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The Lewis Carroll Scrapbook Collection: Timeline 1855-1872


World Events and Dodgson's Life Events
for the Years Dodgson Added Materials to the Scrapbook
View Charles Lutwidge Dodgson: A Chronology of His Life
World Events Timeline 1855-1872
Dodgson’s Life Events Timeline 1855-1872

1855
Palmerston elected premier of Great Britain (February).
Alexander II becomes tsar of Russia (March).
Charlotte Brontë dies (March).
Great Exhibition opens in Paris (May).

1855
Appointed tutor in mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford (January).
Henry George Liddell appointed new Dean of Christ Church, Oxford (June).
Liddell appoints Dodgson honorary Master of the House at Christ Church, Oxford--providing privileges within the college, entitling membership in Common Room, and paving way for position as mathematical lecturer (June).
Reads Tennyson’s Maud (August).
Spends time with his Wilcox cousins at Whitburn (September).

1856
Treaty of Paris ends Crimean War (March).
Oscar Wilde born (October).
John Buchanan elected fifteenth president of United States (November).
Powdered milk invented.

1856
Begins career as mathematical lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford (January).
Invents pen name “Lewis Carroll” (February).
Meets three-year-old Alice Liddell in Deanery Garden for first time (April).
Buys camera and begins hobby of photography (May).
Sees child-actress Ellen Terry perform in Henry VIII (June).
Takes holiday in Lake District (August).
Hears Messiah performed at Exeter Hall (December).

1857
Lord Baden-Powell, founder of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, born (February).
Outbreak of Indian mutiny, also known as Sepoy Mutiny (March).
Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown’s School Days published.

1857
Receives M.A. degree (February).
Publishes “Palace of Humbug” in first issue of The Oxford Critic (April).
Sees Tom Taylor’s A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing at Olympic Theatre (April).
Sees thirteen-year-old Kate Terry in role of Ariel in The Tempest (July).
Photographs Agnes Grace Weld as “Little Red Riding-Hood” (August).
Takes holiday in Scotland (September).
Meets Alfred Lord Tennyson and his family in Lake District (September).
1858
Princess Royal, Victoria, marries Prince Frederick William of Prussia (January).
The Great Eastern, a ship of revolutionary design by renowned Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, launched (January).
Lord Derby elected premier of Great Britain (February).
Atlantic telegraph completed (August).		 1858
Reads George Eliot’s Scenes from Clerical Life (January).
Invents first of four different systems of cipher (February/March).
Exhibits four photographs at fifth annual exhibition, Photographic Society of London (April).
Takes photographs of Liddell sisters, including Alice as “Beggar-Maid” (Summer).

1859
Arthur Conan Doyle born (May).
Palmerston elected premier for second term (June).
Isambard Kingdom Brunel dies (September).
Darwin’s Origin of Species published.
George Eliot’s Adam Bede published.


1859
Visits the Tennysons on Isle of Wight (April).
Meets Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, to discuss ordination (July).
Visits studio of sculptor Alexander Munro and takes several photographs (summer).
Spends time with Bishop of Durham Charles T. Longley and his family (late summer).
Prince of Wales comes to Christ Church, Oxford, as undergraduate (October).
1860
J. M. Barrie, writer of Peter Pan, born (May).
Great Eastern arrives in New York (June).
Prince of Wales visits United States (August).
Abraham Lincoln elected sixteenth president of United States (November).
First patent issued for Yale lock.		 1860
Contributes “A Photographer’s Day Out” to The South Shields Amateur Magazine (early in the year).
Makes pilgrimage to Daresbury and Richmond--places associated with his early life (Easter).
Attends meeting of British Association at Oxford during which Wilberforce and Huxley debate Darwin’s Origin of Species. Photographs several delegates (June/July).
Takes holiday at Whitby, Yorkshire (late summer).
Meets Queen Victoria and members of Royal Family at Christ Church Deanery, Oxford (December).
Publishes A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry (month unknown).
1861
U.S. civil war begins (April).
Queen Victoria calls for British people to remain neutral in American civil war (May).
Albert, the Prince Consort, dies (December).
Dickens’s Great Expectations published.		 1861
Begins “letter register” numbering all correspondence sent and received chronologically (January).
Reviews Photographic Society of London’s exhibition in The Illustrated Times (January).
Visits James Hunt at Ore, near Hastings, to receive help with speech hesitation (April).
Publishes The Formula of Plane Trigonometry (June).
Attends Oxford University debate on endowment of Greek professorship (November).
Ordained deacon of Church of England by Wilberforce in Christ Church Cathedral (December).
1862
International Exhibition opens in London (May).		 1862
Visits Isle of Wight and meets the Tennysons and Camerons (April).
Becomes editor, College Rhymes (July).
Takes Liddell sisters on boat-trip during which he tells the tale of Alice’s Adventures (July).
Composes medley-song, “Miss Jones,” with help from his sisters (September).
1863
Abolition of slavery declared by President Abraham Lincoln (January).
Prince of Wales marries Princess Alexandra of Denmark (March).
William Makepeace Thackeray dies (December).
Charles Kingsley publishes The Water Babies. 		1863
Attends celebrations in Oxford to commemorate wedding of Prince and Princess of Wales (March).
Journeys to Tenby, West Wales, to visit relatives--Smedleys and Pooles (April).
Vaccinated against smallpox (May).
Prince and Princess of Wales visit the Deanery, Christ Church, Oxford (June).
Spends a few days photographing Rossetti family in London (October).
1864
Geneva Convention, first to provide more humane treatment for wounded, signed (August).		 1864
Introduced by Tom Taylor to John Tenniel; asks latter to illustrate Alice’s Adventures (January).
Tenniel consents (April).
Spends a few weeks at Lambeth Palace photographing visitors (July).
Visits Isle of Wight and photographs Farringford, the Tennyson’s home, and Mr. Weld (August).
Presents Alice Liddell with manuscript copy of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (November).
Meets, for first time, Kate and Ellen Terry in person at their home (December).
1865
Meets Sophie Anderson, painter, at her home (April).
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland published, but immediately withdrawn from sale (July).
Alice reprinted--becoming first published edition (November).
Letter of complaint from undergraduates at Christ Church, Oxford, published in The Times (November).
Sees Henry Dunbar at Olympic Theatre, London (December).
1866
Lord Derby becomes premier of Great Britain (July).

1866
Invents “Condensation of Determinants”--reads before Royal Society (May).
Goes to Haymarket Theatre to see Edward Askew Sothern perform in Lord Dundreary Married and Done For (June).
Travels to Whitburn and Whitby (September).
Publishes letters in Pall Mall Gazette and The Times on “Science of Betting” (November).
1867
Nebraska admitted to the Union as thirty-seventh state (February).
Dominion of Canada established (March).
Karl Marx publishes Das Kapital. 		1867
Publishes “The Organization of Charity” in Pall Mall Gazette (January).
Sees amateur production of A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing performed at Olympic Theatre to aid family of C. H. Bennett (May).
Travels to Russia with Henry P. Liddon, via France, Belgium, and Germany (July to September).
1868
Benjamin Disraeli becomes premier of Great Britain (February).
General Ulysses Grant elected eighteenth president of United States (November).
Disraeli resigns and William Gladstone becomes premier (December).		 1868
Reads Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend (January).
Dodgson’s father, Archdeacon Charles Dodgson, dies (June).
Brothers and sisters move to “The Chestnuts,” Guildford (September).
Publishes letter in Oxford University Herald about Woodstock Election (November).
1869
Disestablishment of Irish Church (July).
Suez Canal opens (November).		 1869
Book of poetry entitled Phantasmagoria published (January).
Sister, Mary Charlotte Dodgson, marries Charles E. S. Collingwood at Guildford (April).
1870
Charles Dickens dies (June).
Republic proclaimed in France (September).		 1870
Spends five days at home of Henry Holiday, artist and illustrator, taking photographs July).
Visits Margate, Kent, for five weeks (August and September).
1871
Royal Albert Hall opens in London (March).
Great Chicago fire (October).		 1871
Visits Lord Salisbury and family at Hatfield House (July).
Attends brother’s wedding at Sleights, near Whitby (August).
Travels to Scotland, visiting studio and home of Sir Noël Paton (September).
Publishes Through the Looking-Glass (December).
1872
Arthur Orton, the Tichborne Claimant, found an imposter (March).
Smallpox epidemic in London (July).

1872
Visits family and relatives at Southwick and Whitburn, near Sunderland (April).
Publishes The New Belfry (June).
Spends holiday at Bognor Regis with some of his sisters (August and September).
Guest of Salisbury family at Hatfield House for New Year (December).
View Charles Lutwidge Dodgson: A Chronology of His Life
Compiled by Edward Wakeling
March 2004
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