The newly married Prince and Princess of Wales opened the new building of the British Orphan's Home in Slough, outside London.  The orphanage had been founded in 1827 and based in Clapham till a recent gift allowed it to buy the Royal Hotel in Slough and renovate it for up to 170 children. This event was one of many for the couple since their March 1863 marriage.  The Asylum closed its doors for financial reasons in 1920. (By John Osborne) 

The Marquis of Hastings, along with several of his gameskeepers, was called before the magistrates court at Loughborough in central England to answer charges of "causing a cock to be cruelly tortured." Prosecuted by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the defendant was accused of holding six cockfights at his palatial Donington Hall two weeks before in which all six losers were killed by the steel spurs of their opponents.  He was found guilty and fined the full penalty of five pounds sterling.   (By John Osborne) 

Ending Parliament for the summer, the Queen's message (written by the Prime Minister) contained the following, carefully worded paragraph: "The Civil War between the Northern and Southern States of the North American Union, still unfortunately continues and is necessarily attended with much evil, not only to the contending parties, but to nations which have taken no part in the contest. Her Majesty has seen no reason, however, to depart from the strict neutrality which Her Majesty has observed from the beginning of the contest."  (By John Osborne) 

A very large delegation of members of the Royal Family, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, along with four other bishops and prominent citizens visited Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone at his official residence to protest in the strongest terms his proposal to include British charities under the income tax. Gladstone held his ground but after a heated debate in Parliament that evening, in which he defended the revenue of around £500,000 per year it would bring, he was forced to withdraw the measure from his Budget.  (By John Osborne) 

Sir William Armstrong, opening the British Association for the Advancement of Science convention in the heart of British coal country at Newcastle, noted that the nation's extractable coal reserves were an estimated eighty billion tons. This would suffice Britain for 930 years at current usage levels but future increases could reduce that to as little as 212 years.  Armstrong also decried the waste of coal and asked for more efficient use. (By John Osborne) 

The Registrar-General's Report for the quarter just ended noted a marked increase in measles and scarlet fever in the textile manufacturing counties of northern England. The document noted, though, that comparisons with southern counties did not show that the unemployment caused by cotton shortages due to the American Civil War had made the epidemic any worse than elsewhere. (By John Osborne) 

After holding his entrenched positions all the previous day, General Hooker considered the Chancellorsville battlefield now untenable and ordered a withdrawal back across the Rappahannock and Rapidan Rivers. Sedgwick and already crossed in the pre-dawn hours and Hooker's main force followed in late evening and early morning hours of May 6, 1863.  The four days of the engagement had cost 30,000 Union and Confederate soldiers death, wounds, or capture.  (By John Osborne)