Events from the year 1838 in the United Kingdom.

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (Whig)
• Foreign Secretary – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston

• 10 January – a fire destroys Lloyd's Coffee House and the Royal Exchange in London.^[1]
• 20 January – with a daily average of −11.9 °C (10.6 °F), this day sees the coldest daily Central England temperature value on record.^[2]
• 4–22 April – the paddle steamer SS Sirius (1837) makes the Transatlantic Crossing to New York from Cork in eighteen days, though not using steam continuously.^[3]
• 8–23 April – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's paddle steamer SS Great Western (completed on 31 March) makes the Transatlantic Crossing to New York from Avonmouth in fifteen days, inaugurating a regular steamship service.^[4]
• 8 April – the National Gallery first opens to the public in the building purpose-designed for it by William Wilkins in Trafalgar Square, London.
• 9 May – Royal Agricultural Society of England founded.
• 21 May – Chartism: The People's Charter is launched by members of the London Working Men's Association at a mass meeting on Glasgow Green calling for universal suffrage for male voters.^[4][5]
• 31 May – Battle of Bossenden Wood: In Kent, self-declared Messiah John N. Thom, calling himself "Sir William Courtenay", and a band of around 35 agricultural labourers are surrounded by soldiers of the 45th Regiment of Foot sent to arrest them following the earlier murder of a policeman. Thom and ten followers, together with an officer and a constable, are killed in what is sometimes described as the last battle on English soil.^[6]
• 4 June – first section of the Great Western Railway, engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, opens from London Paddington station to Maidenhead.^[7]
• 18 June – the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway opens, the first line across England.^[8]
• 28 June – The Coronation of Queen Victoria takes place at Westminster Abbey.^[9] Lord Melbourne denies her the traditional medieval banquet due to budget constraints and critics refer to it as "The Penny Crowning".^[10] The Imperial State Crown is remade for her.
• July – Chichester Theological College is founded by Bishop William Otter in West Sussex as the first such college of the Anglican Communion in England.
• 4 August – the Court Journal prints a rumour that Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton is going to host a great jousting tournament at his castle in Scotland. A few weeks later he confirms this.^[11]
• 6 August – the Polytechnic Institution, Britain's first polytechnic, opens in Regent Street, London.^[12]
• 16 August – the Tin Duties Act ends taxation of the mines of Devon and Cornwall.
• September – the Tolpuddle Martyrs return to England.^[13]
• 7 September – Grace Darling rescues nine survivors from the wreck of the paddle steamer SS Forfarshire (1834) off the Farne Islands.^[9]
• 17 September – opening of the London and Birmingham Railway throughout, the first trunk line in England.^[13][14]
• 18 September – Anti-Corn Law League founded by Richard Cobden and John Bright in Manchester.^[9]
• 24 September – "Monster meeting" on Kersal Moor, Salford, in support of Chartism.
• 1 October – First Anglo-Afghan War begins when Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India, issues a manifesto from Simla giving Britain's reasons for intervening in Afghanistan.^[13]

• Charles Dickens' novels Oliver Twist (in book form) and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (serialisation begins).
• Lady Charlotte Guest begins publication of her translation into English of the Welsh traditional tales known as the Mabinogion.
• Robert Smith Surtees' collected sporting stories Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities.

• 6 February – Henry Irving, actor (died 1905)
• 9 February – Evelyn Wood, field marshal, Victoria Cross recipient (died 1919)
• 12 March – William Henry Perkin, chemist (died 1907)
• 13 April – J. D. Sedding, ecclesiastical architect (died 1891)
• 14 April – John Thomas, Welsh photographer (died 1905)
• 20 July – Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, statesman and historian (died 1928)
• 30 September – Emily Soldene, comic opera singer-manager and gossip columnist (died 1912)
• 25 October – Annie Hall Cudlip, novelist, journalist and editor (died 1918)
• 3 December – Octavia Hill, social reformer (died 1912)
• 20 December – Edwin Abbott Abbott, theologian and author (died 1926)

• 13 January – John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (born 1751)
• 5 February – Thomas Creevey, politician (born 1768)
• 17 February – John Bonham-Carter, politician and barrister (born 1788)
• 4 March
  • William Fennex, cricketer (born 1763)
  • Sir James Carmichael Smyth, colonial administrator (born 1779)
• 19 March – Sir Edward Barnes, British Army officer and governor of Ceylon (born 1776)
• 21 March – George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie, colonial Governor (born 1770)
• 24 March – Thomas Attwood, composer (born 1765)
• 11 May – Thomas Andrew Knight, horticulturalist (born 1759)
• 19 May – Richard Colt Hoare, antiquarian, artist, traveller and archaeologist (born 1758)
• 20 May – William Stephenson, Geordie printer, publisher, auctioneer, poet and songwriter (born 1797)
• 19 July – Christmas Evans, Welsh Nonconformist minister (born 1766)
• 25 August – William Annesley, 3rd Earl Annesley, noble and Member of Parliament (born 1772)
• 18 September – Robert Smith, 1st Baron Carrington, Member of Parliament (born 1752)
• 15 October – Letitia Elizabeth Landon, poet and novelist (born 1802)
• 7 November – Anne Grant, Scottish poet and author (born 1755)
• 16 November – Robert Cutlar Fergusson, lawyer and politician (born 1768)
• 10 December – Augustus Earle, painter (born 1793)
• 22 December – John Villiers, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, Member of Parliament (born 1757)