1741 in Great Britain

1741 in Great Britain:

Other years

1739 | 1740 | 1741 | 1742 | 1743

Sport

1741 English cricket season

Events from the year 1741 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George II
• Prime Minister – Robert Walpole (Whig)
• Parliament – 8th (until 27 April), 9th (starting 25 June)

Events

• 30 April–11 June – 1741 British general election: Robert Walpole retains a Parliamentary majority but the Whigs lose control of a number of rotten and pocket boroughs.[1]
• March – Lancelot "Capability" Brown joins Lord Cobham's gardening staff at Stowe, Buckinghamshire.[2]
• 18 July – War of Jenkins' Ear: Invasion of Cuba – Admiral Edward Vernon arrives at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.
• 4/5 August–9 December – Vernon captures Guantánamo Bay and renames it Cumberland Bay. His troops hold it but are resisted by local guerrilla forces and withdraw.
• 22 August–14 September – George Frideric Handel composes the oratorio Messiah in London to a libretto compiled by Charles Jennens,[3] completing the "Hallelujah Chorus" on 6 September.[4] It receives a private rehearsal in Chester in November while Handel is en route to Dublin.
• 19 October – London stage debut of actor David Garrick in Richard III,[3] having made his professional debut at Ipswich in Oroonoko earlier in the year.
• The Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, is established to train officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers.[5]
• Henry Hoare begins to lay out the landscape gardens at Stourhead, Wiltshire.

Publications

• April – Henry Fielding's An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews satirising Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela.[3]
• Isaac Watts' The Improvement of the Mind.

Births

• 27 January – Hester Thrale, diarist (died 1821)
• 17 March – William Withering, physician (died 1799)
• c. April/May? – Henry Cort, ironmaster (died 1800)
• 11 September – Arthur Young, writer (died 1820)

Deaths

• 21 February – Jethro Tull, agriculturist (born 1674)
• 10 April – Celia Fiennes, travel writer (born 1662)
• 24 May – Lord Augustus FitzRoy, Royal Navy officer (born 1716)
• August – David Owen, Welsh harpist (born 1712)
• 31 December – Andrew Archer, politician (born 1659)

References

1. "Sir Robert Walpole". Prime Ministers in history. Prime Minister's Office. Archived from the original on 2008-08-21. Retrieved 2011-02-27.
2. Hinde, Thomas (1986). Capability Brown: the Story of a Master Gardener. London: Hutchinson. p. 19. ISBN 0-09-163740-6.
3. Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 308–309. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
4. British Library (London) MS RM.20.f.2, f106.
5. "Royal Military Academy, Woolwich". Royal Engineers Museum. Retrieved 2008-12-24.

See also