Events from the year 1840 in the United Kingdom. Incumbents Monarch – Victoria Prime Minister – William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (Whig) Foreign Secretary – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston Parliament – 13th Events 1 January – trial of Welsh Chartists John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones for their part in the Newport Rising of 1839 opens at Monmouth before Chief Justice Tindal. This is the first trial where proceedings are recorded in shorthand. 10 January – Uniform Penny Post introduced, replacing the Uniform Fourpenny Post of 1839. 12 January – Chartist rising in Sheffield aborted. 14 January – Chartist rising in the East End of London largely suppressed by police. 16 January – Frost, Williams and Jones are all found guilty of high treason for their part in the Chartist riots, and are sentenced to death; the last time the sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering is passed in the U.K., although following a nationwide petitioning campaign and direct lobbying of the Home Secretary by the Lord Chief Justice, it is commuted to transportation for life (Frost is eventually pardoned). 22 January – British colonists reach New Zealand. Official founding date of Wellington. 26 January – Chartist rising in Bradford fails to spread. 6 February – Treaty of Waitangi, a document granting British sovereignty in New Zealand, is signed. 10 February – Queen Victoria marries her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in the Royal Chapel at St James's Palace. 15 April – King's College Hospital opens in Portugal Street, London. 27 April – the foundation stone of the new Palace of Westminster is laid as its reconstruction following the Burning of Parliament in 1834 begins (completed in 1860). 1 May – issue of the Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp, together with Mulready stationery. The stamp becomes valid for prepayment of postage from 6 May. 5 May - Thomas Carlyle gives the first lecture in the series On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History 11 May – Chartist leader Feargus O'Connor is sentenced to imprisonment in York Castle for seditious libel over speeches published in The Northern Star. 20 May – York Minster's nave roof is destroyed in an accidental fire. 6 June – the first group of British emigrants from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints set sail from Liverpool bound for Nauvoo, Illinois. 10 June – Edward Oxford