Active (later called Locomotion) is the engine on the first passenger railway, between Stockton and Darlington

Turner sells Sandycombe Lodge after his father moves to Turner's central London house in Queen Anne Street. The buyer is Joseph Todd, a retired haberdasher of Clapham, who pays £500.

Carl Maria von Weber's opera Oberon has its premiere (in London, at Covent Garden)

J.M.W. Turner paints two views of the terrace at Mortlake belonging to the Limes, for its owner William Moffatt

Scottish engineer Thomas Telford completes two suspension bridges in Wales, at Conwy and over the Menai Strait

William Cobbett leases the Home Farm of the Barn Elms estate

London's first suspension bridge opens at Hammersmith

William Cobbett engages in experimental farming methods on the Barn Elms farm, and the publicity generated by his activities causes it to become known as Cobbett’s Farm

English artist Samuel Palmer moves to Shoreham, in Kent, for the most inspired years of his career

The Duke of Wellington becomes British prime minister, heading the Tory government at a time when reform is urgently needed

The new Kingston Bridge is opened by the Duchess of Clarence on 17 July 1828 and the new approach road is named Clarence Street in her honour

William Burke and William Hare murder 16 victims and sell their bodies to the Edinburgh Medical School for anatomical study

The Metropolitan Police, set up in London by Robert Peel, become known as 'bobbies' from his first name

The Emancipation Act, enabling Daniel O'Connell to take his seat at Westminster, at last removes the restrictions on Catholics in UK public life

German composer Felix Mendelssohn visits the Hebrides and see's Fingal's Cave, later the theme of his Hebrides Overture

Oxford and Cambridge compete against each other in the first university boat race, held at Henley

The locomotive Rocket, built by George and Robert Stephenson, defeats two rivals in the Rainhill trials, near Liverpool

Old St Mary's Church is demolished but many monuments are transferred to a new Church on the same site and the vaults continue to be used under the new building

The death of the last infant cousin senior to her in the royal succession makes Victoria heir to the British throne

Earl Grey becomes British prime minister at the head of a Whig government committed to reform

George Stephenson's railway between Liverpool and Manchester opens, with passengers pulled by eight locomotives based on Rocket

Edmund Kean takes a lease on the theatre and acts here until his death in 1833

Old London Bridge is demolished after more than six centuries, ending the chance of frost fairs on the Thames

New St Mary's Church opens, designed by Edward Lapidge, in white brick with stone dressings in Gothic revival style and with sqare pinnacled tower at the west end

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