1823 in the United Kingdom
 1823 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1823 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
- Monarch – George IV
- Prime Minister – Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (Tory)
- Parliament – 7th
Events
- January – the King's Library, George III's personal library of 65,000 volumes, 19,000 pamphlets, maps, charts and topographical drawings, is offered to the British Museum.
- 23 January – in Paviland Cave on the Gower Peninsula, William Buckland inspects the "Red Lady of Paviland", the first identification of a prehistoric (male) human burial.[1]
- 20 February – explorer James Weddell's expedition to Antarctica reaches latitude 74°15' S and longitude 34°16'45" W, further south than any ship has reached previously, a record that will hold for more than 80 years.
- March – Royal Academy of Music opens.[2]
- 17 June – Charles Macintosh patents the waterproof material later used to make Mackintosh coats.[3]
- July – Robert Peel ensures the passage of five Acts of Parliament, effectively abolishing the death penalty for over one hundred offences;[2] in particular, the Judgement of Death Act allows judges to commute sentences for capital offences other than murder or treason to imprisonment or transportation.[4]
- 4 July – Transportation Act allows convicts transported to the colonies to be employed on public works.[2]
- 10 July – Gaols Act passed by Parliament, based on the prison reform campaign of Elizabeth Fry.[2]
- 23 September – First Burmese War: Burmese attack the British on Shapura, an island close to Chittagong.
- 25 November – opening of The Royal Suspension Chain Pier at Brighton, designed by Captain Samuel Brown, RN, the first pleasure pier on the mainland of England.[5]
- November – according to tradition, William Webb Ellis invents rugby.[2]
- 10 December – Mary Anning finds the first complete Plesiosaurus skeleton, on the Jurassic Coast.[6]
Undated
- Beginning of the first Anglo-Ashanti war.
- Excise Act reduces duties on the distillation of whisky, encouraging its commercial production.
- Oxford Union established by students as the Oxford United Debating Society.
Publications
- Thomas Campbell's poem The Last Man.
- Thomas De Quincey's critical essay On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth (in The London Magazine, October).
- Mrs Markham's children's A History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the End of the Reign of George III
- Sir Walter Scott's novels Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward and St. Ronan's Well.
- Thomas Wakley's medical journal The Lancet (first published 5 October ).
Births
- 3 January – Robert Whitehead, marine engineer (died 1905)
- 8 January – Alfred Russel Wallace, naturalist and biologist (died 1913)
- 23 February – John Braxton Hicks, obstetrician (died 1897)
- 19 April – Anna Laetitia Waring, poet (died 1910)
- 2 May – Emma Hardinge Britten, née Floyd, spiritualist (died 1899)
- 17 May – Henry Eckford, horticulturist (died 1905)
- 23 July – Coventry Patmore, poet (died 1896)
- 2 August – Edward Augustus Freeman, historian and politician (died 1892)
- 10 August – Charles Keene, illustrator (died 1891)
- 11 August – Charlotte Mary Yonge, novelist (died 1901)
- 13 August – Goldwin Smith, historian (died 1910)
- 3 September – Hardinge Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury, lawyer, Lord Chancellor (died 1921)
- 26 October – Sir Frederick Peel, politician (died 1906)
- 24 December – William Brighty Rands, writer, author of nursery rhymes (died 1882)
- 28 December – Augusta Theodosia Drane, religious writer and Catholic prioress (died 1894)
Deaths
- 26 January – Edward Jenner, physician and pioneer of vaccination (born 1749)
- 27 January – Charles Hutton, mathematician (born 1737)
- 7 February – Mrs Radcliffe, writer (born 1764)
- 26 February – John Philip Kemble, actor (born 1757)
- 14 March – John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent, Royal Navy admiral (born 1735)
- 23 April – Joseph Nollekens, sculptor (born 1737)
- 19 June – William Combe, writer, poet and adventurer (born 1742)
- 8 July – Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish portrait painter (born 1756)
- 11 September – David Ricardo, economist (born 1772)
- 23 September – Matthew Baillie, Scottish-born physician and pathologist (born 1761)
- 30 October – Edmund Cartwright, clergyman and inventor of the power loom (born 1743)
See also
References
- ^ Aldhouse-Green, Stephen (October 2001). "Great Sites: Paviland Cave". British Archaeology (61). Retrieved 16 July 2010.
- ^ a b c d e Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 252–253. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
- ^ Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
- ^ "Timeline of capital punishment in Britain". Retrieved 2 February 2011.
- ^ Drewry, Charles Stewart (1832). A Memoir of Suspension Bridges: comprising the History Of Their Origin And Progress. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman. pp. 69–74 & Plates. Retrieved 27 August 2010.
- ^ Torrens, Hugh (1995). "Mary Anning (1799–1847) of Lyme; 'The Greatest Fossilist the World Ever Knew'". The British Journal for the History of Science. 25 (3): 257–284. doi:10.1017/s0007087400033161.