1838 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
• Parliament – 13th

  Events

• 10 January – a fire destroys Lloyd's Coffee House and the Royal Exchange in London.
• 20 January – with a daily average of, this day sees the coldest daily Central England temperature value on record.
• 4–22 April – the paddle steamer SS Sirius makes the Transatlantic Crossing to New York from Cork in eighteen days, though not using steam continuously.
• 8–23 April – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's paddle steamer SS Great Western makes the Transatlantic Crossing to New York from Avonmouth in fifteen days, inaugurating a regular steamship service.
• 8 April – the National Gallery first opens to the public in the building purpose-designed for it by William Wilkins in Trafalgar Square, London.
• 9 May – Royal Agricultural Society of England founded.
• 21 May – Chartism: The People's Charter is launched by members of the London Working Men's Association at a mass meeting on Glasgow Green calling for universal suffrage for male voters.
• 31 May – Battle of Bossenden Wood: In Kent, self-declared Messiah John N. Thom, calling himself "Sir William Courtenay", and a band of around 35 agricultural labourers are surrounded by soldiers of the 45th Regiment of Foot sent to arrest them following the earlier murder of a policeman. Thom and ten followers, together with an officer and a constable, are killed in what is sometimes described as the last battle on English soil.
• 4 June – first section of the Great Western Railway, engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, opens from London Paddington station to Maidenhead.
• 18 June – the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway opens, the first line across England.
• 28 June – the coronation of Queen Victoria takes place at Westminster Abbey. Lord Melbourne denies her the traditional medieval banquet due to budget constraints, and critics refer to it as "The Penny Crowning".
• July – Chichester Theological College is founded by Bishop William Otter in West Sussex as the first such college of the Anglican Communion in England.
• 4 August – the Court Journal prints a rumour that Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton is going to host a great jousting tournament at his castle in Scotland. A few weeks later he confirms this.
• 6 August – the Polytechnic Institution, Britain's first polytechnic, opens in Regent Street, London.
• September – the Tolpuddle Martyrs return to England.
• 7 September – Grace Darling rescues nine survivors from the wreck of the paddle steamer SS Forfarshire off the Farne Islands.
• 17 September – opening of the London and Birmingham Railway throughout, the first trunk line in England.
• 18 September – Anti-Corn Law League founded by Richard Cobden and John Bright in Manchester.
• 24 September – "Monster meeting" on Kersal Moor, Salford, in support of Chartism.
• 1 October – First Anglo-Afghan War begins when Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India, issues a manifesto from Simla giving Britain's reasons for intervening in Afghanistan.

  Undated

• Jenners department store established in Princes Street, Edinburgh.
• The Tin Duties Act ends taxation of the mines of Devon and Cornwall.
• Probable date – Hackpen White Horse cut in Wiltshire.

  Publications

• Charles Dickens' novels Oliver Twist and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.
• Lady Charlotte Guest begins publication of her translation into English of the Welsh traditional tales known as the Mabinogion.
• Robert Smith Surtees' collected sporting stories Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities.

  Births

• 6 February – Henry Irving, actor
• 9 February – Evelyn Wood, field marshal, Victoria Cross recipient
• 12 March – William Henry Perkin, chemist
• 13 April – J. D. Sedding, ecclesiastical architect
• 14 April – John Thomas, Welsh photographer
• 20 July – Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, statesman and historian
• 25 October – Annie Hall Cudlip, novelist, journalist and editor
• 3 December – Octavia Hill, social reformer
• 20 December – Edwin Abbott Abbott, theologian and author

  Deaths

• 13 January – John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain
• 5 February – Thomas Creevey, politician
• 17 February – John Bonham-Carter, politician and barrister
• 4 March
• * William Fennex, cricketer
• * James Carmichael Smyth, colonial administrator
• 19 March – Sir Edward Barnes, British Army officer and governor of Ceylon
• 21 March – George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie, colonial Governor
• 24 March – Thomas Attwood, composer
• 19 May – Richard Colt Hoare, antiquarian, artist, traveller and archaeologist
• 19 July – Christmas Evans, Welsh Nonconformist minister
• 25 August – William Annesley, 3rd Earl Annesley, noble and Member of Parliament
• 18 September – Robert Smith, 1st Baron Carrington, Member of Parliament
• 7 November – Anne Grant, Scottish poet and author
• 16 November – Robert Cutlar Fergusson, lawyer and politician
• 22 December – John Villiers, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, Member of Parliament