1791 in Great Britain
Encyclopedia
.svg.png) 1791 in Great Britain: |
| Other years |
| 1789 1789 in Great Britain Events from the year 1789 in the Kingdom of Great Britain.-Incumbents:*Monarch - King George III*Prime Minister - William Pitt the Younger, Tory-Events:... | 1790 1790 in Great Britain Events from the year 1790 in the Kingdom of Great Britain. This is a General Election year.-Incumbents:*Monarch - King George III*Prime Minister - William Pitt the Younger, Tory-Events:... | 1791 | 1792 1792 in Great Britain Events from the year 1792 in the Kingdom of Great Britain.-Incumbents:* Monarch - King George III* Prime Minister - William Pitt the Younger, Tory-Events:* 25 January - The radical London Corresponding Society established.... | 1793 1793 in Great Britain Events from the year 1793 in the Kingdom of Great Britain.-Incumbents:*Monarch - King George III*Prime Minister - William Pitt the Younger, Tory-Events:... |
| Sport |
| 1791 English cricket season 1791 English cricket season In the 1791 English cricket season, the emergence of the Brighton club heralded a brief revival of Sussex cricket which had been prominent during the early 18th century. As with Hornchurch Cricket Club and Essex, the Brighton team was a fair representation of Sussex as a county and the county name... |
Events from the year 1791 in the Kingdom of Great Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
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Incumbents
- Monarch - King George IIIGeorge III of the United KingdomGeorge III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...
- Prime Minister - William Pitt the YoungerWilliam Pitt the YoungerWilliam Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
, ToryToryToryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
Events
- 1 January - AustriaAustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n composer Joseph HaydnJoseph HaydnFranz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
arrives in EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
where his concerts are huge successes. - April - William WilberforceWilliam WilberforceWilliam Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
introduces a bill to ParliamentParliament of Great BritainThe Parliament of Great Britain was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and Parliament of Scotland...
to abolish the slave trade but it is defeated. - 10 June - Parliament passes the Constitutional ActConstitutional Act of 1791The Constitutional Act of 1791, formally The Clergy Endowments Act, 1791 , is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain...
, splitting the old province of QuebecQuebecQuebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
into UpperUpper CanadaThe Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...
and Lower CanadaLower CanadaThe Province of Lower Canada was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence...
. - 14–17 June - The Priestley RiotsPriestley RiotsThe Priestley Riots took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, England; the rioters' main targets were religious Dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically controversial Joseph Priestley...
in BirminghamBirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, against dissenters. - 4 December - The first issue of The ObserverThe ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, the world's first Sunday newspaperNewspaperA newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
, is published.
Undated
- Roman Catholic Relief ActRoman Catholic Relief Act 1791The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1791 relieving Roman Catholics of certain political, educational, and economic disabilities. It admitted Roman Catholics to the practise of law, permitted the exercise of their religion, and the existence of...
relieves CatholicCatholicThe word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
s of certain political, educational and economic disabilities. - Theophilus LindseyTheophilus LindseyTheophilus Lindsey was an English theologian and clergyman who founded the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in the country, at Essex Street Chapel.-Life:...
and John DisneyJohn Disney (Unitarian)John Disney was an English Unitarian minister and biographical writer, initially an Anglican clergyman active against subscription to the Thirty Nine Articles.-Life:...
set up the "first organized denominational UnitarianUnitarianismUnitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
society", The Unitarian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Practice of Virtue by the Distribution of Books ('Unitarian Book Society'). - Amateur geologist William GregorWilliam GregorWilliam Gregor was the British clergyman and mineralogist who discovered the elemental metal titanium.-Early years:...
discovers an unknown metal in CornwallCornwallCornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
later identified to be TitaniumTitaniumTitanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....
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Publications
- James BoswellJames BoswellJames Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
's landmark biography Life of JohnsonLife of JohnsonThe Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. is a biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson written by James Boswell. It is regarded as an important stage in the development of the modern genre of biography; many have claimed it as the greatest biography written in English...
. - 13 March - Thomas PaineThomas PaineThomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
's chief work Rights of ManRights of ManRights of Man , a book by Thomas Paine, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard its people, their natural rights, and their national interests. Using these points as a base it defends the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's attack in...
. - Thomas SheratonThomas SheratonThomas Sheraton was a furniture designer, one of the "big three" English furniture makers of the 18th century, along with Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite.-Biography:...
's The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing-Book begins publication. - Sir John SinclairSir John Sinclair, 1st BaronetSir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet was a Scottish politician, writer on finance and agriculture and the first person to use the word statistics in the English language, in his vast, pioneering work, Statistical Account of Scotland, in 21 volumes.Sinclair was the eldest son of George Sinclair of...
's Statistical Account of ScotlandStatistical Accounts of ScotlandThe Statistical Accounts of Scotland are three series of documentary publications covering life in Scotland in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries....
begins publication, introducing the term StatisticsStatisticsStatistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
into EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
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Births
- 10 February - Henry Hart MilmanHenry Hart MilmanThe Very Reverend Henry Hart Milman was an English historian and ecclesiastic.He was born in London, the third son of Sir Francis Milman, 1st Baronet, physician to King George III . Educated at Eton and at Brasenose College, Oxford, his university career was brilliant...
, historian and ecclesiastic (died 18681868 in the United KingdomEvents from the year 1868 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — Earl of Derby, Conservative , Benjamin Disraeli, Conservative , William Ewart Gladstone, Liberal...
) - 22 September - Michael FaradayMichael FaradayMichael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
, scientist (died 18671867 in the United KingdomEvents from the year 1867 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — Earl of Derby, Conservative-Events:* 5 March — Fenian rising in Ireland....
) - 26 December - Charles BabbageCharles BabbageCharles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
, mathematician and inventor (died 18711871 in the United KingdomEvents from the year 1871 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — William Ewart Gladstone, Liberal-Events:...
)
Deaths
- 11 January - William Williams PantycelynWilliam Williams PantycelynWilliam Williams Pantycelyn , also known as Williams Pantycelyn and Pantycelyn, is generally acknowledged as Wales' most famous hymn writer. He was also one of the key leaders of the 18th century Welsh Methodist revival, along with Daniel Rowland and Howell Harris. As a poet and prose writer he is...
, hymnist (born 17171717 in Great BritainEvents from the year 1717 in Great Britain.-Events:* 1 January - Count Carl Gyllenborg, the Swedish ambassador, is arrested in London over a plot to assist the Pretender James Francis Edward Stuart....
) - 25 January - George Augustus SelwynGeorge Augustus Selwyn (MP)George Augustus Selwyn was a Member of Parliament in the Parliament of Great Britain.-Life:Selwyn spent 44 years in the House of Commons without being recorded as making a speech...
, Member of Parliament (born 17191719 in Great BritainEvents from the year 1719 in Great Britain.-Events:* April - Bank rate set at 5%, at which it will remain for more than a century.* 28 April - A Peerage Bill, proposed by Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland, to prevent the creation of peers in the House of Lords is defeated in the House of...
) - 2 March - John WesleyJohn WesleyJohn Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
, English founder of Methodism (born 17031703 in EnglandEvents from the year 1703 in the Kingdom of England.-Events:* 18 May - War of the Spanish Succession: The Duke of Marlborough captures the cities of Cologne, Bonn, Limbourg, Huy and Guelders....
) - 19 April - Richard PriceRichard PriceRichard Price was a British moral philosopher and preacher in the tradition of English Dissenters, and a political pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the American Revolution. He fostered connections between a large number of people, including writers of the...
, philosopher (born 17231723 in Great BritainEvents from the year 1723 in Great Britain.-Incumbents:*Monarch - George I of Great Britain*Prime Minister - Robert Walpole, Whig-Events:* 8 March - The Chelsea Waterworks Company receives a Royal Charter....
) - 5 June - Frederick HaldimandFrederick HaldimandSir Frederick Haldimand, KB was a military officer best known for his service in the British Army in North America during the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War...
, Swiss-born British colonial governor (born 1718, Switzerland) - 17 June - Selina Hastings, Methodist leader (born 17071707 in Great BritainEvents from the year 1707 in Great Britain, created in this year as a result of the 1706 Treaty of Union and its ratification by the 1707 Acts of Union.-Events:...
)