1787 in Great Britain

Events from the year 1787 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

1 January â George III writes his first letter to Arthur Young's Annals of Agriculture, under the name of Ralph Robinson of Windsor.
11 January â William Herschel discovers the Uranian moons Titania and Oberon.^[2]
19 February â William Herschel first uses the 40-foot telescope under construction for him at Slough.
13 May â Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth with the eleven ships of the First Fleet carrying around 700 convicts and at least 300 crew and guards to establish a penal colony in Australia.^[3]
22 May â Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade with support from John Wesley, Josiah Wedgwood and others.^[3]
31 May â the original Lord's Cricket Ground holds its first cricket match;^[4] Marylebone Cricket Club founded.^[5]
July â Principal Triangulation of Great Britain begun under the direction of General William Roy from Hounslow Heath; in the autumn it is extended to France.^[6]
Summer â Calton weavers' strike in the west of Scotland. On 3 September, six of the Calton weavers are killed by troops.
23 December â Captain William Bligh sets sail from Spithead for Tahiti on HMS Bounty.^[4]

Freed slave Ottobah Cugoano publishes Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species.
The Scots Musical Museum begins publication.

7 January â Patrick Nasmyth, Scottish landscape painter (died 1831)
10 February â William Bradley, Britain's tallest ever man (died 1820)
17 February â George Mogridge (Old Humphrey), miscellaneous writer and poet (died 1854)
10 March â William Etty, painter, especially of nudes (died 1849)
28 March â Claudius Rich, archaeologist and anthropologist (died 1821)
7 June â William Conybeare, geologist (died 1857)
28 June â Sir Harry Smith, military commander (died 1860)
24 July â William Ward, cricketer (died 1849)
10 September â Justina Jeffreys, Jamaican-born Welsh gentlewoman (died 1869)^[7]
13 September â John Adamson, antiquary and expert on Portuguese (died 1855)
13 October â William Brockedon, painter (died 1854)
4 November â Edmund Kean, actor (died 1833)
21 November â Bryan Procter (Barry Cornwall), poet (died 1874)
22 November â Copley Fielding, watercolour landscape painter (died 1855)
16 December â Mary Russell Mitford, novelist and dramatist (died 1855)
Ignatius Bonomi, architect (died 1870)
John Dobson, architect (died 1865)
Harriet Gouldsmith, landscape painter and etcher (died 1863)
Approximate date â Ikey Solomon, receiver of stolen goods (died 1850 in Australia)

1 April â Floyer Sydenham, classical scholar (born 1710)
2 April â Thomas Gage, General (born 1719)
10 May â William Watson, physician and scientist (born 1715)
25 July â Arthur Devis, portrait painter (born 1712)
3 November â Robert Lowth, bishop and grammarian (born 1710)
18 December
- Francis William Drake, British admiral and Governor of Newfoundland (born 1724)
- Soame Jenyns, English writer (born 1704)