1738 in Great Britain

1738 in Great Britain:

Other years

1736 | 1737 | 1738 | 1739 | 1740

Sport

1738 English cricket season

Events from the year 1738 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George II
• Prime Minister – Robert Walpole (Whig)
• Parliament – 8th

Events

• 28 March – Robert Jenkins presents a pickled ear, which he claims was cut off by a Spanish captain in the Caribbean in 1731, to Parliament, stirring up war fever against Spain leading to the War of Jenkins' Ear the following year.[1]
• 15 April – première in London of Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel.
• May
  • Tiverton riot: wool trade workers riot over prices in Tiverton, Devon.
  • The Fetter Lane Society is founded by followers of the Moravian Church in London.[2]
• 24 May – John Wesley experiences a spiritual rebirth at a Moravian Church meeting in Aldersgate in the City of London, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day.[2] His younger brother Charles had a similar experience three days earlier.
• 24 June – Lewis Paul and John Wyatt obtain a patent for roller cotton-spinning machinery.
• Late (dated 1739) – David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature is published anonymously.

Undated

• William Champion of Bristol patents a process to distill zinc from calamine using charcoal in a smelter.
• William Kent is appointed to remodel Rousham House and gardens in Oxfordshire, "a landmark in the history of the Romantic movement."[3]

Births

• 9 February (bapt.) – Mary Whateley, poet and playwright (died 1825)
• 14 April – William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1809)
• 16 April – Henry Clinton, British army general and politician (died 1795)
• 9 May – John Wolcot, satirist and poet (died 1819)
• 4 June (New Style, 24 May Old Style)
  • King George III of the United Kingdom (died 1820)
  • James Martin, radical politician (died 1810)
• 11 October – Arthur Phillip, admiral and Governor of New South Wales (died 1814)
• 15 November – William Herschel, German-born British astronomer (died 1822)
• 31 December – Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, general (died 1805)

Deaths

• 1 May – Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, English statesman (born c. 1669)
• 21 June – Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, English politician (born 1674)
• 22 December – Constantia Jones, prostitute (executed) (born c. 1708)

References

1. Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 306–307. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
2. Everett, Jason M., ed. (2006). "1738". The People's Chronology. Thomson Gale.
3. Sherwood, Jennifer (1974). "Rousham Park". In Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (eds.). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 740–6. ISBN 0-14-071045-0.

See also