- Steinway & Sons begins to make a model A, a 7-octave, 6-foot long parlor grand – the beginning of the new Steinway & Sons strategy to offer less expensive, high quality instruments, in addition to their high-end pianos.
- In London, the former Quebec Institute, where Thomas Carlyle, William Thackeray, Charles Dickens and other literary celebrities used to lecture, reopens as Steinway Hall, with excellent acoustics and a seating capacity of 400. (That building no longer exists, but the new London Steinway Hall, at 44 Marylebone Lane is just around the corner from the former Steinway Hall site.)