1792 in Great Britain

Events from the year 1792 in the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Incumbents

25 January – The radical London Corresponding Society established.^[1]
7 March – A settlement is formed in Sierra Leone in West Africa as a home for freed slaves.^[1]
4 June – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for Britain.
21 June – Iolo Morganwg holds the first Gorsedd ceremony, at Primrose Hill in London.
September – Macartney Embassy: George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney, sails from Portsmouth in HMS Lion as the first official envoy from the Kingdom of Great Britain to China.
14 September – Thomas Paine flees to France after being indicted for treason.^[2]
29 September – First St Patrick's Church, Soho Square, London (Roman Catholic) consecrated as a chapel.
2 October – Baptist Missionary Society is founded in Kettering.
18 December – The trial of Thomas Paine in absentia for treason begins.^[3] He is outlawed.^[2]

Over 300 petitions are presented to Parliament against the slave trade. The House of Commons pledges to "gradually" abolish the trade.^[4]
"Year of the Sheep" in the Scottish Highlands: mass emigration of crofters following Clearances for grazing.
The Libel Act gives the right to juries determine what constitutes libel.^[5]
Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna establish the newsagent's business in Little Grosvenor Street, London, which will become W H Smith.^[6]

Thomas Holcroft's Anna St. Ives, the first British Jacobin novel.
Thomas Paine's second edition of Rights of Man, urging the overthrow of the British monarchy.^[5]
Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, one of the earliest works of feminist literature.^[5]

10 February – Frederick Marryat, author (died 1848)
19 February – Roderick Murchison, geologist (died 1871)
7 March – John Herschel, mathematician and astronomer (died 1871)
25 April – John Keble, poet (died 1866)
17 May – Anne Isabella Milbanke, wife of George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (died 1860)
16 June – John Linnell, painter (died 1882)
7 July – William Henry Smith, businessman (died 1865)
4 August – Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet (died 1822)
13 August – Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, queen of William IV (died 1849)
18 August – John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, Prime Minister (died 1878)
11 November – Mary Anne Evans, wife of Benjamin Disraeli (died 1872)

27 January – George Horne, bishop (born 1730)
23 February – Sir Joshua Reynolds, painter (born 1723)
3 March – Robert Adam, architect (born 1728)
10 March – John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, Prime Minister (born 1713)
3 April
- George Pocock, admiral (born 1706)
- John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, statesman (born 1718)
30 April – John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, statesman (born 1718)
24 May – George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney, naval officer (born 1719)
4 June – John Burgoyne, general (born 1723)
18 July – John Paul Jones, sailor and the United States's first well-known naval fighter in the American Revolution. (born 1747)
3 August – Richard Arkwright, inventor (born 1732)
5 August – Frederick North, Lord North, Prime Minister (born 1732)
28 October – John Smeaton, civil engineer (born 1724)

↑ 1.0 1.1 "BBC History British History Timeline". Archived from the original on 9 September 2007. Retrieved 4 September 2007.
↑ 2.0 2.1 Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 232–233. ISBN 978-0-7126-5616-0.
↑ Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 978-0-14-102715-9.
↑ "Scotland and the Slave Trade: 2007 Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, Scottish Executive website". Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 1 September 2007.
↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Everett, Jason M. (ed.) (2006). "1792". The People's Chronology. Thomson Gale.
↑ "Our Company: History 1792–1900". W H Smith PLC. 2008. Archived from the original on 27 June 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2010.