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William Thomas 's diary notes that an old woman buried this day was universally feared in the neighbourhood (south-east Glamorgan) as a witch.

The number of hospital beds available throughout England and Wales increased by an average of 1,600 beds per year.

New urban development began in Bristol with Queen Square; five more new squares were completed in the city by 1784.

More than six million people died from drought, famine, and disease during a major famine in India.

The National Service Act legislated conscription for women.

Henry Hallam , historian, was born at Windsor in Berkshire.

During the London blitz, according to a US literary historian, one of the earliest harbingers of rehabilitation was the appearance of books in the fetid burrows while the bombs rained overhead.

George Stephen told Anne Knight that women, banded together in Ladies' Societies, deserved most credit for the recent Abolition Act.

The Anglican Community of St Mary The Virgin and St Modwenna was formally consecrated in Dundee.

Dulcie Gray launched her publishing career: Samuel French issued her playLove Affair (which had been staged the previous year) and the first of her murder mysteries, Murder on the Stairs, also appeared.

The Royal Niger Company was given a royal charter and authorized to administer the Niger territory

Scottish painter Katharine Cameron , whose work was influenced by the Glasgow School, contributed illustrations to The Yellow Book.

Librarian William Kirk Dickson issued to the Rev. Donald J. Ross the first reader's ticket for the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The Irish government decriminalized homosexuality.

A court ruled against a widowed father (a Unitarian minister) in his suit to get his daughters back from his wife's family, who had brought them up as Baptists.

Keats published Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and other Poems.

The Distaff Gospels, a collection of the beliefs, proverbs, stories, medical and cookery recipes, and advice of medieval peasant women, is assigned to this date by its editors, Kathleen Garay and Madeleine Jeay .

The Pregnancy Advisory Service (PAS), led by the geneticist Dr Martin Cole , began in Birmingham to work within the terms of the Abortion Act of 1967.

The General Nursing Council for England and Wales was established to maintain a registry of nurses, who could declare themselves Registered Nurses.

A coloured American woman named Henrietta Lacks died of virulent cancer, riddled with tumours. She was aged just thirty-one.

The Irish Bernadette Devlin , aged twenty-one, became one of the British Parliament 's youngest-ever elected members.

The Radical cause in Britain was advanced when the House of Commons passed a motion by John Dunning (later Baron Ashburton) , that the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to...

The London County Council banned stage tableaus or living pictures (erotic in content), and in their place the Palace Theatre engaged Maud Allan as a solo dancer.

A grand dome designed by Panizzi was opened in what had been the central courtyard of the British Museum .

In response to an appeal from the African National Congress (and following Harold Macmillan 's famous winds of change speech of 3 February), a Boycott Committee against South African produce was established in Britain...