Events
- 4 January – first edition of the Daily Graphic , the first British 'picture paper'. [1]
- 11 January – the British government delivers an ultimatum to Portugal forcing the retreat of Portuguese military forces from land between Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola.
- 6 February – an underground explosion at Llanerch Colliery, Abersychan in Monmouthshire kills 176. [2]
- 15 February – Kent Coalfield located. [3]
- 4 March – the Forth Bridge in Scotland opens to rail traffic. It is 8,296 feet (2,529 m) in length with 2 cantilever spans of 1,710 feet (520 m) making it the longest bridge in Britain and the bridge with the greatest cantilever span in the world. [4]
- 27 March – Preston North End finish the second season of the Football League as title winners once again. [5]
- 29 March – Blackburn Rovers win their fourth FA Cup with a 6–1 victory over Sheffield Wednesday in the final at Kennington Oval, London. [6]
- 12 May – the first official County Championship cricket match begins in Bristol. Yorkshire beat Gloucestershire by eight wickets.
- 15 May – new elected county councils in Scotland, created by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, take up their powers. The County of Edinburgh formally adopts the title Midlothian; the formerly administratively separate counties of Ross and Cromarty are merged; and the Shetland county council formally adopts the spelling Zetland.
- 28 June – the Baseball Ground is opened in Derby to serve one of eight teams competing in a new national baseball league. [7]
- 1 July – the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty is signed between the United Kingdom and Germany: Britain cedes sovereignty of the Heligoland archipelago (in the German Bight) to Germany in return for protectorates over Wituland and the Sultanate of Zanzibar (the islands of Pemba and Unguja) in east Africa. [1]
- 21 July – Battersea Bridge over the River Thames opens in London. [4]
- 7–15 September – Southampton Dock strike.
- 8–11 September – royal baccarat scandal: in a house party at Tranby Croft in Yorkshire attended by the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, an army officer is accused of cheating in an illegal gambling game, giving rise to an 1891 trial for slander. [8]
- 20 October – explorer of Africa Richard Francis Burton dies of a heart attack in Trieste, aged 69.
- 22 October – colony of Western Australia granted self-governing status. [1]
- 24 October – "Hampstead Tragedy": Mary Pearcey brutally murders her lover's wife and child in north London, for which she will be hanged on 23 December. [9]
- November
- Baring crisis, a financial panic precipitated by the need to guarantee Barings Bank's risky debts in Argentina.
- Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, moves to a building on London's Victoria Embankment, as New Scotland Yard.
- 4 November – London's City & South London Railway, the first deep-level underground railway in the world, opens. [4] It runs a distance of 5.1 km (3.2 mi) between the City of London and Stockwell.
- 9 November – Royal Navy torpedo cruiser HMS Serpent (1887) is shipwrecked off Camariñas in Spain with the loss of 173 out of her crew of 176. [10]
- 17 November – Captain Willy O'Shea divorces his wife, Kitty, for adultery; Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, is named as co-respondent.
- 21 November – Edward King (bishop of Lincoln) is convicted in a special ecclesiastical court (revived for the first time since 1699) of using ritualistic practices in Anglican worship, although on a majority of counts the court finds in his favour. [11]
- 18 December – British East Africa Company takes control of Uganda. [1]
Undated
- Construction of the first large-scale electrical power station, at Deptford. [1]
- Blackwall Buildings, Whitechapel, noted philanthropic housing, is built in the East End of London.
- Construction begins of Britain's first council housing at Arnold Cross, Shoreditch in the East End of London. [12]
- The Rhymers' Club, a group of poets gathered around W. B. Yeats and Ernest Rhys, begins to meet informally at the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street, London.