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John Dickey

Male Abt 1699 - 1779  (80 years)


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   Date  Event(s)
1700 
  • 1700: Population in England and Scotland approx 7.5 million
1701 
  • 1701: Act of Settlement bars Catholics from the British throne
  • 23 May 1701: After being convicted of piracy and murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd hanged in London
1702 
  • 8 Mar 1702: Anne Stuart becomes Queen
  • 11 Mar 1702: First English daily newspaper The Daily Courant (till 1735)
1703 
  • 4 Aug 1703: British take Gibraltar
  • 24 Nov 1703: Climate: Most violent storms of the millennium cause vast damage across southern England – about a third of Britain's merchant fleet lost, and Eddystone lighthouse destroyed on 27 November (Nov 24 - Dec 2)
1704 
  • 1704: Penal Code enacted – Catholics barred from voting, education and the military
  • 13 Aug 1704: Battle of Blenheim
1705 
  • 1705: First workable steam pumping engine devised by Thomas Newcomen (some say c1710 or 1711)
  • 1705: Isaac Newton knighted (for his work at the Royal Mint)
1706 
  • 1706: First evening newspaper "The Evening Post" issued in London
1707 
  • 16 Jan 1707: Union with Scotland – Scots agree to send 16 peers and 45 MPs to English Parliament in return for full trading privileges – Scottish Parliament meets for the last time in March
  • 1 May 1707: English and Scottish Parliaments united by an Act of the English Parliament – The Kingdom of Great Britain established – largest free-trade area in Europe at the time
1708 
  • 1708: First Jacobite rising in Scotland
  • 1708: Earliest Artillery Muster Rolls
10 1709 
  • 1709: Second Eddystone lighthouse completed
  • 1709: First Copyright Act pass
  • 1709: Bad harvests throughout Europe – bread riots in Britain
  • 2 Feb 1709: Alexander Selkirk rescued from shipwreck on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe (published in 1719) by Daniel Defoe
11 1710 
  • 1710: Tax on Apprentice Indentures introduced
12 1711 
  • 1711: Incorporation of South Sea Company, in London
  • 11 Aug 1711: First race meeting at Ascot
13 1712 
  • 1712: Imposition of Soap Tax (abolished 1853)
  • 1712: Last trial for witchcraft in England (Jane Wenham)
  • 1712: Toleration Act passed – first relief to non-Anglicans
14 1713 
  • 1713: By this year there are some 3,000 coffee houses in London
15 1714 
  • 1714: Longitude Act: prize of £20,000 offered to the inventor of a workable method of determining a ship's longitude (won by John Harrison in 1773 for his chronometer).
  • 1714: Schism Act, prevents Dissenters from being schoolmasters in England
  • 1714: Landholders forced to take the Oath of Allegiance and renounce Roman Catholicism
  • 1 Aug 1714: Queen Anne Stuart dies – George I Hanover becomes king (1714-1727).
16 1715 
  • 1715: Second Jacobite rebellion in Scotland, under the Old Pretender ('The Fifteen')
  • 1 Aug 1715: Riot Act passed
17 1716 
  • 1716: The Septennial Act of Britain leads to greater electoral corruption – general elections now to be held once every 7 years instead of every 3 (until 1911)
  • 1716: Climate: Thames frozen so solid that a spring tide lifted the ice bodily 13ft without interrupting the frost fair
18 1717 
  • 1717: First Masonic Lodge opens in London
  • 1717: Value of the golden guinea fixed at 21 shillings
19 1719 
  • 1719: Third abortive Jacobite rising
20 1720 
  • 1720: South Sea Bubble, a stock-market crash on Exchange Alley – government assumes control of National Debt
  • 1720: Manufacturing towns start to increase in population – rise of new wealth
  • 1720: Wallpaper becomes fashionable in England
21 1721 
  • 2 Apr 1721: Robert Walpole (Whig) becomes first Prime Minister (to 1742)
22 1722 
  • 1722: Last trial for witchcraft in Scotland
  • 1722: Knatchbull's Act, poor laws
23 1723 
  • 1723: Excise tax levied for coffee, tea, and chocolate
  • 1723: The Waltham Black Acts add 50 capital offences to the penal code – people could be sentenced to death for theft and poaching – repealed in 1827
  • 1723: The Workhouse Act or Test – to get relief, a poor person has to enter Workhouse
24 1724 
  • 1724: Rapid growth of gin drinking in England
  • 1724: Longman's founded (Britain's oldest publishing house)
25 1726 
  • 1726: First circulating library opened in Edinburgh
  • 1726: Invention of the chronometer by John Harrison
26 1727 
  • 1727: Board of Manufacturers established in Scotland
  • 11 Jun 1727: George I dies – George II Hanover becomes king
27 1729 
  • 9 Nov 1729: Treaty of Seville signed between Britain, France and Spain – Britain maintained control of Port Mahon and Gibraltar
28 1730 
  • 1730: Irish famine
29 1731 
  • 1731: Invention of seed drill by Jethro Tull [others say 1701]
  • 1731: Invention of sextant by John Hadley
30 1732 
  • 7 Dec 1732: Covent Garden Opera House opens
31 1733 
  • 1733: Excise crisis: Sir Robert Walpole wanted to add excise tax to tobacco and wine – Pulteney and Bolingbroke oppose the excise tax
  • 1733: Law forbidding the use of Latin in parish registers generally obeyed – some continued in Latin for a few years
  • 1733: John Kay invents the flying shuttle, revolutionised the weaving industry
32 1734 
  • 1734: Kent's Directory published
33 1737 
  • 1737: Licensing Act restricts the number of London theatres and subects plays to censorship of the Lord Chamberlain (till 1950s)
34 1738 
  • 24 May 1738: John Wesley has his conversion experience
35 1739 
  • 1739: Wesley and Whitefield commence great Methodist revival
  • 7 Apr 1739: Dick Turpin, highwayman, hanged at York
  • 23 Oct 1739: War of Jenkins' Ear starts: Robert Walpole reluctantly declares war on Spain
36 1741 
  • 1741: Benjamin Ingham founded the Moravian Methodists or Inghamites – Earliest Moravian registers
37 1742 
  • 1742: England goes to war with Spain – incited by William Pitt the Elder (Earl of Chatham) for the sake of trade
38 1743 
  • 16 Jun 1743: (June 27 in Gregorian calendar): Battle of Dettingen – last time a British sovereign (George II) led troops in battle
39 1744 
  • 1744: Tune 'God Save the King' makes its appearance
40 1745 
  • 1745: Jacobite rebellion in Scotland ('The Forty-five')
  • 19 Aug 1745: Bonnie Prince Charlie (The Young Pretender) lands in the western Highlands – raises support among Episcopalian and Catholic clans – The Pretender's army invades Perth, Edinburgh, and England as far as Derby
41 1746 
  • 16 Apr 1746: Battle of Culloden – last battle fought in Britain – 5,000 Highlanders routed by the Duke of Cumberland and 9,000 loyalists Scots – Young Pretender Charles flees to Continent, ending Jacobite hopes forever – the wearing of the kilt prohibited
42 1747 
  • 1747: Abolition of Heritable Jurisdictions in Scotland
  • 1747: Act for Pacification of the Highlands
43 1749 
  • 27 Apr 1749: First performance of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks (in Green Park, London)
44 1750 
  • Feb 1750: Series of earthquakes in London and the Home Counties cause panic with predictions of an apocalypse (Feb/Mar)
  • 16 Nov 1750: Original Westminster Bridge opened (replaced in 1862 due to subsidence)
45 1751 
  • Mar 1751: Chesterfield's Calendar Act passed – royal assent to the bill was given on 22 May 1751 – decision to adopt Gregorian Calendar in 1752: "In and throughout all his Majesty's Dominions and Countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, belonging or subject to the Crown of Great Britain, the said Supputation, according to which the Year of Useful dates in British history 03/01/2009 12:12 our Lord beginneth on the 25th Day of March, shall not be made use of from and after the last Day of December 1751; and that the first Day of January next following the said last Day of December shall be reckoned, taken, deemed and accounted to be the first Day of the Year of our Lord 1752"
46 1752 
  • 1752: Benjamin Franklin invents the lightning conductor
  • 1 Jan 1752: Beginning of the year 1752 [Scotland had adopted January as the start of the year in 1600, and some other countries in Europe had adopted the Gregorian calendar as early as 1582]
  • 3 Sep 1752: Julian Calendar dropped and Gregorian Calendar adopted in England and Scotland, making this Sep 14
47 1753 
  • 1753: Private collection of Sir Hans Sloane forms the basis of the British Museum
  • 1 May 1753: Publication of "Species Plantarum" by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy
48 1754 
  • 1754: Hardwicke Act (1753): Banns to be called, and Printed Marriage Register forms to be used – Quakers & Jews exempt
  • 1754: In the General Election, the Cow Inn at Haslemere, Surrey caused a national scandal by subdividing the freehold to create eight votes instead of one
  • 1754: First British troops not belonging to the East India Company despatched to India
49 1755 
  • 1755: Publication of "Dictionary of the English Language" by Dr Samuel Johnson
  • 1755: Period of canal construction began in Britain (till 1827)
  • 2 Dec 1755: Second Eddystone Lighthouse destroyed by fire
50 1756 
  • 15 May 1756: The Seven Years War with France (Pitt's trade war) begins
  • Jun 1756: Black Hole of Calcutta – 146 Britons imprisoned, most die according to British sources
51 1757 
  • 1757: The foundation laid for the Empire of India
  • 14 Mar 1757: Admiral Byng shot at Portsmouth for failing to relieve Minorca
  • 23 Jun 1757: The Nawab of Bengal tries to expel the British, but is defeated at the battle of Plassey (Palashi, June 23) – the East India Company forces are led by Robert Clive
52 1758 
  • 1758: India stops being merely a commercial venture – England begins dominating it politically – The East India Company retains its monopoly although it ceased to trade
53 1759 
  • 1759: Wesley builds 356 Methodist chapels
  • 15 Jan 1759: British Museum opens to the public in London
  • 16 Oct 1759: Third Eddystone Lighthouse (John Smeaton's) completed
54 1760 
  • 1760: Carron Iron Works in operation in Scotland
  • 5 May 1760: First use of hangman's drop
  • 25 Oct 1760: George II dies – George III Hanover, his grandson, becomes king. The date conventionally marks the start of the so-called "first Industrial Revolution"
55 1761 
  • 16 Jan 1761: British capture Pondicherry, India from the French
56 1762 
  • 1762: Cigars introduced into Britain from Cuba
57 1763 
  • 1763: Treaty of Paris – gives back to France everything Pitt fought to obtain – (Newfoundland [fishing], Guadaloupe and Martininque [sugar], Dakar [gum]) – but English displaces French as the international language
58 1764 
  • 1764: Lloyd's Register of shipping first prepared
  • 1764: Practice of numbering houses introduced to London
  • 1764: James Hargeaves invents the Spinning Jenny (but destroyed 1768)
  • 1764: Mozart produces his first symphony at age eight
59 1765 
  • 1765: The potato becomes the most popular food in Europe
  • 22 Mar 1765: Stamp Act passed – imposed a tax on publications and legal documents in the American colonies (repealed the following year)
60 1766 
  • 1766: Start of 'composite' national records on rainfall in the UK
  • 5 Dec 1766: Christie's auction house founded in London by James Christie
61 1767 
  • 1767: Newcomen's steam pumping engine perfected by James Watt
62 1768 
  • 9 Jan 1768: Philip Astley starts his circus in London
  • 6 Dec 1768: The first edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" published in Edinburgh by William Smellie
63 1769 
  • 1769: Arkwright invents water frame (textile production)
  • 1769: Capt James Cook maps the coast of New Zealand
  • 6 Sep 1769: David Garrick organises first Shakespeare festival at Stratford-upon-Avon
64 1770 
  • 1770: Clyde Trust created to convert the River Clyde, then an insignificant river, into a major thoroughfare for maritime communications
  • 28 Apr 1770: Capt James Cook lands in Australia (Botany Bay) — Aug 21: formally claims Australia for Britain
65 1771 
  • 1771: Right to report Parliamentary debates established in England
66 1772 
  • 1772: First Travellers' Cheques issued by the London Credit Exchange Company
  • 1772: "Morning Post" first published (until 1937)
  • 14 May 1772: Judge Mansfield rules that there is no legal basis for slavery in England
67 1774 
  • 13 Sep 1774: Cook arrives on Easter Island
68 1775 
  • 19 Apr 1775: Battle of Lexington: first action in American War of Independence (1775–1783)
69 1776 
  • 1776: Somerset House in London becomes the repository of records of population
  • 1776: Watt and Boulton produce their first commercial steam engine
  • 4 Jul 1776: American Declaration of Independence
  • 7 Sep 1776: First attack on a warship by a submarine – David Bushnell's "Turtle" attacked HMS Eagle in New York harbour. The attack was perhaps spectacular (a charge did detonate beneath the ship), but was nevertheless unsuccessful. "Turtle" was a one man affair, man-powered [Les Moore]
70 1777 
  • 1777: Samuel Miller of Southampton patents the circular saw.
71 1779 
  • 1779: Marc Isambard Brunel opens the first steamdriven sawmill at Chatham Dockyard in Kent
  • 1779: First iron bridge built, over the Severn by John Wilkinson
  • 1779: First Spinning Mills operational in Scotland
  • 14 Feb 1779: Capt James Cook killed on Hawaii
  • 23 Sep 1779: Naval engagement between Britain and USA off Flamborough Head