Events from the year1896 in theUnited Kingdom.

• Monarch –Victoria
• Prime Minister –Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (Coalition)

• January –Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War: Britishredcoats enter theAshanti capital,Kumasi, and Asantehene AgyemanPrempeh I is deposed.^[1]
• 2 January – theJameson Raid comes to an end as Jameson surrenders to theBoers.^[2]
• 6 January –Cecil Rhodes resigns as Premier ofCape Colony over the Jameson Raid.^[2]
• 10 January – American-bornBirt Acres demonstrates hisfilm projector, theKineopticon, the first in Britain, to the Lyonsdown Photographic Club inNew Barnet, the first film show to an audience in the U.K.^[3]
• 14 January – Acres demonstrates hisKineopticon to theRoyal Photographic Society at theQueen's Hall inLondon.^[4]
• 16 January –Devonport High School for Boys is founded inPlymouth.
• 28 January
  • In an undergroundexplosion atTylorstown Colliery,Rhondda, 57 miners are killed.^[5]
  • Engineer Walter Arnold of theArnold (automobile) company ofEast Peckham in Kent receives the U.K.'s firstspeeding conviction for travelling at 8 mph (13 km/h) in a motorised vehicle, thereby exceeding the contemporaryspeed limit for towns of 2 mph (3.2 km/h).^[6]
• 20 February – in London:^[7]
  • Robert W. Paul demonstrates his film projector, theTheatrograph (later known as theAnimatograph), at theAlhambra Theatre.
  • TheLumiere Brothers first project their films in Britain, at theEmpire Theatre of Varieties, Leicester Square.
• 12 March – Salisbury orders a military campaign to combat increasing French influence in theSudan.^[2]
• 29 March – theRoyal College of St Patrick, Maynooth in Ireland is granted the status ofpontifical university by charter of theHoly See.^[8]
• 6 April – theSnowdon Mountain Railway commences public operation; however, a derailment leading to one fatality causes services to be suspended for a year.^[9]
• 6–15 April –Great Britain and Ireland compete at theOlympics and win 2 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals.
• 16 April –the National Trust acquires (for £10) its first building for preservation, and its first property in England,Alfriston Clergy House inEast Sussex.
• 21 April –Royal Victorian Order instituted.
• 23 April –Blackpool Pleasure Beachamusement park established.^[10][11]
• 30 April –Peckfield Colliery disaster inMicklefield, Yorkshire: an underground explosion kills 63 men and boys and 19 pit ponies.^[12]
• 4 May –Daily Mail newspaper founded.^[13]
• 8 May – incricket,Yorkshire sets a still-standingCounty Championship record when they accumulate an innings total of 887 againstWarwickshire.
• 18–20 May –Newlyn riots: protests by fishermen atNewlyn,Cornwall, against those fromLowestoft and elsewhere fishing onSabbath, leading to military intervention.
• 7 June –Mahdist War: British andEgyptian victory at theBattle of Ferkeh.
• 12 June –Jack (J. T.) Hearne sets a record for the earliest date of taking 100 wickets. It is equalled byCharlie Parker in 1931.
• 26 July–1 August –International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress held in London.
• 17 August
  • Bridget Driscoll becomes the first person in the world to be killed in a car accident, in the grounds ofThe Crystal Palace.^[13]
  • Start of development ofTrafford Park,Manchester, pioneering example of a plannedindustrial estate in England.^[14]
• 27 August
  • The shortest war in recorded history, theAnglo-Zanzibar War, starts at 9 in the morning and lasts for 45 minutes of shelling.^[13]
  • Britain establishes a Protectorate overAshanti concluding theFourth Anglo-Ashanti War.
• 15 September –Pope Leo XIII issues thepapal bullApostolicae curae, declaring allAnglican ordinations to be "absolutely null and utterly void".
• 22 September –Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfatherKing George III as the longest reigningmonarch in British history up to this date.
• 23 September –Kitchener capturesDongola in the Sudan.^[2]
• 30 September–August 1897:Lock-out ofWelsh slate workers atPenrhyn Quarry.^[15]

• 14 November – theLocomotives on Highways Act (of 14 August)^[16] comes into effect, raising the speed limit for road vehicles from 4 to 14 mph^[13] and removing the requirement for a man to walk in front of an automobile to give warning. To celebrate this, an 'Emancipation Run' of cars from London toBrighton (continuing afterwards as theLondon to Brighton Veteran Car Run) is held.^[17] By this date,Thomas Humber's car factory in Coventry has become the first in Britain to begin series production.^[18]
• 4–5 December – a storm hitsBrighton, destroying the oldChain Pier (closed October) and badly damaging the other piers and the newBrighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway (opened 28 November).
• 11 December –William Preece introducesGuglielmo Marconi's work inwireless telegraphy to the general public at a lecture, "Telegraphy without Wires", at theToynbee Hall in London.
• 14 December –Glasgow Subway, the third oldestmetro system in the world (after theLondon Underground and theBudapest Metro), begins operations inGlasgow.
• 17 December –Herefordearthquake.

• Completion of the firstflats in theLondon County Council'sBoundary Estate in theEast End of London, the country's earliestpublic housing scheme, replacing part of the notoriousOld Nichol slum.^[19]
• TheArts and Crafts movement houseMunstead Wood inSurrey is designed by architectEdwin Lutyens for garden designerGertrude Jekyll, his first major commission and the start of an influential partnership.

• Hilaire Belloc's verse collectionThe Bad Child's Book of Beasts.
• Joseph Conrad's novelAn Outcast of the Islands.
• Marie Corelli's novelsThe Mighty Atom,The Murder of Delicia andZiska.
• A. E. Housman's poetry collectionA Shropshire Lad.
• W. W. Jacobs' short story collectionMany Cargoes.
• William Morris's fantasy novelThe Well at the World's End.
• Arthur Morrison's social realist novellaA Child of the Jago.
• Robert Louis Stevenson's unfinished historical novelWeir of Hermiston (posthumous).
• H. G. Wells'science fiction novelThe Island of Doctor Moreau.

• 7 January –Arnold Ridley, actor and playwright (died 1984)
• 25 January -John Moores, businessman and owner of the Littlewoods empire (died 1993)
• 14 February –Edward Arthur Milne, astrophysicist and mathematician (died 1950)
• 3 May –Dodie Smith, novelist and playwright (died 1990)
• 7 May –John Dunville, army officer (died of wounds 1917)
• 29 May –Doreen Knatchbull, Baroness Brabourne, aristocrat and socialite (died 1979)
• 1 June –Sydney Kyte, bandleader (died 1981)
• 6 June –Henry Allingham, became the oldest surviving British veteran of the First World War and briefly the world's oldest man (died 2009)
• 19 June
  • R. Palme Dutt, communist theoretician (died 1974)
  • Wallis Warfield,later Duchess of Windsor, American wife of theDuke of Windsor (died in France 1986)
• 25 June –Alfred Anderson, Scottish joiner and veteran of the First World War (died 2005)
• 28 July –Guy Salisbury-Jones, Army major-general (died 1985)
• 28 July –Joyce Bishop, educator (died 1993)^[20]
• 19 July –A. J. Cronin,Scottish novelist (died 1981)
• 14 August –Albert Ball,flying ace (killed in action 1917)
• 14 October –Bud Flanagan, comedian and singer (died 1968)
• 16 November –Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (died 1980)
• 17 November –Sophie Catherine Theresa Mary Peirce-Evans,later Mary, Lady Heath, aviator and athlete (died 1939)
• 15 December –Miles Dempsey, general (died 1969)

• 8 January –Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn, judge (born 1813)
• 17 January –Augusta Hall, Baroness Llanover, Welsh patron of the arts (born 1802)^[21]
• 19 January –Bernhard Gillam, political cartoonist (born 1856)
• 25 January –Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, painter and sculptor specialising in classical subjects (born 1830)
• 14 February –George Selwyn Marryat,fly fisherman (born 1840)
• 10 June –Amelia Dyer, baby farm murderer (born 1837; hanged)
• 23 June –Sir Joseph Prestwich, geologist (born 1812)
• 7 July –Charles Thomas Wooldridge, soldier and uxoricide commemorated in Oscar Wilde'sThe Ballad of Reading Gaol (born 1866; hanged)
• 23 July –Caroline Martyn, Christian socialist and trade unionist (born 1867)
• 12 August –Sir Harry Lumsden, general (born 1821)
• 13 August –Sir John Everett Millais, painter (born 1829)
• 18 August –Frederick Nicholls Crouch, composer and cellist (born 1808)
• 2 May –Emma Darwin, née Wedgwood, wife ofCharles Darwin (died 1896)
• 3 October –William Morris, artist, writer and socialist (born 1834)
• 6 October –Sir James Abbott, army officer and colonial administrator in British India (born 1807)
• 8 October –George du Maurier, cartoonist and novelist (born 1834 in France)
• 11 October –Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury (born 1829)
• 21 October –James Henry Greathead, engineer and inventor (born 1844 in South Africa)
• November –Margaret Eleanor Parker, social activist, first president of the British Women's Temperance Association (born 1827)
• 26 November –Coventry Patmore, poet (born 1823)
• 10 December –Sir Alexander Milne, 1st Baronet, admiral of the fleet (born 1806)

• List of British films before 1920

• 1896 in the United Kingdom
• Years of the 19th century in the United Kingdom
• 1896 by country
• 1890s in the United Kingdom
• 1896 in Europe

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