1768 in Great Britain
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.svg){kind=small} 1768 in Great Britain: |
| Other years |
| 1766 | 1767 | 1768 | 1769 | 1770 |
| Sport |
| 1768 English cricket season |
Events from the year 1768 in Great Britain.
Incumbents
- Monarch - George III
- Prime Minister - William Pitt the Elder (Whig) (until 14 October), Duke of Grafton (Whig) (starting 14 October)
Events
- 9 January - Philip Astley stages the first modern circus, with acrobats on galloping horses in London.
- March - General election; Whigs remain in power.[1]
- 17 March - William Cookworthy of Plymouth is granted a patent for the manufacture of true porcelain.[2]
- 10 May - John Wilkes is imprisoned for writing an article for The North Briton severely criticising King George III. This action provokes protesters to riot; in Southwark, troops fire on the mob, killing seven, the Massacre of St George's Fields.[3]
- 8 August - James Cook departs Plymouth on his first voyage of discovery.[4]
- September - First Birmingham Music Festival held.
- 14 October - Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, succeeds William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, as Prime Minister after Pitt's resignation due to ill health.[1]
- 10 December - Royal Academy founded in London, with Joshua Reynolds as its first President.[5]
Undated
- Secretary of State for colonies appointed.
- Boston citizens refuse to quarter British troops.
- Frederick Cornwallis enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.
- The Theatre Royal, Bath, and Theatre Royal, Norwich, assume these titles having been granted Royal Patents, making them officially the country's only legal provincial theatres.[6]
- Joseph Wright of Derby's painting An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump.
Publications
- First of the weekly numbers of the Encyclopædia Britannica, edited by William Smellie, are published in Edinburgh; one hundred are planned.
- An Essay upon Prints, containing remarks upon the principles of picturesque beauty by William Gilpin.
- A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Laurence Sterne.[7]
- A Six Weeks Tour, through the southern counties of England and Wales by Arthur Young.
Births
- 17 May - Caroline of Brunswick, queen of George IV (died 1821)
- 17 May - Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, general (died 1854)
- 23 August - Astley Cooper, surgeon and anatomist (died 1841)
- 24 September - Sharon Turner, historian (died 1847)
- 2 October - William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford, general and politician (died 1854)
Deaths
- 1 February - Sir Robert Rich, cavalry officer (born 1685)
- 2 February - Robert Smith, mathematician (born 1689)
- 8 February - George Dance the Elder, architect (born 1695)
- 17 February - Arthur Onslow, politician (born 1691)
- 18 March - Laurence Sterne, Irish-born English novelist (born 1713)
- 15 June - James Short, mathematician and optician (born 1710)
- 24 July - Nathanial Lardner, theologian (born 1684)
- 3 August - Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury (born 1693)
- 1 October - Robert Simson, mathematician (born 1687)
- 17 November - Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Prime Minister (born 1693)
- 26 November - Edward Stone, polymath (born 1702)
- date unknown - Mary Hervey (born 1700)
References
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