Queen Anne (the last of the
Stuarts): 1702-1714
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1707: Act of Union by which Scotland and Wales
are now declared part of Great Britain.
Death of Emperor Aurangazeb, the last of the
Mughal rulers of India.This paves the way for
greater British encroachment through the East
India Company.
1713: Britain obtains The Assiento: contract to
supply slaves to Spanish colonies.
George I: 1714-1727 The German Prince (rise of
modern constitutional monarchy)
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1720: The South Sea Bubble: a great financial
disaster
1723: The Workhouse Act or Test (to get relief,
the poor person has to enter the Workhouse).
The Waltham Black Act adds 50 capital offenses
to the penal code: people could be sentenced to
death for theft and poaching. This Act has been
said to "signal the onset of the floodtide of
eighteenth-century retributive justice"
(Thompson 23). Excise tax levied for coffee, tea,
and chocolate.
George II: 1727-1760
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1730: Famine in Ireland (Swift writes “A Modest
Proposal” in 1729)
1730: Robert Walpole becomes Prime Minister
1739- War with Spain, incited by William Pitt the
elder for the sake of trade.
1742: Robert Walpole retires as Prime Minister
1745: Last Jacobite rebellion suppressed. Tories
attempt to restore a Stuart (Charles Edward
Stuart, the young pretender, the grandson of
James II and his Catholic wife Mary of Modena)
to the English throne
George II: 1727-1760
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1756-1763: Seven years war with France.
1757: Conquest of Bengal, India at the Battle of
Plassey by Robert Clive. India is now of military/
colonial interest, not just trade.
1760: Beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Beginning of a campaign against the use of
children as chimney sweeps by Jonas Hanway
and D. Porter.
George III 1760-1820
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1763: Peace with France, returns Newfoundland fishing rights,
Guadaloupe and Martininque [sugar trade], Dakar [gum trade].
1767: First iron railroads built for mines by John Wilkinson
1770: Hargreaves's jenny invented (textile production)
1775: American War of Independence begins. George suffers bouts
of insanity.
1783: William Pitt the younger becomes Prime Minister.
1784: Sir William Jones founds the Asiatic Society of Bengal
1788: King George III's mental illness occasions the Regency Crisis:
Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox attack the ministry of
William Pitt the Younger by trying to obtain full regal powers for the
Prince of Wales.
George III 1760-1820
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1788: Child Labor: Law is passed requiring that
chimney sweepers be a minimum of 8 years old
(not enforced).
1788-1792: Usually considered the period of
mass abolitionist agitation, led by Clarkson,
Wilberforce, and Pitt. The West Indian port
system is renewed and expanded (through
1792). Government seeks to expand British
colonial cotton growth.
1789: Fall of the Bastille, the beginning of the
French Revolution.
French Revolution
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1789: Constituent Assembly (formerly the
National Assembly) ratifies The Declaration of
the Rights of Man, abolished Feudalism, and
drafts a constitution limiting the monarchy.
Jacobins, at first the liberal, then increasing
radical wing of the assembly, gain power.
1791: Hatian Revolution. First and Greatest of
Slave rebellions in the French colony of San
Domingo.
1793: Execution of Louis XVI and later the same
year Queen Marie Antoinette.
France and England
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1793: France declares war against
England. The two nations are constantly at
war until 1815, except for a brief year
1802-1803 the Peace of Amiens.
1793-1794: Reign of Terror in France.
1799: Napoleon named First Consul for
Life. In 1804, crowns himself Emperor.
1811: The Regency
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George III is declared insane and the Prince is
appointed Regent.
First gentleman of Europe. Known for his luxurious
living and interest in city planning.
1815: Defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo
1819: The “Peterloo” massacre: a peaceful
demonstration by a 100,000 mill workers near
Manchester is brutally suppressed by local gentry,
leaving a dozen dead and trampled (including
children) and hundreds injured.
Crowned George IV (1820-1830)