Timeline of London

The following is a timeline of the history of London, the capital of England and the United Kingdom.

Prehistory[]

• 120000 BCE – Elephant and hippopotamus roam the site of Trafalgar Square.
• 6000 BCE – Hunter-gatherers on the site of Heathrow Terminal 5.^[1]
• 4000 BCE – Mesolithic timber structure on the River Thames foreshore, south of the site of Vauxhall Bridge.^[2]
• 3800 BCE – Stanwell Cursus constructed.^[1]
• 2300–1500 BCE – Possible community on Chiswick Eyot in the Thames.
• 1500 BCE – Bronze Age bridge from the foreshore north of Vauxhall Bridge. This bridge either crosses the Thames, or goes to a subsequently lost island in the river.^[3]
• 300–1 BCE – Iron Age oppidum in Woolwich, possibly London's first port, in the late-Roman period reused as a fort.^[4]

Early history to 11th century[]

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• 43 CE – Settlement named Londinium.^[5]
• 50 – London bridge is constructed out of wood.
• 50 onward – Grim's Ditch (Harrow) dug.
• 57 - 8 January – Earliest known hand-written document in the UK is created in London, a financial record in one of the Roman 'Bloomberg tablets' found during 2010–13 on the site of Londinium. Another dated to 65/70-80 CE gives the earliest known written record of the name of Londinium.^[6]
• 60 or 61 – Londinium sacked by forces of Boudica.^[5]
• 122 – Construction of forum in Londinium is completed;^[7] Emperor Hadrian visits. There is a major fire in the city at about this time.
• c. 190–225 – London Wall constructed.
• c. 214 – London becomes capital of the province of Britannia Inferior.
• c. 240 – London Mithraeum built.
• c. 250 – Coasting barge "Blackfriars I" sinks in the Thames at Blackfriars.
• 255 – Work begins on a riverside wall in London.^[8]
• 296 – Constantius Chlorus occupies Londinium, saving it from attack by mercenary Franks.
• 368 – City known as Augusta by this date, indicating it is a Roman provincial capital.
• 490 – Saxons in power; city largely abandoned.^[5]
• By early 7th century – Settlement at Lundenwic (modern-day Aldwych).
• c. 604 – First Bishop of London in the modern succession consecrated, Mellitus.
• 650 – Market active.^[9]
• 675
  • An early fire of London destroys the wooden Anglo-Saxon cathedral which is rebuilt in stone over the following decade.
  • Church of All Hallows-by-the-Tower founded in the City by Barking Abbey.
• By 757 – London has come under the control of Æthelbald of Mercia and passes to Offa who has a mint here.
• 798 – An early fire of London.
• 838 – First mention of Kingston upon Thames.
• 842 – Raided by Vikings with "great slaughter".^[7]
• 851 – Besieged by Vikings.^[10]
• 871 – Autumn: Danes take up winter quarters in Mercian London.
• 886
  • King Alfred the Great restores London to Mercia.^[5]
  • London Mint established.
• 893 – Spring: Edward, son of Alfred the Great, forces invading Danish Vikings to take refuge on Thorney Island.^[11]
• 911 – Edward the Elder, King of Wessex, transfers London from Mercia to Wessex.^[7]
• 918 – Ælfthryth, Countess of Flanders and daughter of King Alfred, donates Kentish lands, including Lewisham, Greenwich and Woolwich, to St. Peter's Abbey in Ghent.^[4]
• 925 – 4 September: Coronation of Æthelstan as King of Wessex at Kingston upon Thames.
• 978 – Coronation of Æthelred as King of the English at Kingston upon Thames.
• 982 – An early fire of London.
• 989 – An early fire of London burns from Aldgate to Ludgate.

11th to 15th centuries[]

• 1009 – August: Vikings attack London.^[7]
• 1014?
  • Olaf II Haraldsson of Norway perhaps attacks London and burns the wooden London Bridge in support of Æthelred.^[12]
  • Claimed origin of Borough Market.
• 1016 – May: Battle of Brentford: King Edmund Ironside defeats Cnut the Great, who then besieges London.^[7]
• 1066
  • 25 December: William the Conqueror crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.^[13]
  • Tower of London established.^[14]
• 1067 – City of London chartered .^[15]
• c. 1078 – Construction of the White Tower (Tower of London) begins;^[15] it is probably largely completed by 1088.^[7]
• 1087 – An early fire of London destroys much of the city including St Paul's Cathedral.^[16]
• 1091 – 23 October: London tornado of 1091 destroys the wooden London Bridge and severely damages the church of St Mary-le-Bow and other buildings.
• 1099 – Westminster Hall built.^[16]
• 1100
  • 5 August: Coronation of Henry I at Westminster Abbey by Maurice (bishop of London).
  • 15 August: Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, becomes the first person imprisoned in the Tower of London, by the new king for supposed embezzlement;^[17] on 3 February 1101 he becomes the first person to escape from the Tower.
• 1106 – Southwark Priory refounded by Augustinians.
• 1109 – First charter to Kingston upon Thames.
• 1114 – Merton Priory established.
• 1123 – St Bartholomew's Hospital,^[15] St Bartholomew-the-Great priory and Smithfield meat market^[18] established.
• 1127 – A royal charter creates the Liberty of the Clink in the Borough of Southwark.
• 1133 – A royal charter establishes the first annual Bartholomew Fair at Smithfield; later to become England's largest cloth fair.^[7]
• 1135 – 26 May (Pentecost): The Great Fire of 1135 destroys the wooden London Bridge^[19] and seriously damages St Paul's Cathedral.
• 1141 – July: The Anarchy: Matilda I of Boulogne, wife of the imprisoned King Stephen, recaptures London.^[7]
• By 1144 – Winchester Palace completed in Southwark.
• 1147 – Royal Hospital and Collegiate Church of St Katharine by the Tower founded by Queen Matilda.
• 1155 – Worshipful Company of Weavers (established by 1130) chartered.^[15]
• 1163 – New wooden London Bridge built.^[20]
• 1176 – Construction of the first stone-built London Bridge begins.^[19]
• 1180 – Guild of Pepperers, predecessor of the Worshipful Company of Grocers and the Apothecaries, is founded.
• 1185 – 10 February: Temple Church consecrated.
• 1189
  • 3 September: Coronation of Richard I in Westminster Abbey.^[21] Rising against Jews in London.
  • Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonestone becomes first mayor of London.^[22]
  • Fair active.^[9]
• 1196 – Spring: A popular uprising of the poor against the rich is led by William Fitz Osbert (who is hanged, having been smoked out of his refuge in the tower of St Mary-le-Bow).
• c. 1200 – The royal treasury is transferred to Westminster from Winchester.^[23]
• 1205 – January: Exceptionally cold.
• 1209 – Rebuilding of London Bridge in stone completed.^[24]
• 1210 – c. November: Three "leopards" (probably lions) given to Henry III of England by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, become the first creatures in the menagerie at the Tower of London.^[17]
• 1212 – 10 July: The Great Fire of 1212 in Southwark. Thatched roofs are prohibited in the City as a consequence.^[25]
• 1215 – 17 May: Rebellious barons occupy London.^[21]
• 1216 – 21 May: First Barons' War: Louis, Count of Artois invades England in support of the barons, landing in Thanet. Entering London without opposition, he is proclaimed, but not crowned, King of England at St Paul's Cathedral.^[7]
• c. 1219 – First, timber, Kingston Bridge completed.
• 1222 – 15 July: Rioting after London defeats Westminster in an annual wrestling contest; ring-leaders hanged or mutilated in punishment.^[7]
• 1234 – 2 December: A royal decree prohibits institutes of legal education within the City.^[26]
• 1235 – Famine in England; 20,000 die in London.^[27]
• 1236 – Many killed in floods in Woolwich.^[4]
• 1237 – Office of Chamberlain of London and status of Freedom of the City of London both first recorded.
• 1240 – Old St Paul's Cathedral is consecrated.
• 1241 – White Friars' monastery founded.^[28]
• 1245 – Savoy Palace built.^[28] In 1246, the Liberty of the Savoy is created.
• 1247
  • Bethlem Royal Hospital founded as the Priory of the New Order of St Mary of Bethlem.^[19]
  • Romford Market chartered as a sheep market.
• 1253 – Austin Friars monastery founded.^[28]
• 1255 – An elephant joins the royal menageries at the Tower of London.
• 1257 – c. September: 1257 Samalas eruption: Mount Samalas volcano erupts on Lombok Island in Indonesia; the resultant climatic changes combine with a second successive poor grain harvest this summer in Britain to produce famine, killing an estimated 17,000 in Britain (15,000 in London).^[29][30]
• 1262 – First church of St Mary Abbots in Kensington founded.
• 1263 – 16 July: Rebels occupy London.^[7]
• 1264 – c. April: Targeting of Jews during the conflict with the Barons: One of Simon de Montfort's followers, John fitz John, leads a massacre of Jews in London.^[31]
• 1265 – Covent Garden market established.^[18]
• 1267 – 9 April: Second Barons' War: Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford occupies London.^[7] Simon de Montfort's supporters kill 500 Jews.^[32][33]
• 1271 – Tower of St Mary-le-Bow collapses.
• 1272 – Worshipful Company of Cordwainers and Worshipful Company of Curriers granted rights to regulate the leather trade in the City; Fishmongers Company chartered.
• By 1290 – St Etheldreda's Church built; after 1878 it will be the oldest Roman Catholic church building in London.
• 1291–4 – Eleanor crosses erected across England marking the route of the funeral procession at the end of 1290 of Edward I's Queen, Eleanor of Castile, to Westminster Abbey. In London they are erected at Westcheap and Charing Cross.^[21]
• 1295 – Southwark (UK Parliament constituency) established.^[34]
• 1296 – Edward I brings the Stone of Scone from Scotland to Westminster Abbey;^[21] it will be returned in 1996.
• 1298 – City of London (UK Parliament constituency) established.
• 1299 – A fire damages the Palace of Westminster.^[19]
• 1303 – Enfield Town market chartered.
• 1304 – Recorder of London appointed.^[28]
• 1305 – 23 August: Scottish rebel William Wallace is hanged, drawn and quartered at Smithfield following a trial for treason in Westminster Hall.
• 1307 – The Tabard inn established in Southwark.
• 1308 – Woolwich Ferry first mentioned.^[35]
• 1309 – Thames freezes.
• 1314
  • Completion of Old St Paul's Cathedral.
  • Mayor prohibits playing of football in environs of London.
• 1320 – Hanseatic League merchants establish the Steelyard, a Kontor, in Dowgate.
• 1322 – Armourers' Guild instituted.^[19]
• 1326 – 15 October: Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter and Lord High Treasurer, is murdered by the London mob.^[21]
• 1327 – Goldsmiths' Company, Merchant Taylors' Company and Skinners' Company incorporated.^[36]
• c. 1329 – Marshalsea prison in operation in Southwark.
• 1331 – Butchers' Guild granted the right to regulate the meat trade in the City.
• 1344 – Clifford's Inn founded.
• c. 1345 – Durham House built in Westminster.
• 1348 – September–May 1349: Outbreak of Black Death at its peak.^[22]
• 1354 – Title of Lord Mayor of London first granted.
• 1361 – Company of Drapers founded (chartered 1364).
• 1363
  • 15 July: Company of Vintners chartered.^[37]
  • First record of curfew bell being sounded at St Mary-le-Bow.
• 1365 – Company of Plumbers granted the right to regulate plumbers.
• 1366 – Jewel Tower of Palace of Westminster completed.
• 1368 – Company of Poulters granted the right to regulate the sale of poultry and small game.
• 1371 – London Charterhouse established.
• 1377
  • 20 February: Riots in London after John of Gaunt attacks the privileges of the City.^[7]
  • Royal Mews at Charing Cross.
• 1378 – Staple Inn becomes one of the Inns of Chancery.
• 1381 – Peasants' Revolt:
  • 12 June: Rebels from Kent and Essex, led by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, meet at Blackheath, where they are encouraged by a sermon from renegade Lollard priest John Ball.^[7]
  • 14 June: Rebels destroy John of Gaunt's Savoy Palace and Winchester Palace and storm the Tower of London, finding and beheading Simon Sudbury, and also Robert Hales, Lord High Treasurer. King Richard II (age 14) meets the leaders of the revolt and agrees to reforms such as fair rents and the abolition of serfdom.^[21]
  • 15 June: Peasants' Revolt: During further negotiations, Wat Tyler is stabbed to death by William Walworth, Lord Mayor of London in the King's entourage. Noble forces subsequently overpower the rebel army, the rebel leaders are captured and executed and Richard revokes his concessions.^[38]
• 1382 – 21 May: Shocks from an earthquake in Canterbury are felt as an 'Earthquake Synod' is held in London.
• 1388 – Inner and Middle Temples recorded as corporate bodies.
• 1392 – King Richard II retakes control of London.^[7]
• 1394 – Mercers Company incorporated; Salters Company incorporated as the Guild of Corpus Christi.
• 1395 – Worshipful Company of Saddlers incorporated.
• 1397 – 6 June: Richard Whittington nominated mayor^[15] for the first of four terms, arranging for the City to buy back its liberties from the Crown.
• 1400 – Lent: Children give battle in London.^[39]
• 1403 – Stationers' Company formed.
• 1407
  • Company of Merchant Adventurers of London chartered.
  • Plague.^[22]
• 1414 – 9 January: A Lollard rebellion in London is suppressed.^[21]
• 1415
  • Syon Monastery founded
  • Approximate date: Moorgate rebuilt.
• 1416
  • Guildhall rebuilt.^[22]
  • Worshipful Company of Ironmongers chartered.
• 1421 – c. 1 May: Whittington's Longhouse, a gender-segregated public toilet, opens in Cheapside.^[40]
• 1422 – Lincoln's Inn recorded as a corporate body.
• 1425 – 30 October: Henry Beaufort, Lord Chancellor, tries to occupy London.^[7]
• 1427 – Harmondsworth Great Barn is completed.
• 1428 – Company of Grocers is granted a royal charter and completes its hall.
• 1430 – Tavern established in High Holborn which in modern times becomes Henneky's Long Bar and the Cittie of Yorke.
• 1433 – Greenwich Park is enclosed by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.^[41]
• 1434
  • "Hopping Hall" tavern recorded in Whitehall which in modern times becomes the Red Lion.^[42]
  • 23 November: The Thames freezes downstream of London Bridge.^[43]
• 1437 – Worshipful Company of Vintners incorporated.
• 1442 – City of London School established.
• 1444 – 24 April: Serious fire at Old St Paul's Cathedral.^[19]
• 1448 – Haberdashers Company chartered.
• 1450
  • July: War tax rebellion,^[44] suppressed with ferocity.
  • September: Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York marches an army to London and attacks alleged traitors in the royal government.^[7]
• 1452 – First record of a Lord Mayor's barge.
• 1455 – 22 May: Battle of St Albans occurs near London.^[44]
• 1460
  • 26 June: Wars of the Roses: Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and Edward, Earl of March (eldest son of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York) land at Sandwich with an army and march on London. Here the Earl of Salisbury remains and, with the support of the citizens, besieges the Tower of London whose Lancastrian commander, Lord Scales, on 4 July turns its weapons against the city.^[45]
  • 19 July: Lord Scales surrenders the Tower of London to the Yorkists; he is subsequently murdered by a mob.^[45]
• 1461 – Barbers Company incorporated.^[46]
• 1462 – Tallow Chandlers Company incorporated.
• 1463 – Ironmongers Company incorporated as Ferroners.
• 1466 – Crosby Hall built in Bishopsgate by wool merchant John Crosby (died 1476).
• 1468 – 29 July: Hansa merchants expelled from London as Anglo-Hanseatic War breaks out with the Hanseatic League.^[7]
• 1471
  • Wars of the Roses
    • 14 April: At the Battle of Barnet, Edward IV defeats the Lancastrian army under Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, who is killed.^[21]
    • May: Lancastrian commander Thomas Neville is prevented from entering the City but burns Southwark.
  • Dyers Company incorporated.
• 1473 – St Anthony's Chapel and Lazar House, the first medical facility on the Whittington Hospital site in Upper Holloway, is built for those with leprosy.^[47]
• 1474 – Pewterers Company incorporated.^[46]
• 1475 – Construction begins on the new hall of Eltham Palace.^[7]
• 1476 – September/December: William Caxton sets up the first printing press in England, at Westminster,^[48] producing his first full-length book on 18 November 1477.
• 1477 – Carpenters Company chartered.^[19]
• 1478 – The Canterbury Tales is published by William Caxton at Westminster.
• 1480 – Fullers' Company chartered, a predecessor of the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers.
• 1481 – Royal charter to Kingston upon Thames granting borough status.
• 1484
  • 2 March: A royal charter is granted to the College of Arms, the official English heraldic authority.^[7]
  • 10 April: An award by Sir Robert Billesdon, Lord Mayor of London, decides the order of precedence of the City livery companies, resolving a dispute between the Merchant Taylors and Skinners by a compromise.
• 1485
  • Yeoman Warders of His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London formed by the new king Henry VII.
  • Approximate date: Bromley Hall, the oldest surviving brick building in London, is built.
• 1486
  • Bakers' Company chartered.^[19]
  • Rebuilding of church of St Margaret's, Westminster begins.
• 1497 – 17 June: Cornish rebels under Michael An Gof are soundly defeated by Henry VII at the Battle of Deptford Bridge.^[7]

1500s[]

• 1500 – Wynkyn de Worde moves his print shop from Westminster to join others in Fleet Street.
• 1501
  • March: First royal court held at the new Richmond Palace.^[7]
  • Plaisterers Company incorporated.
• 1503 – 24 January: Construction of Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster Abbey begins.^[7]
• 1504 – St. John's Gate built.^[49]
• 1508 – Shearmens' Company chartered, a predecessor of the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers.
• 1509
  • 11 June Henry VIII marries Catherine of Aragon privately in the church of the Observant Friars at Greenwich.
  • 24 June: Henry VIII is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
  • St Paul's School, London, is founded by John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's.^[7]
• 1512
  • Savoy Hospital opens.
  • Woolwich Dockyard established for the Royal Navy.
• 1513 – Deptford Dockyard established for the Royal Navy.
• 1514
  • 20 May: Trinity House is established as a guild of mariners at Deptford to regulate pilotage.^[21]
  • 13 June: Henry Grace à Dieu, at over 1,000 tons the largest warship in the world at this time, built at the new Woolwich Dockyard, is dedicated at Erith.^[7][50][51]
  • 15 September: Thomas Wolsey is appointed Archbishop of York and begins to build York House.^[7]
  • Thomas Wolsey leases Hampton Court Palace; in 1515 he becomes a Cardinal and begins to rebuild it lavishly.^[52]
• 1517 – 1 May: Evil May Day unrest occurs at St Paul's Cross.
• 1523 – Rebuilding of church of St Margaret's, Westminster completed.
• 1527 – Sir George Monoux College, Walthamstow, is founded as a grammar school by Sir George Monoux, draper and Lord Mayor of London.
• 1528
  • 18 January: Worshipful Company of Clothworkers incorporated by royal charter, merging the Fullers' and Shearmens' Companies and taking over the latter's hall.
  • end May: The fourth major outbreak of the sweating sickness appears in London.^[7]
  • June?: Thomas Wolsey gives Hampton Court Palace to King Henry VIII.
• 1532
  • St Andrew Undershaft church built.^[49]
  • Erection of "Holbein Gate" across Whitehall is completed.
  • Henry VIII purchases the area surrounding the Tyburn (stream) which will become St. James's Park.
  • Lawyer William Portman leases farmland north west of the City, basis of the Portman Estate.
• 1535
  • 4 May: First Carthusian Martyrs of London. From now until 1681, 105 Catholic martyrs will be executed at Tyburn.
  • Sutton House built as Bryck Place in Hackney by Ralph Sadler.
• 1536
  • 19 May: Anne Boleyn executed at the Tower of London.^[53]
  • 22 December: Thames freezes.
  • St James's Palace built in Westminster.
  • Hyde Park acquired by the king from the canons of Westminster Abbey and enclosed as a deer park.
  • Dissolution of the Monasteries: Bentley Priory dissolved.
• 1537
  • 25 August: Honourable Artillery Company chartered.
  • 18 May: Dissolution of the Monasteries: London Charterhouse dissolved.
  • Publication of the first complete Bible translation into English to be printed in England, by James Nicholson in Southwark.^[54]
• 1538 – Dissolution of the Monasteries:^[15] Merton Priory dissolved.
• 1539 – Dissolution of the Monasteries: Syon Monastery dissolved and community exiled; St Thomas' Hospital closed; and Convent of Holy Trinity, Minories surrendered.
• 1540
  • 14 January: Dissolution of the Monasteries: Southwark Priory surrendered to the Crown.
  • 28 July: Thomas Cromwell is executed on order from the king on charges of treason in public on Tower Hill.^[21]
  • 17 September: Dissolution of the Monasteries: Westminster Abbey granted the status of cathedral, which it retains until 1550.
• 1543
  • Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge in Epping Forest completed for Henry VIII.^[19]
  • Approximate date: Wyngaerde's Panorama of London engraved.
• 1545
  • Westminster (UK Parliament constituency) established.^[34]
  • St Giles-without-Cripplegate church rebuilt.^[49]
• 1547
  • 28 January: King Henry VIII dies at the Palace of Whitehall. His 9-year-old son and successor Edward VI^[21] is brought to Enfield Town, where his half-sister Elizabeth I is living, and they are told the news.
  • 20 February: Coronation of Edward VI of England in Westminster Abbey.^[15]
  • Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of England, begins the construction of Somerset House.^[7]
• 1550 – 24 July: French Protestant Church of London established by Royal Charter.
• 1551 – St Thomas' Hospital re-established on its former site in Southwark by the Corporation of London, taken as the founding date for St Thomas's Hospital Medical School.
• 1552 – First pupils enter Christ's Hospital school for orphans at Newgate;^[36] it receives its royal charter on 16 June 1553.^[7]
• 1553 – 19 July: Thomas White, Lord Mayor of London, proclaims Mary as the rightful heir to Edward VI. On 9 August she arrives in London.^[7]
• 1554 – 25 January: Wyatt's rebellion begins.^[53] Kingston Bridge is broken as a precautionary measure. On 9 February Thomas Wyatt surrenders.^[7]
• 1555 – 4 February: John Rogers, burned at the stake at Smithfield, London, is the first Marian Protestant martyr.^[7]
• 1556
  • 27 June: Thirteen Protestant Stratford Martyrs are burned at the stake.
  • The City takes over Bridewell Palace as a prison and a hospital for homeless children.^[55]
• 1557
  • May: Benedictine monks allowed to return to Westminster Abbey; they will again be expelled in 1559.^[7]
  • 4 May: Stationers' Company chartered.^[56]
  • Hampton School founded by Robert Hammond.
• 1558 – 25 May: Enfield Grammar School founded (incorporating an earlier endowment).
• 1559
  • 15 January: Elizabeth I of England is crowned in Westminster Abbey.^[43]
  • New Custom House built.^[57]
  • The predecessor of the private banking house of Child & Co. (which will still exist in the 21st century) is established.^[58]
  • Salters Company incorporated.
• 1560 – Westminster School re-established.^[59]
• 1561
  • 1 March: Kingston Grammar School is chartered.
  • 4 June: Old St Paul's Cathedral is badly damaged by fire and the spire is destroyed after being struck by lightning.^[19][21]
  • Merchant Taylor's School founded in the City of London by Sir Thomas White, Sir Richard Hilles, Emanuel Lucar and Stephen Hales, with Richard Mulcaster as first headmaster.<{sfn|Wilson|2004}}
• 1563 – June–October: 1563 London plague outbreak kills over 20,000.^[7]
• 1565
  • Thomas Gresham founds the Royal Exchange.
  • College of Physicians of London first licensed to carry out human dissection.^[7]
• 1567 – John Brayne builds the Red Lion theatre just east of the City of London, a playhouse for touring productions and the first known to be purpose-built in the British Isles since Roman times. However, there is little evidence that the theatre survives beyond this summer's season.^[60][61]
• 1569 – Gray's Inn recorded as a corporate body.
• 1570
  • Whitechapel Bell Foundry known to be in existence. By the time its 18th-century premises close in May 2017 it will be the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain.^[62]
  • The home and library of John Dee at Mortlake begin to serve as an informal prototype English academy for gentlemen with scientific interests.^[63]
• 1571
  • 23 January: Royal Exchange opens.^[53]
  • 28 May: Corporation of London authorised to improve the Lee Navigation.
  • 25 July: The Free Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth of the Parishioners of the Parish of Saint Olave in the County of Surrey is established in Tooley Street.
  • Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths chartered.^[19]
  • First permanent London gallows erected at Tyburn.^[19]
• 1572 – Harrow School founded by John Lyon.^[64]
• 1573 – Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School for Boys established in Barnet at the petition of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester.
• 1576 – December: James Burbage opens London's second permanent public playhouse (and the first to have a substantial life), The Theatre, in Shoreditch.^[7]
• 1579 – Nonsuch House built on London Bridge.
• 1580
  • 6 April: 1580 Dover Straits earthquake causes some damage and the death of two children in London.
  • 6 July: New building prohibited on less than 4 acres (16,000 m²) of ground within three miles of the City.^[65]
• 1581
  • 4 April: Francis Drake knighted by order of Queen Elizabeth I^[43] aboard the Golden Hind at Deptford.
  • Waterwheel installed at London Bridge.^[15]
• 1582 – The country house at Highgate later known as Lauderdale House is built for Richard Martin (Lord Mayor of London).
• 1585 – Claimed date: Spaniards Inn on the Hampstead and Highgate boundary is established.
• 1586
  • 20–21 September: Execution of the 14 conspirators in the Babington Plot (to assassinate Elizabeth I and replace her by Mary, Queen of Scots)^[21] who are hanged, drawn and quartered (the first seven being disembowelled before death) in St Giles Field.
  • College of Antiquaries (society) formed.^[66]
• c. 1586–90 - New building for Enfield Grammar School constructed.
• 1587 – The Rose theatre is built by Philip Henslowe in Southwark.
• 1592 – August: 1592–1593 London plague outbreak first observed: at least 19,000 deaths up to December 1593.^[7] Theatres are consequently closed for much of the period.^[21]
• 1593
  • 6 April: Henry Barrowe and John Greenwood, leaders of the Brownist London Underground Church, are hanged at Tyburn.
  • 5 May: "Dutch church libel": Bills posted in London threatening Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands allude to Christopher Marlowe's plays.
  • 30 May: Marlowe is stabbed to death in a dispute over the bill at a lodging house in Deptford.^[21]
• 1594 – Bevis Bulmer sets up a system at Blackfriars to pump water to London.^[7]
• 1595 – The Swan (theatre) built in Southwark.^[67]
• 1596
  • February: James Burbage buys the disused Blackfriars Theatre from Sir William More for £600 but is prevented from reusing it as a public theatre by a November petition by wealthy influential neighbors.^[21]
  • 14 February: Archbishop John Whitgift begins building his hospital at Croydon.
• 1597 – Gresham College founded in the City.
• 1598
  • c. May?: Première of William Haughton's Englishmen for My Money, or, A Woman Will Have Her Will, considered the first city comedy,^[68] probably by the Admiral's Men at The Rose theatre.
  • 22 September: Playwright Ben Jonson kills actor Gabriel Spenser in a duel at Hoxton and is briefly held in Newgate Prison but escapes capital punishment by pleading benefit of clergy.
  • 28 December: The Theatre is dismantled.^[43]
  • Stow's Survey of London published.^[15]
• 1598–1600 – Damned Crew at large.
• 1599 – Spring/Summer: Globe Theatre opens in Southwark, using building material from The Theatre.

1600s[]

• 1600
  • January: Carpenter Peter Street is contracted to build the Fortune Playhouse just north of the City by theatrical manager Philip Henslowe and his stepson-in-law, the leading actor Edward Alleyn, for the Admiral's Men, who move there from The Rose by the end of the year.
  • 31 December: East India Company granted a Royal Charter.^[15]
• 1601 – 25 February: Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, is executed for treason (for his part in a short-lived rebellion in the previous month against the Queen),^[21] becoming the last person beheaded on Tower Green in the Tower of London, the sword being wielded by Thomas Derrick.
• 1603
  • 24 March: Elizabeth I dies at Richmond Palace and is succeeded on the throne of England by her cousin James VI of Scotland.
  • c. April: Outbreak of bubonic plague epidemic in which between 29,000 and 40,000 die.^{[69][70][71][72]}
  • 28 April: Funeral of Elizabeth I in Westminster Abbey.
  • 7 May: Crowds welcome James's arrival in London.
  • 25 July: Coronation of James I in Westminster Abbey.^[43]
  • The new king orders the creation of St. James's Park.
• 1604 – 15 March: Royal Entry of King James to London.^[73]
• 1605
  • 5 November: Gunpowder Plot: A plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament and the King is foiled when, following an anonymous tip-off, Catholic plotter Guy Fawkes is found in a cellar below the Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder.^[21] On 30 January 1606 four of the conspirators are hanged, drawn and quartered for treason outside St Paul's and the following day Fawkes and the remainder are executed in the same manner in Old Palace Yard, Westminster.
  • Worshipful Company of Gardeners and Worshipful Company of Butchers chartered.^[19]
  • Approximate date: Construction of Northumberland House at Charing Cross for Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton, begins.
• 1606 – 19 December: The Susan Constant sets out from the Thames leading the Virginia Company's fleet for the foundation of Jamestown, Virginia.
• 1608
  • July–December: Plague (which recurs in the two following years).
  • Foundation of Royal Blackheath Golf Club claimed.^[74]
• 1609 – Lord Mayor's Show revived.
• 1611
  • Thomas Sutton founds Charterhouse School on the site of the old Carthusian monastery in Charterhouse Square, Smithfield.
  • Worshipful Company of Plumbers chartered.
• 1612 – Hicks Hall built.^[75]
• 1613
  • 29 September: New River opens to supply London with fresh water.
  • The Honourable The Irish Society incorporated as a consortium of City livery companies to colonise County Londonderry during the Plantation of Ulster.
• 1614 – October: Hope Theatre opens in Southwark.^[67] On 31 October Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedy debuts here.
• c. 1615 – Clerkenwell Bridewell (prison) in operation.
• 1616
  • The Anchor Brewery is established by James Monger next to the Globe Theatre in Southwark; it will be the world's largest by the early nineteenth century and brew until the 1970s.^[76]
  • Engraved Visscher panorama of London published.
• 1616–35 – Queen's House built at Greenwich to a design by Inigo Jones.
• 1617
  • 23 August: The first one-way streets are created in alleys near the Thames.^[43][77]
  • December: Worshipful Society of Apothecaries incorporated.^[46]
  • Aldersgate rebuilt.
  • Goldsmiths' Company barge built.
  • Approximate date: New Prison in operation.
• 1618 – The Company of Adventurers of London Trading to the Ports of Africa granted a monopoly on trade from Guinea.
• 1619
  • January: The royal Banqueting House, Whitehall is destroyed by fire. Inigo Jones is commissioned to design a replacement.^[21]
  • 21 June: College of God's Gift is established by actor-manager Edward Alleyn at Dulwich, incorporating the school, Dulwich College.
  • Greenwich Park is enclosed by a brick wall on the orders of King James I.^[41]
• 1620 – July: The Mayflower embarks about 65 Pilgrims at or near her home port of Rotherhithe bound for Cape Cod in North America.
• 1621
  • Spring–October (approx.): Corante: or, Newes from Italy, Germany, Hungarie, Spaine and France, one of the first English language newspapers (translated from the Dutch), circulates in London.^[78]
  • Hackney coach first recorded.
• 1622
  • 6 January (probable date): New Banqueting House, Whitehall, opens with a performance of Ben Jonson's The Masque of Augurs designed by the building's architect, Inigo Jones.^[79]
  • 23 May: Nathaniel Butter begins publication of Newes from Most Parts of Christendom or Weekley Newes from Italy, Germany, Hungaria, Bohemia, the Palatinate, France and the Low Countries.^[78]
  • Boston Manor house is built by Mary Goldsmith.
• 1623
  • 26 October: "Fatal Vespers": 95 people are killed when an upper floor of the French ambassador's house in Blackfriars collapses under the weight of a congregation attending a mass.^[80]
  • November/December: Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies published by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount.
• 1624 – The Latymer School and Latymer Upper School are founded by the bequest of Edward Latymer.
• 1625
  • c. August: Over 40,000 killed by bubonic plague in London; court and Parliament temporarily move to Oxford.^[21][81]
  • Queen's Chapel completed in Westminster.
• 1626 – 2 February: Coronation of Charles I of England in Westminster Abbey.^[13]
• 1629
  • May: Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers chartered.
  • Approximate date: Development of Lincoln's Inn Fields for housing begins.
• 1630
  • The central square of Covent Garden is laid out and a market begins to develop there.
  • Sion College is chartered as a college, guild of London parochial clergy, almshouse and library, under the will of Thomas White, vicar of St Dunstan-in-the-West.
• 1631
  • 31 January: Rebuilt St Katharine Cree church consecrated by William Laud, Bishop of London.^[49]
  • 20 February: A fire breaks out in Westminster Hall, but is put out before it can cause serious destruction.^[82]
  • 7 June: St Paul's, Hammersmith, consecrated as a chapel of ease by Laud.
  • December: The Holland's Leguer, a notorious brothel in Southwark, is ordered closed and besieged for a month before this can be carried out.
  • Worshipful Company of Clockmakers established.
  • Tottenham Grammar School re-endowed.
  • Population: 130,163 residents.
• 1632 – Forty Hall, Enfield, completed.
• 1633
  • 13 February: Fire engines are used for the first time in England to control and extinguish a fire that breaks out at London Bridge, but not before 43 houses are destroyed.^[82]
  • St Paul's, Covent Garden, designed by Inigo Jones in 1631 overlooking his piazza, opens to worship, the first wholly new church built in London since the English Reformation.
• 1635 – First General Post Office opens to the public, at Bishopsgate.^[7]
• 1636 – Goldsmith's Hall rebuilt.
• 1636–37 – Plague.
• 1637 – Hyde Park opens to the public in Westminster.
• 1638 – Distillers granted a royal charter.
• 1640 – 11 December: Root and Branch petition presented to Parliament.
• 1642
  • 4 January: Charles I attempts to arrest five leading members of the Long Parliament, but they escape.^[83] This is the last time any monarch will enter the House of Commons.
  • 2 September: London theatre closure 1642: Parliament orders closure of London's playhouses, effectively ending the era of English Renaissance theatre.^[83]
  • 12 November: Battle of Brentford (First English Civil War): Royalist victory.
  • 13 November: Battle of Turnham Green (First English Civil War): Royalist forces withdraw in face of the Parliamentarian army and fail to take London.^[83]
• 1642–43 – Lines of Communication constructed to defend the city.
• 1647
  • 7 August: Oliver Cromwell takes control of the Parliament of England with the New Model Army, an attempt by Presbyterian MPs to raise the City of London having been unsuccessful.^[21]
  • Original Eleanor Cross at Charing Cross demolished.
  • Wenceslaus Hollar's Long View of London from Bankside etched in Antwerp.
• 1648
  • 11 September: The Levellers' largest petition, "To The Right Honourable The Commons Of England" (The humble Petition of Thousands well-affected persons inhabiting the City of London, Westminster, the Borough of Sonthwark Hamblets, and places adjacent), is presented to the Long Parliament after amassing signatories including about a third of all Londoners (including women).^[84]
  • 6 December: Pride's Purge: Troops of the New Model Army under the command of Colonel Thomas Pride (and under the orders of General Ireton) arrest or exclude Presbyterian members of the Long Parliament who are not supporters of the Army's Grandees or Independents, creating the Rump Parliament.^[21]
• 1649
  • 3 January: An explosion of several barrels of gunpowder in Tower Street, London kills 67 people and destroys 60 houses.^[85][86]
  • 30 January: Charles I is executed outside the Banqueting House, Whitehall.^[87]
  • April: Bishopsgate mutiny: Soldiers of the New Model Army refuse to leave London – some are court martialled and one executed.
• 1650 – 29 September: Henry Robinson opens his Office of Addresses and Encounters, a (short-lived) form of employment exchange, in Threadneedle Street.
• 1652 – Coffee house in business near Cornhill, opened by Pasqua Rosée.^[15]
• 1654 – St Matthias Old Church in Poplar completed.
• 1656
  • May: First performance of The Siege of Rhodes, Part I, by Sir William Davenant, the first English opera (under the guise of a recitative), in a private theatre at his home, Rutland House, in the City. This also includes the innovative use of painted backdrops and the appearance of England's first professional actress, Mrs. Coleman.
  • Winter?: Lisle's Tennis Court built in Lincoln's Inn Fields for real tennis.
• 1657
  • 8 January: Miles Sindercombe and his group of disaffected Levellers are betrayed in their attempt to assassinate Oliver Cromwell by blowing up the Palace of Whitehall and arrested.^[88]
  • 4 February: Resettlement of the Jews in England: Oliver Cromwell gives Antonio Fernandez Carvajal the assurance of the right of Jews to remain in England. This year the country's first synagogue (in Creechurch Lane) and Jewish cemetery in modern times open in London.^[89]
  • England's first chocolate house opens in London,^[90] together with the Rainbow Coffee House, the city's second such establishment; while tobacconist and coffee house owner Thomas Garway in Exchange Alley is the first person to introduce tea in England.^[91][92]
• 1658
  • 10 March: New London, Connecticut named.
  • Earliest surviving terrace houses in London built on Newington Green.
• 1660
  • 1 January: Samuel Pepys begins writing his diary.^[93]
  • 3 February: Colonel George Monck and his regiment arrive in London.^[7]
  • February: John Rhodes reopens the old Cockpit Theatre, forms a company of young actors and begins to stage plays. His production of Pericles will be the first Shakespearean performance of the Restoration era.
  • 29 May: Charles II arrives in London and assumes the throne, marking the beginning of the English Restoration.^[7]
  • 13–17 October: 8 regicides of Charles I are hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross.
  • 28 November: Royal Society founded at Gresham College.^[48]
  • 8 December: First actress to appear on the professional stage in a non-singing rôle, as Desdemona in Othello; variously considered to be Margaret Hughes, Anne Marshall or Katherine Corey.^[94][95][96]
  • The new king orders the remodelling of St. James's Park in the French style.
  • Approximate date: Vauxhall Gardens open as the New Spring Gardens.
• 1661
  • 6 January: The Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempt to seize control of London. George Monck's regiment defeats them.
  • 30 January: 4 deceased regicides of Charles I suffer posthumous execution at Tyburn; Oliver Cromwell's head, with the others', is raised above the Palace of Westminster Hall where it remains until the 1680s, later becoming a tourist attraction in private hands.
  • 23 April: Coronation of Charles II of England in Westminster Abbey.^[97]
  • 28 June: Lisle's Tennis Court in Lincoln's Inn Fields opens as a playhouse.
  • September: Pall Mall laid out as a thoroughfare in Westminster.
  • Diarist John Evelyn publishes his pamphlet Fumifugium, or, The inconveniencie of the aer and smoak of London dissipated together with some remedies humbly proposed by J.E. Esq. to His Sacred Majestie, the earliest discussion of the city's air pollution.^[19]
• 1662
  • 9 May: Pepys witnesses a Punch and Judy show in Covent Garden, the first on record.
  • 23 August: An extravagant pageant on the Thames greets the arrival of Charles II and his new queen Catherine of Braganza at the Palace of Whitehall from Hampton Court.^[98]
  • Streets, London and Westminster Act 1662 passed and first hackney carriage licences issued.
  • John Graunt, in one of the earliest uses of statistics, publishes information about births and deaths in London.
• 1663
  • 7 May: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane opens.^[99]
  • The Olde Wine Shades built as a merchant's house in Martin Lane.
  • Diarist John Evelyn obtains a lease of Sayes Court and begins to lay out the garden there.
• 1664
  • Francis Child enters the London goldsmith's business which, as the private banking house of Child & Co., will still exist the 21st century.^[58]
  • The Russian ambassador donates the first pelicans to live in St. James's Park.
  • Eltham Lodge is completed by Hugh May for Sir John Shaw, 1st Baronet (created 15 April 1665).
  • Burlington House construction begins.
• 1665
  • 6 March: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society begins publication.^[56]
  • March: 15-year-old Nell Gwyn makes her first definitely recorded appearance as an actress on the London stage, having previously been a theatre orange-seller.
  • 12 April: The first recorded victim of the Great Plague of London dies.^[22] On 7 July the King and court leave London to avoid the plague, moving first to Salisbury, then (from 25 September to 1 February 1666) Oxford (where in October Parliament convenes). The City begins use of Bunhill Fields as a burial ground for the victims.
  • 13 June: Worshipful Company of Poulters granted a royal charter.
  • Thomas Firmin sets up a textile factory to provide work for the unemployed.
  • Approximate date: Grecian Coffee House established at Wapping.
• 1666 – 2–5 September: Great Fire of London: A large fire which breaks out in the City in the house of baker Thomas Farriner on Pudding Lane destroys more than 13,000 buildings including Old St Paul's Cathedral but only 6 people are known to have died.^[22]
• 1667
  • First London Building Act passed to enforce fireproof construction in the rebuilding of the City.^[25]
  • Hedges & Butler established as wine merchants.^[58]
• 1668
  • 23 March (Easter): Bawdy House Riots of 1668 break out.
  • Carmen's Company established.^[19]
  • Lamb and Flag, Covent Garden, built^[100] (although first definitely recorded as a public house – The Cooper's Arms – in 1772).
• 1669
  • Quaker goldsmiths John Freame and Thomas Gould form a partnership as bankers in the City, origin of Barclays.
  • Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, visits the Tower of London and gives the Yeomen Warders the nickname "Beefeaters".^[101]
• 1670
  • 21 January: French-born gentleman highwayman Claude Duval, active particularly at Holloway, is hanged at Tyburn; he is thought to have been buried in St Paul's, Covent Garden.
  • Second rebuilding act passed, raising the tax on coal to provide funds for rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral and other City churches destroyed in the Great Fire.
  • Leicester Square laid out.
  • Apothecaries' Hall^[49] and Brewers Hall^[49] built.
• 1671
  • 9 May: Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.^[43]
  • 6 June: Rebuilt Vintners' Company Hall in use in the City.^[37]
  • November: Dorset Garden Theatre opens.^[102]
  • Merchant Taylors' Hall rebuilt.^[49]
  • Royal Arsenal established as a military storage facility at Woolwich, previously known as "The Warren".
• 1672
  • 25 January: Theatre Royal in Bridges Street burns down.
  • 30 December: First commercial public concert series in Europe begins; organised by John Banister at Whitefriars, near Fleet Street.^[7]
  • Ludgate, Moorgate, and Newgate rebuilt. Rebuilding begins to the designs of Christopher Wren of Temple Bar and the church of St Stephen's, Walbrook in the City.^[21]
  • Worshipful Company of Paviors granted a royal charter.
  • Richard Hoare becomes a partner in the London goldsmith's business which, as private banking house C. Hoare & Co., will survive through to the 21st century.^[103]
  • The Fulham Pottery is established by John Dwight, the earliest certainly known native stoneware manufacturer in England; it will survive until the second half of the 20th century.^[104]
• 1673
  • 22 January: Impostor Mary Carleton is hanged in Newgate Prison for multiple thefts and returning from penal transportation.
  • Rebuilding of St Mary-le-Bow church in Cheapside and Temple Bar gate across Fleet Street to designs by Wren completed.^[15]
  • Apothecaries' Garden laid out in Chelsea.^[105]
  • Approximate date: Berkeley House (later Devonshire House) completed in Piccadilly.
• 1674
  • Theatre Royal, Drury Lane reopens having been rebuilt after the Great Fire.^[99]
  • Court house rebuilt.
  • Worshipful Company of Farriers chartered.
  • Two skeletons of children are discovered at the White Tower (Tower of London) and believed at this time to be the remains of the Princes in the Tower; they are subsequently buried in Westminster Abbey.^[106]
• 1675
  • c. 21 June: Reconstruction of St Paul's Cathedral under Sir Christopher Wren begins.^[43]
  • 10 August: Charles II places the foundation stone of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, designed by Wren.^[43]
  • c. October: Equestrian statue of Charles I, Charing Cross (cast c. 1633 to a design by Hubert Le Sueur) erected.
  • 19 December: St Bride's Church, rebuilt to a design by Wren, reopens.^[107]
  • The Green Ribbon Club founded; the earliest political club, based in Fleet Street.^[7]
  • Charles II issues a "Proclamation for the suppression of Coffee Houses" due to the political activity which is occurring in the newly popular establishments.^[108]
  • York Buildings Company ("The Governor and Company for raising the Thames Water at York Buildings") established.
  • Bethlem Hospital for the insane moves to new buildings in Moorfields designed by Robert Hooke.
• 1676
  • Early: Thomas Firmin starts a workhouse in Little Britain for the employment of the poor in linen manufacture.
  • 26 May: Fire in Southwark destroys 625 houses.^[7]
  • Summer: The Royal Greenwich Observatory, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, is completed.^[109]
  • Exeter Exchange built, Wren's rebuilt St Magnus-the-Martyr church^[49] completed, and first Greek Orthodox church in England, at Hog Lane, consecrated.^[7]
  • The hatters that become James Lock & Co. of St James's is established by Robert Davis.
• 1677
  • 10 October: The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair comes into the hands of the Grosvenor family when Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet, marries the heiress Mary Davies.^[110]
  • Monument to the Great Fire of London, designed by Wren and Hooke, completed.^[15]
  • The George Inn, Southwark rebuilt.^{[citation needed]}
  • The John Roan School is established in Greenwich for poor boys.
• 1678 – 17 October: Magistrate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey is found murdered in Primrose Hill; Titus Oates claims it as a proof of the (fabricated) "Popish Plot".^[7]
• 1679
  • 17 November: After a large procession through the streets of London, an effigy of the Pope is burned.
  • 27 November: The Duke of Monmouth enters London amid scenes of widespread celebration, having subdued the Scottish Covenanters.
  • 18 December: Rose Alley ambuscade: Writer John Dryden is set upon by three assailants, thought to have been instigated by the Earl of Rochester in a literary dispute.^[111]
  • New churches of St Edmund, King and Martyr and St Stephen's, Walbrook, completed to designs by Wren.^[107]
  • Joseph Truman acquires the Black Eagle Brewery in Brick Lane, forming Truman's Brewery.
  • Approximate date: First bagnio opens in London.^[112]
• 1680
  • February: Rev. Ralph Davenant's will provides for foundation of the Davenant Foundation School for poor boys in Whitechapel.
  • 27 March: William Dockwra's London Penny Post mail service begins.
  • York Buildings^[102] built.
  • Approximate date: Jonathan's Coffee-House in business.
• 1681
  • June–July: The City's Court of Common Council orders inscriptions for the Monument to the Great Fire of London and the house in Pudding Lane where the fire started blaming it on Papists.^[113]
  • 1 July: Oliver Plunkett, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, falsely convicted of treason, is hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, the last Catholic martyr to die in England.^[114] Catholic intriguer Edward Fitzharris is executed on the same day.
  • 22 December: Charles II issues a warrant for the building of the Royal Hospital Chelsea for wounded and retired soldiers.^[21]
• 1682
  • 11 March: Work begins on construction of the Royal Hospital Chelsea^[43] to a design by Wren; it will open to Chelsea pensioners in 1692.
  • 19 November: Fire at Wapping makes 1,500 homeless.^[7]
  • Hungerford Market built in Westminster.
• 1683
  • 12 December: River Thames frost fair begins, lasting several months.^[15] The Chipperfield's Circus dynasty begins when James Chipperfield introduces performing animals to England at the fair in 1684.
  • Churches of St Benet's, Paul's Wharf and St James Garlickhythe, rebuilt to designs by Wren, completed.^[49]
  • Richard Sadler opens the first Sadler's Wells Theatre as a "Musick House".
  • Friendly Society of London, an early fire insurance company, in business.^[65]
• 1684
  • 10 Downing Street built in Westminster.
  • Clarendon House (built 1664–67) demolished for the construction of Albemarle Street.
• 1685
  • 23 April: Coronation of the Catholic James II in Westminster Abbey.^[7]
  • September: Edward Hemming establishes the first organised street lighting in London, with oil lamps to be lit outside every tenth house on moonless winter nights.^[7]
  • 18–19 October: Louis XIV of France issues the Edict of Fontainebleau, which revokes the Edict of Nantes and deprives Huguenots of civil rights. Many flee to London where they establish a domestic silk weaving industry in Spitalfields and "French ordinaries" (restaurants) in Soho.
  • 23 October: Elizabeth Gaunt, burned at the stake at Tyburn for alleged complicity in the Rye House Plot, becomes the last woman executed for political treason in England.
  • Kensington Square laid out.^[115]
• 1686
  • January: Montagu House, Bloomsbury destroyed by fire when barely six years old.
  • 1 May: Annual May Fair opens on a new site at Shepherd Market.
  • St Andrew Holborn church, rebuilt to a design by Wren, completed.^[49]
• 1687
  • 5 July: Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, known as the Principia, is published by the Royal Society of London.
  • Christ Church Greyfriars (Newgate Street)^[49] and churches of St Lawrence Jewry and St Clement's, Eastcheap, all rebuilt to designs by Wren, completed.^[116] Sir Isaac Newton writes Principia Mathematica
• 1688
  • By July: First definitely known performance of the Henry Purcell opera Dido and Aeneas, at Josias Priest's girls' school in Chelsea.^[117]
  • 18 December: Glorious Revolution: William of Orange enters London.^[7]
  • Old Palace Terrace built in Richmond.^[115]
  • Over the next five years Lloyd's of London marine insurance market begins to form on the premises of Edward Lloyd (coffeehouse owner).^[15]
• 1689
  • 13 February: William III and Mary II are proclaimed co-rulers of England in a ceremony at Guildhall.^[118]
  • 11 April: Coronation of William and Mary in Westminster Abbey by the Bishop of London, Henry Compton.^[13] In May work begins on remodelling Hampton Court Palace to the design of Sir Christopher Wren for them^[119] together with the Hampton Court Maze; this summer the royal couple purchase Nottingham House and commission Wren to expand it to form Kensington Palace; and William commissions a new royal barge (shallop) for Mary.
• 1690
  • 7 January: The first recorded full peal is rung, at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City, marking a new era in change ringing.
  • March: London, Quo Warranto Judgment Reversed Act 1689 ("An Act for Reversing the Judgment in a Quo Warranto against the City of London and for Restoreing the City of London to its antient Rights and Privileges") passed by Parliament.^[120]
  • The Worshipful Company of Haberdashers establishes Aske's Hospital, comprising almshouses and a school at Hoxton, from the bequest of Robert Aske, origin of Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School and others.
  • Approximate date: Great Synagogue of London built for Ashkenazi Jews.
• 1691 – 9 April: A fire at the Palace of Whitehall destroys its Stone Gallery.
• 1693
  • 27 February: The Ladies' Mercury, the first periodical specifically for women, begins publication^[78] but lasts only for four weeks.
  • Financier Richard Hoare relocates Hoare's Bank (founded 1672) from Cheapside to Fleet Street.
  • White's established as "Mrs. White's Chocolate House" in Mayfair by Francesco Bianco.
• 1694
  • February: Première of Thomas Southerne's play The Fatal Marriage at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.^[99]
  • 27 July: Bank of England established by royal charter.^[15]
  • 25 October: Queen Mary II founds the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich;^[121] first section completed 1705.
  • New All Hallows Lombard Street church completed to a design by Wren.^[49]
  • Approximate date: Development of Seven Dials begins.
• 1695
  • May: Flying-Post newspaper begins publication.^[56]
  • June?: Première of Purcell's opera The Indian Queen.^[102]
  • Trinity Hospital in the Mile End Road established as almshouses for "28 decay’d Masters & Commanders of Ships or the Widows of such"^[122] by Trinity House.
  • Hoxton House established as a private lunatic asylum.
  • "Don Saltero's Coffee Shop" opens in Chelsea.
• 1696
  • Queenhithe windmill built.
  • Dawk's News-Letter (evening newspaper) begins publication.^[78]
• 1697 – 2 December: St Paul's Cathedral holds its first service after rebuilding (to celebrate the Treaty of Ryswick).
• 1698
  • 4 January: The Palace of Whitehall is destroyed by fire.^[19]
  • 11 January–21 April: Czar Peter I of Russia visits England as part of his Grand Embassy, making a particular study of shipbuilding at Deptford Dockyard.^[123]
  • December: Chalybeate well given to the poor of Hampstead.
  • The widow Bourne sets up the business which becomes Berry Bros. & Rudd. They will still be operating as wine merchants in the 21st century.^[124]
• 1699
  • Billingsgate Fish Market is sanctioned as a permanent institution by Act of Parliament.^[125]
  • Howland Great Wet Dock opens as the first of what become the Surrey Commercial Docks.^[126]

1700s[]

1700 to 1749[]

• c. 1700 – Kit-Cat Club established.^[127]
• 1701
  • Bevis Marks Synagogue built.^[15]
  • Illustrated magazine Memoirs for the Curious begins publication.^[78]
• 1702
  • 11 March: The first regular English national newspaper, The Daily Courant, is published for the first time^[43] in Fleet Street by Elizabeth Mallet; it covers only foreign news.
  • 23 April: Coronation of Anne, Queen of Great Britain in Westminster Abbey.^[13]
• 1703 – Buckingham House built in Westminster.
• 1704 – Aaron Hart becomes rabbi of the Great Synagogue of London and de facto the country's first chief rabbi.^[128]
• 1705
  • March: The first of the principal buildings of Greenwich Hospital, the King Charles Court, designed by Christopher Wren, is completed.
  • 9 April: The Queen's Theatre in Haymarket is opened by John Vanbrugh and William Congreve.^[99]
  • Recognition of the existence of paid able-bodied watchmen in the City.^[129]
• 1706 – October^[58]
  • Thomas Twining opens Twinings in the Strand as Britain's first known tea house; it will still be in business into the 21st century.
  • The predecessors of food manufacturers Crosse & Blackwell set up business in London.
• 1707
  • 17 December: Major breach of Thames embankment at Dagenham.^[126]
  • London Building Act passed to prevent use of combustible façade materials in the City,^[65] extended to Westminster.^[25]
  • Fortnum & Mason in business in Westminster.
• 1708
  • 26 October: Topping out of the new St Paul's Cathedral.^[130]
  • Greene Man public house in the Euston Road established as the Farthing Pie House.
• 1709
  • 12 April: Tatler magazine begins publication; on 8 July The Female Tatler follows.^[78]
  • 19 April: Worshipful Company of Fan Makers chartered.
  • 11 November: Henry Sacheverell preaches an incendiary sermon The Perils of False Brethren at St Paul's Cathedral which leads to his impeachment by Parliament.
• 1710
  • 1 March: Sacheverell riots.^[7]
  • Commission for Building Fifty New Churches set up by the New Churches in London and Westminster Act 1710.
  • Sun Fire Office (insurance firm) set up.^[105]
• 1710–12: Roehampton House built.
• 1710–28: Church Road, Hampstead, built up.^[115]
• 1711
  • 24 February: Première of Handel's Rinaldo, the first Italian opera written for the London stage, at the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket.^[131]
  • 1 March: The Spectator begins publication.
  • 25 December: Rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral is declared complete by Parliament.^[132]
  • Crown Court Church established in Westminster.
  • Marlborough House (begun 1709) completed.
• 1711–14 – Hawkubites gang at large.
• 1712
  • Spring: Mohocks gang supposedly at large.
  • By October: German composer George Frideric Handel settles in London where he will remain until his death in 1759.
  • Royal Hospital School established by charter at the site of Greenwich Hospital.
• 1713
  • 9 April: St Mary's Church, Twickenham severely damaged after the nave collapses, requiring complete rebuilding.
  • Hanover Square development begins.
• 1714
  • March: The Scriblerus Club, an informal group of literary friends, is formed by Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, John Gay, John Arbuthnot (at whose London house they meet), Thomas Parnell, Henry St. John and Robert Harley.^[133]
  • 12 May: St Anne's Church, Kew, consecrated as a chapel of ease by the Bishop of Winchester.^[134]
  • Geffrye Almshouses established by the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers in Kingsland Road.
• 1715
  • 13 January: A major fire, originating in an explosion in Thames Street, destroys more than 100 houses and severely damages the Custom House (requiring its complete rebuilding) before being contained in Tower Street.^[82]
  • 3 May: A total solar eclipse is the last total eclipse visible in London for almost 900 years.
  • 1 August: Watermen first compete in a rowing race on the Thames for the Doggett's Coat and Badge sponsored by actor-manager Thomas Doggett.
  • Allen & Hanburys are established as pharmacists by Silvanus Bevan at Old Plough Court.^[58]
• 1716
  • An accidental explosion at The Foundery in Moorfields kills the owner and 16 workers.
  • John Gay publishes the poem Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London.
• 1717
  • 1 January: Count Carl Gyllenborg, the Swedish ambassador, is arrested in London over a plot to assist the Pretender James Francis Edward Stuart.^[21]
  • 2 March: Dancer John Weaver performs in the first ballet in Britain, shown at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, The Loves of Mars and Venus.
  • 24 June: Grand Lodge of London and Westminster, the first Freemasonic Grand Lodge (modern-day United Grand Lodge of England), is founded.^[43]
  • 17 July: George Frideric Handel's Water Music performed on a barge on the Thames for King George I.^[21]
  • August: Handel becomes house composer at Cannons.
  • September (Autumnal Equinox): The first known Druid revival ceremony is held by John Toland at Primrose Hill to found the Mother Grove, which is later to become the Ancient Order of Druids.
  • Thomas Fairchild, a nurseryman at Hoxton in the East End, becomes the first person to produce a successful scientific plant hybrid, Dianthus Caryophyllus barbatus, known as "Fairchild's Mule".^[135]
  • The Royal Brass Foundry is established at Woolwich Arsenal in a building designed by Sir John Vanbrugh.
• 1719
  • February: A Royal Academy of Music is established as a company to perform operas under the direction of Handel.
  • Raine's Foundation School established by Henry Raine in Wapping; it will close on 31 August 2020.
  • Hellfire Club founded.
  • Hand in Hand Fire & Life Insurance Society founded.^[136]
• 1720
  • May: First patient admitted to the Westminster Public Infirmary, predecessor of St George's Hospital.
  • 11 June: Royal Exchange (marine insurers) and London Assurance companies incorporated^[137] by the "Bubble Act".
  • 29 December: Haymarket Theatre opens.
• 1721
  • Grosvenor Square development begins in Westminster.
  • Thomas Guy founds Guy's Hospital, originally for incurables discharged from St Thomas'.^[138]
• 1722
  • March: Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year is published under the initials H.F., purporting to be an eyewitness account of the Great Plague of London in 1665.
  • Bakers Hall built.^[49]
  • Traffic on London Bridge required to keep left.^[20]
• 1722–23 – Ranger's House, Blackheath, probably constructed.^[139]
• 1724
  • 16 November: Notorious criminal Jack Sheppard hanged at Tyburn.
  • Completion of Cannons, a house in Edgware for James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, and Maids of Honour Row, terraced houses on Richmond Green.
• 1725
  • 2 March: A night watchman finds a severed head by the Thames; it is later recognized to be that of the husband of Catherine Hayes. She and an accomplice are later executed.^[140]
  • 24 May: Jonathan Wild, fraudulent "Thief Taker General", is hanged at Tyburn, for actually aiding criminals.^[141]
  • Church of St George's, Hanover Square completed.
  • A fire in Wapping destroys 70 houses.^[19]
  • Approximate date: Queen Square completed in Bloomsbury.
• 1726
  • 20 October: New church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Westminster dedicated.^[142][143]
  • Fournier Street built in Spitalfields, mainly occupied by Huguenot silk weavers.^[115]
  • Original Academy of Vocal Music founded.
• 1727 – 11 October: Coronation of George II of Great Britain^[13] in Westminster Abbey.
• 1728
  • 29 January: Première of Gay's Beggar's Opera at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
  • Queen Caroline divides Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park.
• 1729
  • November: Completion of the first (wooden) Putney Bridge as the only fixed crossing of the Thames between London Bridge and Kingston.
  • Completion of East India House;^[36] Christ Church, Spitalfields^[48] and St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate church^[49] (both designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor); and Marble Hill House, Twickenham. Chiswick House is designed by the owner, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, and William Kent.
  • Opening of Dr Williams's Library as a research centre for nonconformist theology.^[21]
• 1730
  • 3 February: The Daily Advertiser is founded as the first newspaper funded by advertising.^[21]
  • River Westbourne dammed to form The Serpentine (lake) in Hyde Park.
  • Perfumer Floris of London is established as a barber's.
• 1731
  • 1 January: Gentleman's Magazine begins publication.^[144]
  • 28 April: A fire at White's Chocolate House, near St. James's Palace, destroys the historic club and the paintings therein, but is kept from spreading by the fast response of firemen.^[82]
  • May: Round Pond completed in Kensington Gardens.^[126]
  • 23 October: Fire at Ashburnham House damages the nationally owned Cotton library, housed here at this time.
• 1732
  • Prince Frederick's Barge built.
  • 7 December: The original Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (the modern-day Royal Opera House) is opened by John Rich.^[43]
• 1733
  • 16 October: Devonshire House, the former Berkeley House in Piccadilly, is destroyed by fire.
  • St Giles in the Fields church rebuilt.
  • St George's Hospital opens at Hyde Park Corner, taken as the founding date of St George's Hospital Medical School.
• 1734 – The Bank of England moves to its modern-day location in Threadneedle Street.
• 1735
  • 22 September: Sir Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister to occupy 10 Downing Street as his official residence in his capacity as First Lord of the Treasury.
  • Sublime Society of Beef Steaks founded.^[127]
  • William Hogarth produces his A Rake's Progress series of paintings.^[21]
• 1736
  • 19 February: Première of Handel's Alexander's Feast at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.
  • 27 July: Riots in east London protesting at Irish immigrants providing cheap labour.^[7]
  • Parliament passes the Gin Act 1736 in an attempt to curb the Gin Craze.
• 1737
  • 2 March: Samuel Johnson and his former pupil David Garrick leave Lichfield to seek their fortunes in London.
  • 21 June: The Theatrical Licensing Act is passed, introducing censorship to the London stage. Plays now require approval before production. The "legitimate drama" is limited to the theatres at Drury Lane, Covent Garden and the Haymarket. Edward Capell is appointed deputy-inspector of plays.
• 1738
  • 24 May: Aldersgate Day: John Wesley experiences a spiritual rebirth at a Moravian Church meeting in Aldersgate, essentially launching the Methodist movement.^[101]
  • Marylebone Gardens open.^[145]
• 1739
  • 16 January: First performance of Handel's oratorio Saul at The King's Theatre, Haymarket.^[21]
  • 29 January: Building of Westminster Bridge begins.
  • 4 April: First performance of Handel's oratorio Israel in Egypt at The King's Theatre.^[21]
  • 17 October: Foundling Hospital, established by Thomas Coram, is granted its royal charter.^[36] On 25 March 1741 the first children are admitted to its temporary premises in Hatton Garden.
  • 25 December: Thames freezes.
  • Building on Oxford Street begins.
• 1740
  • 23 September: London Infirmary established;^[22] it opens on 3 November in Moorfields.
  • The first Bow Street Magistrates' Court is presided over by Thomas de Veil.
  • Thomas Witherby establishes his stationery business in London, specializing in printing and publishing for the marine insurance industry. By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, as the Witherby Publishing Group, it will claim to be the oldest independent publisher in the English speaking world.
  • Approximate date:
    • Devonshire House completed in Piccadilly.
    • Booth's London dry gin first produced.
• 1741
  • 13 April: Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, established to train officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers.^[146]
  • 19 October: London stage debut of actor David Garrick, in Richard III.^[21]
  • St Katherine Coleman church rebuilt.
• 1742
  • 28 May: Opening in London of first known British bagnio to offer a swimming pool.^[112]
  • 16 September: Construction starts on the Foundling Hospital.^[19] The first boys are admitted in 1745.
  • Chelsea Water Works Company introduces a Newcomen atmospheric engine at Pimlico, the first economically successful steam pumping engine in London.^[147]
  • Samuel Whitbread forms a partnership to acquire breweries, foundation of the Whitbread hospitality business.
  • Wilton's restaurant begins life as an oyster stall in Haymarket.^[148]
• 1743
  • 21 February: Première of Handel's oratorio Samson at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.
  • Gin Act 1743 attempts to increase taxation on gin provoking riots in London.
  • Ranelagh Gardens opens as pleasure grounds in Chelsea.
• c. 1743–45 – Chelsea porcelain factory established.
• 1744
  • Auctioneer Baker (later Sotheby's) in business.
  • Baltic Exchange formed in the City.
  • Rebuilding of St Botolph's Aldgate church by George Dance completed.^[49]
• 1745
  • 28 September: The song later to become the British national anthem God Save the King is first performed at the Drury Lane Theatre in a setting by Thomas Arne.^[43]
  • 6 December: Jacobite rising: "Black Friday": Panic in London over the news that Jacobite forces from Scotland have reached as far south as Derby two days previously.^[21]
  • West towers of Westminster Abbey (begun 1722) completed to a design by Nicholas Hawksmoor.^[7]
• 1746
  • 30 July: Francis Towneley, with fellow members of the Jacobite Manchester Regiment convicted of treason, is hanged, drawn and quartered at Kennington Common; the heads of two of them become the last to be publicly displayed on Temple Bar.
  • Shepherd Market development completed.
  • Carmen become a livery company.
  • Rocque's Map of London published.
• 1747
  • 31 January: The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital.^[43]
  • Piers of Westminster Bridge, under construction, are found to be sinking.^[20]
• 1748
  • 28 March: A fire in the City causes over £1,000,000 worth of damage.^[19]
  • August: The Camberwell beauty butterfly is named after specimens found at Camberwell.
  • Henry Fielding organises the forerunner of the Bow Street Runners, with eight men at first.^[101]
  • George and Vulture pub built in the City.
• 1749
  • 27 April: A firework display in Green Park to celebrate the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) finishes early due to the outbreak of fire and rain but sees the first official performance of Handel's wind band suite Music for the Royal Fireworks.^[21]
  • 27 May: Handel stages a benefit concert at and for the Foundling Hospital at which the Foundling Hospital Anthem is premiered.

1750 to 1799[]

• 1750
  • 8 February: An earthquake is felt in London.^[149]
  • 8 March: A second more powerful earthquake is felt in London, the last to have an epicentre here.^[149]
  • 1 May: Handel begins the tradition of benefit performances of his oratorio Messiah at and for the Foundling Hospital.
  • 18 November: First Westminster Bridge opens,^[150] the only fixed crossing of the Thames between London Bridge and Putney.
  • Berners Street laid out in Westminster.^[34]
  • Whitbread acquire a porter brewery in Chiswell Street.
• 1751
  • Society of Antiquaries of London incorporated.
  • St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics founded.^[105]
• 1752
  • Mansion House completed.
  • Liberty Bell originally cast at Whitechapel Bell Foundry for Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia.
• 1753
  • 29 January: After a month's absence, Elizabeth Canning returns to her mother's home in London and claims that she was abducted. The following criminal trial causes uproar.
  • 7 June: British Museum established by Act of Parliament.^[22]
  • 13 December: First Hampton Court Bridge opens, built of wood in Chinoiserie style.
  • First stage of Horace Walpole's Gothic Revival 'Castle' at Strawberry Hill completed.
• 1755 – 15 April: Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language is published by the group of London booksellers who commissioned it in June 1746.^[151] Johnson and his assistants have been working on the project at his home, 17, Gough Square.
• 1756
  • 25 June: The Marine Society founded.
  • First section of New Road opens.
• 1757
  • 4 April: Lord Mayor of London's State Coach commissioned.
  • Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, the annual directory of prostitutes, is first published.
  • Simpson's Tavern, Cornhill, established.^[152]
• 1758 – 11 April: A temporary wooden bridge over the Thames, erected while the centre stone span of London Bridge is under repair, burns down.
• 1759
  • 15 January: The British Museum opens at Montagu House, Bloomsbury.^[43]
  • 4 June: First Kew Bridge, a wooden toll bridge over the Thames, opens to the public, replacing a ferry.
  • August: Holbein Gate demolished.
• 1760
  • Hamleys toy shop in business in High Holborn.
  • Berkeley Square laid out.^[34]
  • Bishopsgate, Cripplegate and Ludgate of the London Wall demolished.^[15]
• 1761
  • 8 February: An earthquake breaks chimneys in Limehouse and Poplar.
  • 8 March: A second earthquake occurs in north London, Hampstead and Highgate.
  • 22 September: Coronation of George III of Great Britain in Westminster Abbey.^[13]
  • Buckingham Palace is sold to George III; remodelling as a house for his new wife Queen Charlotte begins the following year.^[153]
  • Orangery and pagoda in Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, designed by William Chambers.
  • Aldersgate and Aldgate of the London Wall demolished.
• 1762
  • January: The "Cock Lane ghost" appears.
  • 23 March: First legitimately constituted Sandemanian congregation in England, at Glover's Hall.^[105]
  • 22 May: Royal family first takes up residence at Buckingham House.^[7]
  • The last remaining buildings are cleared from London Bridge.^[154]
  • Moorgate of the London Wall demolished.
  • German composer Johann Christian Bach arrives in London where he will spend the remaining 20 years of his life.
• 1763
  • 16 May: James Boswell is introduced to Samuel Johnson at Thomas Davies's bookshop in Covent Garden.
  • Bow Street Horse Patrol established to deal with highway robberies in the London area.
• 1764
  • February: Joshua Reynolds co-founds The Club (dining club) with Samuel Johnson.
  • 23 April: Mozart family grand tour: 8-year-old W. A. Mozart settles in London for a year;^[155] here he will write his first three symphonies.
  • December: Benjamin Franklin arrives in London to represent the American colonies (following a previous visit in 1757).
  • Portman Square laid out.
  • Horse Shoe Brewery established at St Giles Circus for the production of porter.
  • Lloyd's Register of Ships begins publication.^[15]
• 1765 – February: Almack's Assembly Rooms open in St James's.^[156]
• 1766
  • May: London Paving and Lighting Act.
  • 5 December: James Christie holds the first sale at Christie's auction house.^[21]
  • Tattersalls founded as a racehorse auction by Richard Tattersall at Hyde Park Corner.
  • John Gwynn's proposals London and Westminster Improved published.
• 1767 – Newgate demolished, leaving Temple Bar as the last remaining City gate.
• 1768
  • 9 January: Philip Astley stages the first modern circus, with acrobats on galloping horses.
  • 10 May: John Wilkes is imprisoned for writing an article for The North Briton severely criticising King George III. This action provokes protesters to riot; in Southwark, troops fire on the mob, killing seven, the Massacre of St George's Fields.^[157]
  • 10 December: Royal Academy of Arts established.^[158]
  • John Murray (publisher) established.
  • Rebuilding of Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing by George Dance for his own use.
• 1769
  • 25 April–27 May: First Royal Academy summer exhibition held.
  • 28 June: The Morning Chronicle newspaper begins publication.
  • 7 August: Hackney Cut opens.
  • September: Spitalfield Riots by silk weavers attempting to maintain their pay rates culminate in arrests by soldiers and the killing of two weavers.
  • 19 November: First Blackfriars Bridge opens.^[15]
  • Work on Syon House, to the design of Robert Adam, ceases.^[159]
  • Gordon's London dry gin first produced.^[160]
• 1770
  • August: Lady's Magazine begins publication.^[144]
  • 17 September: Limehouse Cut opens.
  • Original Coal Exchange opens.
• 1771
  • November: The first Battersea Bridge, a wooden toll bridge over the Thames at Chelsea, opens to pedestrians (to vehicles, 1772).^[20]
  • St George's Circus intersection built.
• 1772
  • 2 November: The Morning Post newspaper begins publication.^[144]
  • Adelphi Buildings constructed in Westminster by Robert Adam and his brothers.
• 1773
  • An informal Stock Exchange opens at Threadneedle Street.^[7]
  • Astley's Amphitheatre founded in Westminster Bridge Road.
  • The original sundial column is removed from Seven Dials and acquired by James Paine.
• 1774
  • 17 April: The first avowedly Unitarian congregation, Essex Street Chapel, is founded by Theophilus Lindsey.
  • 2 May: The Society of Antiquaries of London open the coffin of King Edward I in Westminster Abbey and discover that his body has been perfectly preserved for 467 years.^[161]
  • 5 October–10 November: 1774 British general election: In Westminster, Ignatius Sancho becomes the first person of African origin eligible to vote in Britain.
  • London Building Act ("Black Act") aims to standardise the quality and construction of buildings.^[65]
  • Residential development of Highbury Fields begins.^[115]
• 1775–76 – Winter: Unusually deadly influenza epidemic kills nearly 40,000.^[162]
• 1776
  • 23 May: First purpose-built Freemasons' Hall in England opened in Great Queen Street to a design by Thomas Sandby.
  • Somerset House construction begins in Westminster.
• 1777
  • 12 January: Richmond Bridge over the Thames opens to traffic, replacing a ferry.
  • 8 May: First performance of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's comedy of manners The School for Scandal at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.^[21]
  • 24 July: Rebuilt church of St Alphege London Wall opens.^[49]
  • Hans Place is laid out in Knightsbridge.^[115]
• 1778
  • 1 November: Wesley's Chapel in the City Road opens for worship.
  • Second wooden Hampton Court Bridge built.
  • Joseph Bramah patents an improved form of flush toilet which he begins to manufacture.^[163]
  • Flint & Clark, the predecessors of Debenhams, begin trading as drapers;^[164] their successor will enter liquidation in 2020.
• 1779
  • 2 January: A devastating fire guts the chapel of Greenwich Hospital.^[165]
  • Robert Adam completes his remodelling of Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath for William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield begun in 1764.
• 1780
  • 2 June: An Anti-Catholic mob led by Lord George Gordon marches on Parliament leading to the outbreak of the Gordon Riots, in which the City banks are attacked.^[43]
  • 7 June: The Gordon Riots are ended by the intervention of troops. About 285 people are shot dead, with another 200 wounded and around 450 arrested,^[48] of whom around 25 will be executed.
  • Finsbury Dispensary founded.^[105]
  • Middlesex Sessions House opens on Clerkenwell Green.
  • The original Craven Cottage is built by William Craven, 6th Baron Craven.
• 1781 – July: Barclay Perkins & Co take over the Anchor Brewery in Southwark from Hester Thrale for the brewing of porter.
• 1782
  • 10 October: Sarah Siddons makes a triumphant return to the Drury Lane Theatre in the title role of Garrick's adaptation of Thomas Southerne's Isabella, or, The Fatal Marriage.
  • 4 November: Surrey Theatre opens as the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy in Blackfriars Road.^[78]
  • First Foot Patrol in London.
  • Rebuilt Newgate Prison completed.^[55]
• 1783
  • March–May: Zong massacre trials held.^[166]
  • 8 June: Surrey Chapel, Southwark, is established by evangelical preacher Rowland Hill.
  • 7 November: The last public execution is held at Tyburn. From 9 December executions are held outside the new Newgate Prison.^[43]
• 1784
  • c. April–August: William Roy sets out the baseline of the Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790) on Hounslow Heath.
  • 2 April: Construction of Severndroog Castle on Shooter's Hill begins.
  • 21 August: Joseph Bramah patents the Bramah lock which he begins to manufacture.^[167]
  • 15 September: Italian Vincenzo Lunardi makes the first hydrogen balloon flight in Britain, from Moorfields to South Mimms.^[43]
  • Development of Somers Town begins.
• 1785
  • London Hospital Medical College opens as England's first chartered medical school.
  • New Spring Gardens renamed Vauxhall Gardens.
• 1787
  • 31 May: The original Lord's Cricket Ground holds its first cricket match;^[21] Marylebone Cricket Club founded.^[7]
  • John Courage acquires the Anchor Brewhouse in Shad Thames.
• 1788
  • 1 January: First edition of The Times newspaper published under this title (launched 1785 as The Daily Universal Register).^[166]
  • Admiralty House built on Whitehall.
  • Revolution Society formed.
  • The group that later becomes the Royal Philanthropic Society is formed to assist homeless children.
• 1789
  • 4 May: Boydell Shakespeare Gallery opens.
  • 22 September: First stone Kew Bridge opens.
  • London plane trees (Platanus × acerifolia) planted in Berkeley Square.
  • Rowney, established in 1783 as perfumers, enter the artists' supplies business.^[58]
• 1790 – 23 June: Alleged London Monster arrested; he later receives two years' imprisonment for three assaults.
• 1791
  • 1 January: Austrian composer Joseph Haydn arrives in England at the invitation of London resident impresario Johann Peter Salomon; here his concerts are huge successes. On 11 March the first of his London symphonies, Symphony No. 96, is premièred at the Hanover Square Rooms. He visits again in 1794.
  • First St James's, Spanish Place (Roman Catholic) built as a chapel, primarily to serve the Spanish Embassy.
  • Camden Town development begins.^[34]
  • Giltspur Street Compter (prison) built.^[36]
  • Architect John Soane begins reconstruction of the Bank of England.
• 1792
  • 25 January: Radical London Corresponding Society formed.^[166]
  • 21 June: Iolo Morganwg holds the first Gorsedd ceremony, on Primrose Hill.
  • 29 September: First St Patrick's Church, Soho Square (Roman Catholic) consecrated as a chapel, primarily to serve the Irish.
  • Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna establish the newsagent's business in Little Grosvenor Street which will become W H Smith.^[168]
• 1793
  • Painter Robert Barker opens his panorama in a purpose-built rotunda off Leicester Square.
  • Permanent Cavalry Barracks, Hounslow, established.
• 1794
  • 12 March: Rebuilt Theatre Royal, Drury Lane opens.^[101]
  • 23 July: Ratcliffe Fire destroys over 400 homes.
  • Construction of houses on the edge of Blackheath, designed by Michael Searles, begins: The Paragon (a crescent), South Row and Montpelier Row; they will be completed in 1805.^[115]
  • Coldbath Fields Prison rebuilt.
  • William Blake publishes Songs of Experience including the poem "London".
  • Sarson's vinegar first brewed in Shoreditch.
• 1795
  • 22 September: London Missionary Society established.^[24]
  • 29 October: George III pelted with stones by an angry mob as bread riots continue.^[7]
  • Pantheon rebuilt.^[57]
  • Ackermann print-shop in business.
• 1796
  • 1 February: Protests over the price of bread culminate in Queen Charlotte being hit by a stone as she and George III return from a trip to the theatre.^[7]
  • December: Coldest day recorded in London, −6 °F (−21.1 °C) in Greenwich.
• 1797
  • 15 January: London haberdasher John Hetherington wears the first top hat in public and attracts a large crowd of onlookers. He is later fined £50 for causing public nuisance.^[43]
  • Hatchards bookshop established in Piccadilly by John Hatchard.
• 1798
  • 2 July: The Marine Police Force is formed on the Thames by magistrate Patrick Colquhoun to prevent pilfering in the Port of London and West India Docks;^[169] it is the first organised police force in Britain.
  • Henry Maudslay sets up the mechanical engineering business that becomes Maudslay, Sons and Field.
  • Rules (restaurant) is opened by Thomas Rule in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden as an oyster bar, making it London's oldest restaurant on its original site.^[170]
• 1799 – Gunter's Tea Shop in business.

19th century[]

20th century[]

21st century[]

See also[]

• History of London
• List of Lord Mayors of London

References[]

Bibliography[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to History of London.

• British History Online. London
• "London and its Hinterlands: Life in London, 1674–1913". Old Bailey Proceedings Online. University of Sheffield.
• "Timeline". Exploring 20th Century London. Renaissance London.
• "London", Historical Directories, UK: University of Leicester.
• Europeana. Items related to London, various dates.
• Digital Public Library of America. Items related to London, various dates
• "Dates and Events – Chronology". Dictionary of Victorian London. Stoke Newington: Lee Jackson.