1798 in Great Britain
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Events from the year 1798 in Great Britain.
Incumbents[edit]
- Monarch – George III
- Prime Minister – William Pitt the Younger (Tory)[1]
- Foreign Secretary – Lord Grenville
Events[edit]
- 2 July – the Marine Police Force is formed on the River Thames by magistrate Patrick Colquhoun to prevent pilfering in the Port of London and West India Docks;[2] it is the first organised police force in Britain.
- 1 August – French Revolutionary Wars: Admiral Nelson's fleet destroys the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile.[3]
- 10 September – Battle of St. George's Caye: British settlers win a victory over Spanish settlers in what is to become the colony of British Honduras.[4]
- 18 September – Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge is first published[4] anonymously in Bristol, marking the beginning of English literary Romanticism. Most of the poems are by Wordsworth, including Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, 13 July 1798, but also including the first publication of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere. First London publication is on 4 October.
- 11 October – Elizabeth Inchbald's play Lovers' Vows, adapted from Kotzebue's Das Kind der Liebe, is first performed at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
- 4 December – British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger announces the introduction of income tax in 1799.[5]
Undated[edit]
- Newspaper Publication Act 1798 restricts newspaper circulation.
- Nathan Mayer Rothschild moves from Frankfurt in the Holy Roman Empire to England, settling up in business as a textile trader and financier in Manchester.
- The first recorded excavations at Stonehenge – among the first serious work in archaeology anywhere – are made by William Cunnington and Sir Richard Colt Hoare.
Ongoing[edit]
- Anglo-Spanish War, 1796–1808
- French Revolutionary Wars
Publications[edit]
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads.
- Edward Jenner's work on vaccination An Inquiry Into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ.[6]
- Thomas Malthus' anonymous work An Essay on the Principle of Population.[4]
- Richmal Mangnall's initially anonymous school textbook Historical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People; this will have appeared in 84 editions by 1857.
- Regina Maria Roche's Gothic novel Clermont: a tale.[7]
- Mary Wollstonecraft's posthumous radical feminist novel Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman.
Births[edit]
- March – David Ramsay Hay, interior decorator (died 1866)
- 28 April – Duncan Forbes, linguist (died 1868)
- 12 June – William Abbot, actor (died 1843)
- 28 December – Thomas Henderson, astronomer (died 1844)[8]
Deaths[edit]
- 12 May – George Vancouver, explorer (born 1757)
- 19 May – William Byron, 5th Baron Byron, dueller (born 1722)
- 19 June – William Jennens, financier, richest commoner in England (born 1701)
- 25 June – Thomas Sandby, cartographer and architect (born 1721)
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "History of William Pitt 'The Younger' - GOV.UK". www.gov.uk. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
- ^ Paterson, Dick. "History – Origins". Thames Police. Retrieved 2017-04-14.
- ^ Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 347–348. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
- ^ a b c Everett, Jason M., ed. (2006). "1798". The People's Chronology. Thomson Gale.
- ^ Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
- ^ The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
- ^ Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (rev. ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.
- ^ Trimble, Virginia; Williams, Thomas; Bracher, Katherine; Jarrell, Richard; Marché, Jordan D.; Ragep, F. Jamil (18 September 2007). Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 482. ISBN 978-0-387-30400-7.