- Jan 8 Viscount Pierre Cambronne, French General during the wars of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Era, dies at 71
- Jan 16 Thomas Fearnley, Norwegian landscape painter, dies of typhoid fever at 39
- Feb 18 Thomas Hazlehurst, English soap and alkali manufacturer (b. 1779)
- Mar 4 James Forten, African-American abolitionist and businessman who used his wealth to push for civil rights and the abolition of slavery, dies at 75
- Mar 6 Constanze Mozart, wife of W.A. Mozart (b. 1763)
- Mar 13 Henry Shrapnel, English Army officer and inventor (created the shrapnel shell), dies at 80
- Mar 23 Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle], French author (Le Rouge et de Noir, a Chartreuse de Parme), dies at 59
- Mar 30 Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, French painter (b. 1755)
- Apr 7 Henrik Anker Bjerregaard, Norwegian writer and poet (Fjeldeventyret), dies at 50
- Apr 11 John England, bishop of Charleston Carolina, dies
- Apr 11 Alexander Csoma de Kőrös, Hungarian Tibetan scholar (first Tibetan-English Dictionary), dies at 58
- May 8 Jules Dumont d'Urville, French explorer and naval officer, dies at 51
- May 15 Emanuel A D M J count de las Cases, French historian (Napoleon), dies at 76
- May 23 Jose de Espronceda y Delgado, Spanish revolutionary/poet, dies at 34
- Jun 12 Thomas Arnold, English educator and historian (History of Rome), dies at 46
- Jul 24 John Sell Cotman, landscape painter, dies
- Jul 25 Dominique Jean Larrey, French surgeon (b. 1766)
- Jul 28 Clemens Brentano, German poet and author (The Story of the Just Casper and Fair Annie), dies at 63
- Aug 10 Captain William Hobson, first British Governor of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi, dies of a stroke at 49
- Aug 18 Louis de Freycinet, French explorer and navigator (published the first map to show a full outline of the coastline of Australia in 1811), dies at 62
- Sep 10 Letitia Tyler, US President Tyler's (1841-45) wife, dies at 51
- Sep 15 Francisco Morazán, 2nd President of The Federal Republic of Central America, dies at 50
- Oct 2 William Ellery Channing, cleric/writer, dies
- Oct 19 Aleksey Koltsov, Russian poet (b. 1808)
- Oct 20 Grace Darling, English heroine who saved shipwreck survivors, dies of tuberculosis at 26
- Oct 24 Bernardo O'Higgins, Chilean independence leader who freed Chile from Spanish rule, dies at 64
- Oct 30 Allan Cunningham, Scottish poet and author, dies at 57
- Nov 14 Henry de Cock, Dutch reformed vicar and secession leader, dies at 41
- Dec 1 Philip Spencer, American sailor, 1st US naval officer condemned for mutiny, hanged aboard the USS Somers at 19
- Dec 7 Thomas Hamilton, Scottish writer (b. 1789)