1803 in the United Kingdom
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 1803 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland: |
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Events from the year 1803 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Contents |
[edit] Incumbents
- Monarch - King George III
- Prime Minister - Henry Addington, Tory
[edit] Events
- 4 January - William Symington demonstrates his Charlotte Dundas, the "first practical steamboat".
- 21 February - Edward Despard and six others are hanged, drawn and quartered for plotting to assassinate king George III and to destroy the Bank of England.
- 2 April - The Easton Massacre, British armed forces shoot and kill three citizens of Easton, Dorset during an attempt to press male members of the village into service.
- 16 May - The United Kingdom redeclares war on France after France refuses to withdraw from Dutch territory.[1]
- 25 May - Speaker of the British House of Commons Charles Abbot allows journalists to report the proceedings of the House of Commons.[2]
- June - Britain captures Tobago and Saint Lucia from France.[3]
- 9 June - Matthew Flinders completes the first known circumnavigation of Australia.[4]
- 24 June - Abortion is made a crime by Lord Ellenborough's Act.[5]
- 23 July - Robert Emmet's uprising in Ireland begins.[1]
- 26 July - The Surrey Iron Railway, a wagonway between Wandsworth and Croydon, is opened, being the first public railway line in England.
- 3 August - British begin Second Anglo-Maratha War against Sindhia of Gwalior
- 20 September - Irish rebel Robert Emmet is executed.[3]
- 23 September - The Battle of Assaye in India – British-led troops defeat Maratha forces.[3]
- 21 October - John Dalton presents a paper to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society containing the first table of atomic weights.[6][7]
[edit] Ongoing
- Anglo-Spanish War, 1796–1808
[edit] Undated
- William Hyde Wollaston discovers the chemical element rhodium.
- Smithson Tennant discovers the chemical elements iridium and osmium.
- Construction of Caledonian Canal begins.[1]
- Thomas Telford begins work on improving roads in Scotland.[3]
- The British Army adopts the anti-personnel shell invented by Henry Shrapnel.[1]
- Pantaloons sanctioned for wear on military campaigns.[8]
- Martello Towers built to protect against the threat of French invasion.[3]
- Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin begins removal of the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens to protect them from destruction during the Ottoman occupation of Greece.[1]
- (approx. date} Joseph Grimaldi perfects his character as "Joey" the whitefaced clown.[9]
- Maria Edgworth's novel Belinda is published.[10]
- Jane Porter's historical novel Thaddeus of Warsaw is published, immediately going through several editions.[10]
- Humphry Repton's Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening is published.
[edit] Births
- 25 May - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, novelist and playwright (died 1873)
- 24 June - George James Webb, English-born composer (died 1887)
- 3 August - Joseph Paxton, gardener and architect (died 1865)
- 16 October - Robert Stephenson, engineer (died 1859)
- 6 December - Susanna Moodie, writer (died 1885)
- 21 December - Joseph Whitworth, engineer and entrepreneur (died 1887)
[edit] Deaths
- 23 January - Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer (born 1725)
- 2 April - Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet, politician and judge (born 1721)
- 6 April - William Hamilton, diplomat (born 1730)
- 19 April - Thomas Jones, landscape painter (born 1742)
- 3 June - Lord George Murray, Bishop of St David's and developer of the UK's first optical telegraph (born 1761))
- 26 October - Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford, politician (born 1721)
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
- ^ ""200 years of hacks in the House", BBC News". 2003-05-22. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/3050347.stm. Retrieved 2008-03-27.
- ^ a b c d e Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 239–240. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
- ^ "British History Timeline, BBC History". http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/timeline/empireseapower_timeline_noflash.shtml. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
- ^ "Lord Ellenborough's Act". http://members.aol.com/abtrbng/lea.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
- ^ Dalton, John (1805). "On the Absorption of Gases by Water and Other Liquids". Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 2nd ser. 1: 271–87. Archived from the original on 11 June 2011. http://web.archive.org/web/20110611205519/http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/dalton52.html. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
- ^ "John Dalton, the man and his legacy: the bicentenary of his Atomic Theory". http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayArticleForFree.cfm?doi=b307622a&JournalCode=DT. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
- ^ Downing, Sarah Jane (2010). Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen. Oxford: Shire Publications. ISBN 978-0-7478-0767-4.
- ^ Uglow, Jenny (1 November 2009). The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/01/pantomime-life-of-joseph-grimaldititle=The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi by Andrew McConnell Stott. Retrieved 2011-01-12.
- ^ a b Leavis, Q.D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (rev. ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.
