Events from the year 1813 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George III
• Regent – George, Prince Regent
• Prime Minister – Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (Tory)
• Foreign Secretary – Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
• Home Secretary – Lord Sidmouth

Events

• 16 January – 14 Luddites hanged at York.
• 24 January – The Philharmonic Society of London is formed, holding its first concert on 8 March.
• 1 June – War of 1812: Capture of USS Chesapeake in Boston Harbor by British Royal Navy frigate HMS Shannon (1806).^[1]
• 6 June – War of 1812: Battle of Stoney Creek – a British force of 700 under John Vincent defeat an American force three times its size under William Winder and John Chandler.
• 21 June – Peninsular War: Battle of Vitoria – a British, Spanish, and Portuguese force of 78,000 with 96 guns under Wellington defeats a French force of 58,000 with 153 guns under Joseph Bonaparte to end the Peninsular War.
• 1 July – Indian trade monopoly of the British East India Company abolished.^[1]
• 5 July – War of 1812: three weeks of British raids on Fort Schlosser, Black Rock and Plattsburgh, New York begin.
• 21 July – Doctrine of the Trinity Act provides toleration for Unitarian worship.
• September – Robert Southey becomes Poet Laureate.
• 10 September – War of 1812: Oliver Hazard Perry defeats a British fleet in the Battle of Lake Erie.^[2]
• 5 October – War of 1812: William Henry Harrison defeats the British at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada; native leader Tecumseh is killed in battle.
• 7 October – Peninsular War: British troops enter France.^[1]
• 13 October – Cape of Good Hope becomes a British colony.^[1]
• 21 October – Nelson Monument, Liverpool unveiled.
• 25 December – William Debenham joins Thomas Clark in a partnership to manage a draper's store in London, origin of the Debenhams business which will run department stores until 2020.
• 27 December–3 January 1814 – A thick fog blankets London causing the Prince Regent to turn back from a trip to Hatfield House and a mail coach to take 7 hours to reach Uxbridge on its way to Birmingham.^[3]
• 29 December – War of 1812: British soldiers burn Buffalo, New York.
• 31 December
  • The foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh, is sent to Germany with full powers to give assistance to the allies.
  • Westminster Bridge in London is illuminated by gas lighting provided by the Gas Light and Coke Company from the world's first public gasworks nearby.^[4]

Ongoing

• Napoleonic Wars, 1803–1815
• Peninsular War, 1808–1814

Undated

• Last striking of guinea coins, to pay Wellington's army in the Pyrenees.
• The early steam locomotive Puffing Billy introduced at Wylam colliery, County Durham.^[1]
• Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne established.
• Charles Waterton begins the process of turning his estate at Walton Hall, West Yorkshire, into what is, in effect, the world's first nature reserve.^[5]

Publications

• 28 January – Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice.^[6]
• Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Queen Mab.
• Robert Owen's A New View of Society: Essays on the Formation of Human Character.
• Sarah Elizabeth Utterson's anthology Tales of the Dead.

Births

• 4 January – Isaac Pitman, inventor of Pitman Shorthand (died 1897)
• 19 January – Henry Bessemer, metallurgist (died 1898)
• 15 March – John Snow, physician, pioneer epidemiologist (died 1858)
• 19 March – David Livingstone, Scottish missionary explorer (died 1873)
• 17 April – Mary Peters, née Bowley, hymn writer (died 1856)
• 21 May – Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Scottish clergyman (died 1843)
• 21 June – William Edmondstoune Aytoun, Scottish poet and academic (died 1865)
• 17 September – John Jabez Edwin Mayall, photographer (died 1901)
• 19 December – Thomas Andrews, chemist (died 1885)
• 29 December – Alexander Parkes, chemist (died 1890)
• Frederick Scott Archer, sculptor and pioneer photographer (died 1857)

Deaths

• 17 June – Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham, sailor and politician (born 1726)
• 6 July – Granville Sharp, abolitionist (born 1735)
• 11 August
  • John Price, Welsh librarian (born 1735)
  • Henry James Pye, poetaster, Poet Laureate (born 1745)
• 23 August – Alexander Wilson, Scottish-born ornithologist (born 1766)
• 4 September – James Wyatt, architect (born 1746)
• 10 November – Francis Fane of Spettisbury, MP (born 1752)
• 17? November – William Franklin, last colonial governor of New Jersey (born 1730 in British North America)

References