Date

Cultural Events

Political Events and Social Legislation

1837

The Royal Academy of Arts is moved to the east wing of the National Gallery building in Trafalgar Square

Coronation of Queen Victoria.
Amendment of the Vagrancy Act of 1824,
which stipulated the trial of any person exhibiting obscene materials in public; now extended to included the display of materials in shop windows

1838

Public opening of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square

1840

Marriage of Queen Victoria to the German Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

1841

Foundation of the Art Union of London. Subscribers paid one guinea and received a piece of Parian ware and the chance to win a print in a lottery.
Sir Henry Fox Talbot invents the Calotype process of positive-negative photography

Robert Peel becomes Prime Minister

1843

Alfred Tennyson publishes his poem Godiva. The poem initiates a vogue for the subject in British painting.
Exhibition at Westminister Hall of cartoons entered for the competition to paint frescoes in the New Palace of Westminister (Houses of Parliament)

1847

New British Museum building opened in Great Russell Street (current location)

1848

Publication of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (English translation 1850)

Year of revolutionary uprisings across Europe

1850

Alfred Tennyson becomes Poet Laureate on the death of Wordsworth.

1851

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations opened by Queen Victoria at the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park.
Invention of the glass negative

1854

The Crystal Palace is re-opened at Sydenham, where an exhibition of nude sculptures causes a furore; sculpted fig-leaves are hastily applied to cover the genitalia of the statues.

Outbreak of Crimean War (continues until 1856)

1855

International Exhibition in Paris; William Mulready's Bathers Surprised and Joseph Noel Paton's The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania are among the exhibits.

Australian colonies become self-governing

1857

'Pornography' officially enters English language usage. Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition; Oscar Rejlander's photograph, The Two Ways of Life is among the exhibits; Queen Victoria buys a print of it for Prince Albert.
Opening of South Kensington Museum

Obscene Publications Act passed by Lord Campbell; it is the first law to deal specifically with pictorial and literary pornography.
Outbreak of the Indian 'Mutiny' or uprising against British Rule.
Matrimonial Causes Act eases divorce proceedings