Timeline

This is a timeline of the significant events that occur in *The Clockwork Empire* universe.

## Historical Events

* **May 24, 1819:** **Alexandrina Victoria** is born in Kensington Palace.
* **1834:** Slaves in the British empire started a period of 'apprenticeship', during which they were obliged to work without pay for their former owners.

## 1837-1849

### 1837

* **Victoria** becomes Queen at the age of 18 after the death of her uncle, **William IV**.
* Work begins on **Charles Barry's** spectacular design for London's new Houses of Parliament.

### 1838

* **Charles Dickens'** *Oliver Twist* is published.
* **1 August, 1838:** Slavery is abolished in the British empire. When the apprenticeship period ended in 1838, over 700,000 slaves were freed in the British Caribbean. Plantation owners received about £20 million in government compensation for the loss of their slaves. The former slaves received nothing.
* **17 September:** London-Birmingham line opens. It was the first railway line into London, with passengers disembarking in the newly-designed Euston station.

### 1840

* **10 January:** The first postage stamps (Penny Post) comes into use.
* Vaccination for the poor is introduced.

### 1842

* Income tax is introduced for the first time during peacetime.
* Income tax was levied at a rate of 7d (three pence) in the pound.
* Mines Act ends child labour.

### 1845 - 1849

* Ireland suffers the Great Potato Famine when entire crops of potatoes, the staple Irish food, are ruined. The famine was a consequence of the appearance of blight, the potato fungus. About 800,000 people died as a result of the famine. A large number of people migrated to Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia.

## 1850-1885

### 1854- 1856

* The **Crimean War** was fought between the Russians and an alliance of the British, French and Turks who feared Russian expansion in the Balkans.
* **1854:** A cholera epidemic led to demands for a clean water supply and proper sewage systems in the big cities.
* **1856:** Britain defeats Russia in the Crimean War.

### 1858

* India came under direct British government control when the remaining authority of the East India Company was dissolved.

### 1859

* **Charles Darwin's''On the Origin of Species** is published.

### 1861

* **14 December:** Victoria's husband, **Prince Albert**, dies aged 42.
* Albert's premature death from typhoid plunged Victoria into a long period of mourning and withdrawal from public life.

### 1863

* **London Underground** opens.
* The foundation of the Football Association.

### 1868

* **Joseph Lister** discovers disinfectant.
* The last public hanging.

### 1869

* The first Sainsbury's shop open in Dury Lane, London.

### 1870

* Education Act means school for everyone.

### 1872

* **18 July:** Voting by secret ballot is introduced.

### 1876

* **1 May:** Victoria is declared Empress of India.
* Alexander Bell invented the telephone.
* Primary education was made compulsory.

### 1877

* The first public electric lighting in London.

### 1881

* **17 January:** **Sir William Armstrong's** home at Cragside in Rothbury (Northumberland) becomes the **first to use electric light**.
* Swan's new electric lamps were powered by water from a local stream through a dynamo-electric generator.