1704 in England

Events from the year 1704 in England.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Anne

• 18 May – Robert Harley becomes Secretary of State for the Northern Department.^[1]
• 23 July (3 August
  New Style) – War of the Spanish Succession: Capture of Gibraltar from Spain by allied English and Dutch forces under Sir George Rooke.^[1]
• 2 August (13 August NS) – War of the Spanish Succession: At the Battle of Blenheim, an allied army under John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy including English troops defeats the Franco-Bavarian army.^[1]
• 13 August (24 August NS) – War of the Spanish Succession: Allied French/Spanish and English/Dutch fleets clash in Battle of Málaga off Málaga, causing heavy casualties on both sides but with no ships being sunk.
• 3 November –
  Royal Charter.^[2]

• Beau Nash becomes master of ceremonies at Bath, and an arbiter of fashion.^[3]
• chief rabbi.^[4]
• foundation sire of all modern thoroughbred racing
  bloodstock.
• approx. date – the first modern orrery is built by George Graham and Thomas Tompion.^[5]

Publications

• Isaac Newton's work Opticks.^[1]
• John Harris's Lexicon Technicum, an early encyclopedia.^[1]
• Great Storm of 1703, The Storm
  .
• Jonathan Swift's satire A Tale of a Tub with The Battle of the Books.^[1]

Births

• 1 January – Soame Jenyns, writer (died 1787)
• 10 April – Benjamin Heath, classical scholar (died 1766)
• 4 June – Benjamin Huntsman, inventor and manufacturer (died 1776)
• 17 June – John Kay, inventor (died c. 1779 in France)
• 22 June – John Taylor, classical scholar (died 1766)
• 2 October (bapt.) – Eugene Aram, philologist and murderer (died 1759)
• 29 October – John Byng, admiral (executed 1757)

Deaths

• 8 April – Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of Romney, statesman (born 1641)
• 18 June – Tom Brown, satirist (born 1662)
• 28 October – John Locke, philosopher (born 1632)
• 11 December – Roger L'Estrange, pamphleteer and author (born 1616)

References