1773 In Great Britain

Events from the year 1773 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

* Monarch – George III
* Prime Minister – Frederick North, Lord North ( Tory)
* Parliament – 13th

Events

* 1 January – the words of the hymn " Amazing Grace" (written by the curate John Newton) are probably first used in a prayer meeting at Olney, Buckinghamshire.
* 17 January – second voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook in becomes the first European explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle.
* March – General Turnpike Act regulates the system of road tolls.
* 15 March – first performance of Oliver Goldsmith's play '' She Stoops to Conquer'' at the Covent Garden Theatre in London.
* 27 April – Parliament passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.
* 10 May – Tea Act comes into force.
* May
** Parliament passes the Regulating Act creating the office of governor general, with an advising council, to exercise political authority over the territory under British East India Company rule in India.
** With an EWP total of , this is the wettest May on record and the solitary still-standing record wet month from the eighteenth century.
* 27 May
** Parliament passes an Act permitting assay offices in Birmingham and Sheffield.
** Major landslip at Buildwas in the valley of the River Severn.
* 4 June – 1773 Phipps expedition towards the North Pole sets out from the Nore.
* June – John Harrison receives the Longitude prize for his invention of the first marine chronometer.
* 1 July – Parliament passes the Inclosure Act.
* 16 December – a group of American colonists, dressed as Mohawk Indians, steal aboard ships of the East India Company and dump their cargo of tea into Boston Harbor in a protest against British tax policies that became known as the Boston Tea Party.

Undated

* An informal Stock Exchange opens at Threadneedle Street in London.
* First London catering establishment to offer curry, Norrish Street Coffee House.
* Penny Post introduced in Edinburgh.

Publications

* Scottish judge James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, begins publication of ''Of the Origin and Progress of Language'', a contribution to evolutionary ideas of the Enlightenment.
* Hester Chapone publishes the conduct book for young women ''Letters on the Improvement of the Mind''.
* The Jockey Club's first ''Race calendar'', edited by James Weatherby.

Births

* 14 January – William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst, ambassador to China and Governor-General of India (died 1857)
* 27 January – Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (died 1843)
* 6 April – James Mill, historian, economist, political theorist and philosopher (died 1836)
* 19 May – Arthur Aikin, chemist and mineralogist (died 1854)
* 13 June – Thomas Young, physicist (died 1829)
* 23 July – Thomas Brisbane, Scottish astronomer and Governor of New South Wales (died 1860)
* 23 October – Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey, judge and literary critic (died 1850)
* 28 October – Simon Goodrich, mechanical engineer (died 1847)
* 6 November – Henry Hunt, politician (died 1835)
* 21 December – Robert Brown, botanist (died 1858)
* 27 December – George Cayley, aviation pioneer (died 1857)

Deaths

* 9 February – John Gregory, physician, medical writer and moralist (born 1724)
* 24 March – Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, statesman and man of letters (born 1694)
* 15 May – Alban Butler, Catholic priest and writer (born 1710)
* 23 July – George Edwards, naturalist (born 1693)
* 24 August – George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, politician (born 1709)
* 16 November – John Hawkesworth, writer (born c. 1715)
* 20 November – Charles Jennens, landowner (born c. 1700)

References

{{Year in Europe, 1773

Years in Great Britain