1732 in Great Britain
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Events from the year 1732 in Great Britain.
Incumbents
- Monarch â George II
- Regent â Caroline, Queen Consort (starting 7 June, until 26 September)[1]
- Prime Minister â Robert Walpole (Whig)[2]
Events
- 14 February â first performance of Henry Fielding's comedy The Modern Husband, at the Royal Theatre on Drury Lane in London.
- 3 March â Captain Charles Gough rediscovers Gough Island in the South Atlantic.[3][4]
- 30 March â MPs John Birch and Denis Bond are expelled from the House of Commons after using their positions on the Commission for Forfeited Lands to make fraudulent sales.
- AprilâMay â first performances of George Frideric Handel's oratorio Esther, the first oratorio in English, in London.[5]
- 9 June â James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of Georgia.[6]
- 7 December â the original Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London (predecessor of the Royal Opera House) is opened by John Rich.[7]
Undated
- Act provides that any man after 24 June 1733 charged on oath with being the father of an illegitimate child should be imprisoned until he provides a financial bond to indemnify the parish from liability for it under the Poor Law.[8]
- Secession Church formed in Scotland.[9]
- Trinity House moors the world's first lightship at the Nore in the Thames Estuary.[10]
Births
- February â Charles Churchill, satirist and poet (died 1764)
- 19 February â Richard Cumberland, dramatist (died 1811)
- April â George Colman the Elder, dramatist and essayist (died 1794)
- 13 April â Frederick North, Lord North, Prime Minister (died 1792)[11]
- 15 August â Maria Coventry, Countess of Coventry, society beauty (died 1760)
- 6 October â Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal (died 1811)
- 6 December â Warren Hastings, colonial administrator (died 1818)
- 23 December â Richard Arkwright, inventor (died 1792)
Deaths
- 12 January â John Horsley, archaeologist (born c. 1685)
- 22 January â Louis de Sabran, theologian (born 1652)
- 6 February â Anne Scott, 1st Duchess of Buccleuch, wealthy Scottish peeress (born 1651)
- 7 February â William Hiseland, soldier, reputed supercentenarian (born 1620)
- 22 February â Francis Atterbury, bishop and man of letters (born 1663)
- 20 May â Thomas Boston, Scottish church leader (born 1676)
- 30 May â John King, churchman (born 1652)
- 1 June â Benedict Leonard Calvert, Governor of Maryland (born 1700)
- 16 July â Woodes Rogers, privateer and first Royal Governor of the Bahamas (born c. 1679)
- 6 October â George Duckett, politician (born 1684)
- 26 November â Charles Sergison, politician (born 1655)
- 4 December â John Gay, poet and dramatist (born 1685)