1805 in the United Kingdom
 1805 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland: |
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Events from the year 1805 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. This is the year of the Battle of Trafalgar.
Incumbents
- Monarch - George III
- Prime Minister - William Pitt the Younger, Tory
The Battle of Trafalgar, as seen from the mizzen starboard shrouds of the Victory, by J. M. W. Turner
Events
- 20 January - London Docks open.[1]
- 21 February - Charles Manners-Sutton confirmed as Archbishop of Canterbury.[2]
- 4 June - The first Trooping the Colour ceremony at the Horse Guards Parade in London.[1]
- 3 August - The annual cricket match between Eton College and Harrow School is played for the first time.[1]
- 21 October - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar - British naval fleet led by Admiral Horatio Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain. Admiral Nelson is fatally shot.[3]
- 6 November - News of the victory at Trafalgar and Nelson's death reaches London.[4]
- 26 November - The Ellesmere Canal's Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is opened in Wales, the tallest and longest in Britain.[5]
Ongoing
- Anglo-Spanish War, 1796–1808
- Napoleonic Wars, 1803–1815
Publications
- John Dalton's paper "On the Absorption of Gases by Water and Other Liquids". Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 2nd series 1: pp. 271–87, including the first published list of relative atomic masses.
- Walter Scott's narrative poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel.
- First printed version of the folk song "Bobby Shafto's Gone to Sea" in its modern (Tyneside) version.
Births
- 27 January - Samuel Palmer, artist (died 1881)
- 29 August - Frederick Maurice, theologian (died 1872)
- 22 December - John Obadiah Westwood, entomologist (died 1893)
Deaths
- 2 January - Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Earl of Rosslyn, Lord Chancellor (born 1733)
- 3 January - Charles Towneley, antiquary (born 1737)
- 30 January - John Robison, physicist (born 1739)
- 18 January - John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury (born 1730)
- 2 February - Thomas Banks, sculptor (born 1735)
- 25 February
- William Buchan, doctor (born 1729)
- Thomas Pownall, colonial statesman (born 1722)
- 7 May - William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, Prime Minister (born 1737)
- 25 May - William Paley, philosopher (born 1743)
- 3 August - Christopher Anstey, writer (born 1724)
- 28 August - Alexander Carlyle, church leader (born 1722)
- 5 October - Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, general (born 1738)
- 21 October - Horatio Nelson, admiral (mortally wounded in battle) (born 1758)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
- ↑ Jacob, W. M. (2004). "Sutton, Charles Manners- (1755–1828)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2011-02-25. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ↑ "British History Timeline, BBC History". Retrieved 2007-09-11.
- ↑ The London Gazette, extraordinary edition, 6 November 1805; The Times, 7 November 1805.
- ↑ Rolt, L. T. C. (1958). Thomas Telford. London: Longmans, Green.