The first Whig Reform Bill is carried in the British House of Commons by a single vote

HMS Beagle sails from Plymouth to survey the coasts of the southern hemisphere, with Charles Darwin as the expedition's naturalist

English scientist Michael Faraday reports his discovery of the first law of electrolysis, to be followed a year later by the second

English mathematician Charles Babbage builds a sophisticated calculating machine, which he calls a 'difference engine'

English author Frances Trollope ruffles transatlantic feathers with her Domestic Manners of the Americans, based on a 3-year stay

After several rejections by Britain's House of Lords, the Reform Bill finally passes and receives royal assent

Mendelssohn's concert overture The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) has its premiere in London's Covent Garden

The paddle steamer Alburkah becomes the first ocean-going iron ship, completing the journey from England to the Niger

20-year-old English artist Edward Lear publishes Family of the Psittacidae, a collection of his paintings of parrots

27-year-old Isambard Kingdom Brunel wins his first major appointment, as chief engineer to the Great Western railway

30-year-old Robert Stephenson is appointed chief engineer to the London and Birmingham railway

The Tories in Britain adopt a reassuring name for an uncertain future – Conservatives

Six farm labourers, from Tolpuddle in Dorset, are transported for seven years to Australia for administering unlawful oaths in the forming of a union

Lord Melbourne becomes Britain's prime minister, at the head of the same Whig administration after the resignation of Earl Grey

Prime minister Lord Melbourne has diffculties in holding his government together and is dismissed by William IV

William IV invites the Tory leader Robert Peel to form a government in place of the Whigs

In London a great fire destroys most of the Palace of Westminster, including the two houses of parliament

English architect and designer Augustus Welby Pugin plays a major part in the second stage of the Gothic Revival

Election results in Britain mean that Robert Peel is unable to form a Tory government, and Lord Melbourne returns as Britain's prime minister

Fox Talbot exposes the first photographic negatives, among them a view looking out through an oriel window in Lacock Abbey

English artist Edward Lear begins a series of travels, sketching around the Mediterranean and in the Middle East

24-year-old Charles Dickens begins monthly publication of his first work of fiction, Pickwick Papers (published in book form in 1837)

The Tolpuddle Martyrs are brought back to England from Australia after public protest leads to their sentences being remitted

Work begins on the suspension bridge over the river Avon, at Clifton, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel

HMS Beagle reaches Falmouth, in Cornwall, after a voyage of five years, and Charles Darwin brings with him a valuable collection of specimens