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UK-related events during the year of 1820
Events from the year 1820 in the United Kingdom . This year sees a change of monarch after a
nine-year Regency .
Incumbents
Events
The Trial of Queen Caroline by
George Hayter .
8 January –
General Maritime Treaty ("General Treaty for the Cessation of Plunder and Piracy by Land and Sea , Dated February 5, 1820") signed between the sheikhs of
Abu Dhabi ,
Sharjah ,
Ajman ,
Umm Al Quwain and
Ras Al Khaimah (later constituents of the
Trucial States ) in the
Arabian Peninsula and the United Kingdom.
[1]
29 January –
George IV of the United Kingdom ascends the Throne on the death at
Windsor Castle of his father George III (after 59 years on the throne), ending the period known as the
Regency era which began in 1811. George IV has served as
prince regent during this time due to his father's mental deterioration.
[2] The title
Prince of Wales falls into abeyance for 21 years.
30 January –
Royal Navy captain
Edward Bransfield in the Williams is the first person to positively identify
Antarctica as a land mass.
[3]
23 February – a plot to murder the
Cabinet , the
Cato Street Conspiracy , is exposed.
[4]
10 March –
Astronomical Society of London is founded.
[5]
1–2 April – a Proclamation, signed "By order of the Committee of Organisation for forming a Provisional Government", is distributed in the Glasgow area, beginning the "
Radical War " in Scotland. The following day, around 60,000 – particularly weavers – stop work across a wide area of central Scotland. Disaffection spreads to the
West Riding of Yorkshire .
5 April – Radical War: Troops capture radicals at
Bonnybridge .
[6]
8 April – Radical War: Radical prisoners from
Paisley are freed from jail in
Greenock after militia have killed eight of the crowd.
[6]
14 April –
1820 United Kingdom general election , begun on 6 March, concludes with an increased
Tory party majority.
[7]
1 May – the
Cato Street conspirators are the last to suffer judicial
decapitation in the UK following their public
hanging for treason outside
Newgate Prison in
London (legally, a mitigation of the last sentence in Britain of
hanging, drawing and quartering ).
[8]
11 May – launch of
HMS Beagle , the ship that will take the young
Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage, at
Woolwich Dockyard .
5 June –
Caroline of Brunswick , the new King's estranged wife, returns to England after six years abroad in Italy, where she has been carrying on an affair, and attracts the support of radical mobs. Since ascending the throne, the King has sought to receive his government's approval for a divorce.
[9]
[10]
10 June –
Sir Thomas Munro is appointed as the British colonial
Governor of the Madras Presidency , which encompasses most of southern
India .
[11]
5 July –
Pains and Penalties Bill put before Parliament to deprive
Caroline of Brunswick , George IV's estranged wife, of the title of
Queen Consort , leading to her de facto public trial before the House of Lords opening on 17 August. Although narrowly passed on 10 November in the House of Lords, the bill is withdrawn in the knowledge that it would almost certainly not pass the House of Commons.
[10]
26 July – opening of
Union Chain Bridge across the
River Tweed between England and
Scotland , designed by
Captain Samuel Brown . Its span of 449 ft (137 metres) is the longest in the
Western world at this time, and it is the first
wrought iron vehicular
suspension bridge of its type in Britain.
[12]
1 August — completion and opening of the
Regent's Canal through to the
London Docks .
30 August – Radical War: Radical leader
James Wilson , a
Strathaven weaver, is executed for treason on
Glasgow Green for his part in the rising.
[6]
8 September – Radical War: Radical leaders
John Baird and
Andrew Hardie are executed at
Stirling for their part in the rising at Bonnybridge.
[6]
Publications
Births
17 January –
Anne Brontë , novelist and poet (died 1849)
[13]
13 February –
James Geiss , businessman (died 1878)
28 February –
John Tenniel , illustrator (died 1914)
17 March –
Jean Ingelow , poet and novelist (died 1897)
22 March –
John Brown , cricketer (died 1893)
30 March –
Anna Sewell , novelist (died 1878)
4 April –
David Kirkaldy , engineer, pioneer of materials testing (died 1897)
8 April –
Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk (born 1771)
27 April –
Herbert Spencer , philosopher, political theorist and civil engineer (died 1903)
4 May –
Joseph Whitaker , publisher (died 1895)
12 May –
Florence Nightingale , nurse (died 1910)
22 May –
Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 6th Baronet , politician (died 1885)
21 June –
James Halliwell-Phillipps , bibliophile (died 1889)
22 June –
Charles Lowder , Anglo-Catholic priest (died 1880)
5 July –
William John Macquorn Rankine , Scottish physicist (died 1872)
9 July –
John Wright Oakes , landscape
painter (died 1887)
[14]
25 July –
Henry Doulton , potter (died 1897)
6 August –
Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal , Scottish-born entrepreneur, statesman and philanthropist (died 1914 in Canada)
13 August –
George Grove , musicologist, Biblical scholar and civil engineer (died 1900)
23 November –
Isaac Todhunter , mathematician (died 1884)
3 December –
John Coleridge , Lord Chief Justice (died 1894)
10 December –
Princess Elizabeth of Clarence (died 1821)
Deaths
23 January –
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (born 1767)
29 January – King
George III of the United Kingdom (born 1738)
5 February –
William Drennan , Irish political radical, poet and physician (born 1754)
11 March –
Benjamin West , painter (born 1738 in the Province of Pennsylvania)
2 April –
Thomas Brown , philosopher and poet (born 1778)
1 May –
Arthur Thistlewood , conspirator (born 1774)
30 May –
William Bradley , Britain's tallest ever man (born 1787)
19 June – Sir
Joseph Banks , naturalist and botanist (born 1743)
3 September –
Benjamin Henry Latrobe , architect in the United States (born 1764)
4 September –
Timothy Brown , banker, merchant and radical (born 1743/4)
11 October –
James Keir , Scottish geologist, chemist and industrialist (born 1735)
References
^ Lorimer, John (1915). Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf . Bombay: British Government.
^
"George IV (1762–1830)" . History .
BBC . Retrieved 27 February 2013 .
^ Jones, A. G. E. (1982). Antarctica Observed: who discovered the Antarctic Continent? . Caedmon of Whitby.
ISBN
0-905355-25-3 .
^ Penguin Pocket On This Day . Penguin Reference Library. 2006.
ISBN
0-14-102715-0 .
^
"A brief history of the RAS" . Royal Astronomical Society. Retrieved 16 August 2011 .
^
a
b
c
d
"Notable Dates in History" .
The Scots Independent . The Flag in the Wind. Archived from
the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 9 August 2014 .
^ Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History . London: Century Ltd. pp. 250–251.
ISBN
0-7126-5616-2 .
^ Abbott, Geoffrey (2005) [1994]. Execution: a Guide to the Ultimate Penalty . Chichester: Summersdale Publishers. pp. 161–2.
ISBN
978-1-84024-433-5 .
^
Hibbert, Christopher (1999). Wellington: A Personal History . Da Capo Press. p. 220.
^
a
b Robins, Jane (2007) [2006].
Rebel Queen: How the Trial of Caroline Brought England to the Brink of Revolution . Pocket Books.
ISBN
978-0-7434-7826-7 .
^ Beaglehole, T. H. (1966). Thomas Munro and the Development of Administrative Policy in Madras 1792-1818 . Cambridge University Press. p. 121.
^ Drewry, Charles Stewart (1832). "Section III".
A Memoir of Suspension Bridges: Comprising The History of Their Origin And Progress . London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman. pp.
37 –41. Retrieved 16 August 2011 .
^
"Anne Brontë | British author" . Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved 17 April 2019 .
^
Lee, Sidney , ed. (1895).
"Oakes, John Wright" .
Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 41. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 289.