1781 in Great Britain
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1781 in Great Britain:

Other years

1779 | 1780 | 1781 | 1782 | 1783

Sport

1781 English cricket season

Events from the year 1781 in the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch - George III of the United Kingdom
• Prime Minister - Frederick North, Lord North, Tory

Events

• 1 January - Industrial Revolution: The Iron Bridge opens across the River Severn.¹
• 5 January - American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.
• 6 January - British forces defeat the French at the Battle of Jersey.
• 17 January - American Revolutionary War: Americans under Daniel Morgan defeat British forces at the Battle of Cowpens.²
• January - William Pitt the Younger, later Prime Minister, enters Parliament.
• 3 February - American Revolutionary War: Admiral Rodney captures the island of Sint Eustatius.¹

March 13: Uranus discovered [image in false color].

• 13 March - Sir William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus.²Originally he calls it Georgium Sidus (George's Star) in honour of King George III.
• 15 March - American Revolutionary War: American General Nathanael Greene loses Battle of Guilford Court House to British.²
• 1 July - Second Anglo-Mysore War: At the Battle of Porto Novo, the British defeat the Mysore ruler Hyder Ali.¹
• 6 July - American Revolutionary War: At the Battle of Green Spring, the British led by Lord Cornwallis defeats the French led by marquis de La Fayette.¹
• 27 July - French spy Francis Henry de la Motte executed in Tyburn prison in London for high treason.
• 30 August - American Revolutionary War: French fleet under Comte de Grasse enters Chesapeake Bay, cutting British General Charles Cornwallis off from escape by sea.
• 5 September - American Revolutionary War: In the Battle of the Chesapeake, a British fleet under Thomas Graves arrives and fights de Grasse, but to no effect.¹
• 6 September - American Revolutionary War: The British army attacks a fort in Groton, Connecticut which became known as the Battle of Groton Heights.
• 19 October - American Revolutionary War: Following the Siege of Yorktown, General Charles Cornwallis surrenders to General George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, ending the armed struggle of the American Revolutionary War.¹
• 29 November
  • Zong Massacre: A British slave-trader orders that 133 slaves be thrown overboard from his vessel and then attempts to reclaim their value from insurers.³
  • Henry Hurle officially founds the Ancient Order of Druids(AOD) in London.
• 12 December - French and British fleets fight in the Second Battle of Ushant.

Publications

• Volumes 2 and 3 of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.¹

Births

• 29 May - John Walker, inventor (died 1859)
• 9 June - George Stephenson, engineer (died 1848)
• 6 July - Thomas Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore (died 1826)
• 6 November - Lucy Aikin, English writer (died 1864)
• 30 November - Alexander Berry, adventurer and Australian pioneer (died 1873)
• 11 December - Sir David Brewster, physicist (died 1868)

Deaths

• 12 January - Richard Challoner, English Catholic prelate (born 1691)
• 24 February - Edward Capell, critic (born 1713)
• 23 April - James Abercrombie, general (born 1706)
• 8 May - Richard Jago, poet (born 1715)
• 28 September - William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, diplomat and statesman (born 1717)
• 16 October - Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, naval officer (born 1705)

References

See also