1731 in Great Britain

Events from the year 1731 in Great Britain.

Incumbents[]

16 March – Treaty of Vienna signed between the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic and Spain.^[1]
April – trader Robert Jenkins has his ear cut off by Spanish coast guards in Cuba, casus belli for the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739.^[2]
28 April – a fire at White's Chocolate House, near St. James's Palace in London, destroys the historic club and the paintings therein, but is kept from spreading by the fast response of firemen.^[3]
4 June – great fire destroys much of the centre of Blandford Forum, Dorset.^[4]
5 June – Tiverton fire of 1731, a great fire in Tiverton, Devon.^[5]
23 August – the oldest known sports score in history is recorded in the description of a cricket match at Richmond Green, when the team of Thomas Chambers of Middlesex defeats the Duke of Richmond's team by 119 to 79.
September – the first successful appendectomy is performed by surgeon William Cookesley.^[6]
30 September – the village of Barnwell, Cambridgeshire, is "burned down entirely" by a fire.^[3]
23 October – fire at Ashburnham House in London damages the nationally owned Cotton library, housed there at this time.

Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730: Legal proceedings in the courts to be conducted in the English language.^[7]
William Hogarth produces his A Harlot's Progress series of paintings.^[2]
John Bevis observes the Crab Nebula for the first time in the modern era.

1 January – first edition of The Gentleman's Magazine published by Edward Cave.^[8]
Jethro Tull's treatise The New Horse-Houghing Husbandry; or, an essay on the principles of tillage and vegetation.

4 February – Mary Deverell, religious writer, essayist and poet (died 1805)
10 February – Thomas Beckwith, English painter, genealogist and antiquary (died 1786)
8 May – Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London and abolitionist (died 1809)
August – Henry Constantine Jennings, collector of antiquities and gambler (died 1819)
10 October – Henry Cavendish, scientist (died 1810)
15 November – William Cowper, poet (died 1800)
12 December – Erasmus Darwin, physician and scientist, grandfather of Charles Darwin (died 1802)
date unknown – William Aiton, Scottish botanist (died 1793)

10 February – George Carpenter, 1st Baron Carpenter, Army general (born 1657)
24 April – Daniel Defoe, writer (born 1660)
11 May – Mary Astell, feminist writer (born 1666)
17 May – Samuel Bradford, churchman and Whig politician (born 1652)
20 June – Ned Ward, writer and publican (born 1667)
18 July – Sir Walter Yonge, 3rd Baronet, politician (born 1653)
24 August – William Godolphin, Marquess of Blandford, nobleman (born 1700)
17 December – George Lockhart, Scottish writer, spy and politician, killed in duel (born 1673)
29 December – Brook Taylor, mathematician (born 1685)

^ Cates, William L. R. (1863). The Pocket Date Book. Chapman and Hall.
^ ^a ^b Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 303. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
^ ^a ^b Walford, Cornelius, ed. (1876). "Fires, Great". The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance. C. & E. Layton. p. 49.
^ "Blandford, Dorset 1731". FireNet. 2009. Archived from the original on 16 December 2010. Retrieved 2011-01-19.
^ Dickens, Charles (1869). All the Year Round. Charles Dickens. p. 258. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
^ Selley, Peter (2016). "William Cookesley, William Hunter and the first patient to survive removal of the appendix in 1731". Journal of Medical Biography. 24: 180–3.
^ Friar, Stephen (2001). The Sutton Companion to Local History (rev. ed.). Stroud: Sutton Publishing. p. 241. ISBN 0-7509-2723-2.
^ Munsell, Joel (1858). The Every Day Book of History and Chronology. D. Appleton & Co.

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