1810 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1810 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• George III
• Prime Minister – Spencer Perceval (Tory)
• Foreign Secretary – Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley
• Home Secretary – Richard Ryder

Events

• 19 February – Radical John Gale Jones is called before the House of Commons for a breach of privilege, for which he is committed to Newgate Prison until 21 June.^[1]
• April – Rioting in London after the imprisonment in the
  House of Commons;^[2]
  he is released in June.
• 3 May –
  Hellespont in Turkey.^[3]
• 10 May – Rev. Henry Duncan opens the world's first commercial savings bank in Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire.^[4]
• 15 June – Radical journalist
  libel for an article in his Political Register critical of the flogging of militiamen and sentenced to two years' in Newgate Prison.^[5]
• 8 July – Vere Street Coterie: Police raid a "molly house" in London and arrest 27 men for sodomy or attempted sodomy; a man and a boy are eventually hanged on conviction.
• 20–27 August – Battle of Grand Port: The French force the Royal Navy fleet attempting to blockade a harbour on Isle de France (Mauritius) to surrender.
• October – King
  George III
  recognised as insane.
• 10 November – Paisley canal disaster in Scotland: A pleasure craft capsizes with the loss of 84 lives.^[6]
• 23 November – Actress Sarah Booth makes her first appearance at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London.
• 26 November – Radical
  Lord Castlereagh.^[1]
• 29 November–3 December – Invasion of Isle de France: British forces oblige the French to surrender Isle de France (Mauritius).
• 14 December – The UK's strongest ever recorded tornado strikes Portsmouth with a top wind speed of 213 to 240 mph (343 to 386 km/h) (T8 (F4) rating).
• 19 December – Frigates HMS Nymphe and HMS Pallas are wrecked near Dunbar.^[7]
• 22 December – Eight crew of the Hoylake life-boat in the Mersey estuary are drowned on service; HMS Minotaur (1793) is wrecked on Texel in the West Frisian Islands with the loss of 500 lives.
• 27 December – Chartered East Indiaman Elizabeth is wrecked off Dunkirk with the loss of more than 360 lives.

Undated

• General Union of Spinners organises strike action to raise wages in the smaller cotton centres to the Manchester level.
• Chlorine named by Humphry Davy.
• Rev. Dr. William Pearson establishes Temple Grove School at East Sheen,^[8] perhaps the earliest preparatory school in the country.
• Indian restaurant in London.^[9]
• Palm oil sales from West Africa to Britain reach 1,000 tons.

Ongoing

• Napoleonic Wars, 1803–1815
• Anglo-Russian War, 1807–1812
• Peninsular War, 1808–1814

Publications

• The Borough
  .
• Walter Scott's narrative poem The Lady of the Lake.
• Launch of the Carmarthen Journal, the oldest surviving newspaper in Wales.

Births

• 12 January – John Dillwyn Llewelyn, botanist and pioneer photographer (died 1882)
• 15 January –
  John Evan Thomas
  , sculptor (died 1873)
• 19 January – Talhaiarn, poet and architect (died 1869)
• 24 January – Thomas Jones, missionary (died 1849)
• 10 March – Samuel Ferguson, poet and artist (died 1886)
• 27 March - William Hepworth Thompson, classical scholar (died 1886)
• 30 March – Pablo Fanque, black circus owner, popularized by The Beatles in song (died 1871)
• 5 April - Sir Henry Rawlinson, politician and Orientalist (died 1895)
• 21 April - Thomas Wright, antiquarian (died 1877)
• 17 July - Martin Farquhar Tupper, poet and writer (died 1889)
• 29 September – Elizabeth Gaskell, novelist (died 1865)

Deaths

• 26 January –
  James Martin
  , radical politician (born 1738)
• 24 February – Henry Cavendish, scientist (born 1731)
• 7 March – Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood, admiral (born 1748)
• 24 March – Mary Tighe, Anglo-Irish poet (born 1772)
• 3 April – Twm o'r Nant, Welsh dramatist and poet (born 1739)
• 26 April – John Metcalf, English roadbuilder (born 1717)
• 15 May – Francis Hews, Baptist preacher in Bedfordshire
• 21 May –
  Chevalier d'Eon
  , French-born diplomat, spy, soldier and transvestite (born 1728)
• 4 June – William Windham, Whig statesman (born 1750)
• 2 November – Princess Amelia, member of the Royal Family (born 1783)
• 15 December – Sarah Trimmer, writer for children (born 1741)
• probable – William Cruickshank, Scottish military surgeon, chemist and inventor

References