1888 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
• Parliament – 24th

  Events

• 26 January – the Lawn Tennis Association is founded.
• 13 February – the first issue of the Financial Times goes on sale..
• 23 March – a meeting called by William McGregor to discuss establishment of The Football League is held in London.
• 24 March – West Bromwich Albion F.C. beat Preston North End 2–1 to win the FA cup.
• 3 April – London prostitute Emma Elizabeth Smith is brutally attacked by two or three men, dying of her injuries the following day, first of the Whitechapel murders but probably not a victim of Jack the Ripper.
• 8 May – royal opening of the International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow.
• 12 May – the North Borneo Chartered Company's territories become the British protectorate of North Borneo.
• 14 May – Order of Saint John chartered.
• 28 May – Celtic Football Club of Glasgow play their first official match, beating Rangers 5–2.
• 2 June – Edward King is called to account for using ritualistic practices in Anglican worship.
• 2-27 July – London matchgirls strike of 1888: About 200 workers, mainly teenaged girls, strike following the dismissal of three colleagues from the Bryant and May match factory, precipitated by an article on their working conditions published on 23 June by campaigning journalist Annie Besant, and the workers unionise on 27 July.
• 7 August – Whitechapel murders: the body of London prostitute Martha Tabram is found, a possible victim of Jack the Ripper.
• 9 August – Oaths Act permits the oath of allegiance taken to the Sovereign by Members of Parliament to be affirmed rather than sworn to God, thus confirming the ability of atheists to sit in the House of Commons.
• 13 August – the Local Government Act, effective from 1889, establishes county councils and county borough councils in England and Wales, redraws some county boundaries, and gives women the vote in local elections.
• 31 August – Whitechapel murders: the mutilated body of London prostitute Mary Ann Nichols is found, perhaps the first victim of Jack the Ripper.
• 6 September – Charles Turner becomes the first bowler in cricket to take 250 wickets in an English season, a feat since accomplished only by Tom Richardson, J. T. Hearne, Wilfred Rhodes and Tich Freeman.
• 8 September
• * Whitechapel murders: The mutilated body of London prostitute Annie Chapman is found. She is considered to be the second victim of Jack the Ripper.
• * In England, the first six Football League matches are played. The 12 members of the new league are Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Preston North End, West Bromwich Albion, Everton, Burnley, Accrington, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Notts County, Derby County and Stoke City, all from the north of England or the midlands. The first goal in the League is scored by Kenny Davenport of Bolton Wanderers.
• 27 September – Whitechapel murders: the 'Dear Boss letter' signed "Jack the Ripper", the first time the name is used, is received by London's Central News Agency.
• 30 September – Whitechapel murders: the bodies of London prostitutes Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, the latter mutilated, are found. They are generally considered Jack the Ripper's third and fourth victim respectively.
• October – Salt Union Ltd formed to achieve an effective monopoly over British salt production.
• 2 October – the Whitehall Mystery: dismembered remains of a woman's body are discovered at three central London locations, one being the construction site of New Scotland Yard.
• 14 October – the first recorded film, Roundhay Garden Scene, is made in Roundhay in Leeds. The film is two seconds and 18 frames in length.
• 3 November – the Great Sheep Panic, in which thousands of sheep across Oxfordshire stampede.
• 8 November – Joseph Assheton Fincher files a patent for the parlour game which he calls "Tiddledy-Winks".
• 9 November – Whitechapel murders: the mutilated body of London prostitute Mary Jane Kelly is found. She is considered to be the fifth, and last, of Jack the Ripper's victims. A number of similar murders in England follows, but the police attribute them to copy-cat killers.
• 7 December – John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic bicycle tyre.
• 17 December – the Lyric Theatre opens.
• c. December – completion of first stage of Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art.

  Undated

• University College of North Wales, Bangor, opens its agriculture department – the first in a British university.
• Camborne School of Mines founded in Cornwall.
• W.D. & H.O. Wills launch the Woodbine brand of cigarette.
• The board game Snakes and Ladders is introduced from India to the U.K. by Jaques of London.
• First British rugby union tour of Australia and New Zealand, an unofficial predecessor of the British Lions.

  Publications

• Thomas Hardy's short story collection Wessex Tales.
• W. E. Henley's A Book of Verses, containing the first publication of the poem Invictus.
• Henry James' novella The Aspern Papers.
• Rudyard Kipling's short story collection Plain Tales from the Hills.
• Mrs Humphrey Ward's 'novel of doubt' Robert Elsmere.
• Oscar Wilde's collection of children's fairy stories The Happy Prince and Other Tales.

  Births

• 18 January – Thomas Sopwith, aviation pioneer and yachtsman
• 8 February – Edith Evans, actress
• 13 February – Desmond FitzGerald, Irish revolutionary, poet, publicist and politician
• 1 March – Ewart Astill, cricketer
• 2 April – Neville Cardus, writer on cricket and music
• 30 April – David Jacobs, Welsh athlete
• 17 May – Tich Freeman, cricketer
• 25 May – Miles Malleson, actor
• 7 June – Hilda Matheson, pioneering radio talks producer
• 15 June – Martin D'Arcy, Catholic intellectual
• 9 July – Simon Marks, businessman
• 14 August – John Logie Baird, inventor
• 16 August – T. E. Lawrence liaison officer during the Arab Revolt, writer and academic
• 18 September – Grey Owl, pioneer conservationist and imposter
• 25 September – Vera Laughton Mathews, naval officer
• 6 December – Will Hay, actor and comedian
• 7 December – Joyce Cary, author
• 18 December – Gladys Cooper, actress
• 22 December – J. Arthur Rank, film magnate
• 25 December – Michael Sadleir, novelist

  Deaths

• 13 January – John William Inchbold, artist
• 29 January – Edward Lear, artist and writer
• 30 January – Mary Howitt, writer, poet and translator
• 3 February – Henry Maine, legal historian
• 22 February – Anna Kingsford, qualified physician, anti-vivisection, health and women's rights campaigner
• 14 March – James Hogg, publisher
• 22 March – Henry Robertson, engineer and industrialist
• 15 April – Matthew Arnold, poet and cultural critic
• 19 April – Thomas Russell Crampton, engineer
• 8 June – Sir Duncan Cameron, general
• 23 June – Edmund Gurney, psychologist
• 31 July – Frank Holl, painter
• 20 August – Henry Richard, Welsh politician and peace campaigner
• 23 August – Philip Henry Gosse, marine biologist and creationist
• 10 November – George Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan, army officer
• 8 December – Frederick Apthorp Paley, classical scholar
• 23 December – Laurence Oliphant, novelist, traveller, diplomat and Christian mystic
• 26 December – Alfred Vance, music hall performer