1855 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen ; Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
• Parliament – 16th

  Events

• 9 January – the Earl of Aberdeen loses a vote of no confidence against his government over the management of the Crimean War.
• 22 January – French political exile Emmanuel Barthélemy is hanged after being convicted of murdering a London man. Barthélemy had previously killed a fellow Frenchman in the last fatal duel in England, but has only been convicted of manslaughter on that occasion.
• 29 January – Aberdeen resigns as Prime Minister.
• 5 February – Viscount Palmerston becomes Prime Minister.
• 8 February – the Devil's Footprints, a series of mysteriously hoof-like marks, appear in the snow in Devon and continue throughout the countryside for over.
• 11 April – the first pillar boxes are installed in London, at the suggestion of Rowland Hill.
• 18 April – The Bowring Treaty is signed between the UK and the kingdom of Siam, allowing foreigners to trade freely in Bangkok.
• 15 May – Great Gold Robbery from a train between London Bridge and Folkestone.
• 15 June – stamp duty is removed from newspapers creating mass market media in the UK.
• 29 June – The Daily Telegraph newspaper begins publication in London.
• 16 July – Australian colonies granted self-governing status.
• 31 July – Limited Liability Act protects investors in the event of corporate collapse.
• 3 September – last Bartholomew Fair in London.
• 9 September – Siege of Sevastopol : Sevastapol falls to the British and their allies.
• 17 October – Henry Bessemer files his patent for the Bessemer process for the production of steel.
• 17 November – explorer David Livingstone discovers Victoria Falls in Africa.
• 22 December – Metropolitan Board of Works established in London.

  Undated

• James Clerk Maxwell unifies electricity and magnetism into a single theory, classical electromagnetism, thereby showing that light is an electromagnetic wave.
• The London School of Jewish Studies opens as the Jews' College, a rabbinical seminary, in London.
• Last minting of the fourpence coin for use in the U.K.

  Publications

• Samuel Orchart Beeton's weekly The Boys' Own Magazine.
• Mrs Archer Clive's novel Paul Ferroll.
• Serialisation of Charles Dickens' novel Little Dorrit.
• Mrs Gaskell's novel North and South.
• Charles Kingsley's novel Westward Ho!
• William Makepeace Thackeray's novel The Newcomes.
• Anthony Trollope's novel The Warden.
• The Ancient Music of Ireland, including the first published version of the Londonderry Air.

  Births

• 21 January – Henry B. Jackson, admiral.
• 1 May – Marie Corelli, novelist.
• 23 May – Isabella Ford, socialist, feminist, trade unionist and writer.
• 2 June – Archibald Berkeley Milne, admiral.
• 28 August – Alexander Bethell, admiral.
• 17 December – Frank Hedges Butler, wine merchant and founding member of the Aero Club of Great Britain.

  Deaths

• 3 January – Julius Charles Hare, theological writer.
• 10 January – Mary Russell Mitford, novelist and dramatist.
• 25 January – Dorothy Wordsworth, poet and diarist.
• 20 February – Joseph Hume, doctor and politician.
• 27 February – Bryan Donkin, engineer and inventor.
• 31 March – Charlotte Brontë, author.
• 13 April – Henry De la Beche, geologist.
• 15 April – William John Bankes, MP, explorer and Egyptologist.
• 5 May – Sir Robert Inglis, 2nd Baronet, politician.
• 23 May – Charles Robert Malden, explorer.
• 28 June – Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Lord Raglan, commander of British forces in the Crimean War.
• 8 or 9 July – William Edward Parry, Arctic explorer.
• 30 August – Feargus O'Connor, political radical and Chartist leader.
• 4 September – Emma Tatham, poet.
• 3 December – Robert Montgomery, poet.
• 18 December – Samuel Rogers, poet.
• 20 December – Thomas Cubitt, master builder.