This is a list of significant events - artistic and otherwise - that happened during the period covered by Phryne. You can browse this list here and now. Alternatively, if you click on any date in Phryne, such as the date cited for the completion of a picture, you will be brought straight to the entry for that year.

1816	Elgin Marbles bought for the Nation for £35,000 (having cost Elgin £75,000). Morte d'Arthur reprinted for the first time since 1634.
1817	Sir David Brewster patents the kaleidoscope.
1818	The final canto of Byron's epic poem 'Childe Harold' is published. The phrase "l'art pour l'art" is coined by the French philosopher Victor Cousin. 'Endymion', Keats' narrative poem of high romanticism and mistaken identity, is published to critical derision.
1819	Byron's 'Mazeppa', and the first instalment of 'Don Juan', are published.
1820	Keats' poem 'St Agnes Eve' is published. 'Venus de Milo' statue found on Greek island of Melos.
1821	Greeks rise against the Ottomans.
1822	Daguerre and Bouton stage the first diorama in Paris.
1823	Arrowsmiths' diorama opens in London. The first English edition of the Grimm brothers' collection of fairy tales is published.
1824	Death of Byron. National Gallery opens.
1825	Delacroix visits England. First railway opens, from Stockton to Darlington.
1826
1827	First (friction) matches introduced.
1828
1829	Metropolitan Police founded.
1830	The first complete edition of Rural Rides, Cobbett's survey of the woes of the English countryside.
1831	Start of cholera epidemic.
1832	First Reform Act abolishes rotten boroughs Morse invents the telegraph. New Water-Colour Society founded. The philosopher Jeremy Bentham dies and his remains are preserved at University College London.
1833	End of cholera epidemic. Newman's first tract launches Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement. Tennyson's 'Lady of Shalott' starts a wave of Arthurian paintings.
1834	Bulwer-Lytton's novel The Last Days of Pompeii is published. Old Houses of Parliament burn down.
1835
1836	Secular marriage introduced.
1837	Coronation of Queen Victoria.
1838	Jacobi introduces the electrotype, permitting extended print runs for illustrated publications. London to Birmingham railway opens: first ever train to London. National Gallery completed.
1839	Daguerre and Fox-Talbot's photographic processes published. Eglinton Tournament: the well-heeled wallow in a recreation of the Age of Chivalry.
1840	New Houses of Parliament (by Barry and Pugin) completed. Rowland Hill introduces the penny post. Victoria marries Albert.
1841	Elizabeth Barret's poem 'Pippa passes' is published. Punch is founded.
1842	Detective Department of Metropolitan Police founded. First Westminster fresco competition. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome published, promoting the virtues of empire. Mines Act bans women and children under 10 from working underground. Mines Act stops employment underground of women and children under 10. Statue of Nelson placed on its column, having been exhibited at Charing Cross
1843	First Christmas card designed by Horsley. First cooperative wholesale society formed in Rochdale. National Temperance Society is founded. Thomas Carlyle's critique of developing capitalism 'Past and Present' is published. Thomas Hood's poem 'The song of the shirt' is published in the Christmas number of 'Punch'. Wordsworth becomes Poet Laureate on the death of Southey. News of the World mass-market newspaper begins publication.
1844	First message sent by Morse code. First photographically illustrated book published The Regulations of Railways Act introduces compulsory cheap trains - one penny per mile.
1845	End of excise duty on glass. Newman converts to Catholicism. Potato famine in Ireland.
1846	Hans Andersen's fairy tales published in English, in no fewer than three competing editions. Repeal of the Corn Laws -- too late for Ireland.
1847	The Bronte sisters' novels Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights published.
1848	First Public Health Act sets up a Central Board to deal with water supply, sewerage and refuse. Marx and Engels publish the 'Communist Manifesto'. Start of cholera epidemic. Women admitted to London University. W.H. Smith open the first railway station bookstall. Year of revolution in continental Europe. PRB founded by Hunt, Millais and Rossetti.
1849	Austen Layard's Nineveh and its Remains published: Layard's finds form the basis of the Assyrian collection at the British Museum. End of cholera epidemic. First photographic portrait studio opened in London
1850	Bowler hat comes into fashion. Opening of the Great Exhibition. Public Libraries Act creates free lending libraries. Tennyson becomes Poet Laureate on the death of Wordsworth. Tennyson's poem 'In memoriam' celebrates Victorian religious doubts. PRB pictures panned at the RA.
1851	Collodion (wet plate) photographic process introduced. First pillar box appears, invented by Trollope, the novelist. Improved developer allows 'instantaneous' photographs (1/10 sec exposure). Window tax repealed. Great Exhibition held in the Crystal Palace
1852	First public lavatory in London. Safety matches introduced.
1853	Duty on advertisements abolished. Richard Burton visits Mecca in disguise.
1854	Crimean War starts. Fox-Talbot gives up his patent rights to the calotype.
1855	Paris Exposition. Riots in Hyde Park to protest against the abolition of Sunday trading. Thomas Cooke starts continental tours. The Warden, first of Trollope's 'Barsetshire Chronicles' is published.
1856	Crimean War ends. Neanderthal man discovered.
1857	Albert created Prince Consort. Baudelaire's great verse collection, Fleurs du Mal, is published: several poems are found damaging to public morals and the author is fined. Divorce Courts established. Indian Mutiny. Obscene Publications Act passed, although the definition of 'obscene' had to wait for a prosecution of 1868. Painting of the Oxford Union Murals. 'Manchester Art Treasures' exhibition.
1858	Jews permitted to become MPs. Richard Burton's expedition discovers the source of the Nile. Summer of the 'Great Stink', kick-starting Bazalgette's modernization of London's sewers. Hogarth Club founded.
1859	Darwin's Origin of Species is published (and sells out). First four poems of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King' published, setting the Arthurian tone for the rest of the century. For the first time, there are no miniatures in the RA Summer Exhibition.
1860	Female students admitted to the RA Schools. George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss, sympathetic story of a girl undone, is published.
1861	Clerk Maxwell takes first colour photograph Death of Prince Albert. First transatlantic telephone cable laid. Post Office Savings Bank is opened. Start of the American Civil War. Morris forms Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. Hogarth Club collapses.
1862	Impromptu 'Salon des refusees' held at Berners Street for works rejected from the RA Summer Exhibition. John Gibson's 'Tinted Venus' shown at the London International Exhibition. Christina Rossetti's poem 'Goblin market' is published. Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co launched with two stands at the London Exhibition.
1863	Charles Kingsley's novel The Water Babies is published. First underground railway in London. Rejects from the RA Summer Exhibition shown at the Cosmpolitan Club. Salon des Refusées ruffles Paris art world.
1864	Albert Memorial is erected.
1865	Completion of the Great Interceptory Sewers. Dudley Gallery founded, uniquely offering space to all watercolourists. End of the American Civil War. William Booth founds the Christian Mission in London's East End, which (in 1878) will become the Salvation Army. Alice in Wonderland is published - at its author's own expense.
1866	Swinburne's first poems are published - and later withdrawn.
1867	Bagehot's seminal work of political philosophy, The English Constitution, is published. First Winter Exhibition of oils at the Dudley Gallery. First volume of Karl Marx' Das Kapital published. Second Reform Act gives the vote to all male househoulders living in towns. Trollope's The Last Chronicle of Barset is published.
1868	First prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act: "tendency to deprave or corrupt" established as the test of obscenity. Foundation of the Trades Union Congress. Last public hanging, at Newgate. Telegraph act nationalizes telecommunications.
1869	Completion of the Suez Canal. Debtors' prisons abolished. Launch of the Graphic. Opening of the Suez canal, making India more accessible. Folies Bergère open in Paris.
1870	First Barnardo children's home opens. Franco-Prussian War begins; the French are heavily defeated, and Paris is besieged. Several artists among those who flee to England. Married Women's Property Act finally passed. Burne-Jones resigns from the Old Water-Colour Society, virtually ending public display of his works for fifteen years.
1871	Albert Hall (with frieze, but not by Moore) opens. Schliemann starts to excavate what he believes is Troy. Stanley finds Livingstone at Lake Tanganyika. Treaty of Frankfurt ends the Franco-Prussian War, but it is opposed by the Paris Commune.
1872
1873	Introduction of paper made from wood pulp.
1874	First impressionist exhibition at Nadar's photographic studio in Paris. Schliemann starts to excavate Mycenae, but the connection with Homer remains tenuous.
1875
1876	First complete performance of Wagner's 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' at Bayreuth.
1877	Anna Sewell's one book, a horse's-eye view of the Victorian world, Black Beauty, is published just before the author's death. Edison produces the first telephone and the first phonograph. First lawn tennis championships held at Wimbledon. First photographic dry plates on sale. Indian Durbar: group portrait of worthies painted by Prinsep. Grosvenor Gallery opens.
1878	Ruskin-Whistler libel trial. Leighton becomes President of the RA. Dowdeswell's Gallery opens.
1879	Edison's work on electric light is finally successful. London gets its first telephone exchange. Muybridge's stop-frame photographs first appear. Oscar Wilde arrives in London and promotes Aestheticism.
1880	Beginnings of Art Nouveau. Definition of Time Act legalizes GMT, legitimizing "railway time". Education Act allows schools to be funded from the public rates.
1881	Electric lighting installed in the Savoy Theatre. First Kodak camera appears - it can take 100 shots but must be returned to the factory for processing. Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Patience' lampoons Aestheticism. Watts' one man show opens at the Grosvenor Gallery.
1882	Marey publishes stop-frame photographs of girls in motion.
1883	First photogravure printed in Britain Half-tone printing plates introduced. Impressionists exhibit at Dowdeswell's Gallery. Richard Burton's translation of the Kama Sutra is published.
1884	Fabian Society formed to pursue a softly-softly approach to implementing socialism. Third Reform Act gives the vote to all male householders.
1885	Death of General Gordon at Khartoum. First cremations in Britain. First performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'The Mikado'. First practical motor car with an internal combustion engine built by Karl Benz. Outcry over child prostitution: age of consent raised from 13 to 16 'Limelight' introduced, allowing a gas jet to produce a bright white light.
1886	Linotype hot-metal typesetting process introduced. New English Art Club founded. Rider Haggard's potboiler She contributes to the cult of the femme fatale.
1887	First Sherlock Holmes story published in 'Beeton's Christmas Annual'. Muybridge's summary work Animal Locomotion is published: many artists subscribed. Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations.
1888	Celluloid photographic film introduced. First Arts and Crafts Exhibition. Foundation of the Labour Party. Introduction of Kodak camera opens photography to the masses. Match girls' strike. Richard Burton's translation of the Thousand and One Nights is completed.
1889	Impressionists shown at the Goupil Gallery.
1890	Launch of the Daily Graphic, the first illustrated newspaper. The first volume of James Frazer's vast work of popular anthropology, The Golden Bough, is published. Grosvenor Gallery closes.
1891	WildeOscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Grey is published 'Strand' magazine launched.
1892	Max Nordau's book Entartung ('Degeneration') is published. The Grossmiths' Diary of a Nobody, satirical milestone in the rise of the middle classes, is published.
1893	World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' landing in America
1894	Du Maurier's novel Trilby is serialized. Edison's kinetiscope uses first linear movie film. Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The Dreyfus case reveals the extent of anti-semitism in France. 'The Yellow Book', icon of decadent Aestheticism, is founded, with Beardsley as Art Editor.
1895	First motion picture projectors exhibited in Paris and New York. Trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde.
1896	Lumière begins first regular film shows in London. Millais becomes President of the RA on the death of Leighton; then Millais dies and Poynter becomes President.
1897	National Photographic Record established The 'Yellow Book' ceases publication. Dracula, written by Irving's secretary, Bram Stoker, is published. Tate Gallery opened.
1898	Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition at the Goupil Gallery.
1899	Start of Boer War, a result of the discovery of gold in the Transvaal.
1900	Arthur Evans starts to excavate Knossos. Death of Ruskin. Exposition Universelle in Paris attracts 50 million visitors.
1901	Queen Victoria is succeeded by Edward VII. Whitechapel Art Gallery opens. Roger Fry becomes art critic of the Athenaeum.
1902	Boer War ends with a compromise treaty.
1903	First flight by Wright brothers.
1904	First performance of J.M. Barrie's 'Peter Pan'.
1905	First UK beauty contest held in Newcastle.
1906
1907	Art Nouveau becomes passé.
1908	Adolf Loos' article 'Ornament und Verbrechen' ('Ornament and crime') appears.
1909	Victoria and Albert Museum opened.
1910	Edward VII is succeeded by George V. First UK Post-Impressionist show at the Grafton Gallery organized by Roger Fry.
1911
1912	The Titanic sinks on her maiden voyage. Dowdeswell's Gallery closes.
1913	Armory Show takes "all of modern art" to the US.
1914	Start of the First World War.
1915	The 12th and final volume of Frazer's The Golden Bough is published.
1916
1917
1918	End of the First World War.
1919	Death of William Rossetti.
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924	Series of posters commissioned from RAs by the LMS railway starts to appear. Dicksee becomes President of the RA.