1785 in Great Britain

Great Britain-related events during the year of 1785
1785 in Great Britain:
Other years
1783 | 1784 | 1785 | 1786 | 1787
Countries of the United Kingdom
Scotland
Sport
1785 English cricket season

Events from the year 1785 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

Events

  • 1 January – the first issue of the Daily Universal Register, later known as The Times, is published in London.[2]
  • 7 January – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.[2]
  • 7 March – James Hutton proposes the theory of uniformitarianism to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.[3]
  • January to July – continuing an extremely dry and cold spell from the previous year, several records for dryness are set, among them driest twelve months in the England and Wales Precipitation series, with only 522.0 millimetres (20.55 in) for the year ending July 1785, and further records for dryness for periods of three to six months.[4]
  • 17 July – Fairfield Moravian Church is opened in Fairfield, Droylsden, Lancashire. With its surrounding settlement it has been founded by Benjamin La Trobe as a centre for evangelistic work for the Moravian Church in the Manchester area.[5]
  • 21 December – the Prince of Wales marries the widowed Catholic Maria Fitzherbert in her London home, secretly, and in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act 1772.[6]

Undated

Publications

Births

Deaths

  • 19 January – Jonathan Toup, classical scholar and critic (born 1713)
  • 23 January – Matthew Stewart, mathematician (born 1717)
  • February – Peter the Wild Boy (born before 1725)
  • 14 April – William Whitehead, writer (born 1715)
  • 30 June – James Oglethorpe, English general and founder of the state of Georgia (born 1696)
  • 26 August – George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, soldier and politician (born 1716)
  • 25 November – Richard Glover, poet (born 1712)
  • 6 December – Kitty Clive, actress (born 1711)

See also

References

  1. ^ "History of William Pitt 'The Younger' - GOV.UK". www.gov.uk. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  2. ^ a b Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
  3. ^ The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
  4. ^ Lough, Janice; Wigley, Tom; Jones, Phil (1984). "Spatial patterns of precipitation in England and Wales and a revised homogeneous England and Wales precipitation series". Journal of Climatology. 4:1-25.
  5. ^ Historic England. "Fairfield Moravian Church (1067981)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2016-05-09.
  6. ^ Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 229–230. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
  7. ^ "Downing Street biography of Pitt". Archived from the original on 12 September 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-01.
  8. ^ a b Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 337. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
  9. ^ Haughton, Claire (1980). Green Immigrants. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. pp. 133–134. ISBN 0-15-636492-1.

Further reading

  • New Annual Register...for 1785, London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1786