Our Family History

The Genealogy of Robert and Christina Barritt

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Abt 1813 - Bef 1880 (< 67 years)

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Timeline

Nelson THURSTON (1813 - 1880)

	Date	Event(s)
1	1813	1813: UK - Canned food was invented for the British Navy by Peter Durand. The cans were made of solid iron and usually weighed more than the food inside them 1813: UK - Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is published. 1813: India - The monopolies of the East India Company are abolished 1813: Portugal - British victory at Battle of Vittorio 1813: UK - 2300 power looms in use, by 1833 - 100,000 1813: USA - Creek War: United States vs Creek Indians 1813-1814.
2	1814	1814: France - Napoleon abdicates, exiled to Isle of Elba 1814: UK - George Stephenson designs a steam locomotive. 1814: UK - Joseph von Fraunhofer invents the spectrocope for the chemical analysis of glowing objects. 1814: UK - The first plastic surgery is performed
3	1815	1815: Europe - Peace is established in Europe at the Congress of Vienna. 1815: UK - The Corn Laws are passed by Parliament to protect British agriculture from cheap imports 1815: UK - Start of two-year commercial boom in Britain 1815: UK - England has now 2600 miles of canals, 500 in Scotland and Ireland; China clippers take 109 days to sail 15000 miles from Canton to English Channel; Britain's population estimated at 13 million; Britain imports 82 million pounds of raw cotton, by 1860 1000 million pounds; coal output 16 million tons (30 miillion by 1835, 50 million by 1848) 1815: UK - Sir Humphry Davy invents the miner's lamp. 1815: UK - Over the next fifteen years, five new states are founded along Mississippi Valley, mostly due to people fleeing Depression; more go to Canada, as many as 20,000 some years, frequently Scots Mar 1815: Elba, France - Napoleon escapes, leads French in war once more 18 Jun 1815: Belgium - Duke of Wellington trounces the French at Waterloo with timely help of Blucher (Prussia)
4	1816	1816: UK - Violation of game laws can result in seven years transportation
5	1817	1817: UK - Economic slump in Britain leads to the 'Blanketeers' March' and other disturbances 1817: USA - James Monroe president of the USA 1817-1825.
6	1818	1818: UK - Mary Shelley publishes her Frankenstein 1818: India - Britain defeats Maratha, now effective ruler of India
7	1819	1819: UK - Troops intervene at a mass political reform meeting in Manchester, killing and wounding four hundred people at the 'Peterloo Massacre' 1819: UK - Singapore founded as free trade port 1819: UK - Samuel Fahnestock patents a 'soda fountain'
8	1820	1820: UK - A radical plot to murder the Cabinet, known as the Cato Street Conspiracy, fails 1820: UK - Trial of Queen Caroline, in which George IV attempts to divorce her for adultery 1820: UK - Death of George III, blind and insane 1820: UK - London's population estimated at 1,274,000 1820: UK - Government finances scheme to send out 6,000 settlers to Cape in South Africa 1820: UK - George IV, ruler of England to 1830. House of Hanover: Eldest son of George III, Prince Regent, from Feb 1811.
9	1821	1821: UK - Queen Caroline is excluded from the coronation 1821: UK - Start of two years of famine in Ireland 1821: UK - Michael Faraday invents electric motor and generator
10	1822	1822: France - First prototype Espresso machine 1822: Ireland - Famine in Ireland prompts migration to US and Canada
11	1823	1823: UK - The Royal Academy of Music is established in London. 1823: UK - The British Museum is extended and extensively rebuilt to house an expanding collection 1823: UK - Mackintosh (raincoat) invented by Charles Mackintosh of Scotland.
12	1824	1824: UK - The National Gallery is established 1824: UK - Commercial boom in Britain 1824: UK - Professor Michael Faraday invents the first toy balloon. 1824: UK - Englishman Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement, the modern building material.
13	1825	1825: UK - Nash reconstructs Buckingham Palace. 1825: UK - Trade Unions are legalized. 1825: UK - Commercial depression in Britain 1825: UK - The world's first railway service, the Stockton and Darlington Railway opens 1825: USA - John Quincy Adams president of the USA 1825-1829. 1825: UK - William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet. 1825: Settlement of Canada, Australia and New Zealand begins in earnest over the next 25 years
14	1826	1826: France - One of the first print references to fondue written by Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in his Physiologie du Gout 1826: France - Physicist Joseph Niepce makes the first known photograph, View from a Window at Gras, via a heliograph process on a metal plate.
15	1827	1827: UK - Printing press can now print 4-5000 copies/hour, 11.5 million copies of newspapers pour over Britain 1827: UK - Charles Wheatstone invents the microphone. 1827: UK - John Walker invents modern matches.
16	1828	1828: UK - The Duke of Wellington becomes British Prime Minister
17	1829	1829: UK - Parliament passes the Catholic Relief Act, ending most restrictions on Catholic Civil Rights. They are allowed to own property and run for public office, including parliament 1829: UK - Sir Robert Peel founds the Metropolitan Police Force, constables become known as bobbies 1829: USA - Andrew Jackson president of the USA to 1837. 1829: USA - William Austin Burt patents a typographer, a predecessor to the typewriter. 1829: France - Louis Braille invents braille printing.
18	1830	1830: UK - Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 1830: UK - First major cholera epidemic in Britain starts and lasts two years. 1830: Australia - Free migrants to Australia = 1500, by 1841 = 32,000 1830: UK - Starving field labourers in southern counties riot for higher wages, 19 hanged, 481 deported to Australia 1830: France - B. Thimonnier invents a sewing machine. 1830: UK - William IV, ruler of England to 1837. House of Hanover: 3rd son of George III, married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. 1830: UK - Royal Commission finds that mail coach average speed is 9 miles per hour 26 Jun 1830: UK - Death of George IV
19	1831	1831: UK - Michael Faraday, in the first in a series of Experimental Researches in Electricity, discovered the means of producing electricity from magnetism, i.e., electromagnetic induction, the generation of an electric field by a changing magnetic field. This is the principle of the dynamo 1831: UK - Swing Riots' in rural areas against the mechanization of agricultural activities. 1831: UK - The new London Bridge is opened over the River Thames 1831: UK - Population of England and Wales now 14 million 1831: UK - American, Cyrus H. McCormick invents the first commercially successful reaper.
20	1832	1832: UK - The first or Great Reform Act is passed. This climax of a period of political reform extends the vote to a further 500,000 people and redistributes Parliamentary seats on a more equitable basis 1832: UK - Cholera Act 1832: UK - House-breaking, sheep-stealing and forgery removed from list of capital crimes in England 1832: UK - Commission created to look into inhumanity of transporting prisoners to Australia, another in 1837, transportation to New South Wales finally stops in 1840 1832: USA - Texas Revolutionary War: Texas vs Mexico 1832-1836. 1832: UK - Age of Coal and Iron or The Railway Age, dooms canals and stage coaches during period to 1867. Leaders are mostly Quakers of Midlands and North: Peases, Croppers, Sturges
21	1833	1833: UK - Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Empire. 1833: UK - Parliament passes the Factory Act, prohibiting children aged less than nine from working in factories, and reducing the working hours of women and older children 1833: UK - Start of the Oxford Movement in the Anglican Church
22	1834	1834: UK - Charles Babbage designed a programmable mechanical calculating machine, or 'analytical engine,' that could carry out arithmetic operations specified on punch cards and choose the sequence of operations. Although the design was never built, Augusta Ada Byron wrote programs to demonstrate its potential power. 1834: UK - Robert Owen founds the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union. The government acts against 'illegal oaths' in such unionism, resulting in the Tolpuddle Martyrs being transported to Australia 1834: London, UK - Fire destroys the Palace of Westminster 1834: UK - New Poor Law Act, object to make life in the workhouse far worse than in fields and factories 1834: USA - Jacob Perkins invents an early refrigerator (really an ether ice machine). 1834: USA - Henry Blair patents a corn planter, he is the second black person to receive a U.S. patent.
23	1835	1835: UK - Parliament passes the Municipal Reform Act, requiring members of town councils to be elected by ratepayers and councils to publish their financial accounts 1835: UK - Commercial boom. 'Little' railway mania across Britain starts and continues into 1836 1835: UK - Englishman Francis Pettit Smith invents the propeller. 1835: UK - Solymon Merrick patents the wrench. 1835: UK - Charles Babbage invents a mechanical calculator.
24	1836	1836: UK - William Lovett founds London Working Men's Association, beginning of Chartism 1836: USA - Samuel Colt invented the first revolver. 1836: South Africa - Boers leave British South Africa in search of independence on Great Trek (to 1840)
25	1837	1837: UK - Charles Dickens publishes Oliver Twist, drawing attention to Britain's poor. 1837: UK - Death of William IV 1837: USA - Martin van Buren president of the USA 1837-1841. 1837: UK - English schoolmaster Rowland Hill invents the postage stamp. 1837: UK - Victoria I, ruler of England to 1901. House of Hanover: Daughter of Edward, 4th son of George III Jul 1837: UK - Births, deaths and marriages must be registered by law
26	1838	1838: UK - The Anti-Corn Law League is established. Publication of the People's Charter. The start of Chartism
27	1839	1839: USA - First use of OK in print (in Boston Morning Post) 1839: UK - William Henry Fox-Talbot produces photographs from negatives 1839: France - Louis Daguerre and J.N. Niepce co-invent Daguerreotype photography. 1839: UK - Kirkpatrick Macmillan invents a bicycle. 1839: USA - Charles Goodyear invents rubber vulcanization. 1839: UK - Welshman Sir William Robert Grove conceives of the first hydrogen fuel cell. 1839: USA - Thaddeus Fairbanks invents platform scales. 1839: UK - First railway timetable published by Quaker Bradshaw 1839: China - The Opium Wars until 1842, Britain forces China to take European goods
28	1840	1840: UK - Victoria I marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 1840: UK - There are reckoned to be 107 accountants in London 1840: New Zealand - New Zealand annexed 1840: UK - Englishman John Herschel invents the blueprint. 1840: Australia - During period to 1853 convicts are still sent to Tasmania at the rate of about 4,000 per year 1840: UK - Queen Victoria begins dressing the princes in kilts and sailor suits.
29	1841	1841: UK - The first British Census recording the names of the populace is undertaken. 1841: UK - The Tories come to power. Sir Robert Peel becomes Prime Minister 1841: USA - William Henry Harrison president of the USA. He succumbed to pneumonia in 1841. 1841: USA - John Tyler president of the USA to 1845. He is the first vice president to succeed to the presidency due to death of a president. 1841: UK - Samuel Slocum patents the stapler.
30	1842	1842: UK - First Christmas card 1842: UK - First UK public telegraph lines, from Paddington to Slough and Gosport to London 1842: UK - Lord Shaftesbury's Mines Act forbids underground work for women and children under 10 1842: China - Hong Kong annexed 1842: UK - Joseph Dart builds the first grain elevator.
31	1843	1843: UK - Alexander Bain (1818-1903) invented an early fax machine 1843: UK - About 2000 miles of railway lines now laid
32	1844	1844: UK - Charles Darwin wrote, but didn't publish, an essay presaging the theory of the origin of species. 1844: USA - Samuel Finley Breese Morse demonstrates a telegraph, using a code of his own invention 1844: UK - Parliament passes the Bank Charter Act 1844: Yorkshire, UK - Foundation of the Rochdale Co-Operative Society - Chartist and Owenite workers of Rochdale open Rochdale Pioneers Store (cooperative) in Toad (T'owd) Lane 1844: UK - Royal Commission on the Health of Towns 1844: UK - Two years of railway mania begins across Britain. Massive investment and speculation leads to the laying of 5,000 miles of track 1844: UK - Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children founded 1844: UK - Englishman John Mercer invents mercerized cotton. 1844: UK - Ten Hours Bill limited working hours for women and youths in textile business to 10 hours/day, passes thanks to Lord Shaftesbury's efforts during period to 1847
33	1845	1845: Ireland - Irish Potato Famine kills more than a million people in two years 1845: UK - Frederick Engels publishes The Condition of the Working Class in England 1845: UK - There are reckoned to be 210 accountants in London 1845: UK - General Enclosure Act, further enclosure prohibited 1845: USA - James Polk president of the USA to 1849. 1845: USA - American Elias Howe invents a sewing machine. 1845: UK - Robert William Thomson patents the first vulcanised rubber pneumatic tyre. 1845: India - Conquest of Punjab and Kashmir (to 1849)
34	1846	1846: UK - Repeal of the Corn Laws, Britain moves towards complete free trade 1846: UK - Electric Telegraph Company formed, 17 offices by 1854 1846: USA - Mexican-American War 1846-1848. 1846: USA - Dr. William Morton, a Massachusetts dentist, is the first to use anesthesia for tooth extraction.
35	1847	1847: UK - Flourens discovered the anesthetic properties of chloroform 1847: USA - Levi Strauss invents denim jeans 1847: UK - Hungarian Ignaz Semmelweis invents antisceptics.
36	1848	1848: UK - Major Chartist demonstration in London. 1848: UK - Parliament passes the Public Health Act 1848: UK - Karl Marx publishes The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital 1848: UK - 5000 miles of railway tracks now laid, 2000 of which were equipped with telegraph wires; Britain now produces about half of world's pig iron, trebles output within 30 years 1848: UK - Queen's College for Women founded
37	1849	1849: USA - Zachary Taylor president of the USA 1849-1850. Zachary Taylor died while in office. 1849: UK - Walter Hunt invents the safety pin.
38	1850	1850: USA - American Joel Houghton invented the first dishwasher. He made it out of wood, and gave it a hand-turned wheel that splashed water on the dishes inside. It didn't really work, but it did get the first 'dishwasher' patent 1850: UK - First machine-made paper bag 1850: UK - Mines Inspectorate created, helps protect adult male mine workers 1850: USA - Millard Fillmore president of the USA 1850-1853. Vice president under Zachary Taylor, he was sworn in as president after Taylor's death.
39	1851	1851: UK - The Great Exhibition is staged in Hyde Park. Thanks to Prince Albert, it is a great success 1851: UK - Window tax abolished 1851: USA - Patent for sewing machine issued to Isaac Singer 1851: UK - British Census shows 10,736,000 females, 8,155,000 of whom were aged 10 and older, largest occupational group domestic service workers, 905,000, 145,000 washerwomen, 55,000 charwomen (cleaners), 272,000 in cotton industry, 113,000 in woolen industry, 140,000 in lace, hosiery and linen 1851: Europe - First submarine cable, Dover to Calais 1851: London, UK - Reuters opens news agency 1851: Africa - Livingstone's explorations begin 1851: Australia - Population of Australia rises from 405,000 in 1851 to 1,168,000 in 1861 Sep 1851: Melbourne, Australia - Gold fever - 19,000 immigrants land in one month, for the whole year 94,664, seven times as many as 1851
40	1852	1852: UK - Death of the Duke of Wellington 1852: UK - Derby's first minority Conservative government 1852: UK - Aberdeen's coalition government is established
41	1853	1853: UK - Potato crisps invented by a cook named George Crum. 1853: Crimea - Florence Nightingale first recommended the regimen of cleanliness which dramatically reduced the death rate in hospitals 1853: UK - Vaccination against smallpox is made compulsory 1853: UK - Queen Victoria uses chloroform during birth of Prince Leopold 1853: UK - William Gladstone presents his first budget 1853: UK - Franklin Pierce president of the USA 1853-1857.
42	1854	1854: UK - The Northcote-Trevelyan civil service report is published 1854: UK - John Tyndall demonstrates the principles of fiber optics. 1854: UK - Crimean War begins, as Britain and France attempt to defend European interests in the Middle East against Russia
43	1855	1855: UK - John Snow, investigating London's piped water supply, showed graphically that cholera could be transmitted by water from a particular pump. 1855: UK - Palmerston's first government comes to power
44	1856	1856: Crimea - Crimean War comes to an end. 1856: UK - The Victoria Cross is instituted for military bravery 1856: UK - Every county and borough required to employ police force 1856: UK - Marriage and Divorce Act permits any man to divorce his wife on grounds of adultery, permits woman same but has to also show cruelty or desertion; beforehand, a special Act of Parliament was required for divorce 1856: UK - Britons panicked by false rumours of Napoleon III's designs on Britain 1856: UK - John Stuart Mill publishes Liberty 1856: Great novels: Dickens, Dumas, Flaubert, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy 1856: France - Louis Pasteur invents pasteurisation. 1856: New Zealand - Population of New Zealand rises from less than 60,000 to 350,000 in the period to 1878
45	1857	1857: Atlantic - Cyrus Field made his first attempt at laying a trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. In 1866, his fourth attempt was successful. 1857: China - The Second Opium War opens China to European trade. 1857: India - The Indian Mutiny erupts against British Rule on the sub-continent 1857: USA - James Buchanan president of the USA 1857-1861. 1857: USA - George Pullman invents the Pullman Sleeping Car for train travel.
46	1858	1858: UK - Derby establishes his second minority government 1858: UK - Parliament passes the India Act 1858: UK - Eraser fitted to end of pencil 1858: UK - Jean Lenoir invents an internal combustion engine. 1858: UK - Hamilton Smith patents the rotary washing machine.
47	1859	1859: UK - Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life asserts that all life had a common ancestor and that the origin of species was natural selection 1859: UK - Palmerston brings his second Liberal government to power. 1859: UK - Samuel Smiles' Self-Help published
48	1860	1860: UK - Joseph Wilson Swan invented the light bulb, an incandescent lamp using a carbon filament. 1860: UK - Gladstone's budget and the Anglo-French Cobden Treaty codifies and extends the principles of free trade
49	1861	1861: UK - Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis published his deduction that childbirth fever was transmitted on the hands of doctors during their examinations 1861: UK - Death of Prince Albert, Prince Consort 1861: Australia - Women first given vote 1861: USA - Abraham Lincoln president of the USA 1861-1865. 1861: USA - Elisha Otis patents elevator safety brakes, creating a safer elevator. 1861: USA - Linus Yale invents the Yale lock or cylinder lock. 1861: USA - American Civil War (to 1865)
50	1862	1862: France - Louis Pasteur published the germ theory: infection is caused by self-replicating microorganisms, and that attenuated viral cultures granted immunity. These beneficent antigens he named vaccines in honor of Edward Jenner and his vaccinia virus 1862: UK - Parliament passes the Limited Liability Act in order to provide vital stimulus to accumulation of capital in shares 1862: UK - Alexander Parkes invents the first man-made plastic, Parkesine. 1862: UK - Dr. Richard Gatling patents the machine gun.
51	1863	1863: UK - Edward, Prince of Wales, marries Princess Alexandra of Denmark. 1863: UK - The Salvation Army is founded 1863: UK - First underground railway opens in London
52	1864	1864: UK - Chimney-sweeper's Act, due in part to Charles Kinglsey's Water Babies 1864: UK - Great Battle of Berkhamstead Common saves common land, Epping Forest also saved 1864: UK - Reform Bill, working men given franchise 1864: Canada - First independent dominion in the British Empire under the Dominion of Canada Act 1864: UK - Judge declares trades unions illegal
53	1865	1865: Finland - Nokia corporation established as a forest industry enterprise by mining engineer Fredrik Idestam 1865: UK - Lister, using carbolic acid as antiseptic and sterilizing his instrument, proved the efficacy of antiseptic surgery 1865: UK - Death of Palmerston. Russell establishes his second Liberal government 1865: UK - Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventure in Wonderland 1865: UK - Andrew Johnson president of the USA 1865-1869. Vice president under Abraham Lincoln, he was sworn in as president upon Lincoln's death. 14 Apr 1865: USA - Abraham Lincoln shot by John Wilkes Booth and dies the next day.
54	1866	1866: UK - Gregor Mendel, in Versuche 1866: UK - Alfred Nobel patented dynamite 1866: UK - Russell and Gladstone fail to have their moderate Reform Bill passed in parliament. Derby takes power in his third minority Conservative government 1866: UK - Englishman Robert Whitehead invents a torpedo. 1866: UK - J. Osterhoudt patents the tin can with a key opener.
55	1867	1867: UK - Derby and Benjamin Disraeli's Second Reform Bill doubles the franchise to two million. 1867: UK - Christopher Scholes invents the first practical and modern typewriter.
56	1868	1868: UK - Benjamin Disraeli succeeds Derby as Prime Minister. William Gladstone becomes Prime Minister for the first time 1868: UK - J P Knight invents traffic lights. 1868: USA - George Westinghouse invents air brakes. 1868: UK - Robert Mushet invents tungsten steel.
57	1869	1869: UK - George M. Beard distinguished neurasthenia, a nervous disease of men, from hysteria, a women's disease, as, in an earlier time, men's hypochondriasis had been distinguished from women's vapeurs. Subforms of neurasthenia came to be called phobias. 1869: Ireland - The Irish Church is disestablished. 1869: Egypt - The Suez Canal is opened 1869: UK - Women obtain municipal franchise 1869: USA - Ulysses Grant president of the USA 1869-1877.
58	1870	1870: UK - Primary education becomes compulsory in Britain through the Forster-Ripon English Elementary Education Act (but poor children still roam streets after school). The Act means labourers, spouses and children of succeeding generations can read and write; women permitted to sit on school boards 1870: UK - Parliament passes the Women's Property Act, extending the rights of married women, and the Irish Land Act 1870: UK - First British postcard devised by Anthony Trollope 1870: USA - Wheeler introduces toilet paper roll 1870: Inauguration of London to Calcutta telegraph line, first electronic link between Europe and India 1870: UK - Volume of Britain's external trade equals France, Germany and Italy combined, 3-4 times greater than US; agricultural wages reach height not surpassed for many years 1870: UK - Religious tests abolished for academic posts, patronage abolished for all public offices, competitive exams introduced for Civil Service 1870: Europe - Prussia defeats France in the Franco Prussian War.
59	1871	1871: UK - Trade Unions are legalized
60	1872	1872: UK - Secret voting is introduced for elections 1872: UK - Parliament passes the Scottish Education Act 1872: USA - A.M. Ward issues the first mail-order catalog. 1872: UK - J.S. Risdon patents the metal windmill. 1872: UK - Period to 1896 sees three economic slumps and two recoveries, said to be due to imported foodstuffs from US depressing Britain's agricultural business 1872: USA - Levi Strauss discovered rugged trousers for miners made out of sturdy brown canvas. Once this resource was exhausted, he turned to denim, which he dyed blue to become what is known now as blue jeans
61	1873	1873: UK - William Gladstone's government resigns after the defeat of their Irish Universities Bill. Benjamin Disraeli declines to take up office instead 1873: UK - Parmalee invents automatic fire sprinklers 1873: UK - Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire. 1873: UK - The Great Depression lasts until 1896
62	1874	1874: UK - Benjamin Disraeli becomes Conservative Prime Minister for the second time 1874: USA - American, C. Goodyear, Jr. invents the shoe welt stitcher.
63	1875	1875: UK - Benjamin Disraeli purchases a controlling interest for Britain in the Suez Canal. 1875: UK - Parliament passes R.A. Cross's Conservative social reforms 1875: UK - Collapse of British agriculture due to cheap grain from US, wheat acreage falls by nearly a million acres
64	1876	1876: USA - Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. 1876: Germany - Nikolas August Otto designed the first four-stroke piston engine 1876: UK - Queen Victoria becomes Empress of India. 1876: Bulgaria - The massacre of Christians in Turkish Bulgaria leads to anti-Turkish campaigns in Britain, led by William Gladstone 1876: UK - Melville Bissell patents the carpet sweeper.
65	1877	1877: South Africa - Confederation of British and Boer states established 1877: USA - Rutherford Hayes president of the USA 1877-1881. 1877: USA - Thomas Edison invents the cylinder phonograph or tin foil phonograph. 1877: UK - Eadweard Muybridge invents the first moving pictures.
66	1878	1878: Berlin, Germany - The Congress of Berlin is held. Benjamin Disraeli announces peace with honour
67	1879	1879: South Africa - The Zulu War is fought. The British are defeated at Isandhlwana, but are victorious at Ulundi 1879: Midlothian, Scotland - Gladstone's Midlothian campaign denounces imperialism in South Africa and Afghanistan 1879: Afghanistan - Second Afghan War gives Britain control
68	1880	1880: UK - William Gladstone establishes his second Liberal government 1880: South Africa - The first Anglo-Boer War begins 1880: UK - British forests now decimated except for bits of the New Forest and the Forest of Dean. 1880: UK - Number of agricultural labourers reduced by about 100,000 in last 10 years 1880: UK - Englishman John Milne invents the modern seismograph. 1880: UK - The British Perforated Paper Company invents a form of toilet paper.