1761 in Great Britain

1761 in Great Britain:

Other years

1759 | 1760 | 1761 | 1762 | 1763

Countries of the United Kingdom

Scotland

Sport

1761 English cricket season

Events from the year 1761 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• George III
• Prime Minister – Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle (Whig)^[1]

Events

• 16 January – in
  Sir Eyre Coote captures Pondicherry from the French.^[2]
• 8 February – an earthquake in London breaks chimneys in Limehouse and Poplar.
• 8 March – a second earthquake occurs in North London, Hampstead and Highgate.
• 9 March –
  Hexham Riot ("Bloody Monday"): a crowd protesting at enlistment to the militia in Hexham (Northumberland) is fired on by members of the North Yorkshire Militia with around 45 killed and many more wounded.^[3]
• 25 March–5 May – a
  Whig party
  retains its majority.
• 15–16 July –
  Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick defeats a large French army at the Battle of Villinghausen
  .
• 17 July – James Brindley completes the Bridgewater Canal from Worsley to Manchester.^[4]
• 15 August – Seven Years' War: France and Spain sign the Pacte de Famille forming an alliance against Britain.^[2]
• September – Secretary of State for the Southern Department William Pitt the Elder fails to garner support to declare war on Spain.^[2]
• 8 September – King George III marries Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (who he has met for the first time earlier in the day) at St James's Palace.^[4]
• 14 October –
  Great Malvern Tornado.^[5]
• 22 September – coronation of
  King George III^[6]
  and Queen Charlotte at Westminster Abbey.
• 5 October – Pitt resigns as Secretary of State for the Southern Department.^[4] The Tory The Earl of Bute forms a new administration.^[2]

Undated

• Industrial Revolution: Establishment of Matthew Boulton's Soho Manufactory near Birmingham to serve the "Birmingham toy industry", considered as the first factory for the production of metal goods in Britain.^[7]
• Buckingham Palace, London, sold to George III; remodelling as a house for Queen Charlotte will begin the following year.^[8]
• First church of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion opened, in Brighton.^[9]
• The village of Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire is demolished and rebuilt on a new site by Simon, Earl Harcourt to improve the landscaping of Nuneham House.^[10]
• The
  Miꞌkmaq, other First Nations people and the British in Halifax, Nova Scotia, notably in the Burying the Hatchet ceremony
  on 25 June.

• James Macpherson's supposed translation Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books, together with Several Other Poems composed by Ossian, the Son of Fingal, translated from the Gaelic Language.^[11]
• Frances Sheridan's novel Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph.^[12]

Births

• 17 January – James Hall, geologist (died 1832)
• 13 March – Henry Shrapnel, British Army officer and inventor (died 1842)
• 7 June – John Rennie the Elder, civil engineer (died 1821)
• 17 August – William Carey, missionary (died 1834 in India)
• 27 October – Matthew Baillie, physician and pathologist (died 1823)
• 13 November –
  John Moore, general (died 1809
  )
• 30 November – Smithson Tennant, chemist (died 1815)

Deaths

• 4 January – Stephen Hales, physiologist, chemist, and inventor (born 1677)
• 10 January – Edward Boscawen, admiral (born 1711)
• 9 April – William Law, minister (born 1686)
• 15 April – Archibald Campbell, Duke of Argyll, politician (born 1682)
• 17 April
  • Thomas Bayes, mathematician (born c.1702)
  • Benjamin Hoadly, theologian, Bishop (born 1676)
• 14 May – Thomas Simpson, mathematician (born 1710)
• 4 July – Samuel Richardson, writer (born 1689)
• 30 November – John Dollond, optician (born 1706)
• 23 December –
  Alestair Ruadh MacDonnell, Jacobite spy (born c.1725
  )

• 1761 in Wales

References