| |
Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1703 | - 4 Aug 1703: British take Gibraltar
- 24 Nov 1703: Climate: Most violent storms of the millennium cause vast damage
across southern England
|
| 2 | 1704 | - 1704: Penal Code enacted
- 13 Aug 1704: Battle of Blenheim
|
| 3 | 1705 | - 1705: First workable steam pumping engine devised by Thomas Newcomen (some say c1710
or 1711)
- 1705: Isaac Newton knighted (for his work at the Royal Mint)
|
| 4 | 1706 | - 1706: First evening newspaper "The Evening Post" issued in London
|
| 5 | 1707 | - 16 Jan 1707: Union with Scotland
- 1 May 1707: English and Scottish Parliaments united by an Act of the English Parliament
|
| 6 | 1708 | - 1708: First Jacobite rising in Scotland
- 1708: Earliest Artillery Muster Rolls
|
| 7 | 1709 | - 1709: Second Eddystone lighthouse completed
- 1709: First Copyright Act pass
- 1709: Bad harvests throughout Europe
- 2 Feb 1709: Alexander Selkirk rescued from shipwreck on a desert island, inspiring the book
Robinson Crusoe (published in 1719) by Daniel Defoe
|
| 8 | 1710 | - 1710: Tax on Apprentice Indentures introduced
|
| 9 | 1711 | - 1711: Incorporation of South Sea Company, in London
- 11 Aug 1711: First race meeting at Ascot
|
| 10 | 1712 | - 1712: Imposition of Soap Tax (abolished 1853)
- 1712: Last trial for witchcraft in England (Jane Wenham)
- 1712: Toleration Act passed
|
| 11 | 1713 | - 1713: By this year there are some 3,000 coffee houses in London
|
| 12 | 1714 | - 1714: Longitude Act: prize of
- 1714: Schism Act, prevents Dissenters from being schoolmasters in England
- 1714: Landholders forced to take the Oath of Allegiance and renounce Roman Catholicism
- 1 Aug 1714: Queen Anne Stuart dies
|
| 13 | 1715 | - 1715: Second Jacobite rebellion in Scotland, under the Old Pretender ('The Fifteen')
- 1 Aug 1715: Riot Act passed
|
| 14 | 1716 | - 1716: The Septennial Act of Britain leads to greater electoral corruption
- 1716: Climate: Thames frozen so solid that a spring tide lifted the ice bodily 13ft without
interrupting the frost fair
|
| 15 | 1717 | - 1717: First Masonic Lodge opens in London
- 1717: Value of the golden guinea fixed at 21 shillings
|
| 16 | 1719 | - 1719: Third abortive Jacobite rising
|
| 17 | 1720 | - 1720: South Sea Bubble, a stock-market crash on Exchange Alley
- 1720: Manufacturing towns start to increase in population
- 1720: Wallpaper becomes fashionable in England
|
| 18 | 1721 | - 2 Apr 1721: Robert Walpole (Whig) becomes first Prime Minister (to 1742)
- 4 Apr 1721—11 Feb 1742: Sir Robert Walpole, 1st UK Prime Minister (Whig)
Sir Robert Walpole
|
| 19 | 1722 | - 1722: Last trial for witchcraft in Scotland
- 1722: Knatchbull's Act, poor laws
|
| 20 | 1723 | - 1723: Excise tax levied for coffee, tea, and chocolate
- 1723: The Waltham Black Acts add 50 capital offences to the penal code
- 1723: The Workhouse Act or Test
|
| 21 | 1724 | - 1724: Rapid growth of gin drinking in England
- 1724: Longman's founded (Britain's oldest publishing house)
|
| 22 | 1726 | - 1726: First circulating library opened in Edinburgh
- 1726: Invention of the chronometer by John Harrison
|
| 23 | 1727 | - 1727: Board of Manufacturers established in Scotland
- 11 Jun 1727: George I dies
|
| 24 | 1729 | - 9 Nov 1729: Treaty of Seville signed between Britain, France and Spain
|
| 25 | 1730 | |
| 26 | 1731 | - 1731: Invention of seed drill by Jethro Tull [others say 1701]
- 1731: Invention of sextant by John Hadley
|
| 27 | 1732 | - 7 Dec 1732: Covent Garden Opera House opens
|
| 28 | 1733 | - 1733: Excise crisis: Sir Robert Walpole wanted to add excise tax to tobacco and wine
- 1733: Law forbidding the use of Latin in parish registers generally obeyed
- 1733: John Kay invents the flying shuttle, revolutionised the weaving industry
|
| 29 | 1734 | - 1734: Kent's Directory published
|
| 30 | 1737 | - 1737: Licensing Act restricts the number of London theatres and subects plays to censorship
of the Lord Chamberlain (till 1950s)
|
| 31 | 1738 | - 24 May 1738: John Wesley has his conversion experience
|
| 32 | 1739 | - 1739: Wesley and Whitefield commence great Methodist revival
- 7 Apr 1739: Dick Turpin, highwayman, hanged at York
- 23 Oct 1739: War of Jenkins' Ear starts: Robert Walpole reluctantly declares war on Spain
|
| 33 | 1741 | - 1741: Benjamin Ingham founded the Moravian Methodists or Inghamites
|
| 34 | 1742 | |
| 35 | 1743 | - 16 Jun 1743: (June 27 in Gregorian calendar): Battle of Dettingen
- 27 Aug 1743—6 Mar 1754: Henry Pelham, UK Prime Minister (Whig)
Henry Pelham
|
1703 - 1743 (40 years)
