of Ellis Bell.
• Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre under the pen name of Currer Bell.
• Benjamin Disraeli's "Young England" novel Tancred.
• Thomas Guthrie's tract A Plea for Ragged Schools.
• Frederick Marryat's children's historical novel The Children of the New Forest.
• Christina Rossetti's Verses by Christina G. Rossetti.
• Alfred Tennyson's poetry collection The Princess: a medley.
• William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair.

  Births

• 20 January – William Baldock, cricketer
• 9 February – Hugh Price Hughes, theologian and social reformer
• 10 February – A. N. Hornby, sportsman
• 13 February – Sir Robert McAlpine, builder
• 16 February – Thomas Andrews, metallurgical chemist
• 20 February – Reginald Alexander, physician
• 28 February – William Heap Bailey, Scottish footballer
• 3 March – Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-born inventor
• 8 March
• * William Bosomworth, English county cricketer
• * John Lister, politician and philanthropist
• 22 March – Alfred Bayliss, English-American educator
• 2 April – Flora Annie Steel, writer
• 27 April – Walter Simon Andrews, policeman
• 7 May – Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• 19 May – Henry Somerset, 9th Duke of Beaufort, aristocrat
• 5 June – Sir Eric Barrington, civil servant
• 9 June – John Romilly Allen, archaeologist
• 11 June – Dame Milicent Fawcett, suffragist and feminist
• 19 June – Robert Barker, footballer
• 24 June – Robert Bickersteth, politician
• 13 July – Sir George Atkinson-Willes, Royal Navy admiral
• 24 July
• * Harry Anstey, English metallurgist and gold prospector
• * Evelyn Boscawen, 7th Viscount Falmouth, artistocrat and army officer
• 31 July – James Allen Harker, entomologist
• 6 August – Laurence George Bomford, artist
• 11 August – Sir Harry Barron, army officer and Governor of Tasmania and Western Australia
• 28 August – Sir George Bonham, 2nd Baronet, diplomat
• 30 August – Morton Betts, footballer
• 1 September – Archibald Kennedy, 3rd Marquess of Ailsa, aristocrat
• 14 September – William Edward Ayrton, physicist and electrical engineer
• 24 September – William Edward Briggs, politician
• 25 September – Edward Austin, cricketer
• 1 October – Annie Besant, née Wood, Theosophist, social and political campaigner and feminist
• 17 October – Sir Jervoise Baines, colonial civil servant
• 24 October – Sir John Bonser, colonial judge, Chief Justice of Ceylon
• 4 November – William Allen, English-born Australian Congregational clergyman
• 8 November
• * Charles Alexander, cricketer
• * Bram Stoker, novelist
• 23 November – Walter Biggar Blaikie, astronomer, engineer, historian and printer
• 25 November – George W. Anson, actor
• 5 December – Francis Baker, cricketer
• 6 December – John Elmes Beale, politician and merchant
• 7 December – George Grossmith, actor and comic writer
• 18 December – Sir William Acland, 2nd Baronet, admiral
• 27 December – Ferdinand Begg, Scottish stockbroker and politician

  Deaths

• 11 February – Macvey Napier, lawyer and encyclopaedia editor
• 13 February – Sharon Turner, historian
• 9 March – Mary Anning, palaeontologist
• 7 June – David Mushet, metallurgist
• 29 August – William Simson, painter
• 3 September – Simon Goodrich, mechanical engineer, in Portugal
• 3 October – Charles Hatchett, chemist
• 20 November – Henry Francis Lyte, hymn-writer
• 7 December – Robert Liston, surgeon
• 29 December – William Crotch, composer