Among many other events, October saw Lord Lucan leading The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava (pictured above) during the Crimean War – famously recorded in Tennyson’s poem.
| 1 Oct. | 1207 | Birth of England’s King Henry III. | |
| 2 Oct. | 1452 | England’s last Plantagenet King Richard III is born. | |
| 3 Oct. | 1283 | Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Prince of Wales, became the first nobleman in Britain to be hanged, drawn and quartered. | |
| 4 Oct. | 1911 | Britain’s first escalator opens at London’s Earls Court. | |
| 5 Oct. | 1930 | The British airship R101 crashes near Beauvais, France killing 48 people. | |
| 6 Oct. | 1892 | Death of the English Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who immortalised ‘The Six Hundred’ in his poem, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’. | |
| 7 Oct. | 1920 | Women become eligible for admission as full members of Oxford University and are given the right to take degrees. | |
| 8 Oct. | 1967 | Clement (Richard) Atlee dies. British Labour politician. As Prime Minister 1945-51 introduced radical reform of the social welfare system and introduced the N.H.S. | |
| 9 Oct. | 1967 | Transport Minister, Barbara Castle, introduces the breathalyser. The breathalyser offered a way of testing a person’s BAC (blood alcohol concentration) level at the roadside. | |
| 10 Oct. | 1903 | Founded today by the English suffragette Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst at her home in Manchester… The Women’s Social and Political Union, campaigning for women’s suffrage in Great Britain. | |
| 11 Oct. | 1899 | Start of the Anglo-Boer War. | |
| 12 Oct. | 1984 | An IRA terrorist bomb kills 4 people at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, Sussex. | |
| 13 Oct | 1852 | Birth of Lillie Langtry, actress and mistress of King Edward VII. | |
| 14 Oct. | 1066 | Harold II, England’s last Anglo-Saxon King was killed at the Battle of Hastings in Sussex – possibly by an arrow in the eye as shown in the Bayeux Tapestry. | |
| 15 Oct. | 1666 | Samuel Pepys, diarist, records the wearing of the first waistcoat by King Charles II. | |
| 16 Oct. | 1902 | England’s first prison for Young Offenders is opened at Borstal in Kent. | |
| 17 Oct. | 1860 | The first professional Golf Tournament is played at Prestwick, in Western Scotland. Mr. Willie Park heads the leader board. | |
| 18 Oct. | 1865 | British Tory politician Lord (Pumice-stone) Palmerston dies in office. His abrasive and arrogant style earned him his nickname. | |
| 19 Oct. | 1781 | British general Lord Charles Cornwallis surrenders to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, ending the American War of Independence (Revolution). | |
| 20 Oct. | 1632 | Birth of English architect Christopher Wren. Responsible for the rebuilding of St. Paul’s Cathedral following the Great Fire of London. | |
| 21 Oct. | 1805 | Admiral Nelson is mortally wounded at the Battle of Trafalgar, near Gibraltar. | |
| 22 Oct. | 1957 | The children’s cartoon hero Captain Pugwash makes his television debut. | |
| 23 Oct. | 1642 | The first major battle of the English Civil War takes place at Edgehill in south Warwickshire. Charles I and Prince Rupert lead the Royalists and the Earl of Essex leads the Parliamentarians. | |
| 24 Oct. | 1537 | Henry VIII‘s third wife, Jane Seymour dies following the birth of the future king Edward VI. | |
| 25 Oct. | 1854 | Lord Lucan leads The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava during the Crimean War – famously recorded in Tennyson’s poem. | |
| 26 Oct. | 1863 | Formation of the English Football Association who documents the first rules of soccer. | |
| 27 Oct. | 1914 | Birth of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. | |
| 28 Oct. | 1831 | English physicist Michael Faraday demonstrates the dynamo founding the science of electro-magneticism. | |
| 29 Oct. | 1618 | English courtier, writer and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded on the orders of King James I. | |
| 30 Oct. | 1925 | The first television transmission of a moving image is made by Scottish inventor John Logie Baird. | |
| 31 Oct. | 1517 | Martin Luther nails his ’95 Theses’ to the church door at Wittenberg, Germany triggering the Protestant Reformation. | |
