Dashed left edge = started before this timeline ·
Dashed right edge = still ongoing
Events in 1819 16
1819 – 1884Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884)Died 1 July 1884, aged 64Allan Pinkerton was a Scottish-American detective who founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, one of the first and most famous private security and investigative firms. He gained early fame for foiling an alleged plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln. He died in Chicago.
1819 – 1875Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)Died 23 January 1875, aged 55Kingsley was an English clergyman and author best known for the children's novel The Water-Babies and the historical novel Westward Ho!. He was also a prominent Christian socialist and social reformer.
1819 – 1896Clara Schumann (1819-1896)Died 20 May 1896, aged 76Clara Schumann was one of the leading concert pianists and composers of the 19th century, and a central figure in the musical circle around her husband Robert Schumann and their friend Johannes Brahms. She died in Frankfurt on 20 May 1896. Her editing and championing of Robert Schumann's works shaped his posthumous reputation.
1819 – 1867Elias Howe (1819-1867)Died 3 October 1867, aged 48Howe was an American inventor who patented one of the first practical sewing machines in 1846. His lockstitch design became the basis for machines manufactured by Singer and other companies, and he profited from years of patent litigation over the invention. Mechanized sewing transformed the clothing industry worldwide.
1819 – 1895Franz von Suppe (1819-1895)Died 21 May 1895, aged 76Franz von Suppe was an Austrian composer often called the father of the Viennese operetta. His overtures, including those to Poet and Peasant and Light Cavalry, remained popular concert staples long after his death. He died in Vienna.
1819 – 1880George Eliot (1819-1880)Died 22 December 1880, aged 61George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, an English novelist whose works include Middlemarch and Silas Marner. She died in London on 22 December 1880, a few months after marrying John Cross. Her fiction is noted for its psychological depth and realism.
1819 – 1903George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903)Died 1 February 1903, aged 83George Gabriel Stokes was an Irish mathematician and physicist known for his work on fluid dynamics, optics, and mathematical physics, including the Navier-Stokes equations. He served as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge for over 50 years. He died in Cambridge on 1 February 1903.
1819 – 1891Herman Melville (1819-1891)Died 28 September 1891, aged 72American novelist and poet best known for Moby-Dick, a work largely ignored in his lifetime. He died in relative obscurity as a customs inspector in New York. A 20th-century critical revival later established him as one of America's greatest writers.
1819 – 1880Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)Died 5 October 1880, aged 61Jacques Offenbach was a German-born French composer famed for operettas such as Orpheus in the Underworld. He died in Paris on 5 October 1880, months before the premiere of his final work, The Tales of Hoffmann. His music helped define the sound of comic operetta in the nineteenth century.
1819 – 1891James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)Died 12 August 1891, aged 72American poet, essayist, and diplomat who edited the Atlantic Monthly and North American Review. He served as US minister to Spain and later to Britain. His satirical verse and criticism made him a leading literary figure of his era.
1819 – 1900John Ruskin (1819-1900)Died 20 January 1900, aged 80Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, championing painters such as J. M. W. Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites. He also wrote influential works of social and economic criticism that shaped early British socialism. He died at his home in the Lake District.
1819 – 1910Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)Died 17 October 1910, aged 91American author and reformer best known for writing the lyrics to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" during the Civil War. She was also a prominent abolitionist, suffragist and the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She campaigned for peace and women's rights throughout her later life.
1819 – 1853Maria II of Portugal (1819-1853)Died 15 November 1853, aged 34Maria II was Queen of Portugal from 1826 to 1853, ruling through a turbulent period that included a civil war against her uncle Miguel over the throne. She died in Lisbon from complications of childbirth. Her son Pedro V succeeded her as king.
1819 – 1861Prince Albert (1819-1861)Died 14 December 1861, aged 42Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, consort of Queen Victoria, died of typhoid fever at Windsor Castle. His death sent Victoria into decades of mourning and seclusion. He had been an influential patron of science, industry, and the arts in Britain.
1819 – 1901Queen Victoria (1819-1901)Died 22 January 1901, aged 81Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight after reigning for 63 years, then the longest of any British monarch. Her death ended the Victorian era and was followed by state mourning across the British Empire. Her son succeeded her as Edward VII.
1819 – 1892Walt Whitman (1819-1892)Died 26 March 1892, aged 72Walt Whitman was an American poet and essayist whose collection Leaves of Grass broke with poetic convention and profoundly influenced modern verse. He is widely regarded as one of the most important poets in American literary history.