1876 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – Benjamin Disraeli
• Parliament – 21st

  Events

• 1 January – the Bass Brewery Red Triangle becomes the first registered trademark symbol, under the Trade Mark Registration Act 1875.
• April – the Royal Titles Act grants Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India from 1877.
• 7 April – Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, becomes Viceroy of India.
• 1 May – the Settle-Carlisle Railway is opened to passenger traffic.
• 13 July – the prosecution of Arthur Tooth, an Anglican clergyman, for using ritualist practices begins.
• August
• * The Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, is made Earl of Beaconsfield by Queen Victoria.
• * The UK Medical Act of 1876 repeals the previous Medical Act in the United Kingdom and enables every university or other body in the United Kingdom entitled to grant qualifications for registration to grant such qualifications to all people without distinction of sex.
• 5 September – William Gladstone's Bulgarian Horrors pamphlet is published.
• 7 October – first greyhound race to use an artificial hare is held, at Hendon.
• 10 December – the "observant stranger" Henry James arrives at Folkestone and subsequently takes lodgings at 3 Bolton Street, London

  Undated

• Charles Wells opens his brewery based in Bedford.
• The Conchological Society of Great Britain & Ireland is founded.
• Mary Sumner founds Christian women's organisation the Mothers' Union.
• Port Vale Football Club is formed.
• Stourbridge Football Club is formed.
• Saracens F.C. is formed in London as a rugby union club.
• Warrington Wolves is formed as Warrington Zingari F.C., a rugby league club.
• Stockport Lacrosse Club, thought to be the oldest existing lacrosse club in the world, is founded at Cale Green Cricket Club Davenport, Greater Manchester, where they will still be playing in the 21st century.
• Henry Wickham smuggles rubber seeds out of Brazil leading to the eventual collapse of the Amazon rubber boom.
• Grey squirrel introduced to England at Henbury Park, Cheshire.

  Publications

• Isabella Banks' novel The Manchester Man.
• Walter Besant and James Rice's novel The Golden Butterfly.
• Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark.
• George Eliot's novel Daniel Deronda.
• Anthony Trollope's book The Prime Minister, fifth of the Palliser novels.

  Births

• 21 January – James Larkin, trade union leader and socialist politician in Ireland
• 29 January – Havergal Brian, composer
• 16 February – G. M. Trevelyan, historian
• 7 March – Edgar Evans, Welsh sailor, Antarctic explorer
• 11 March – Carl Ruggles, composer
• 23 March – Muirhead Bone, Scottish etcher
• 28 April – Thomas Crisp, Victoria Cross recipient
• 7 May – Samuel Courtauld, art collector
• 27 May – William Stanier, railway engineer and steam locomotive designer
• 13 June – William Sealy Gosset, chemist
• 19 June – Nigel Gresley, railway engineer and steam locomotive designer
• 22 June – Gwen John, Welsh painter
• 8 August
• * Charles Hamilton, children's story writer
• * Sophia Duleep Singh, Princess and suffragette
• 17 August – Eric Drummond, 16th Earl of Perth, politician
• 25 August – Eglantyne Jebb, champion for children
• 1 September – Harriet Shaw Weaver, political activist
• 6 September – John Macleod, Scottish physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 6 October – Githa Sowerby, dramatist
• 2 November – William Haywood, architect
• 3 November – Rupert D'Oyly Carte, hotelier and theatrical impresario
• 7 November – Charlie Townsend, cricketer
• 29 December – Lionel Tertis, violist

  Deaths

• 19 January – George Julius Poulett Scrope, political economist
• 19 April – Samuel Sebastian Wesley, organist and composer
• 24 May – Henry Kingsley, novelist
• 27 June – Harriet Martineau, philosopher and social theorist
• 19 August – George Smith, Assyriologist
• 18 October – Thomas Dickson Archibald, judge
• 29 December – Titus Salt, woollen manufacturer and philanthropist
• Mary Fildes, political activist