1724 in Great Britain

1724 in Great Britain:

Other years

1723 | 1724 | 1725 | 1726

Sport

1724 English cricket season

Events from the year 1724 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George I
• Prime Minister – Robert Walpole (Whig)
• Parliament – 6th

Events

Blenheim Palace completed.

• 20 February – première of Julius Caesar in Egypt, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, takes place in London.[1]
• 6 April – Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne becomes Secretary of State for the Southern Department; Henry Pelham becomes Secretary at War.[2]
• 16 November – Jack Sheppard is hanged in London. (His partner-in-crime, highwayman Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, was similarly executed five days earlier.)

Unknown dates

• Blenheim Palace construction is completed. It is presented as a gift to the Duke of Marlborough for his involvement in the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.
• Longman, the oldest publishing house in England, is founded.

Publications

• Daniel Defoe's A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain begins publication.[2]
• Jonathan Swift's Drapier's Letters begin publication.[2]
• Isaac Watts' textbook Logic.

Births

• 24 January – Frances Brooke, writer (died 1789)
• 28 February – George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend, field marshal (died 1807)
• 19 May – Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol, admiral and politician (died 1779)
• 3 June – John Gregory, physician, medical writer and moralist (died 1773)
• 8 June – John Smeaton, civil engineer (died 1792)
• 25 August – George Stubbs, painter (died 1806)
• 3 September – Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, soldier and Governor of Quebec (died 1808)
• 31 October – Christopher Anstey, writer (died 1805)
• 12 December – Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, admiral (died 1816)
• 25 December – John Michell, scientist and geologist (died 1793)

Deaths

• 12 February – Elkanah Settle, writer (born 1648)
• 21 May – Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, statesman (born 1661)
• 15 June – Henry Sacheverell, churchman and politician (born 1674)
• 29 October – William Wollaston, philosophical writer (born 1659)
• 11 November – Joseph Blake (alias Blueskin), highwayman (executed) (born 1700)
• 16 November – Jack Sheppard, criminal (executed) (born 1702)
• 27 December – Thomas Guy, philanthropist (born 1644)

References

1. The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
2. Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.

See also