1844 in the United Kingdom
Events from the year 1844 in the United Kingdom. Incumbents Monarch – Victoria Prime Minister – Robert Peel (Conservative) Foreign Secretary – George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen Parliament – 14th Events 28 February – the Grand National at Aintree is won by the 5/1 joint favourite Discount. 11 April – initiation of the Ragged Schools Union. 11 May – major fire at Lyme Regis. May – Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge, appointed as Governor-General of India. 6 June – George Williams founds the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London. 15 June – Factory Act imposes a maximum 12-hour working day for women, and a maximum 6-hour day for children aged 6 to 13. 19 July – Bank Charter Act restricts powers of British banks other than the Bank of England to issue banknotes of the pound sterling. 21 & 27 August – consecration of two new major urban Roman Catholic churches, both designed by Augustus Pugin, which will in the 1850s be elevated to cathedral status: St Mary's Church, Newcastle upon Tyne and St Barnabas Church, Nottingham. (In October, Pugin occupies The Grange, Ramsgate, a house designed for himself which is influential in the development of domestic Gothic