(24 May 1819–22 January 1901)

1819 Alexandrina Victoria born on 24 May at Kensington Palace, London.

1837 Accession of Queen Victoria on 20 June; coronation on 28 June 1838; opening of first London railway terminus at Euston; serial publication of Dickens's Oliver Twist begins; effective abolition of slavery in the British colonies with compensation to former slave owners.

1838 Formulation of the People's Charter; Grand Junction Railway between London and Birmingham opens.

1839 Whig prime minister Viscount Melbourne resigns, but returns to office when Sir Robert Peel declines to form a Tory government; Chartist petition presented to Parliament but rejected; soldiers fire on Chartists in Newport, Wales; Anti-Corn Law League formed; first Opium War begins.

1840 Parliament authorises local Poor Law authorities to provide vaccination for the poor funded by ratepayers. Treaty of Waitangi incorporates New Zealand into the British Empire; Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; introduction of the Penny Post.

1841 Sir Robert Peel forms a Conservative government; Punch launched; Hong Kong ceded to the British following the first Opium War.

1842 Income tax reintroduced by Peel's administration; second Chartist petition rejected by Parliament; Webster–Ashburton Treaty fixes US–Canadian border; three separate attempts are made to assassinate Queen Victoria.

1843 Schism within the Scottish Kirk; William Wordsworth succeeds Robert Southey as poet laureate; a Rebecca riot destroys the Carmarthen workhouse; British forces annex the Indian province of Sind.

1844 Young Men's Christian Association established; the Rochdale Pioneers open the first co-operative shop.

1845 Nationwide Protestant anger following the granting of government funds to the Roman Catholic Maynooth College, County Kildare; Tractarian John Henry Newman converts to Roman Catholicism; potato blight appears in Ireland at the same time as poor harvests elsewhere in Britain; Robert Peel tenders his resignation as prime minister, which the Queen refuses.

1846 Potato famine in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands; Edwin Chadwick reveals the depth of urban social deprivation in Poor Law Commission report; Treaty of Lahore ends conflict between British and Sikh forces in India; Corn Laws are repealed; Conservative prime minister Robert Peel resigns and is replaced by the Whig Lord John Russell.