1802 in the United Kingdom
 1802 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland:
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Events from the year 1802 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Incumbents
- Monarch - George III
- Prime Minister - Henry Addington (Tory)
Events
- 27 March - Treaty of Amiens between France and United Kingdom ends the War of the Second Coalition.[1]
- 15 April - William and Dorothy Wordsworth, walking by Ullswater, see a host of daffodils which inspire his best-known poem, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, first written two years later.[2]
- 19 April - Joseph Grimaldi first presents his white-faced clown character "Joey", at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London.[3]
- 5 July - André-Jacques Garnerin and Edward Hawke Locker make a 17-mile (27.4-km) balloon flight from Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London, to Chingford in just over 15 minutes.
- 5 July-28 August - General election brings victory for the Tories led by Henry Addington.
- 27 August - West India Docks, first commercial docks in London, open.[4]
- 3 September - William Wordsworth's sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" written.
- 5 November - Marc Isambard Brunel begins installation of his blockmaking machinery at Portsmouth Block Mills.[5]
- 13 November - The first play to be explicitly called a melodrama ("melodrame") is performed in London, Thomas Holcroft's Gothic A Tale of Mystery (an unacknowledged translation of de Pixerécourt's Cœlina, ou, l'enfant du mystère) at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.[6]
- 16 November - Arrest in London of ringleaders of the Despard Plot: a failed conspiracy by revolutionaries led by Colonel Edward Despard, a radical Anglo-Irish former British Army officer and colonial official, apparently intended to assassinate King George III and seize key positions such as the Bank of England and Tower of London as a prelude to a wider uprising.[7][8]
- 2 December - The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act (2 June) comes into effect, regulating conditions for child labour in factories.[1] Although poorly enforced, it pioneers a series of Factory Acts.
Ongoing
- Anglo-Spanish War, 1796–1808
Undated
- Marie Tussaud first exhibits her wax sculptures in London, having been commissioned during the Reign of Terror in France to make death masks of the victims.[1]
- London Fever Hospital founded.
- Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, admits its first intake.
- Solomon Hirschell elected rabbi of the Great Synagogue of London, becoming recognised as chief rabbi of the United Kingdom.[9]
- Sir William Herschel first uses the term binary star to refer to a star which revolves around another star.
- Thomas Wedgwood discovers a method of creating photographs using silver nitrate.[1]
- George Bodley of Exeter patents the first enclosed kitchen stove.[10][11]
- Goodwood Racecourse laid out.[4]
Publications
- 10 October - The reforming quarterly The Edinburgh Review is first published.
- George Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary; or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds.
- Walter Scott's collection of Scottish ballads The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.[1]
Births
- 3 January - Charles Pelham Villiers, politician (died 1898)
- 6 February - Charles Wheatstone, scientist and inventor (died 1875)
- 7 March - Edwin Landseer, animal painter (died 1873)
- 10 July - Robert Chambers, Scottish author and publisher (died 1871)
- 23 December - Sara Coleridge, scholar (died 1852)
- 10 October - Hugh Miller, Scottish geologist (suicide 1856)
Deaths
- 21 January - John Moore, Scottish-born physician and writer (born 1729)
- 28 January - Joseph Wall, army officer, colonial governor and murderer (born 1737)
- 2 February - Welbore Ellis, 1st Baron Mendip, statesman (born 1713)
- 18 April - Erasmus Darwin, physician and botanist (born 1731)
- 9 November - Thomas Girtin, watercolourist (born 1775)
- 15 November - George Romney, portrait painter (born 1734)
References
- ^ a b c d e Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 354. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
- ^ "Dorothy and the daffodils". Wordsworth Trust. Retrieved 21 August 2010.
- ^ Uglow, Jenny (1 November 2009). "The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi by Andrew McConnell". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
- ^ a b Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 238–239. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
- ^ Bagust, Harold (2006). The Greater Genius? - a biography of Marc Isambard Brunel. Hersham: Ian Allan. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-7110-3175-3.
- ^ "Show me the horrid tenant of thy heart". THEA. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
- ^ Conner, Clifford D. (2000). Colonel Despard: The Life and Times of an Anglo-Irish Rebel. Combined Publishing.
- ^ Jay, Mike (2004). The Unfortunate Colonel Despard. Bantam Press. ISBN 0593051955.
- ^ Rubinstein, Hilary L. (2004). "Hirschell , Solomon (1762–1842)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/13363. Retrieved 9 December 2011. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ Cornforth, David; Speight, Anne (3 May 2009). "Bodley & Co". Exeter Memories. Retrieved 12 March 2011.
- ^ "The History of Ranges". Tarvin: Antique Fireplaces & Ranges. Retrieved 12 March 2011.