The Falkland Islands, by now occupied by some 2000 settlers, become a British colony

The vicar, the Reverend Richard Tahourdin, moves into Dial House.

Colonel Gostling-Murray dies and Whitton Park is put up for sale.

Mr Pooter is the suburban anti-hero of the The Diary of a Nobody, by George and Weedon Grossmith

An aluminium statue of Eros, by English sculptor Alfred Gilbert, is unveiled in Piccadilly Circus

The Independent Labour Party, later changing its name to the Labour Party, is founded in Britain by the trade unionist Keir Hardie

Gladstone finally gets a Home Rule bill through the Commons, only to have it rejected in the Lords

Frank Hornby patents in Liverpool his Meccano construction system for children

The Gaelic League is founded to restore the use of Gaelic as Ireland's spoken language

After a gap of 30 years, work resumes on the Temperate House. Eventually, after the bankruptcy of one contractor, it opens in May 1899 as the world's largest plant house.

The Scottish game of shinty is provided with a standardized set of rules

Joseph Stapley, aged 80, is the oldest of the five paupers admitted to the Richmond Workhouse on December 1

Harold Macmillan is born in London, son of the publisher Maurice Macmillan and his American wife, Nellie Tarleton

Gladstone retires as Britain's prime minister and his place is taken by his foreign secretary, Lord Rosebery

French-born artist and author George du Maurier publishes his novel Trilby

Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book surrounds the child Mowgli with a collection of vivid animal guardians

London's Tower Bridge raises its roadway for the first time to let a ship pass up the Thames

Scottish physicist William Ramsay isolates argon, following Rayleigh's discovery that an undiscovered gas combines with nitrogen in the air

Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, is convicted of treason and sent to Devil's Island in French Guiana

Oscar Wilde's most brilliant comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest is performed in London's St. James Theatre

Scottish chemist William Ramsay isolates the element helium

Khama III, the king of Bechuanaland, travels to London to demand the continuing protection of the British crown

Oscar Wilde loses a libel case that he has brought against the marquess of Queensberry for describing him as a sodomite

Oscar Wilde is sent to Reading Gaol to serve a two-year sentence with hard labour after being convicted of homosexuality

The Limes becomes the seat of local government in Mortlake, and remains so until 1940