1820 in the United Kingdom
Events from the year 1820 in the United Kingdom. This year sees a change of monarch after a nine-year Regency.
 1820 in the United Kingdom
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Incumbents
- Monarch – George III (until 29 January), George IV (starting 29 January)
- Regent – George, Prince Regent (until 29 January)
- Prime Minister – Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (Tory)
- Foreign Secretary – Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
- Parliament – 6th (until 29 February), 7th (starting 21 April)
Events
- 29 January – George IV of the United Kingdom ascends the Throne on the death at Windsor Castle of his father George III (after 59 years on the throne), ending the period known as the Regency era which began in 1811. George IV has served as prince regent during this time due to his father's mental deterioration.[1]
- 30 January – Royal Navy captain Edward Bransfield in the Williams is the first person positively to identify Antarctica as a land mass.[2]
- 23 February – a plot to murder the Cabinet, the Cato Street Conspiracy, was exposed.[3]
- March – general election increases Tory party majority.[4]
- 1–2 April – a Proclamation, signed "By order of the Committee of Organisation for forming a Provisional Government", is distributed in the Glasgow area, beginning the "Radical War" in Scotland. The following day, around 60,000 – particularly weavers – stop work across a wide area of central Scotland. Disaffection spreads to the West Riding of Yorkshire.
- 5 April – Radical War: Troops capture radicals at Bonnybridge.[5]
- 8 April – Radical War: Radical prisoners from Paisley are freed from jail in Greenock after militia have killed eight of the crowd.[5]
- 1 May – the Cato Street conspirators are the last to suffer decapitation following their hanging for treason outside Newgate Prison in London.
- 11 May – launch of HMS Beagle, the ship that will take the young Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage, at Woolwich Dockyard.
- 5 July – Pains and Penalties Bill put before Parliament to deprive Caroline of Brunswick, George IV's estranged wife, of the title of Queen Consort, leading to her de facto public trial before the House of Lords opening on 17 August. Although narrowly passed on 10 November in the House of Lords, the bill is withdrawn in the knowledge that it would almost certainly not pass the House of Commons.[6]
- 26 July – opening of Union Chain Bridge across the River Tweed between England and Scotland, designed by Captain Samuel Brown. Its span of 449 ft (137 metres) is the longest in the Western world at this time, and it is the first wrought iron vehicular suspension bridge of its type in Britain.[7]
- 30 August – Radical War: Radical leader James Wilson, a Strathaven weaver, is executed for treason on Glasgow Green for his part in the rising.[5]
- 8 September – Radical War: Radical leaders John Baird and Andrew Hardie are executed at Stirling for their part in the rising at Bonnybridge.[5]
Publications
- Friedrich Accum's exposé A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons.
- John Keats' collection Lamia and Other Poems.
- Walter Scott's novels The Abbot and The Monastery.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley's lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound.
- The 6th Edition of Encyclopædia Britannica.
- Hone and Cruickshank's satirical work The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder.
- Publication of the last of William Blake's prophetic books, Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, is completed.
Births
- 17 January – Anne Brontë, novelist and poet (died 1849)[8]
- 13 February – James Geiss, businessman (died 1878)
- 28 February – John Tenniel, illustrator (died 1914)
- 17 March – Jean Ingelow, poet and novelist (died 1897)
- 22 March – John Brown, cricketer (died 1893)
- 30 March – Anna Sewell, novelist (died 1878)
- 4 April – David Kirkaldy, engineer, pioneer of materials testing (died 1897)
- 8 April – Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk (born 1771)
- 27 April – Herbert Spencer, philosopher, political theorist and civil engineer (died 1903)
- 4 May – Joseph Whitaker, publisher (died 1895)
- 12 May – Florence Nightingale, nurse (died 1910)
- 22 May – Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 6th Baronet, politician (died 1885)
- 21 June – James Halliwell-Phillipps, bibliophile (died 1889)
- 22 June – Charles Lowder, Anglo-Catholic priest (died 1880)
- 5 July – William John Macquorn Rankine, Scottish physicist (died 1872)
- 9 July – John Wright Oakes, landscape painter (died 1887)[9]
- 25 July – Henry Doulton, potter (died 1897)
- 6 August – Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, Scottish-born entrepreneur, statesman and philanthropist (died 1914 in Canada)
- 13 August – George Grove, musicologist, Biblical scholar and civil engineer (died 1900)
- 23 November – Isaac Todhunter, mathematician (died 1884)
- 3 December – John Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice (died 1894)
- 10 December – Princess Elizabeth of Clarence (died 1821)
Deaths
- 23 January – Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (born 1767)
- 29 January – King George III of the United Kingdom (born 1738)
- 5 February – William Drennan, Irish political radical, poet and physician (born 1754)
- 11 March – Benjamin West, painter (born 1738 in the Province of Pennsylvania)
- 2 April – Thomas Brown, philosopher and poet (born 1778)
- 1 May – Arthur Thistlewood, conspirator (born 1774)
- 30 May – William Bradley, Britain's tallest ever man (born 1787)
- 19 June – Sir Joseph Banks, naturalist and botanist (born 1743)
- 3 September – Benjamin Henry Latrobe, architect in the United States (born 1764)
- 4 September – Timothy Brown, banker, merchant and radical (born 1743/4)
- 11 October – James Keir, Scottish geologist, chemist and industrialist (born 1735)
See also
References
- "George IV (1762–1830)". History. BBC. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
- Jones, A. G. E. (1982). Antarctica Observed: who discovered the Antarctic Continent?. Caedmon of Whitby. ISBN 0-905355-25-3.
- Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
- Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 250–251. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
- "Notable Dates in History". The Flag in the Wind. The Scots Independent. Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 9 August 2014.
- Robins, Jane (2007) [2006]. Rebel Queen: How the Trial of Caroline Brought England to the Brink of Revolution. Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-7434-7826-7.
- Drewry, Charles Stewart (1832). "Section III". A Memoir of Suspension Bridges: Comprising The History Of Their Origin And Progress. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman. pp. 37–41. Retrieved 16 August 2011.
- "Anne Brontë | British author". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
- Lee, Sidney, ed. (1895). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 41. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 289.
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