1803 in the United Kingdom
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 1803 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland: |
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| 1801 | 1802 | 1803 | 1804 | 1805 |
Events from the year 1803 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Contents |
[edit] Incumbents
- Monarch - George III of the United Kingdom
- Prime Minister - Henry Addington, Tory
[edit] Events
- 4 January - William Symington demonstrates his Charlotte Dundas, the "first practical steamboat".
- 21 February - Edward Despard and six others are hanged, drawn and quartered for plotting to assassinate king George III and to destroy the Bank of England.
- 16 May - The United Kingdom redeclares war on France after France refused to withdraw from Dutch territory.[1]
- 25 May - Speaker of the British House of Commons Charles Abbot allows journalists to report the proceedings of the House of Commons.[2]
- June - Britain captures Tobago and Saint Lucia from France.[3]
- 9 June - Matthew Flinders completes the first known circumnavigation of Australia.[4]
- 24 June - Abortion is made a crime by Lord Ellenborough's Act.[5]
- 23 July - Robert Emmet's uprising in Ireland begins.[1]
- 26 July - The wagonway between Wandsworth and Croydon is opened, being the first public railway line of the world.
- 3 August - British begin Second Anglo-Maratha War against Sindhia of Gwalior
- 20 September - Irish rebel Robert Emmet is executed.[3]
- 23 September - The Battle of Assaye in India – British-lead troops defeat Maratha forces.[3]
[edit] Undated
- William Hyde Wollaston discovers the chemical element rhodium.
- Smithson Tennant discovers the chemical elements iridium and osmium.
- John Dalton presents a paper to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society containing the first table of atomic weights.[6]
- Construction of Caledonian Canal begins.[1]
- The British Army adopts the anti-personnel shell invented by Henry Shrapnel.[1]
- Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin begins the removal the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens to protect them from destruction during the Ottoman occupation of Greece.[1]
- Martello Towers built to protect against the threat of French invasion.[3]
- Thomas Telford begins work on improving roads in Scotland.[3]
[edit] Births
- 25 May - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, novelist and playwright (died 1873)
- 24 June - George James Webb, English-born composer (died 1887)
- 3 August - Joseph Paxton, gardiner and architect (died 1865)
- 16 October - Robert Stephenson, engineer (died 1859)
- 6 December - Susanna Moodie, writer (died 1885)
- 21 December - Joseph Whitworth, engineer and entrepreneur (died 1887)
[edit] Deaths
- 23 January - Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer (born 1725)
- 2 April - Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet, politician and judge (born 1721)
- 6 April - William Hamilton, diplomat (born 1730)
- 19 April - Thomas Jones, landscape painter (born 1742)
- 3 June - Lord George Murray, Bishop of St David's and developer of the UK's first optical telegraph (born 1761))
- 26 October - Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford, politician (born 1721)
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
- ^ "200 years of hacks in the House", BBC News. Retrieved on 2008-03-27.
- ^ a b c d e Palmer, Alan & Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd, 239-240. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
- ^ British History Timeline, BBC History. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.
- ^ Lord Ellenborough's Act. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.
- ^ John Dalton, the man and his legacy: the bicentenary of his Atomic Theory, PDF. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.
