1720 in Great Britain
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Events from the year 1720 in Great Britain.
Incumbents
Events
- 10 February â Edmond Halley is appointed Astronomer Royal by George I
- 17 February â Treaty of The Hague signed between Britain, France, Austria, the Dutch Republic and Spain ending the War of the Quadruple Alliance.[1]
- April â "South Sea Bubble": A scheme for the South Sea Company to take over most of Britain's unconsolidated government debt massively inflates share prices.[1]
- 15 April â Ralph Allen of Bath is appointed to farm Cross and Bye Posts (i.e. to manage mail not going via London), leading to his reform of the system.[2][3]
- 23 April (St George's Day) â George I publicly reconciles with his son George, Prince of Wales at St James's Palace
- 1 June â British silversmiths are once again allowed to use sterling silver after 24 years of being limited to a purer (but softer) Britannia silver.
- 11 June
- Robert Walpole and his ally and brother-in-law Charles Townshend rejoin the government as Paymaster of the Forces and Lord President of the Council ending the Whig Split lasting since 1717. Within a year they will be Prime Minister and Northern Secretary respectively.
- Parliament approves the Bubble Act (formally the Royal Exchange and London Assurance Corporation Act 1719), prohibiting the formation of joint-stock companies except by royal charter.
- 25 June â "South Sea Bubble" reaches its peak as South Sea Company stock is priced at £1,060 a share.
- 12 July â Under authority of the Bubble Act, the Lords Justices attempt to curb some of the excesses of the stock markets during the "South Sea Bubble". They dissolve a number of petitions for patents and charters, and abolish more than 80 joint-stock companies of dubious merit, but this has little effect on the creation of "Bubbles", ephemeral joint-stock companies created during the hysteria of the times.[4]
- September â "South Sea Bubble": share prices, led by those of the South Sea Company, collapse.[1][5]
- 16 November â Pirate captain John Rackham (captured on 22 October) is brought to trial at Spanish Town in Jamaica; he is hanged at Port Royal two days later. Most of his crew is also hanged but female pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny are spared.
- 29 December â Haymarket Theatre opens in London.
Publications
- Richard Mead's treatise A Short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, and the Method to be used to prevent it.
Births
- 13 January â Richard Hurd, bishop and writer (died 1808)
- 27 January (bapt.) â Samuel Foote, dramatist and actor (died 1777)
- 9 March â Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, politician (died 1790)
- 8 May - William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, Prime Minister (died 1764)[6]
- 18 July â Gilbert White, naturalist and cleric (died 1793)
- 18 August â Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers, murderer (died 1760)
- 30 August â Samuel Whitbread, brewer and politician (died 1796)
- 31 December â Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the British throne (died 1788)
Deaths
- 31 January â Thomas Grey, 2nd Earl of Stamford, privy councillor (born c. 1645)
- 20 April â George Gordon, 1st Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Chancellor of Scotland (born 1637)
- 5 August â Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, English poet (born 1661)
- 9 August â Simon Ockley, orientalist (born 1678)
- 18 August â Matthew Aylmer, 1st Baron Aylmer, admiral (born c. 1650)
- 18 November â John Rackham, pirate