1716 in Great Britain

1716 in Great Britain:

Other years

1714 | 1715 | 1716 | 1717 | 1718

Events from the year 1716 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch - George I

Events

• January - The Duke of Argyll disperses the remainder of the Jacobite troops.^[1]
• 16 January - William Wake appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 10 February - The pretender James Francis Edward Stuart flees to France. He dismisses Lord Bolingbroke as his secretary of state.^[2]
• 24 February - Execution of the Jacobite leaders James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, and William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure.^[1]
• 26 April - Septennial Act 1715 comes into effect, extending the maximum duration of Parliaments from three years to seven.^[2]
• 26 May - Two regular companies of field artillery, each 100 men strong, are raised at Woolwich by Royal Warrant.
• 28 May - John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, suffers a paralytic stroke.
• 5 July - Prince Ernest Augustus is created Duke of York and Albany in the peerage of Great Britain.
• 4 August - George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton, under sentence of death for his part in the Jacobite rising of 1715, escapes from the Tower of London and flees into exile on the continent.
• 29 September - The original Portland Bill Lighthouse is first illuminated.
• 9 November - Caroline of Ansbach, Princess of Wales, gives birth to a stillborn son.
• 12 December - Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, is demoted from his office as Secretary of State for the Northern Department in the British government and replaced by James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope.
• 24 December (4 January 1717 New Style) - Britain, France and the Dutch Republic sign the Triple Alliance^[2] in an attempt to maintain the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Britain having signed a preliminary alliance with France on 17 November (28 November New Style).

Undated

• A fire in Wapping destroys 150 houses.^[3]
• Chalybeate mineral springs are discovered in Cheltenham.^[4]
• The English pirate Edward Teach is given command of a sloop in the Bahamas.^[5]

Publications

• Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor's pamphlet A Preservative against the Principles and Practices of Non-Jurors, both in Church and State, initiating the Bangorian Controversy in the Church of England.

Births

• 26 January - George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, soldier and politician (died 1785)
• 23 June - Fletcher Norton, 1st Baron Grantley, politician (died 1789)
• 6 October - George Montague-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, statesman (died 1771)
• 26 December - Thomas Gray, writer (died 1771)

Deaths

• 1 January - William Wycherley, playwright (born c. 1640)
• 24 February
  • James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, (born 1689)
  • William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure, (born c. 1672)
• 14 April - Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Torrington, admiral (born c. 1648)
• 26 April - John Somers, 1st Baron Somers, Lord Chancellor of England (born 1651)
• 5 June - Roger Cotes, mathematician and philosopher (born 1682)
• 28 June - George FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, general (born 1665)
• 8 July - Robert South, churchman (born 1634)
• 28 October - Stephen Fox, politician (born 1627)

References

See also