British History · Chronicle V of VI

Industrial & Imperial Britain

Pax Britannica

The century Britain ruled the seas and the factories, from Walpole to the eve of 1914.

Span: 1714 – 1914 AD
Entries: 20
Next: Modern Britain

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Entry 1 of 20

1721
Whig SupremacyPolitical
Walpole becomes Britain's first Prime Minister
In the wake of the South Sea Bubble, Robert Walpole takes office as First Lord of the Treasury. Over the next twenty-one years he creates the office of Prime Minister in all but name and establishes the long Whig dominance of Hanoverian politics.
Meanwhile, elsewhere
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1746
End of JacobitismMilitary
Battle of Culloden
On 16 April, on a windswept moor outside Inverness, the Duke of Cumberland's redcoats annihilate the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart — Bonnie Prince Charlie — in forty minutes. The last serious attempt to restore the Stuarts ends in slaughter.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1759
First British EmpireMilitary
Annus Mirabilis of British arms
In a single year of the Seven Years' War, British forces under William Pitt the Elder win at Minden in Germany, Quiberon Bay at sea, and Quebec in North America — where General Wolfe dies in the moment of his victory over Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1769
Industrial RevolutionEvent
Watt patents the separate condenser
James Watt of Glasgow patents a steam engine with a separate condensing chamber that more than triples the efficiency of Newcomen's design. In partnership with the Birmingham industrialist Matthew Boulton it will power the Industrial Revolution.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1783
Loss of AmericaPolitical
Treaty of Paris: independence of the United States
Eight years after Lexington and Concord, two after the surrender at Yorktown, Britain recognises the independence of the thirteen American colonies. The first British Empire has ended, and Lord North's ministry has fallen with it.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1788
Second British EmpirePolitical
First Fleet lands at Botany Bay
On 26 January eleven ships under Captain Arthur Phillip, carrying around 1,500 people — convicts, marines, officers, and a few free settlers — land at Sydney Cove and found the colony of New South Wales. British settlement of Australia has begun.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1801
United KingdomPolitical
Act of Union with Ireland
Following the bloody Irish rebellion of 1798, the Irish parliament at Dublin is dissolved and Ireland merged with Great Britain into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Union Flag gains the red saltire of St Patrick.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1805
Napoleonic WarsMilitary
Battle of Trafalgar
On 21 October, off Cape Trafalgar on the Spanish coast, Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson destroys a combined Franco-Spanish fleet without losing a single ship. Nelson is mortally wounded in the moment of victory; his death seals his apotheosis as the supreme British naval hero.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1815
Napoleonic WarsMilitary
Battle of Waterloo
On 18 June, twelve miles south of Brussels, Wellington's Anglo-Allied army holds against Napoleon's Armée du Nord through a long Sunday until Blücher's Prussians arrive on the field at dusk. The Emperor's Hundred Days are over.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1825
Railway AgeEvent
Stockton & Darlington Railway opens
On 27 September the world's first public railway opens between the Durham coalfields and the river Tees. George Stephenson's locomotive No. 1 hauls 600 passengers — many sitting on coal wagons — at the giddy speed of fifteen miles per hour.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1832
Age of ReformPolitical
Great Reform Act
After two years of agitation that brought Britain close to revolution, Earl Grey's Whig government carries the Reform Act. Forty-three 'rotten boroughs' lose their seats; the franchise is extended to roughly one adult man in five; the new industrial cities of Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds gain MPs for the first time.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1833
Age of ReformPolitical
Abolition of slavery in the British Empire
The Slavery Abolition Act emancipates approximately 800,000 enslaved people across the British Caribbean, Mauritius, and Cape Colony. Parliament votes £20 million — 40 per cent of the national budget — to compensate the slaveholders. The freed are bound to a further six years as 'apprentices'.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1837
Victorian AgePolitical
Accession of Queen Victoria
At dawn on 20 June, an eighteen-year-old princess is woken at Kensington Palace and told that her uncle William IV is dead. She is now queen of the United Kingdom. Her reign of 63 years will be the longest of any British monarch until Elizabeth II.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1845
Great FamineEvent
The Great Famine in Ireland
Phytophthora infestans, a potato blight from the Americas, destroys the staple food of Ireland's smallholders. Over the next six years one million die of starvation and disease, and one million more emigrate, mainly to America. Ireland will not recover its 1841 population for the next 150 years.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1851
Mid-Victorian BoomCultural
The Great Exhibition opens in Hyde Park
On 1 May Prince Albert opens the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in Joseph Paxton's iron-and-glass Crystal Palace, a third of a mile long. Six million people — a third of the British population — visit before it closes in October.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1857
Indian EmpireMilitary
Indian Rebellion
On 10 May sepoys of the East India Company's Bengal Army mutiny at Meerut over rumours that their cartridges are greased with cow and pig fat. The rebellion spreads to Delhi, Lucknow, and Kanpur and takes eighteen months of vicious campaigning to suppress.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1876
High ImperialismPolitical
Victoria proclaimed Empress of India
By the Royal Titles Act, pushed through by Disraeli, Queen Victoria adds Imperatrix Indiae — Empress of India — to her titles. The British Empire now reaches its self-conscious imperial phase, with Britain controlling a quarter of the world's surface and population.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1899
Boer WarMilitary
Second Boer War
In October the Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State declare war on Britain over the rights of the British settlers — uitlanders — who had flooded in after the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand. After three years of conventional war and brutal guerrilla, Britain wins but at heavy cost.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1901
End of an EraPolitical
Death of Queen Victoria
On 22 January Queen Victoria dies at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, aged 81. She is succeeded by her sixty-year-old son Edward VII, who gives his name to the brief, brilliant, and uneasy Edwardian decade before the First World War.
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
1914
End of an EraMilitary
Britain enters the Great War
On 4 August Britain declares war on Germany after its invasion of neutral Belgium. Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey watches the gas-lamps being lit in St James's Park and remarks, 'The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.'
Meanwhile, elsewhere · 3
12 more entries, to 1914

Industrial & Imperial Britain

Walpole becomes Britain's first Prime Minister

Battle of Culloden

Annus Mirabilis of British arms

Watt patents the separate condenser

Treaty of Paris: independence of the United States

First Fleet lands at Botany Bay

Act of Union with Ireland

Battle of Trafalgar

Battle of Waterloo

Stockton & Darlington Railway opens

Great Reform Act

Abolition of slavery in the British Empire

Accession of Queen Victoria

The Great Famine in Ireland

The Great Exhibition opens in Hyde Park

Indian Rebellion

Victoria proclaimed Empress of India

Second Boer War

Death of Queen Victoria

Britain enters the Great War