1787 in Great Britain

1 January – George III writes his first letter to Arthur Young's Annals of Agriculture, under the name of Ralph Robinson of Windsor.
11 January – William Herschel discovers the Uranian moons Titania and Oberon.^[2]
19 February – William Herschel first uses the 40-foot telescope under construction for him at Slough.
13 May – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth with the eleven ships of the First Fleet carrying around 700 convicts and at least 300 crew and guards to establish a penal colony in Australia.^[3]
22 May – Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade with support from John Wesley, Josiah Wedgwood and others.^[3]
31 May – the original Lord's Cricket Ground holds its first cricket match;^[4] Marylebone Cricket Club founded.^[5]
July – Principal Triangulation of Great Britain begun under the direction of General William Roy from Hounslow Heath; in the autumn it is extended to France.^[6]
Summer – Calton weavers' strike in the west of Scotland. On 3 September, six of the Calton weavers are killed by troops.
23 December – Captain William Bligh sets sail from Spithead for Tahiti on HMS Bounty.^[4]

Births

7 January – Patrick Nasmyth, Scottish landscape painter (died 1831)
10 February – William Bradley, Britain's tallest ever man (died 1820)
17 February – George Mogridge (Old Humphrey), miscellaneous writer and poet (died 1854)
10 March – William Etty, painter, especially of nudes (died 1849)
28 March – Claudius Rich, archaeologist and anthropologist (died 1821)
7 June – William Conybeare, geologist (died 1857)
28 June – Sir Harry Smith, military commander (died 1860)
24 July – William Ward, cricketer (died 1849)
10 September – Justina Jeffreys, Jamaican-born Welsh gentlewoman (died 1869)^[7]
13 September – John Adamson, antiquary and expert on Portuguese (died 1855)
13 October – William Brockedon, painter (died 1854)
4 November – Edmund Kean, actor (died 1833)
21 November – Bryan Procter (Barry Cornwall), poet (died 1874)
22 November – Copley Fielding, watercolour landscape painter (died 1855)
16 December – Mary Russell Mitford, novelist and dramatist (died 1855)
Ignatius Bonomi, architect (died 1870)
John Dobson, architect (died 1865)
Harriet Gouldsmith, landscape painter and etcher (died 1863)
Approximate date – Ikey Solomon, receiver of stolen goods (died 1850 in Australia)

Remove ads

Deaths

1 April – Floyer Sydenham, classical scholar (born 1710)
2 April – Thomas Gage, General (born 1719)
10 May – William Watson, physician and scientist (born 1715)
25 July – Arthur Devis, portrait painter (born 1712)
3 November – Robert Lowth, bishop and grammarian (born 1710)
18 December
- Francis William Drake, British admiral and Governor of Newfoundland (born 1724)
- Soame Jenyns, English writer (born 1704)

Remove ads

Incumbents