1811 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1811 in the United Kingdom. This is a census year and the start of the British Regency.

1811 in the United Kingdom

Other years

1809 | 1810 | 1811 | 1812 | 1813

Sport

1811 English cricket season

Incumbents

• Monarch – George III
• Regent – George, Prince Regent (starting 5 February)
• Prime Minister – Spencer Perceval (Tory)
• Parliament – 4th

Events

• 1 February – Bell Rock Lighthouse begins operation off the coast of Scotland.[1]
• 5 February – George, Prince of Wales becomes Regent[1] because of the perceived insanity of his father, King George III. He is known as the Prince Regent and this is the beginning of the Regency period.[2]
• 21 February – the John and Jane, carrying troops bound for the Peninsular War, is accidentally run down and sunk by HMS Franchise off Lizard Point, Cornwall with the loss of a majority of the 300 on board.[3]
• 13 March – Battle of Lissa: British fleet defeats the French.
• 25–27 March – Battle of Anholt: British naval forces defeat those of Denmark.
• 4 April – Huddersfield Narrow Canal completed by opening of Standedge Tunnel under the Pennines, the longest (5,413 yards (4,950 m)), deepest and highest canal tunnel in Britain.[4]
• 27 May – the second national Census reveals that the population of England and Wales has increased in ten years by over a million to 10.1 million.[5]
• 10 June – a volcanic eruption, observed from Royal Navy sloop HMS Sabrina (1806), creates Sabrina Island (Azores) which on 4 July is claimed for Britain; a few months later it sinks beneath the sea.
• 18 June – the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists leave the established Church of England by ordaining their own ministers in Bala, North Wales.
• 8 September – the first known landing on Rockall is made by a party from HMS Endymion.[6][7]
• 16 October – National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church in England and Wales established by the Church of England to promote a system of National Schools.
• November – Luddite uprisings begin in northern England and Midlands.[8]
• 4 December – Royal Navy frigate HMS Saldanha (1809) is driven in a gale onto rocks in Lough Swilly in Ireland with no survivors from the estimated 253 aboard.[9]
• 7–19 December – Ratcliff Highway murders in London.

Ongoing

• Napoleonic Wars, 1803–1815
• Anglo-Russian War, 1807–1812
• Anglo-Swedish War 1810–1812
• Peninsular War, 1808–1814

Undated

• Highland Clearances: The Marquess and Marchioness of Stafford begin mass expulsion of crofting tenants from their Highland estates to make way for sheep farming.[10][11]
• Building of Regent Street begins John Nash's development of the West End of London.[12]
• The first complete ichthyosaur fossil is found by Mary Anning at Lyme Regis.

Publications

• Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility ('by a lady').
• Francis Place's Illustrations and Proofs of the Principles of Population, including an examination of the proposed remedies of Mr. Malthus, and a reply to the objections of Mr. Godwin and others, the first significant text in English to advocate contraception.[13]

Births

• 9 January – Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, writer (died 1856)
• 6 February – Henry Liddell, academic and cleric (died 1898)
• 24 February – Edward Dickinson Baker, United States Senator from Oregon from 1860 (died 1861 in the United States)
• 7 June – James Simpson, Scottish obstetrician and pioneer of anaesthesia (died 1870)
• 13 June – Owen Stanley, Royal Navy officer (died 1850)
• 13 July
  • George Gilbert Scott, architect (died 1878)
  • James "paraffin" Young, Scottish chemist (died 1883)
• 18 July – William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (died 1863)
• 21 December – Archibald Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 1882)

Deaths

• 9 February – Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal (born 1732)
• 14 March – Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1735)
• 7 May – Richard Cumberland, dramatist (born 1732)
• 28 May – Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, minister (born 1742)
• 15 October – Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, portrait painter and politician (born 1735)
• 27 November – Andrew Meikle, engineer (born 1719)
• 31 December – Benjamin Vulliamy, clockmaker (born 1747)

See also

• 1811 in Scotland

References

1. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
2. "George IV (1762–1830)". BBC History. Retrieved 2 September 2011.
3. French, Brian (2013). "Dangerous Waters". Maritime South West. 26: 93–123.
4. "Standedge Tunnel: a true wonder of the waterways". British Waterways. Archived from the original on 15 September 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2009.
5. "1811". 2011 Census. 2011. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
6. Hall, Basil (1831). Fragments of Voyages and Travels. London.
7. Fisher, James (1957). Rockall. Country Book Club. pp. 23–35.
8. "Icons, a portrait of England 1800–1820". Archived from the original on 17 October 2007. Retrieved 11 September 2007.
9. Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 0-948864-30-3.
10. "George Granville Leveson-Gower (1st Duke of Sutherland)". Gazetteer for Scotland. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
11. Noble, Ross (15 October 2010). "The Cultural Impact of the Highland Clearances". British History in-depth. BBC. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
12. Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 244–245. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
13. "Francis Place". Spartacus Educational. Archived from the original on 6 August 2007. Retrieved 12 October 2011.