- Jan 3 Saint Damien, [Joseph de Veuster], Belgian priest and missionary who helped lepers in Hawaii, born in Tremelo, Belgium (d. 1889)
- Jan 5 John Doby Kennedy, Brigadier General (Confederate Army), born in Camden, South Carolina (d. 1896)
- Jan 10 Louis Nazaire Bégin, French Canadian archbishop and cardinal, born in Lévis, Canada (d. 1925)
- Jan 18 Austin Dobson, English poet, critic and biographer, born in Plymouth, England (d. 1921)
- Jan 18 Ernst Rudorff, German pianist, composer, and teacher, born in Berlin, Germany (d. 1916)
- Jan 21 Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake, English physician and feminist who was one of the first female medical students at a British university, born in Hastings, England (d. 1912)
- Jan 22 Ernest Roland Wilberforce, English bishop (d. 1907)
- Jan 23 Ernst Abbe, German physicist & optical scientist (Carl Zeiss Optics Company), born in Eisenach, Germany (d. 1905)