Strawberry Hill passes through the Waldegrave family to John, who marries Frances Braham in 1839, and on his early death to his brother George, the seventh Earl, who marries his brother's widow.

Queen Victoria gives Kew Gardens to the nation, as a botanic garden of scientific importance

Rowland Hill introduces in Britain the world's first postage stamps - the Penny Black and Two Pence Blue

Victoria marries Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and soon, with nine children, they provide the very image of the ideal Victorian family

Fox Talbot patents the 'calotype', introducing the negative-positive process that becomes standard in photography

Sir William Hooker, the first Director of Kew Gardens, rents Brick Farm and re-names it West Park

With a teetotallers' rail trip for 570 people, Thomas Cook introduces the notion of the package tour

Fire demolishes the Armoury in the Tower

Lord Shaftesbury's Mines Act makes it illegal for boys under 13, and women and girls of any age, to be employed underground in Britain

The seventh Earl is heavily in debt and sells off the contents of Strawberry Hill. 'The Great Sale' starts on 25 April 1842 and last for 32 days raising over £33,000.

The young Friedrich Engels is sent from Germany to manage the family cotton-spinning factory in Manchester

Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell pioneers mass political demonstrations, which become known as 'monster meetings'

English poet Robert Browning publishes a vivid narrative poem about the terrible revenge of The Pied Piper of Hamelin

English author Thomas Babington Macaulay publishes a collection of stirring ballads, Lays of Ancient Rome

Thomas Young, a tea merchant, builds a new house on the site of the original Pope's Villa.

Henry Cole commissions 1000 copies of the world's first Christmas card, designed for him by John Calcott Horsley

The statue of Nelson, by E.H. Baily, is placed on top of its column in Trafalgar Square

Isambard Kingdom Brunel launches the Great Britain, the first iron steamship designed for the transatlantic passenger trade

Topping's Wharf burns

Daniel O'Connell is convicted of seditious conspiracy and is sentenced to prison

Ebenezer Scrooge mends his ways just in time in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol

Dr Weiss, soon to be followed by Dr Ellis, establishes a hydropathy clinic at Sudbrook Park, which runs for twenty years despite accusations of manslaughter when patients die following the cold water-treatment

A new Royal Exchange opens

The first great entrepreneur of the railway age, George Hudson, becomes known as the Railway King

Daniel O'Connell is acquitted on appeal and released from prison