8 January – Bell's New Weekly Messenger (London) becomes the first known English newspaper to include a political cartoon.[1]
12 February – second cholera pandemic begins to spread in London, starting from East London. It is declared officially over in early May but deaths continue. It will claim at least 3000 victims. In Liverpool, Kitty Wilkinson becomes the "Saint of the Slums"[2] by promoting hygiene.[3]
7 June – the Great Reform Act becomes law, abolishing most rotten boroughs and redistributing Parliamentary seats to newer urban centres of industry and commerce, while extending suffrage to male copyholders and leaseholders of rural property with a minimum annual value or renters of property in boroughs also with a minimum annual value (£10 in most cases).[4] It is estimated that this raises the number of English voters from 400,000 to 650,000.[5] A separate husting is required for every 600 voters.[6] Similar legislation is passed for Scotland (the Scottish Reform Act)[7] and Ireland (An Act to Amend the Representation of the People of Ireland, the Irish Reform Act).[8]
4 July – University of Durham founded by Act of Parliament at the instigation of the authorities of the city's cathedral.
16 July – "The Bad Day": 31 sixareens, the traditional fishing craft of Shetland, are lost in a storm with 105 crew.[7]
19 July – Anatomy Act provides for licensing and inspection of anatomists, and for unclaimed corpses from public institutions to be available for their dissection.
11–14 August – the body of James Cook, a bookbinder executed the previous day for the murder of his creditor Paas, is hung in irons on a gibbet in Leicester, the last time this practice is carried out.[11]
16 January – Sister Dora, born Dorothy Pattison, Anglican nun and nurse (died 1878)
27 January – Lewis Carroll, born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, children's author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and portrait photographer (died 1898)
^Phillips, John A.; Wetherell, Charles (1995). "The Great Reform Act of 1832 and the Political Modernization of England". American Historical Review. 100 (2): 411–436. doi:10.2307/2169005. JSTOR2169005.
^Roberts, Matthew (2008). Political Movements in Urban England, 1832–1914. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.