- Aug 1 Charles Turner, engraver, dies
- Aug 3 Eugène Sue, French novelist (b. 1804)
- Aug 10 John Wilson Croker, politician
- Aug 11 Marshall Hall, English physician, physiologist and early neurologist (physiology of reflex function), dies of a throat infection at 67
- Aug 12 William Conybeare, English geologist (fossils of plesiosaur dinosaur), dies at 70
- Aug 26 Adolf Schlagintweit, German botanist and explorer (Tarimbekken, executed in Kashgar after being mistaken for a spy at 28
- Aug 27 Rufus Wilmot Griswold, American poet, literary critic and editor, dies of tuberculosis at 42
Assassination
Drug Overdose
Gunshot Wound
Murder
Plane Crash
Suicide