The Madness of King George
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the 1994 film. For the play by Alan Bennett, see The Madness of George III. For the 2004 political satire, see The Madness of King George (book).
The Madness of King George
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Nicholas Hytner
Screenplay by Alan Bennett
Based on The Madness of George III
by Alan Bennett
Produced by
Stephen Evans
David Parfitt
Starring
Nigel Hawthorne
Helen Mirren
Ian Holm
Amanda Donohoe
Rupert Graves
Rupert Everett
Cinematography Andrew Dunn
Edited by Tariq Anwar
Music by
George Fenton
George Frideric Handel
Production
companies
Channel Four Films
Close Call Films
Distributed by
Channel Four Films[1]
The Samuel Goldwyn Company[1] (through Rank Film Distributors[2])
Release dates
28 December 1994 (United States)
24 March 1995 (United Kingdom)
Running time
110 minutes[2]
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Box office $27.4 million[3]
The Madness of King George is a 1994 British biographical comedy drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner and adapted by Alan Bennett from his own 1991 play The Madness of George III. It tells the true story of George III of Great Britain's deteriorating mental health, and his equally declining relationship with his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, particularly focusing on the period around the Regency Crisis of 1788–89. Two text panels at the end of the film note that the colour of the King's urine suggests that he was suffering from porphyria, adding that the disease is "periodic, unpredictable and hereditary."
The Madness of King George won the BAFTA Awards in 1995 for Outstanding British Film and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Nigel Hawthorne, who was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film won the Oscar for Best Art Direction and was also nominated for Oscars for Best Supporting Actress for Mirren and Best Adapted Screenplay. Helen Mirren also won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and Hytner was nominated for the Palme d'Or.
In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Madness of King George the 42nd greatest British film of all time.
Plot
King George III's bout of madness in 1788 touched off the Regency Crisis of 1788 and triggered a power struggle between factions of Parliament under the Tory Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and the reform-minded Leader of the Opposition Charles James Fox.
At first, the King's behaviour appears mildly eccentric. He is deeply concerned with the wellbeing and productivity of Great Britain and exhibits an encyclopaedic knowledge of the families of even the most obscure royal appointments. He is devoted to his loving wife, Queen Charlotte, and their large brood of 15 children. However, he is growing more unsettled, partly over the loss of America. His memory fails, his behaviour becomes erratic and hypersexual, he talks and talks, and his urine turns blue.
George, Prince of Wales, aggravates the situation, knowing that he will be named regent if the King becomes incapacitated. George chafes under his father's relentless criticism, and yearns for greater freedom, particularly when it comes to choosing a wife. He married the woman everyone believes to be his mistress, Mrs. Fitzherbert, in a secret ceremony in 1785. Without his father's consent, the marriage is illegal. Even with consent, it would remove him from the succession, because Fitzherbert is a Catholic. He knows that he has the moral support of Fox, whose agenda includes abolition of the slave trade and friendlier relations with America. Knowing how to exacerbate the King's behaviour, the Prince arranges a concert of music by Handel. The King reacts as expected, interrupting the musicians, speaking lasciviously to Lady Pembroke, and finally assaulting his son.
In a private moment, the King tells Charlotte that he knows something is wrong. They are brutally interrupted when the Prince has them separated, supposedly on the advice of physicians. Led by the Prince of Wales' personal physician, Dr. Warren, the King is treated using the medical practices of the time, which focus on the state of his urine and bowel movements and include painful cupping and purgatives.
Lady Pembroke recommends Dr. Francis Willis, who cured her mother-in-law. Willis uses novel procedures. At his farm in Lincolnshire, patients work to gain “a better opinion of themselves.” He observes to an equerry “To be curbed, thwarted, stood up to, exercises the character.” When the King insults him, foully, he is strapped into a chair and gagged. He will be restrained whenever he “swears and indulges in meaningless discourse” and “does not strive every day and always towards his own recovery”.
When the Prince has the King transferred to Kew, Charlotte watches as her beloved, bearded and wearing a soiled diaper and a straitjacket, struggles against being put in the coach. “Until you can govern yourself, you're not fit to govern others. And until you do so, I shall govern you,” Willis says. At Kew, the King spits soup at Willis, but gains control under the physician's intractable gaze.[a] Later, the King, properly dressed, feeds himself to a round of applause from staff—but the delusions persist.
The Whig opposition confronts Pitt's increasingly unpopular Tory government with a proposal that would give the Prince powers of regency. Baron Thurlow, the Lord Chancellor, obtains and suppresses proof of the marriage. Fox wins, and the Regency Bill is printed. Thurlow comes to see the King and joins in a moving reading of King Lear.[4] “I have remembered how to seem...” the King muses. “What, what!” an expression he has not used in 6 months. His urine is yellow.
Thurlow and the King arrive at Parliament in time to thwart the bill. The King forces the Prince to admit his marriage and to put away Fitzherbert. With the crisis averted, all those who have witnessed his suffering are summarily dismissed, including Captain Greville, the King's equerry. Fitzroy, another equerry, observes to the sacked Greville: “To be kind does not commend you to kings.”
Cheering crowds welcome the royal family to St. Paul's Cathedral. Willis stands by, but the King dismisses him.
“We must be a model family,” he declares; George wants “something to do.” “Smile at the people, wave at them. Let them see that we're happy. That's why we're here.” Saluting, Willis disappears into the crowd, where Mrs. Fitzherbert also smiles, wistfully.
Cast
Nigel Hawthorne as King George III
Helen Mirren as Queen Charlotte
Ian Holm as Francis Willis
Amanda Donohoe as Lady Pembroke, Lady of the Bedchamber
Rupert Graves as Captain Greville
Geoffrey Palmer as Doctor Warren
Rupert Everett as George, Prince of Wales
Jim Carter as Charles James Fox, Leader of the Opposition
Julian Rhind-Tutt as Frederick, Duke of York
Julian Wadham as William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister
Anthony Calf as Lord Charles FitzRoy
Adrian Scarborough as Fortnum
Matthew Lloyd Davies as Papendiek
John Wood as Lord Chancellor Lord Thurlow
Jeremy Child as Black Rod
Struan Rodger as Henry Dundas
Barry Stanton as Sheridan
Janine Duvitski as Margaret Nicholson
Caroline Harker as Mrs. Fitzherbert
Roger Hammond as Baker
Cyril Shaps as Pepys
Selina Cadell as Mrs. Cordwell
Alan Bennett as a backbench MP
Nicholas Selby as Speaker[5]
Production
Alan Bennett insisted that director Nicholas Hytner and actor Nigel Hawthorne should be cast in the film version, after having acted in the play.[6][7]
Title change
In adapting the play to film, the director Nicholas Hytner changed the name from The Madness of George III to The Madness of King George for American audiences, to clarify George III's royalty. A popular explanation developed that the change was made because there was a worry that American audiences would think it was a sequel and not go to see it, assuming they had missed "I" and "II". An interview revealed: "That's not totally untrue," said Hytner, laughing. "But there was also the factor that it was felt necessary to get the word King into the title."[8]
Filming locations
Principal photography took place from 11 July to 9 September 1994. The film was shot at Shepperton Studios and on location at:[citation needed]
Arundel Castle, Arundel, West Sussex
Divinity School, Oxford
Broughton Castle, Banbury, Oxfordshire
Eton College, Eton, Berkshire
Royal Naval College, Greenwich
St Paul's Cathedral, London
Syon House, Brentford, Middlesex
Thame Park, Oxfordshire
Wilton House, Wilton, Wiltshire
Reception
Box office
The Madness of King George was the second highest-grossing British film of the year, behind Shallow Grave, with a gross of £4.6 million in the UK.[9] It debuted strongly at the US box office[10] and went on to gross $15,238,689 in the United States and Canada and $27.4 million worldwide.[11][3]
Critical response
The film received largely positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 94% score based on 47 reviews, with an average of 7.8/10. The site's consensus states: "Thanks largely to stellar all-around performances from a talented cast, The Madness of King George is a funny, entertaining, and immensely likable adaptation of the eponymous stage production."[12]
Reviewing for Variety, Emanuel Levy praised the film, writing: "Under Hytner's guidance, the cast, composed of some of the best actors in British cinema, rises to the occasion... Boasting a rich period look, almost every shot is filled with handsome, emotionally charged composition".[13]
John Simon of The National Review wrote, "The Madness of King George III has survived the transfer from stage to screen, and emerges equally enjoyable on film." Simon praised the leading actors and most of the supporting cast, except for Carter's portrayal of Fox, which he said lacked charisma.[14]
Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote, "For those who, like myself, were disappointed in the play, the film contains pleasant surprises, all of them resulting from differences between the two arts."[15]
Year-end lists
2nd – Peter Rainer, Los Angeles Times[16]
8th – National Board of Review[17]
10th – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times[16]
Top 10 runner-ups (not ranked) – Janet Maslin, The New York Times[18]
Best of the year (not ranked) - Michael Medved, Sneak Previews[19]
Awards and honours
Award Category Nominee(s) Result Ref.
Academy Awards Best Actor Nigel Hawthorne Nominated [20]
Best Supporting Actress Helen Mirren Nominated
Best Screenplay – Based on Material Previously Produced or Published Alan Bennett Nominated
Best Art Direction Art Direction: Ken Adam;
Set Decoration: Carolyn Scott Won
British Academy Film Awards Best Film Stephen Evans, David Parfitt, and Nicholas Hytner Nominated [21]
Outstanding British Film Won
Best Direction Nicholas Hytner Nominated
Best Actor in a Leading Role Nigel Hawthorne Won
Best Actress in a Leading Role Helen Mirren Nominated
Best Actor in a Supporting Role Ian Holm Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay Alan Bennett Nominated
Best Cinematography Andrew Dunn Nominated
Best Costume Design Mark Thompson Nominated
Best Editing Tariq Anwar Nominated
Best Make-Up and Hair Lisa Westcott Won
Best Original Music George Fenton Nominated
Best Production Design Ken Adam Nominated
Best Sound Christopher Ackland, David Crozier, and Robin O'Donoghue Nominated
British Society of Cinematographers Awards Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature Film Andrew Dunn Won [22]
Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or Nicholas Hytner Nominated [23]
Best Actress Helen Mirren Won
Empire Awards Best Actor Nigel Hawthorne Won
Evening Standard British Film Awards Best Film Nicholas Hytner Won
Best Screenplay Alan Bennett Won
Best Technical and Artistic Achievement Andrew Dunn Won
Goya Awards Best European Film Nicholas Hytner Nominated
London Film Critics Circle Awards British Film of the Year Won
British Actor of the Year Nigel Hawthorne Won
British Actress of the Year Helen Mirren Nominated
British Screenwriter of the Year Alan Bennett Won
British Technical Achievement of the Year Ken Adam Won
National Board of Review Awards Top Ten Films 8th Place [24]
Writers Guild of America Awards Best Screenplay – Based on Material Previously Produced or Published Alan Bennett Nominated [25]
Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards Best Screenplay Won [26]
See also
BFI Top 100 British films
Notes
According to the film, it was unheard of for anyone to look directly at the King without his permission.
References
Dawtrey, Adam (8 January 1995). "Goldwyn, CH. 4 Team". Variety. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
"THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE (PG)". British Board of Film Classification. 23 January 1995. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
Klady, Leonard (19 February 1996). "B.O. with a vengeance: $9.1 billion worldwide". Variety. p. 1.
Act IV, scene 7
"Record:The Madness of King George". National Theatre Archive. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
"The Madness of King George". EW.com.
DAVID GRITTEN (8 January 1995). "Late-Blooming Nigel Hawthorne Enjoys 'Madness' of King-Size Role in Hytner's Film". Los Angeles Times. ""It was wonderful that Alan Bennett insisted on Nick and me doing the film after we'd done it as a play," he said of the playwright."
"PROFILE : Life on an Artistic Carousel : Nicholas Hytner, director of 'Miss Saigon' and 'Carousel,' and 'Madness of King George' on film, is the hottest British import. Is he ready for America's Pop Icon Machine?". LA Times. 8 January 1995. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
"UK Top 100 Films Dec 1, 1994-Nov 26, 1995". Screen International. 26 January 1996. p. 61.
Natale, Richard (3 January 1995). "New Year Box Office Starts Off With Bang Movies: At $15.5 million, 'Dumb' stole the show during the long holiday weekend. But many other movies filled the seats as well". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 31 December 2010.
"The Madness of King George (1994)". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
"The Madness of King George (1994)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
Levy, Emanuel (16 December 1994). "The Madness of King George". Variety. Retrieved 23 November 2023.
Simon, John (2005). John Simon on Film: Criticism 1982-2001. Applause Books. pp. 450–451.
Stanley Kauffmann at rottentomatoes.com
Turan, Kenneth (25 December 1994). "1994: YEAR IN REVIEW : No Weddings, No Lions, No Gumps". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
"Awards for 1994". National Board of Review. Archived from the original on 25 November 2010. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
Maslin, Janet (27 December 1994). "CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; The Good, Bad and In-Between In a Year of Surprises on Film". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
Lyons, Jeffrey (host); Medved, Michael (host) (6 January 1995). "Best & Worst of 1994". Sneak Previews. Season 20. WTTW. Retrieved 20 February 2024.
"The 67th Academy Awards (1995) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 9 November 2014. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
"BAFTA Awards: Film in 1996". British Academy Film Awards. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
"Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature Film" (PDF). British Society of Cinematographers. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
"The Madness of King George". Cannes Film Festival. Retrieved 27 May 2024.
"1994 Award Winners". National Board of Review. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
"Awards Winners". Writers Guild of America Awards. Archived from the original on 5 December 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2010.
"Writers' Guild Awards 1994". Writers' Guild of Great Britain. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
External links
The Madness of King George at IMDb
The Madness of King George at Box Office Mojo
The Madness of King George at Rotten Tomatoes
The Madness of King George at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
Mikkelson, Barbara & David P. "The Madness of King George" at Snopes.com: Urban Legends Reference Pages.
vte
Films directed by Nicholas Hytner
The Madness of King George (1994) The Crucible (1996) The Object of My Affection (1998) Center Stage (2000) The History Boys (2006) The Lady in the Van (2015) The Choral (TBA)
Awards for The Madness of King George
vte
BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film
1947–1967
Odd Man Out (1947) The Fallen Idol (1948) The Third Man (1949) The Blue Lamp (1950) The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) The Sound Barrier (1952) Genevieve (1953) Hobson's Choice (1954) Richard III (1955) Reach for the Sky (1956) The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Room at the Top (1958) Sapphire (1959) Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) A Taste of Honey (1961) Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Tom Jones (1963) Dr. Strangelove (1964) The Ipcress File (1965) The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1966) A Man for All Seasons (1967)
1992–present
The Crying Game (1992) Shadowlands (1993) Shallow Grave (1994) The Madness of King George (1995) Secrets & Lies (1996) Nil by Mouth (1997) Elizabeth (1998) East Is East (1999) Billy Elliot (2000) Gosford Park (2001) The Warrior (2002) Touching the Void (2003) My Summer of Love (2004) Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) The Last King of Scotland (2006) This Is England (2007) Man on Wire (2008) Fish Tank (2009) The King's Speech (2010) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) Skyfall (2012) Gravity (2013) The Theory of Everything (2014) Brooklyn (2015) I, Daniel Blake (2016) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) The Favourite (2018) 1917 (2019) Promising Young Woman (2020) Belfast (2021) The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) The Zone of Interest (2023)
vte
London Film Critics' Circle British or Irish Film of the Year
Life Is Sweet (1991) Howards End (1992) The Remains of the Day (1993) Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) The Madness of King George (1995) Secrets & Lies (1996) The Full Monty (1997) Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) East Is East (1999) Billy Elliot (2000) Gosford Park (2001) All or Nothing (2002) The Magdalene Sisters (2003) Vera Drake (2004) The Constant Gardener (2005) The Queen (2006) Control (2007) Slumdog Millionaire (2008) Fish Tank (2009) The King's Speech (2010) We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) Berberian Sound Studio (2012) The Selfish Giant (2013) Under the Skin (2014) 45 Years (2015) I, Daniel Blake (2016) Dunkirk (2017) The Favourite (2018) The Souvenir (2019) Saint Maud (2020) The Souvenir Part II (2021) The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) All of Us Strangers (2023)
vte
George III
King of the United Kingdom and Hanover
Family
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (wife) George IV, King of the United Kingdom (son) Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (son) William IV, King of the United Kingdom (son) Charlotte, Princess Royal (daughter) Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (son) Augusta (daughter) Elizabeth (daughter) Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover (son) Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (son) Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge (son) Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh (daughter) Sophia (daughter) Octavius (son) Alfred (son) Amelia (daughter) Frederick, Prince of Wales (father) Augusta of Saxe-Gotha (mother) Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (sister) Edward, Duke of York and Albany (brother) Princess Elizabeth (sister) William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (brother) Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn (brother) Princess Louisa (sister) Prince Frederick (brother) Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway (sister) Descendants
Reign
Coronation Seven Years' War Royal Proclamation of 1763 Royal Marriages Act 1772 American Revolution
American Revolutionary War French Revolutionary Wars Irish Rebellion of 1798 Acts of Union 1800 Treaty of Amiens Napoleonic Wars Golden Jubilee
Jubilee Rock Regency Act 1811
Regency era
Cultural
depictions
Paintings
Coronation Portrait of George III (1762) George III and the Prince of Wales Reviewing Troops (1798) Portrait of George III (1809)
Public sculptures
Montreal (1773) Somerset House, London (c. 1778–1789) Weymouth (1809) Windsor Great Park (1831)
Theatre, film,
radio and
television
America (1924, film) The Young Mr. Pitt (1942, film) Mrs. Fitzherbert (1947, film) Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969, music theatre) Barry Lyndon (1975, film) The Adams Chronicles (1976, TV) Prince Regent (1979, TV) In the Ruins (1984, radio play) Blackadder the Third "Duel and Duality" (1987, TV) The Madness of George III (1991, play) The Madness of King George (1994, film) Longitude (2000, TV) John Adams (2008, TV) Hamilton: An American Musical (2015, musical) Mr Foote's Other Leg (2015, play) Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023, TV)
Books and poems
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004) Victory of Eagles (2008)
Related
King's Library King's manuscripts, British Library King's Observatory Margaret Nicholson John Frith James Hadfield House of Hanover George III (ship)
← George II George IV →
Authority control databases Edit this at Wikidata
International
VIAF
National
Germany
Categories:
1994 films1990s biographical drama films1990s historical comedy-drama filmsBAFTA winners (films)Best British Film BAFTA Award winnersBiographical films about British royaltyBritish biographical drama filmsBritish films based on playsBritish historical comedy-drama filmsCultural depictions of George IIICultural depictions of George IVCultural depictions of Charles James FoxCultural depictions of Richard Brinsley SheridanCultural depictions of William Pitt the YoungerCultural depictions of Frederick, Duke of York and AlbanyFilms set in 1788Films directed by Nicholas HytnerFilms produced by David ParfittFilms set in BerkshireFilms set in EnglandFilms set in LondonFilms set in OxfordFilms shot in BerkshireFilms shot in LondonFilms shot in OxfordshireFilms shot in West SussexFilms shot in WiltshireFilms whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy AwardFilms with screenplays by Alan BennettThe Samuel Goldwyn Company films1994 directorial debut films1990s English-language films1990s British filmsEnglish-language historical comedy-drama filmsEnglish-language biographical drama films
of one pound, or 5 shillings, or 60 (old) pence. The crown was first issued during the reign of Edward VI, as part of the coinage of the Kingdom of England.
Always a heavy silver coin weighing around one ounce, during the 19th and 20th centuries the crown declined from being a real means of exchange to being a coin rarely spent, and minted for commemorative purposes only. Unlike in some territories of the British Empire (such as Jamaica), in the UK the crown was never replaced as circulating currency by a five-shilling banknote.
"Decimal" crowns were minted a few times after decimalisation of the British currency in 1971, initially with a nominal value of 25 (new) pence. However, commemorative crowns issued since 1990 have a face value of five pounds.[1]
The coin's origins lie in the English silver crown, one of many silver coins that appeared in various countries from the 16th century onwards (most famously the Spanish piece of eight), all of similar size and weight (approx 38mm diameter, 25g fine silver) and thus interchangeable in international trade. The Kingdom of England also minted gold Crowns until early in the reign of Charles II.[2]
The dies for all gold and silver coins of Queen Anne and King George I were engraved by John Croker, a migrant originally from Dresden in the Duchy of Saxony.[3]
The British silver crown was always a large coin, and from the 19th century it did not circulate well. However, crowns were usually struck in a new monarch's coronation year, from George IV through Elizabeth II in 1953, with the exceptions of George V and Edward VIII.
"Gothic" crown of Queen Victoria (1847). The coin had a mintage of just 8,000 and was produced to celebrate the Gothic revival
The King George V "wreath" crowns struck from 1927 through 1936 (excluding 1935 when the more common "rocking horse" crown was minted to commemorate the King's Silver Jubilee) depict a wreath on the reverse of the coin and were struck in very low numbers. Generally struck late in the year and intended to be purchased as Christmas gifts, they were generally kept rather than circulated. The 1927 "wreath" crowns were struck as proofs only (15,030 minted) and the 1934 coin had a mintage of just 932.[citation needed]
With their large size, many of the later coins were primarily commemoratives. The 1951 issue was for the Festival of Britain, and was only struck in proof condition. The 1953 crown was issued to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, while the 1960 issue (which carried the same reverse design as the previous crown in 1953) commemorated the British Exhibition in New York. The 1965 issue carried the image of Winston Churchill on the reverse. According to the Standard Catalogue of coins, 19,640,000 of this coin were minted, although intended as collectable pieces the large mintage and lack of precious metal content means these coins are effectively worthless today.[4] Production of the Churchill crown began on 11 October 1965, and stopped in the summer of 1966.
The crown coin was nicknamed the dollar, but is not to be confused with the British trade dollar that circulated in the Orient.
In 2014, a new world record price was achieved for a milled silver crown. The coin was unique, issued as a pattern by engraver Thomas Simon in 1663 and nicknamed the "Reddite Crown". It was presented to Charles II as the new crown piece, but ultimately rejected in favour of the Roettiers Brothers' design. Auctioneers Spink & Son of London sold the coin on 27 March 2014 for £396,000 including commission.[5]
All pre-decimal crowns from 1818 on remain legal tender with a face value of 25p.[6]
After decimalisation on 15 February 1971, the 25-pence coin was introduced as a replacement for the crown as a commemorative coin. These were legal tender[6] and were made with large mintages.
Further issues continued to be minted, initially with a value of twenty-five pence (with no face value shown). From 1990, the face value of new crown coins was raised to five pounds.[1]
The legal tender value of the crown remained as five shillings from 1544 to 1965. However, for most of this period there was no denominational designation or "face value" mark of value displayed on the coin. From 1927 to 1939, the word "CROWN" appears, and from 1951 to 1960 this was changed to "FIVE SHILLINGS". Coins minted since 1818 remain legal tender with a face value of 25 pence.
Although all "normal" issues since 1951 have been composed of cupro-nickel, special proof versions have been produced for sale to collectors, and as gift items, in silver, gold, and occasionally platinum.
The fact that gold £5 crowns are now produced means that there are two different strains of five pound gold coins, namely crowns and what are now termed "quintuple sovereigns" for want of a more concise term.[7][8]
Numismatically, the term "crown-sized" is used generically to describe large silver or cupro-nickel coins of about 40 mm in diameter. Most Commonwealth countries still issue crown-sized coins for sale to collectors.
New Zealand's original fifty-cent pieces, and Australia's previously round but now dodecagonal fifty-cent piece, although valued at five shillings in predecimal accounting, are all smaller than the standard silver crown pieces issued by those countries (and the UK). They were in fact similarly sized to the predecimal half crown (worth two shillings and sixpence).
For silver crowns, the grade of silver adhered to the long-standing standard (established in the 12th century by Henry II) – the Sterling Silver standard of 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper. This was a harder-wearing alloy, yet it was still a rather high grade of silver. It went some way towards discouraging the practice of "clipping", though this practice was further discouraged and largely eliminated with the introduction of the milled edge seen on coins today.
In a debasement process which took effect in 1920, the silver content of all British coins was reduced from 92.5% to 50%, with a portion of the remainder consisting of manganese, which caused the coins to tarnish to a very dark colour after they had been in circulation for a significant period. Silver was eliminated altogether in 1947, with the move to a composition of cupro-nickel – except for proof issues, which returned to the pre-1920 92.5% silver composition.
Since the Great Recoinage of 1816, a crown has, as a general rule, had a diameter of 38.61 millimetres (1.520 in), and weighed 28.276 grams (defined as 10⁄11 troy ounce).[9][10]
For crowns minted from 1990, which have a value of £5, see here.
The specifications for composition refer to the standard circulation versions. Proof versions continue to be minted in Sterling silver.
In 1853, the Royal Mint had produced two patterns for a gold 5-shilling coin for circulation use, one denominated as five shillings and the other as a quarter sovereign, but this coin never went into production, in part due to concerns about the small size of the coin and likely wear in circulation.[11] The quarter sovereign was introduced in 2009 as a bullion coin.
"The Royal Mint: Five Pound Coin Designs and Specifications". The Royal Mint. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
"Crown". Royal Mint Museum. Retrieved 17 July 2022. In 1551 Edward VI issued a large silver coin of the value of five shillings and as its currency value was the same as that of the gold crown it took its name from that coin. Both gold and silver crowns continued to be struck concurrently until early in the reign of Charles II, when minting of the gold crown ceased.
Warwick William Wroth, 'Croker, John (1670-1741)' in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, vol. 13
"How Much is a 1965 Winston Churchill Coin Worth?". churchillcentral.com. 17 April 2019. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
"Spink sets new world record for an English silver coin, 27 March 2014". Spink Auctioneers. Archived from the original on 2 April 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
"How can I dispose of commemorative crowns? And why do some have a higher face value than others?". The Royal Mint Museum. Archived from the original on 13 April 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
"Quintuple Sovereigns - Five Pound Gold Coins". taxfreegold.co.uk. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
"British Gold Proof Commemorative Crowns". taxfreegold.co.uk. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
Kindleberger, Charles P. (2005). A Financial History of Western Europe. Taylor & Francis. p. 60. ISBN 9780415378673.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Crown (British coin).
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George III
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see George III (disambiguation).
George III
Full-length portrait in oils of a clean-shaven young George in eighteenth century dress: gold jacket and breeches, ermine cloak, powdered wig, white stockings, and buckled shoes.
Coronation portrait, 1762
King of Great Britain and Ireland[a]
Elector/King of Hanover[b]
Reign 25 October 1760 – 29 January 1820
Coronation 22 September 1761
Predecessor George II
Successor George IV
Regent George, Prince of Wales (1811–1820)
Born 4 June 1738 [NS][c]
Norfolk House, St James's Square, London, England
Died 29 January 1820 (aged 81)
Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England
Burial 16 February 1820
Royal Vault, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
Spouse Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
(m. 1761; died 1818)
Issue
George IV
Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany
William IV
Charlotte, Queen of Württemberg
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn
Princess Augusta Sophia
Elizabeth, Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg
Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover
Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex
Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge
Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh
Princess Sophia
Prince Octavius
Prince Alfred
Princess Amelia
Names
George William Frederick
House Hanover
Father Frederick, Prince of Wales
Mother Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha
Religion Anglicanism
Signature Handwritten "George" with a huge leading "G" and a large capital "R" at the end for "Rex"
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 1738 – 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with George as its king. He was concurrently Duke and Prince-elector of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was a monarch of the House of Hanover, who, unlike his two predecessors, was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language,[1] and never visited Hanover.[2]
George was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather, King George II, as the first son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. Following his father's death in 1751, Prince George became heir apparent and Prince of Wales. He succeeded to the throne on George II's death in 1760. The following year, he married Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, with whom he had 15 children. George III's life and reign were marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdoms, much of the rest of Europe, and places farther afield in Africa, the Americas and Asia. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. However, Britain lost 13 of its North American colonies in the American War of Independence. Further wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France from 1793 concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In 1807, the transatlantic slave trade was banned from the British Empire.
In the later part of his life, George had recurrent and eventually permanent mental illness. The exact nature of the mental illness is not known definitively, but historians and medical experts have suggested that his symptoms and behaviour traits were consistent with either bipolar disorder or porphyria. In 1810, George suffered a final relapse, and his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, was named Prince Regent the following year. The King died aged 81, at which time the Regent succeeded him as George IV. George III reigned during much of the Georgian and Regency eras. At the time of his death, he was the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, having reigned for 59 years and 96 days; he remains the longest-lived and longest-reigning male monarch in British history.
Early life
Conversation piece in oils: Ayscough dressed in black with a clerical collar stands beside a settee on which the two boys sit, one wearing a grey suit the other a blue one. He holds a sheet of paper; the boys hold a book.
Prince George (right), his brother Prince Edward, and their tutor, Francis Ayscough (later Dean of Bristol), by Richard Wilson, c. 1749
George was born in Norfolk House in St James's Square, London, on 4 June 1738.[c] He was a grandson of King George II and the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. As he was born two months prematurely, and thought unlikely to survive, he was baptised the same day by Thomas Secker, who was both Rector of St James's Church, Piccadilly, and Bishop of Oxford.[3][4] One month later, he was publicly baptised at Norfolk House, again by Secker. His godparents were King Frederick I of Sweden (for whom Lord Baltimore stood proxy), his uncle Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Gotha (for whom Lord Carnarvon stood proxy), and his great-aunt Sophia Dorothea, Queen in Prussia (for whom Lady Charlotte Edwin stood proxy).[5]
George grew into a healthy, reserved and shy child. The family moved to Leicester Square, where George and his younger brother Edward (later Duke of York and Albany) were educated together by private tutors. Family letters show that he could read and write in both English and German, as well as comment on political events of the time, by the age of eight.[6] He was the first British monarch to study science systematically.[7]
Apart from chemistry and physics, his lessons included astronomy, mathematics, French, Latin, history, music, geography, commerce, agriculture and constitutional law, along with sporting and social accomplishments such as dancing, fencing and riding. His religious education was wholly Anglican.[7] At the age of 10, George took part in a family production of Joseph Addison's play Cato and said in the new prologue: "What, tho' a boy! It may with truth be said, A boy in England born, in England bred."[8] Historian Romney Sedgwick argued that these lines appear "to be the source of the only historical phrase with which he is associated".[9]
King George II disliked Prince Frederick and took little interest in his grandchildren. However, in 1751, Frederick died unexpectedly from a lung injury at the age of 44, and his son George became heir apparent to the throne and inherited his father's title of Duke of Edinburgh. The King now took more interest in his grandson and created him Prince of Wales three weeks later.[10][11]
Head-and-shoulders portrait of a young clean-shaven George wearing a finely-embroidered jacket, the blue sash of the Order of the Garter, and a powdered wig.
Pastel portrait of George as Prince of Wales by Jean-Étienne Liotard, 1754
In the spring of 1756, as George approached his eighteenth birthday, the King offered him a grand establishment at St James's Palace, but George refused the offer, guided by his mother and her confidant, Lord Bute, who later served as prime minister.[12] George's mother, now the Dowager Princess of Wales, preferred to keep George at home where she could imbue him with her strict moral values.[13][14]
Accession and marriage
In 1759, George was smitten with Lady Sarah Lennox, sister of Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, but Lord Bute advised against the match and George abandoned his thoughts of marriage. "I am born for the happiness or misery of a great nation," he wrote, "and consequently must often act contrary to my passions."[15] Nevertheless, George and his mother resisted attempts by the King to marry George to Princess Sophie Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.[16] Sophie Caroline instead married Frederick, Margrave of Bayreuth.[17]
The following year, at the age of 22, George succeeded to the throne when his grandfather George II died suddenly on 25 October 1760, at age 76. The search for a suitable wife intensified: after giving consideration to a number of Protestant German princesses, George's mother sent Colonel David Graeme with, on her son's behalf, an offer of marriage to Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Charlotte accepted. While a royal household and staff were assembled for Charlotte in London, Lord Harcourt, the royal Master of the Horse, escorted her from Strelitz to London. Charlotte arrived in the afternoon of 8 September 1761 and the marriage ceremony was conducted that same evening in the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace.[18][d] George and Charlotte's coronation was held at Westminster Abbey a fortnight later on 22 September. George never took a mistress (in contrast with his grandfather and his sons), and the couple enjoyed a happy marriage until his mental illness struck.[1][8]
The King and Queen had 15 children—nine sons and six daughters. In 1762, George purchased Buckingham House (on the site now occupied by Buckingham Palace) for use as a family retreat.[20] His other residences were Kew Palace and Windsor Castle. St James's Palace was retained for official use. He did not travel extensively and spent his entire life in southern England. In the 1790s, the King and his family took holidays at Weymouth, Dorset,[21] which he thus popularised as one of the first seaside resorts in England.[22]
Early reign
Early regnal years
Further information: Great Britain in the Seven Years' War
George, in his accession speech to Parliament, proclaimed: "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain."[23] He inserted this phrase into the speech, written by Lord Hardwicke, to demonstrate his desire to distance himself from his German forebears, who were perceived as caring more for Hanover than for Britain.[24] During George III's lengthy reign, Britain was a constitutional monarchy, ruled by his ministerial government and prominent men in Parliament.[25] Although his accession was at first welcomed by politicians of all parties,[e] the first years of his reign were marked by political instability, largely as a result of disagreements over the Seven Years' War.[27] George came to be perceived as favouring Tory ministers, which led to his denunciation by the Whigs as an autocrat.[1]
On his accession, the Crown lands produced relatively little income; most revenue was generated through taxes and excise duties. George surrendered the Crown Estate to Parliamentary control in return for a civil list annuity for the support of his household and the expenses of civil government.[28] Claims that he used the income to reward supporters with bribes and gifts[29] are disputed by historians who say such claims "rest on nothing but falsehoods put out by disgruntled opposition".[30] Debts amounting to over £3 million over the course of George's reign were paid by Parliament, and the civil list annuity was increased from time to time.[31] He aided the Royal Academy of Arts with large grants from his private funds,[32] and may have donated more than half of his personal income to charity.[33] Of his art collection, the two most notable purchases are Johannes Vermeer's Lady at the Virginals and a set of Canalettos, but it is as a collector of books that he is best remembered.[34] The King's Library was open and available to scholars and was the foundation of a new national library.[35]
Legislation and politics
Quarter-length portrait in oils of a clean-shaven young George in profile wearing a red suit, the Garter star, a blue sash, and a powdered wig. He has a receding chin and his forehead slopes away from the bridge of his nose making his head look round in shape.
Portrait by Allan Ramsay, 1762
In May 1762, the incumbent Whig government of Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, was replaced with one led by Lord Bute, a Scottish Tory. Bute's opponents worked against him by spreading the calumny that he was having an affair with the King's mother, and by exploiting anti-Scottish sentiment amongst the English.[36] John Wilkes, a member of parliament, published The North Briton, which was both inflammatory and defamatory in its condemnation of Bute and the government. Wilkes was eventually arrested for seditious libel but he fled to France to escape punishment; he was expelled from the House of Commons and found guilty in absentia of blasphemy and libel.[37] In 1763, after concluding the Peace of Paris which ended the war, Lord Bute resigned, allowing the Whigs under George Grenville to return to power. Britain received enormous concessions, including West Florida. Britain restored to France lucrative slave-sugar islands in the West Indies, including Guadeloupe and Martinique. France ceded Canada to Britain, in addition to all land between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River, except New Orleans, which was ceded to Spain.[38]
Later that year, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 placed a limit upon the westward expansion of the American colonies and created an Indian reserve. The Proclamation aimed to divert colonial expansion to the north (to Nova Scotia) and to the south (Florida), and protect the British fur trade with the Indians.[39] The Proclamation Line did not bother the majority of settled farmers, but it was unpopular with a vocal minority. This discontent ultimately contributed to conflict between the colonists and the British government.[40] With the American colonists generally unburdened by British taxes, the government thought it appropriate for them to pay towards the defence of the colonies against native uprisings and the possibility of French incursions.[f]
The central issue for the colonists was not the amount of taxes but whether Parliament could levy a tax without American approval, for there were no American seats in Parliament.[43] The Americans protested that like all Englishmen they had rights to "no taxation without representation". In 1765, Grenville introduced the Stamp Act, which levied a stamp duty on every document in the British colonies in North America. Since newspapers were printed on stamped paper, those most affected by the introduction of the duty were the most effective at producing propaganda opposing the tax.[44]
Meanwhile, George had become exasperated at Grenville's attempts to reduce the King's prerogatives, and tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade William Pitt the Elder to accept the office of prime minister.[45] After a brief illness, which may have presaged his illnesses to come, George settled on Lord Rockingham to form a ministry, and dismissed Grenville.[46]
Bust by John van Nost the younger, 1767
Lord Rockingham, with the support of Pitt and the King, repealed Grenville's unpopular Stamp Act. Rockingham's government was weak, and he was replaced as prime minister in 1766 by Pitt, whom George created Earl of Chatham. The actions of Lord Chatham and George III in repealing the Act were so popular in America that statues of them both were erected in New York City.[47] Lord Chatham fell ill in 1767, and Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, took over the government. Grafton did not formally become prime minister until 1768. That year, John Wilkes returned to England, stood as a candidate in the general election, and came top of the poll in the Middlesex constituency. Wilkes was again expelled from Parliament. He was re-elected and expelled twice more, before the House of Commons resolved that his candidature was invalid and declared the runner-up as the victor.[48] Grafton's government disintegrated in 1770, allowing the Tories led by Lord North to return to power.[49]
Family issues and discontent in America
Three-quarter length seated portrait of a clean-shaven George with a fleshy face and white eyebrows wearing a powdered wig.
Portrait by Johan Zoffany, 1771
George was deeply devout and spent hours in prayer,[50] but his piety was not shared by his brothers. George was appalled by what he saw as their loose morals. In 1770, his brother Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn, was exposed as an adulterer. The following year, Henry married a young widow, Anne Horton. The King considered her inappropriate as a royal bride: she was from a lower social class and German law barred any children of the couple from the Hanoverian succession.[51]
George insisted on a new law that essentially forbade members of the royal family from legally marrying without the consent of the sovereign. The subsequent bill was unpopular in Parliament, including among George's own ministers, but passed as the Royal Marriages Act 1772. Shortly afterwards, another of George's brothers, Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, revealed he had been secretly married to Maria, Countess Waldegrave, the illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole. The news confirmed George's opinion that he had been right to introduce the law: Maria was related to his political opponents. Neither lady was ever received at court.[51]
Lord North's government was chiefly concerned with discontent in America. To assuage American opinion most of the custom duties were withdrawn, except for the tea duty, which in George's words was "one tax to keep up the right [to levy taxes]".[52] In 1773, the tea ships moored in Boston Harbor were boarded by colonists and the tea was thrown overboard, an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. In Britain, opinion hardened against the colonists, with Chatham now agreeing with North that the destruction of the tea was "certainly criminal".[53]
With the clear support of Parliament, Lord North introduced measures, which were called the Intolerable Acts by the colonists: the Port of Boston was shut down and the charter of Massachusetts was altered so that the upper house of the legislature was appointed by the Crown instead of elected by the lower house.[54] Up to this point, in the words of Professor Peter Thomas, George's "hopes were centred on a political solution, and he always bowed to his cabinet's opinions even when sceptical of their success. The detailed evidence of the years from 1763 to 1775 tends to exonerate George III from any real responsibility for the American Revolution."[55] Though both the Americans and older British historians characterised George as a tyrant, in these years he acted as a constitutional monarch supporting the initiatives of his ministers.[56]
American War of Independence
Main articles: American Revolution and American Revolutionary War
Pulling Down the Statue of George III at Bowling Green, 9 July 1776, William Walcutt (1854)
The American War of Independence was the culmination of the civil and political American Revolution. In the 1760s, a series of acts by Parliament was met with resistance in Britain's Thirteen Colonies in America. In particular they rejected new taxes levied by Parliament, a body in which they had no direct representation. The colonies had previously enjoyed a high level of autonomy in their internal affairs and viewed Parliament's acts as a denial of their rights as Englishmen.[57] Armed conflict began between British regulars and colonial militiamen at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. The Second Continental Congress sent petitions to the Crown for intervention with Parliament, but the King and Parliament ignored them. George declared the American leaders to be traitors and a year of fighting ensued. Thomas Paine's book Common Sense referred to George III as "the Royal Brute of Great Britain".[58]
The colonies declared their independence in July 1776, listing twenty-seven grievances against the British king and legislature while asking the support of the populace. Among George's other offenses, the declaration charged, "He has abdicated Government here ... He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people." The gilded equestrian statue of the King in New York was pulled down.[59] The British captured the city in 1776 but lost Boston, and the grand strategic plan of invading from Canada and cutting off New England failed with the surrender of British Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne following the battles of Saratoga.[60]
Prime Minister Lord North was not an ideal war leader, but George III managed to give Parliament a sense of purpose to fight, and North was able to keep his cabinet together. North's cabinet ministers the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Lord George Germain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, proved to lack leadership skills suited for their positions.[61]
George III is often accused of obstinately trying to keep Great Britain at war with the rebels, despite the opinions of his own ministers.[62] In the words of British historian George Otto Trevelyan, the King was determined "never to acknowledge the independence of the Americans, and to punish their contumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to be eternal."[63] He wanted to "keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were converted into penitence and remorse".[64] Later historians defend George by saying that, in the context of the times, no king would willingly surrender such a large territory,[8][65] and his conduct was far less ruthless than contemporaneous monarchs in Europe.[66] After Saratoga, both Parliament and the British people were in favour of the war; recruitment ran at high levels and political opponents, though vocal, remained a small minority.[8][67]
Portrait by Johann Heinrich von Hurter [de], 1781 (Royal Collection)
With the setbacks in America, Lord North asked to transfer power to Lord Chatham, whom he thought more capable, but George refused to do so; he suggested instead that Chatham serve as a subordinate minister in North's administration, but Chatham refused; he died later in the same year.[68] North was allied to the "King's Friends" in Parliament and believed that George III had the right to exercise powers.[69] In early 1778, Louis XVI of France (Britain's chief rival) signed a treaty of alliance with the United States.[70] The French fleet outran the British naval blockade of the Mediterranean and sailed to America.[70] The conflict now affected America, Europe, and India.[70] Charles III of Spain had misgivings because of his own colonies but decided to side with France in the war in limited fashion in 1779.[71] One faction of the Dutch Republic aided the Americans, whereas another aided Britain, whose allies included Loyalists and German auxiliaries. Lord Gower and Lord Weymouth both resigned from the government. Lord North again requested that he also be allowed to resign, but he stayed in office at George III's insistence.[72]
During the summer of 1779, a combined French-Spanish naval fleet threatened to invade England and transport 31,000 French troops across the English Channel. George III said that Britain was confronted by the "most serious crisis the nation ever knew". In August, 66 warships entered the English channel, but sickness, hunger, and adverse winds forced the French-Spanish armada to withdraw, ending the invasion threat.[73]
In late 1779, George III advocated sending more British warships and troops across the Atlantic to the West Indies. He boldly said: "We must risk something, otherwise we will only vegetate in this war. I own I wish either with spirit to get through it, or with a crash be ruined." In January 1780, 7,000 British troops under General Sir John Vaughan were transported to the West Indies.[74] Nonetheless, opposition to the costly war was increasing, and in June 1780 contributed to disturbances in London known as the Gordon riots.[75]
As late as the siege of Charleston in 1780, Loyalists could still believe in their eventual victory, as British troops inflicted defeats on the Continental forces at the Battle of Camden and the Battle of Guilford Court House.[76] In late 1781, the news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender at the siege of Yorktown reached London; North's parliamentary support ebbed away and he resigned the following year. George drafted an abdication notice, which was never delivered.[65][77] He finally accepted the defeat in America and authorized peace negotiations. Britain formally recognized the independence of the United States in the Treaties of Paris signed in 1782 and 1783.[78] In early 1783, George III privately conceded "America is lost!" He reflected that the Northern colonies had developed into Britain's "successful rivals" in commercial trade and fishing.[79] Up to 70,000 Loyalists fled to Canada, the Caribbean, or England.[80]
John Adams was appointed American minister to London in 1785, by which time George had become resigned to the new relationship between his country and the former colonies. He told Adams, "I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power."[81]
Mid reign
Government
Centre: George III, drawn as a paunchy man with pockets bulging with gold coins, receives a wheel-barrow filled with money-bags from William Pitt, whose pockets also overflow with coin. To the left, a quadriplegic veteran begs on the street. To the right, George, Prince of Wales, is depicted dressed in rags.
In A new way to pay the National Debt (1786), James Gillray caricatured King George III and Queen Charlotte awash with treasury funds to cover royal debts, with Pitt handing him another money bag.
With the collapse of Lord North's ministry in 1782, the Whig Lord Rockingham became prime minister for the second time, but died within months. The King then appointed Lord Shelburne to replace him. Charles James Fox, however, refused to serve under Shelburne, and demanded the appointment of William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland. In 1783, the House of Commons forced Shelburne from office and his government was replaced by the Fox–North Coalition. Portland became prime minister, with Fox and Lord North, as foreign secretary and home secretary respectively.[8]
The King disliked Fox intensely, for his politics as well as his character: he thought Fox unprincipled and a bad influence on the Prince of Wales.[82] George III was distressed at having to appoint ministers not of his liking, but the Portland ministry quickly built up a majority in the House of Commons, and could not be displaced easily. He was further dismayed when the government introduced the India Bill, which proposed to reform the government of India by transferring political power from the East India Company to Parliamentary commissioners.[83] Although George actually favoured greater control over the company, the proposed commissioners were all political allies of Fox.[84] Immediately after the House of Commons passed it, George authorised Lord Temple to inform the House of Lords that he would regard any peer who voted for the bill as his enemy. The bill was rejected by the Lords; three days later, the Portland ministry was dismissed, and William Pitt the Younger was appointed prime minister, with Temple as his secretary of state. On 17 December 1783, Parliament voted in favour of a motion condemning the influence of the monarch in parliamentary voting as a "high crime" and Temple was forced to resign. Temple's departure destabilised the government, and three months later the government lost its majority and Parliament was dissolved; the subsequent election gave Pitt a firm mandate.[8]
Imaginary garden scene with birds of paradise, vines laden with grapes, and architectural columns. The two young princesses and their baby sister wear fine dresses and play with three spaniels and a tambourine.
The Three Youngest Daughters of King George III by John Singleton Copley, c. 1785, depicting: Princesses Mary (left with tambourine), Sophia (upper right), and Amelia (baby).
Pitt's appointment was a great victory for George. It proved that the King could appoint prime ministers on the basis of his own interpretation of the public mood without having to follow the choice of the current majority in the House of Commons. Throughout Pitt's ministry, George supported many of Pitt's political aims and created new peers at an unprecedented rate to increase the number of Pitt's supporters in the House of Lords.[85] During and after Pitt's ministry, George was extremely popular in Britain.[86] The British people admired him for his piety and for remaining faithful to his wife.[87] He was fond of his children and was devastated at the death of two of his sons in infancy, in 1782 and 1783 respectively.[88] Nevertheless, he set his children a strict regimen. They were expected to attend rigorous lessons from seven in the morning and to lead lives of religious observance and virtue.[89] When his children strayed from George's principles of righteousness, as his sons did as young adults, he was dismayed and disappointed.[90]
Illness
Gold coin bearing the profile of a round-headed George wearing a classical Roman-style haircut and a laurel wreath.
Gold guinea of George III, 1789
By this time, George's health was deteriorating. He had a mental illness characterised by acute mania. Until the mid-20th century, the King's illness was generally considered to be psychological. In 1966, a study by Ida Macalpine and Richard Hunter suggested that the illness was physiological, caused by the liver disorder porphyria.[91] Although meeting with some contemporary opposition,[92] the view gained widespread scholarly acceptance.[93] A study of samples of George's hair published in 2005 revealed high levels of arsenic, a cause of metabolic blood disorders and thus a possible trigger for porphyria. The source of the arsenic is not known, but it could have been a component of medicines or cosmetics.[94] The theory was also established in the public mind through influential dramatisations, such as Alan Bennett's play The Madness of George III, and in Nicholas Hytner's subsequent film. From 2010 this view has been increasingly challenged, and Macalpine and Hunter's study criticised.[95][96][97] Recent scholarship discounts the porphyria theory and contends that George's illness was psychiatric, most probably bipolar disorder.[98]
George may have had a brief episode of disease in 1765, and a longer episode began in the summer of 1788. At the end of the parliamentary session, he went to Cheltenham Spa to recuperate and in August visited the Bishop of Worcester at Hartlebury Castle[99] and Viscount Mount Edgcumbe at Cotehele, Cornwall, with the Queen, and their daughters the Princess Royal and Princesses Augusta and Elizabeth.[100] It was the furthest he had ever been from London, but his condition worsened. In November of that year, he became seriously deranged, sometimes speaking for many hours without pause, causing him to foam at the mouth and his voice to become hoarse. George would frequently repeat himself and write sentences with over 400 words at a time, and his vocabulary became "more complex, creative and colourful", possible symptoms of bipolar disorder.[101] His doctors were largely at a loss to explain his illness, and spurious stories about his condition spread, such as the claim that he had shaken hands with a tree in the mistaken belief that it was the King of Prussia.[102] Treatment for mental illness was primitive by modern standards; George's doctors, who included Francis Willis, treated the King by forcibly restraining him until he was calm, or applying caustic poultices to draw out "evil humours".[103]
In the reconvened Parliament, Fox and Pitt wrangled over the terms of a regency during the King's incapacity. While both agreed that it would be most reasonable for the Prince of Wales to act as regent, Fox suggested, to Pitt's consternation, that it was the Prince's absolute right to act on his ill father's behalf with full powers. Pitt, fearing he would be removed from office if the Prince of Wales were empowered, argued that it was for Parliament to nominate a regent, and wanted to restrict the regent's authority.[104] In February 1789, the Regency Bill, authorising the Prince of Wales to act as regent, was introduced and passed in the House of Commons, but before the House of Lords could pass the bill, George recovered.[105]
Later reign
War in Europe
George wearing the red jacket of an 1800 British army general with the star of the Order of the Garter, white breeches, black knee-high boots, and a black bicorne hat. Behind him a groom holds a horse.
Portrait by Sir William Beechey, 1799/1800
A span-high Napoleon stands on the outstretched hand of a full-size George III, who peers at him through a spy-glass.
Caricature by James Gillray of George holding Napoleon in the palm of his hand, 1803
After George's recovery, his popularity, and that of Pitt, continued to increase at the expense of Fox and the Prince of Wales.[106] His humane and understanding treatment of two insane assailants, Margaret Nicholson in 1786 and John Frith in 1790, contributed to his popularity.[107] James Hadfield's failed attempt to shoot George in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 15 May 1800 was not political in origin but motivated by the apocalyptic delusions of Hadfield and Bannister Truelock. George seemed unperturbed by the incident, so much so that he fell asleep in the interval.[108]
The French Revolution of 1789, in which the French monarchy had been overthrown, worried many British landowners. France declared war on Great Britain in 1793; in response to the crisis, George allowed Pitt to increase taxes, raise armies, and suspend the right of habeas corpus. Pitt prosecuted British radicals for treason in 1794, and in October 1795, crowds attacked George's carriage on his way to opening Parliament, demanding an end to the war and lower bread prices. In response, Parliament passed the Treason and Seditious Meetings Acts a month later.[109] The First Coalition to oppose revolutionary France, which included Austria, Prussia, and Spain, broke up in 1795 when Prussia and Spain made separate peace with France.[110] The Second Coalition, which included Austria, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire, was defeated in 1800. Only Great Britain was left fighting Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul of the French Republic.
A brief lull in hostilities allowed Pitt to concentrate effort on Ireland, where there had been an uprising and attempted French landing in 1798.[111] In 1800, the British and Irish Parliaments passed an Act of Union that took effect on 1 January 1801 and united Great Britain and Ireland into a single state, known as the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". George used the opportunity to abandon the title "king of France", which English and British sovereigns had maintained since the reign of Edward III.[112] It was suggested that George adopt the title "Emperor of the British Isles", but he refused.[8] As part of his Irish policy, Pitt planned to remove certain legal disabilities that applied to Roman Catholics. George III claimed that to emancipate Catholics would be to violate his coronation oath, in which sovereigns promise to maintain Protestantism.[113] Faced with opposition to his religious reform policies from both the King and the British public, Pitt threatened to resign.[114] At about the same time, George had a relapse of his previous illness, which he blamed on worry over the Catholic question.[115] On 14 March 1801, Pitt was formally replaced by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Henry Addington. Addington opposed emancipation, instituted annual accounts, abolished income tax and began a programme of disarmament. In October 1801, he made peace with the French, and in 1802 signed the Treaty of Amiens.[116]
George did not consider the peace with France as real; in his view it was an "experiment".[117] The war resumed in 1803, but public opinion distrusted Addington to lead the nation in war, and instead favoured Pitt. An invasion of England by Napoleon seemed imminent, and a massive volunteer movement arose to defend England against the French. George's review of 27,000 volunteers in Hyde Park, London, on 26 and 28 October 1803 and at the height of the invasion scare, attracted an estimated 500,000 spectators on each day.[118] The Times said: "The enthusiasm of the multitude was beyond all expression."[119] A courtier wrote on 13 November that "The King is really prepared to take the field in case of attack, his beds are ready and he can move at half an hour's warning."[120] George wrote to his friend Bishop Hurd, "We are here in daily expectation that Bonaparte will attempt his threatened invasion ... Should his troops effect a landing, I shall certainly put myself at the head of mine, and my other armed subjects, to repel them."[121] After Admiral Lord Nelson's famous naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, the possibility of invasion was extinguished.[122]
The King, his face obscured by a pillar, kicks out at the behinds of a group of well-fed ministers.
In A Kick at the Broad-Bottoms! (1807), James Gillray caricatured George's dismissal of the Ministry of All the Talents.
In 1804, George's recurrent illness returned; after his recovery, Addington resigned and Pitt regained power. Pitt sought to appoint Fox to his ministry, but George refused. Lord Grenville perceived an injustice to Fox, and refused to join the new ministry.[8] Pitt concentrated on forming a coalition with Austria, Russia, and Sweden. This Third Coalition, however, met the same fate as the First and Second Coalitions, collapsing in 1805. The setbacks in Europe took a toll on Pitt's health, and he died in 1806, reopening the question of who should serve in the ministry. Grenville became prime minister, and his "Ministry of All the Talents" included Fox. Grenville pushed through the Slave Trade Act 1807, which passed both houses of Parliament with large majorities.[123] George was conciliatory towards Fox, after being forced to capitulate over his appointment. After Fox's death in September 1806, the King and ministry were in open conflict. To boost recruitment, the ministry proposed a measure in February 1807 whereby Roman Catholics would be allowed to serve in all ranks of the armed forces. George instructed them not only to drop the measure, but also to agree never to set up such a measure again. The ministers agreed to drop the measure then pending, but refused to bind themselves in the future.[124] They were dismissed and replaced by the Duke of Portland, as the nominal prime minister, with actual power being held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Spencer Perceval. Parliament was dissolved, and the subsequent election gave the ministry a strong majority in the House of Commons. George III made no further major political decisions during his reign; the replacement of Portland by Perceval in 1809 was of little real significance.[125]
Final years
Monochrome profile of elderly George with a long white beard
Engraving by Henry Meyer, 1817, depicting an elderly George
In late 1810, at the height of his popularity,[126] King George, already virtually blind with cataracts and in pain from rheumatism, suffered a relapse into his mental disorder and became dangerously ill. In his view, the malady had been triggered by stress over the death of his youngest and favourite daughter, Princess Amelia.[127] The princess's nurse reported that "the scenes of distress and crying every day ... were melancholy beyond description."[128] George accepted the need for the Regency Act 1811,[129] and the Prince of Wales (later George IV) acted as regent for the remainder of the King's life. Despite signs of a recovery in May 1811, by the end of the year, George III had become permanently insane, and lived in seclusion at Windsor Castle until his death.[130]
Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated in 1812 and was replaced by Lord Liverpool. Liverpool oversaw British victory in the Napoleonic Wars. The subsequent Congress of Vienna led to significant territorial gains for Hanover, which was elevated from an electorate to a kingdom. Meanwhile, George's health deteriorated. He developed dementia, and became completely blind and increasingly deaf. He was incapable of knowing or understanding that he was declared King of Hanover in 1814, or that his wife died in 1818.[131] At Christmas 1819, he spoke nonsense for 58 hours, and for the last few weeks of his life was unable to walk.[132]
He died of pneumonia at Windsor Castle at 8:38 pm on 29 January 1820, six days after the death of his fourth son Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn.[133] His favourite son, Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, was with him.[134] George III lay in state for two days, and his funeral and interment took place on 16 February in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.[133][135][136]
Slavery
Dunmore's Proclamation, by the King's authority, set free Rebel slaves.
Over the course of George's reign, a coalition of abolitionists and Atlantic slave uprisings caused the British public to spurn slavery. According to the historian Andrew Roberts, "George never bought or sold a slave in his life. He never invested in any of the companies that did such a thing. He signed legislation to abolish slavery." George wrote a document in the 1750s "denouncing all of the arguments for slavery, and calling them an execration and ridiculous and 'absurd',"[137] but the King and his son, the Duke of Clarence, supported the efforts of the London Society of West India Planters and Merchants to delay the abolition of the British slave trade for almost 20 years.[138][139] William Pitt the Younger conversely wished to see slavery abolished but, because the cabinet was divided and the King was in the pro-slavery camp,[123] Pitt decided to refrain from making abolition official government policy. Instead, he worked toward abolition in an individual capacity.[140]
On 7 November 1775, during the American War of Independence, John Murray, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation that offered freedom to the slaves of Rebel masters if they enlisted to put down the colonial rebellion. Dunmore was the last Royal Governor of Virginia, appointed by King George III in July 1771. Dunmore's Proclamation inspired slaves to escape from captivity and fight for the British. On 30 June 1779, George III's Commanding General Henry Clinton broadened Dunmore's proclamation with his Philipsburg Proclamation. For all colonial slaves who fled their Rebel masters, Clinton forbade their recapture and resale, giving them protection by the British military. Approximately 20,000 freed slaves joined the British, fighting for George III. In 1783, given British certificates of freedom, 3,000 former slaves, including their families, settled in Nova Scotia.[141]
Between 1791 and 1800, almost 400,000 Africans were shipped to the Americas, by 1,340 slaving voyages, mounted from British ports, including Liverpool and Bristol. On 25 March 1807 George III signed into law An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, under which the transatlantic slave trade was banned in the British Empire.[142]
Legacy
George was succeeded by two of his sons, George IV and William IV in turn, who both died without surviving legitimate children, leaving the throne to Victoria, the only legitimate child of his fourth son Prince Edward.
George III lived for 81 years and 239 days, and reigned for 59 years and 96 days: both his life and his reign were longer than those of any of his predecessors and subsequent kings; only queens Victoria and Elizabeth II lived and reigned longer.
Extract from Observations on the Transit of Venus, a manuscript notebook from the collections of George III, showing George, Charlotte and those attending them.
George III was dubbed "Farmer George" by satirists, at first to mock his interest in mundane matters rather than politics, but later to portray him as a man of the people, contrasting his homely thrift with his son's grandiosity.[143] Under George III, the British Agricultural Revolution reached its peak and great advances were made in fields such as science and industry. There was unprecedented growth in the rural population, which in turn provided much of the workforce for the concurrent Industrial Revolution.[144] George's collection of mathematical and scientific instruments is now owned by King's College London but housed in the Science Museum, London, to which it has been on long-term loan since 1927. He had the King's Observatory built in Richmond-upon-Thames for his own observations of the 1769 transit of Venus. When William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, he at first named it Georgium Sidus (George's Star) after the King, who later funded the construction and maintenance of Herschel's 1785 40-foot telescope, which at the time was the biggest ever built.
George III hoped that "the tongue of malice may not paint my intentions in those colours she admires, nor the sycophant extoll me beyond what I deserve"[145] but, in the popular mind, George III has been both demonised and praised. While very popular at the start of his reign, by the mid-1770s George had lost the loyalty of revolutionary American colonists,[146] though it has been estimated that as many as half of the colonists remained loyal.[147] The grievances in the United States Declaration of Independence were presented as "repeated injuries and usurpations" that he had committed to establish an "absolute Tyranny" over the colonies. The declaration's wording has contributed to the American public's perception of George as a tyrant. Contemporary accounts of George III's life fall into two camps: one demonstrating "attitudes dominant in the latter part of the reign, when the King had become a revered symbol of national resistance to French ideas and French power", while the other "derived their views of the King from the bitter partisan strife of the first two decades of the reign, and they expressed in their works the views of the opposition".[148]
Building on the latter of these two assessments, British historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Trevelyan and Erskine May, promoted hostile interpretations of George III's life. However, in the mid-twentieth century the work of Lewis Namier, who thought George was "much maligned", started a re-evaluation of the man and his reign.[149] Scholars of the later twentieth century, such as Butterfield and Pares, and Macalpine and Hunter,[150] are inclined to treat George sympathetically, seeing him as a victim of circumstance and illness. Butterfield rejected the arguments of his Victorian predecessors with withering disdain: "Erskine May must be a good example of the way in which an historian may fall into error through an excess of brilliance. His capacity for synthesis, and his ability to dovetail the various parts of the evidence ... carried him into a more profound and complicated elaboration of error than some of his more pedestrian predecessors ... he inserted a doctrinal element into his history which, granted his original aberrations, was calculated to project the lines of his error, carrying his work still further from centrality or truth."[151] In pursuing war with the American colonists, George III believed he was defending the right of an elected Parliament to levy taxes, rather than seeking to expand his own power or prerogatives.[152] In the opinion of modern scholars, during the long reign of George III, the monarchy continued to lose its political power and grew as the embodiment of national morality.[8]
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
4 June 1738 – 31 March 1751: His Royal Highness Prince George[153]
31 March 1751 – 20 April 1751: His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh
20 April 1751 – 25 October 1760: His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales
25 October 1760 – 29 January 1820: His Majesty The King
In Great Britain, George III used the official style "George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and so forth". In 1801, when Great Britain united with Ireland, he dropped the title of king of France, which had been used for every English monarch since Edward III's claim to the French throne in the medieval period.[112] His style became "George the Third, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith."[154]
In Germany, he was "Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg, Arch-Treasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire" (Herzog von Braunschweig und Lüneburg, Erzschatzmeister und Kurfürst des Heiligen Römischen Reiches[155]) until the end of the empire in 1806. He then continued as duke until the Congress of Vienna declared him "King of Hanover" in 1814.[154]
Honours
Great Britain: Royal Knight of the Garter, 22 June 1749[156]
Ireland: Founder of the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick, 5 February 1783[157]
Arms
Before his succession, George was granted the royal arms differenced by a label of five points Azure, the centre point bearing a fleur-de-lis Or on 27 July 1749. Upon his father's death, and along with the dukedom of Edinburgh and the position of heir-apparent, he inherited his difference of a plain label of three points Argent. In an additional difference, the crown of Charlemagne was not usually depicted on the arms of the heir, only on the Sovereign's.[158]
From his succession until 1800, George bore the royal arms: Quarterly, I Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England) impaling Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); II Azure three fleurs-de-lys Or (for France); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland); IV tierced per pale and per chevron (for Hanover), I Gules two lions passant guardant Or (for Brunswick), II Or a semy of hearts Gules a lion rampant Azure (for Lüneburg), III Gules a horse courant Argent (for Saxony), overall an escutcheon Gules charged with the crown of Charlemagne Or (for the dignity of Archtreasurer of the Holy Roman Empire).[159][160]
Following the Acts of Union 1800, the royal arms were amended, dropping the French quartering. They became: Quarterly, I and IV England; II Scotland; III Ireland; overall an escutcheon of Hanover surmounted by an electoral bonnet.[161] In 1816, after the Electorate of Hanover became a kingdom, the electoral bonnet was changed to a crown.[162]
Coat of arms from 1749 to 1751
Coat of arms from 1749 to 1751
Coat of arms from 1751 to 1760 as Prince of Wales
Coat of arms from 1751 to 1760 as Prince of Wales
Coat of arms used from 1760 to 1801 as King of Great Britain
Coat of arms used from 1760 to 1801 as King of Great Britain
Coat of arms used from 1801 to 1816 as King of the United Kingdom
Coat of arms used from 1801 to 1816 as King of the United Kingdom
Coat of arms used from 1816 until death, also as King of Hanover
Coat of arms used from 1816 until death, also as King of Hanover
Issue
See also: Descendants of George III
British Royalty
House of Hanover
Quarterly, I and IV Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or; II Or a lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory Gules; III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent; overall an escutcheon tierced per pale and per chevron, I Gules two lions passant guardant Or, II Or a semy of hearts Gules a lion rampant Azure, III Gules a horse courant Argent, the whole inescutcheon surmounted by crown
George III
Children
George IV
Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany
William IV
Charlotte, Princess Royal and Queen of Württemberg
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn
Princess Augusta Sophia
Elizabeth, Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg
Ernest Augustus I of Hanover
Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex
Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge
Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh
Princess Sophia
Prince Octavius
Prince Alfred
Princess Amelia
Grandchildren
Charlotte, Princess Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Princess Charlotte of Clarence
Princess Elizabeth of Clarence
Victoria
Princess Frederica of Cumberland
George V of Hanover
Prince George, Duke of Cambridge
Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck
Great-grandchildren
Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover
Frederica, Baroness Alfons of Pawel-Rammingen
Princess Marie of Hanover
Great-great-grandchildren
Marie Louise, Margravine of Baden
George William, Hereditary Prince of Hanover
Alexandra, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Princess Olga of Hanover and Cumberland
Prince Christian of Hanover and Cumberland
Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick
Great-great-great-grandchildren
Ernest Augustus, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick
Prince George William of Hanover and Cumberland
Frederica, Queen of the Hellenes
vte
Name Birth Death Notes[163]
George IV 12 August 1762 26 June 1830 Prince of Wales 1762–1820; married 1795, Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel; had one daughter: Princess Charlotte
Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany 16 August 1763 5 January 1827 Married 1791, Princess Frederica of Prussia; no issue
William IV 21 August 1765 20 June 1837 Duke of Clarence and St Andrews; married 1818, Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen; no surviving legitimate issue, but had illegitimate children with Dorothea Jordan
Charlotte, Princess Royal 29 September 1766 6 October 1828 Married 1797, King Frederick of Württemberg; no surviving issue
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn 2 November 1767 23 January 1820 Married 1818, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; had one daughter: Queen Victoria
Princess Augusta Sophia 8 November 1768 22 September 1840 Never married, no issue
Princess Elizabeth 22 May 1770 10 January 1840 Married 1818, Frederick VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg; no issue
Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover 5 June 1771 18 November 1851 Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale 1799–1851; married 1815, Princess Friederike of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; had one son: George V of Hanover
Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex 27 January 1773 21 April 1843 (1) Married 1793, in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act 1772, Lady Augusta Murray; had issue; marriage annulled 1794
(2) Married 1831, Lady Cecilia Buggin (later Duchess of Inverness in her own right); no issue
Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge 24 February 1774 8 July 1850 Married 1818, Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel; had issue
Princess Mary 25 April 1776 30 April 1857 Married 1816, Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh; no issue
Princess Sophia 3 November 1777 27 May 1848 Never married, no issue
Prince Octavius 23 February 1779 3 May 1783 Died in childhood
Prince Alfred 22 September 1780 20 August 1782 Died in childhood
Princess Amelia 7 August 1783 2 November 1810 Never married, no issue
Ancestry
Ancestors of George III[164]
See also
Cultural depictions of George III
List of mentally ill monarchs
Notes
King of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801, after the Acts of Union 1800
King from 12 October 1814
All dates in this article are in the New Style Gregorian calendar. George was born on 24 May in the Old Style Julian calendar used in Great Britain until 1752.
George was falsely said to have married Hannah Lightfoot, a Quaker, on 17 April 1759, prior to his marriage to Charlotte, and to have had at least one child by her. However, Lightfoot had married Isaac Axford in 1753, and had died in or before 1759, so there could have been no legal marriage or children. The jury at the 1866 trial of Lavinia Ryves, the daughter of imposter Olivia Serres who pretended to be "Princess Olive of Cumberland", unanimously found that a supposed marriage certificate produced by Ryves was a forgery.[19]
For example, the letters of Horace Walpole written at the time of the accession defended George but Walpole's later memoirs were hostile.[26]
An American taxpayer would pay a maximum of sixpence a year, compared to an average of twenty-five shillings (50 times as much) in England.[41] In 1763, the total revenue from America amounted to about £1 800, while the estimated annual cost of the military in America was put at £225 000. By 1767, it had risen to £400 000.[42]
References
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Brooke, p. 314; Fraser, p. 277.
Hibbert, p. 8.
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Bullion, John L. (2004). "Augusta, princess of Wales (1719–1772)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/46829. Retrieved 17 September 2008 (Subscription required): "George III adopted the moral standards she tried to teach."
Ayling, p. 33.
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Benjamin, p. 62.
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Ayling, pp. 122–133; Hibbert, pp. 111–113.
Ayling, p. 137; Hibbert, p. 124.
Ayling, pp. 154–160; Brooke, pp. 147–151.
Ayling, pp. 167–168; Hibbert, p. 140.
Brooke, p. 260; Fraser, p. 277.
Brooke, pp. 272–282; Cannon and Griffiths, p. 498.
Hibbert, p. 141.
Hibbert, p. 143.
Watson, p. 197.
Thomas, p. 31.
Ayling, p. 121.
Taylor (2016), pp. 91–100
Chernow, pp. 214–215.
Carretta, pp. 97–98, 367.
O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson (2014). The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. pp. 158–164.
Willcox & Arnstein (1988), p. 162.
O'Shaughnessy, ch 1.
Trevelyan, vol. 1 p. 4.
Trevelyan, vol. 1 p. 5.
Cannon and Griffiths, pp. 510–511.
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Willcox & Arnstein, pp. 161, 165.
Stein, Stanley; Stein, Barbara (2003). Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759–1789. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 338–340. ISBN 978-0801873393.
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Taylor (2016), p. 287
Taylor (2016), p. 290
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The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (1994) p. 129.
Brooke, p. 221.
U.S. Department of State, Treaty of Paris, 1783. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
Bullion, George III on Empire, 1783, p. 306.
Roos, Dave (7 October 2021). "Famous Loyalists of the Revolutionary War Era". history.com. Retrieved 19 April 2022.
Adams, C.F., ed. (1850–1856). The works of John Adams, second president of the United States. Vol. VIII. pp. 255–257, quoted in Ayling, p. 323 and Hibbert, p. 165.
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Hibbert, p. 243; Pares, p. 120.
Brooke, pp. 250–251.
Watson, pp. 272–279.
Brooke, p. 316; Carretta, pp. 262, 297.
Brooke, p. 259.
Ayling, p. 218.
Ayling, p. 220.
Ayling, pp. 222–230, 366–376.
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Röhl, Warren, and Hunt.
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Peters, Timothy J.; Wilkinson, D. (2010). "King George III and porphyria: a clinical re-examination of the historical evidence". History of Psychiatry. 21 (1): 3–19. doi:10.1177/0957154X09102616. PMID 21877427. S2CID 22391207.
Peters, T. (June 2011). "King George III, bipolar disorder, porphyria and lessons for historians". Clinical Medicine. 11 (3): 261–264. doi:10.7861/clinmedicine.11-3-261. PMC 4953321. PMID 21902081.
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Roberts, pp. 677–680
"Parishes: Hartlebury Pages 380–387 A History of the County of Worcester: Volume 3". British History Online. Victoria County History, 1918. Retrieved 10 June 2023.
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Ayling, p. 411.
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Ayling, p. 414; Brooke, p. 374; Hibbert, p. 315.
Watson, pp. 402–409.
Ayling, p. 423.
Colley, p. 225.
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Brooke, p. 597.
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Brooke, p. 383; Hibbert, pp. 397–398.
Fraser, p. 285; Hibbert, pp. 399–402.
Ayling, pp. 453–455; Brooke, pp. 384–385; Hibbert, p. 405.
Hibbert, p. 408.
Black, p. 410.
Letter from Duke of York to George IV, quoted in Brooke, p. 386.
"Royal Burials in the Chapel since 1805". St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Dean and Canons of Windsor. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
Brooke, p. 387.
Why Andrew Roberts Wants Us to Reconsider King George III, Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 9 November 2021, accessed 5 December 2021
Newman, Brooke (28 July 2020). "Throne of Blood". slate.com. Slate. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
Rodriguez, Junius P. (2015). Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World. Routledge. ISBN 978-1317471806 – via Google Books.
Ditchfield, G. (2002). George III: An Essay in Monarchy. Springer. ISBN 978-0230599437 – via Google Books.
Klein, Christopher (13 February 2020). "The Ex-Slaves Who Fought with the British". History. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
"Transatlantic slave trade and abolition". Royal Museums Greenwich. 2021. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
Carretta, pp. 92–93, 267–273, 302–305, 317.
Watson, pp. 10–11.
Brooke, p. 90.
Carretta, pp. 99–101, 123–126.
Ayling, p. 247.
Reitan, p. viii.
Reitan, pp. xii–xiii.
Macalpine, Ida; Hunter, Richard A. (1991) [1969]. George III and the Mad-Business. Pimlico. ISBN 978-0-7126-5279-7
Butterfield, p. 152.
Brooke, pp. 175–176.
The London Gazette consistently refers to the young prince as "His Royal Highness Prince George" "No. 8734". The London Gazette. 5 April 1748. p. 3. "No. 8735". The London Gazette. 9 April 1748. p. 2. "No. 8860". The London Gazette. 20 June 1749. p. 2. "No. 8898". The London Gazette. 31 October 1749. p. 3. "No. 8902". The London Gazette. 17 November 1749. p. 3. "No. 8963". The London Gazette. 16 June 1750. p. 1. "No. 8971". The London Gazette. 14 July 1750. p. 1.
Brooke, p. 390.
Marquardt, Bernd (2018). Universalgeschichte des Staates: von der vorstaatlichen Gesellschaft zum Staat der Industriegesellschaft. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 978-3643900043 – via Google Books.
Shaw, Wm. A. (1906) The Knights of England, I, London, p. 44.
Shaw, p. ix.
Velde, François (5 August 2013). "Marks of Cadency in the British Royal Family". Heraldica. Retrieved 25 December 2021.
See, for example, Berry, William (1810). An introduction to heraldry containing the rudiments of the science. pp. 110–111.
Pinches, John Harvey; Pinches, Rosemary (1974). The Royal Heraldry of England. Heraldry Today. Slough, Buckinghamshire: Hollen Street Press. pp. 215–216. ISBN 978-0-900455-25-4.
"No. 15324". The London Gazette. 30 December 1800. p. 2.
"No. 17149". The London Gazette. 29 June 1816. p. 1.
Kiste, John Van der (19 January 2004). George III's Children. The History Press. p. 205. ISBN 9780750953825.
Genealogie ascendante jusqu'au quatrieme degre inclusivement de tous les Rois et Princes de maisons souveraines de l'Europe actuellement vivans [Genealogy up to the fourth degree inclusive of all the Kings and Princes of sovereign houses of Europe currently living] (in French). Bourdeaux: Frederic Guillaume Birnstiel. 1768. p. 4.
Bibliography
Ayling, Stanley Edward (1972). George the Third. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-211412-7.
Benjamin, Lewis Saul (1907). Farmer George. Pitman and Sons.
Baer, Marc (22 December 2021). "George III (1738–1820)". Encyclopedia Virginia.
Black, Jeremy (2006). George III: America's Last King. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-11732-9.
Brooke, John (1972). King George III. London: Constable. ISBN 0-09-456110-9.
Bullion, John L. (1994). "George III on Empire, 1783". The William and Mary Quarterly. 51 (2). Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture: 305–310. doi:10.2307/2946866. JSTOR 2946866.
Butterfield, Herbert (1957). George III and the Historians. London: Collins.
Cannon, John (2004). "George III (1738–1820)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10540. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Cannon, John; Griffiths, Ralph (1988). The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Monarchy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822786-8.
Carretta, Vincent (1990). George III and the Satirists from Hogarth to Byron. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0-8203-1146-4.
Chernow, Ron (2010). Washington: A Life. Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1-59420-266-7.
Colley, Linda (2005). Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300107595.
Fraser, Antonia (1975). The Lives of the Kings and Queen of England. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-76911-1.
Hibbert, Christopher (1999). George III: A Personal History. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-025737-3.
Medley, Dudley Julius (1902). A Student's Manual of English Constitutional History. p. 501.
O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson (2013). The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300191073.
Pares, Richard (1953). King George III and the Politicians. Oxford University Press.
Reitan, E. A., ed. (1964). George III, Tyrant Or Constitutional Monarch?. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company. A compilation of essays encompassing the major assessments of George III up to 1964.
Roberts, Andrew (2023). George III: The Life and Reign of Britain's Most Misunderstood Monarch. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-141-99146-7. OCLC 1334883294.
Röhl, John C. G.; Warren, Martin; Hunt, David (1998). Purple Secret: Genes, "Madness" and the Royal Houses of Europe. London: Bantam Press. ISBN 0-593-04148-8.
Sedgwick, Romney, ed. (1903). Letters from George III to Lord Bute, 1756–1766. Macmillan.
Simms, Brendan; Riotte, Torsten (2007). The Hanoverian Dimension in British History, 1714–1837. Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, Alan (2016). American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804. New York City: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-393-35476-8.
Thomas, Peter D. G. (1985). "George III and the American Revolution". History. 70 (228): 16–31. doi:10.1111/j.1468-229X.1985.tb02477.x.
Trevelyan, George (1912). George the Third and Charles Fox: The Concluding Part of the American Revolution. New York: Longmans, Green.
Watson, J. Steven (1960). The Reign of George III, 1760–1815. London: Oxford University Press.
Weir, Alison (1996). Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy (Revised ed.). London: Random House. ISBN 0-7126-7448-9.
Wheeler, H. F. B.; Broadley, A. M. (1908). Napoleon and the Invasion of England. Volume I. London: John Lane The Bodley Head.
Willcox, William B.; Arnstein, Walter L. (1988). The Age of Aristocracy 1688 to 1830 (Fifth ed.). D.C. Heath and Company. ISBN 0-669-13423-6.
Further reading
Black, Jeremy (1996). "Could the British Have Won the American War of Independence?". Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. 74 (299): 145–154. JSTOR 44225322. Online 90-minute video lecture given at Ohio State in 2006; requires Real Player.
Butterfield, Herbert (1965). "Some Reflections on the Early Years of George III's Reign". Journal of British Studies. 4 (2): 78–101. doi:10.1086/385501. JSTOR 175147. S2CID 162958860.
Ditchfield, G. M. (31 October 2002). George III: An Essay in Monarchy. Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 978-0333919620.
Golding, Christopher T. (2017). At Water's Edge: Britain, Napoleon, and the World, 1793–1815. Temple University Press.
Hadlow, Janice (2014). A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III. Henry Holt and Company.
Hecht, J. Jean (1966). "The Reign of George III in Recent Historiography". In Furber, Elizabeth Chapin (ed.). Changing views on British history: essays on historical writing since 1939. Harvard University Press. pp. 206–234.
Macalpine, Ida; Hunter, Richard (1966). "The 'insanity' of King George III: a classic case of porphyria". Br. Med. J. 1 (5479): 65–71. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.5479.65. PMC 1843211. PMID 5323262.
Macalpine, I.; Hunter, R.; Rimington, C. (1968). "Porphyria in the Royal Houses of Stuart, Hanover, and Prussia". British Medical Journal. 1 (5583): 7–18. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.5583.7. PMC 1984936. PMID 4866084.
Namier, Lewis B. (1955). "King George III: A Study in Personality". Personalities and Power. London: Hamish Hamilton.
O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson (Spring 2004). "'If Others Will Not Be Active, I Must Drive': George III and the American Revolution". Early American Studies. 2 (1): iii, 1–46. doi:10.1353/eam.2007.0037. S2CID 143613757.
Roberts, Andrew (2021). The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III. Viking Press. ISBN 978-1984879264.
Robertson, Charles Grant (1911). England under the Hanoverians. London: Methuen.
Robson, Eric (1952). "The American Revolution Reconsidered". History Today. 2 (2): 126–132. British views
Smith, Robert A. (1984). "Reinterpreting the Reign of George III". In Schlatter, Richard (ed.). Recent Views on British History: Essays on Historical Writing since 1966. Rutgers University Press. pp. 197–254.
External links
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George III at the official website of the British monarchy
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Portraits of King George III at the National Portrait Gallery, London Edit this at Wikidata
Georgian Papers Programme
George III papers, including references to madhouses and insanity from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
Newspaper clippings about George III in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
"Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – Estimates". slavevoyages.org.
George III
House of Hanover
Cadet branch of the House of Welf
Born: 4 June 1738 Died: 29 January 1820
Regnal titles
Preceded by
George II
King of Great Britain and Ireland
25 October 1760 – 31 December 1800 Acts of Union 1800
Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
25 October 1760 – 12 October 1814 Congress of Vienna
Acts of Union 1800 King of the United Kingdom
1 January 1801 – 29 January 1820 Succeeded by
George IV
Congress of Vienna King of Hanover
12 October 1814 – 29 January 1820
British royalty
Preceded by
Frederick
Prince of Wales
1751–1760 Vacant
Title next held by
George (IV)
Peerage of Great Britain
Preceded by
Prince Frederick
Duke of Edinburgh
1st creation
1751–1760 Merged with the Crown
Titles in pretence
Preceded by
George II
— TITULAR —
King of France
25 October 1760 – 31 December 1800 Title abandoned
Articles and topics related to George III of the United Kingdom
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George III
King of the United Kingdom and Hanover
Family
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (wife)George IV, King of the United Kingdom (son)Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (son)William IV, King of the United Kingdom (son)Charlotte, Princess Royal (daughter)Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (son)Augusta (daughter)Elizabeth (daughter)Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover (son)Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (son)Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge (son)Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh (daughter)Sophia (daughter)Octavius (son)Alfred (son)Amelia (daughter)Frederick, Prince of Wales (father)Augusta of Saxe-Gotha (mother)Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (sister)Edward, Duke of York and Albany (brother)Princess Elizabeth (sister)William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (brother)Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn (brother)Princess Louisa (sister)Prince Frederick (brother)Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway (sister)Descendants
Reign
CoronationSeven Years' WarRoyal Proclamation of 1763Royal Marriages Act 1772American Revolution American Revolutionary WarFrench Revolutionary WarsIrish Rebellion of 1798Acts of Union 1800Treaty of AmiensNapoleonic WarsGolden Jubilee Jubilee RockRegency Act 1811 Regency era
Cultural
depictions
Paintings
Coronation Portrait of George III (1762)George III and the Prince of Wales Reviewing Troops (1798)Portrait of George III (1809)
Public sculptures
Montreal (1773)Somerset House, London (c. 1778–1789)Weymouth (1809)Windsor Great Park (1831)
Theatre, film,
radio and
television
America (1924, film)The Young Mr. Pitt (1942, film)Mrs. Fitzherbert (1947, film)Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969, music theatre)Barry Lyndon (1975, film)The Adams Chronicles (1976, TV)Prince Regent (1979, TV)In the Ruins (1984, radio play)Blackadder the Third "Duel and Duality" (1987, TV)The Madness of George III (1991, play)The Madness of King George (1994, film)Longitude (2000, TV)John Adams (2008, TV)Hamilton: An American Musical (2015, musical)Mr Foote's Other Leg (2015, play)Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023, TV)
Books and poems
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004)Victory of Eagles (2008)
Related
King's LibraryKing's manuscripts, British LibraryKing's ObservatoryMargaret NicholsonJohn FrithJames HadfieldHouse of HanoverGeorge III (ship)
← George IIGeorge IV →
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English, Scottish and British monarchs
Monarchs of England until 1603 Monarchs of Scotland until 1603
Alfred the GreatEdward the ElderÆlfweardÆthelstanEdmund IEadredEadwigEdgar the PeacefulEdward the MartyrÆthelred the UnreadySweynEdmund IronsideCnutHarold HarefootHarthacnutEdward the ConfessorHarold GodwinsonEdgar ÆthelingWilliam IWilliam IIHenry IStephenMatildaHenry IIHenry the Young KingRichard IJohnLouisHenry IIIEdward IEdward IIEdward IIIRichard IIHenry IVHenry VHenry VIEdward IVEdward VRichard IIIHenry VIIHenry VIIIEdward VIJaneMary I and PhilipElizabeth I
Kenneth I MacAlpinDonald IConstantine IÁedGiricEochaidDonald IIConstantine IIMalcolm IIndulfDubCuilénAmlaíbKenneth IIConstantine IIIKenneth IIIMalcolm IIDuncan IMacbethLulachMalcolm IIIDonald IIIDuncan IIEdgarAlexander IDavid IMalcolm IVWilliam IAlexander IIAlexander IIIMargaretJohnRobert IDavid IIEdward BalliolRobert IIRobert IIIJames IJames IIJames IIIJames IVJames VMary IJames VI
Monarchs of England and Scotland after the Union of the Crowns from 1603
James I & VICharles IThe Protectorate Oliver CromwellRichard CromwellCharles IIJames II & VIIWilliam III & II and Mary IIAnne
British monarchs after the Acts of Union 1707
AnneGeorge IGeorge IIGeorge IIIGeorge IVWilliam IVVictoriaEdward VIIGeorge VEdward VIIIGeorge VIElizabeth IICharles III
Debated or disputed rulers are in italics.
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Kingdom of Great Britain
History
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British princes
The generations indicate descent from George I, who formalised the use of the titles prince and princess for members of the British royal family.
1st generation
King George II
2nd generation
Frederick, Prince of WalesPrince George WilliamPrince William, Duke of Cumberland
3rd generation
King George IIIPrince Edward, Duke of York and AlbanyPrince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and EdinburghPrince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and StrathearnPrince Frederick
4th generation
King George IVPrince Frederick, Duke of York and AlbanyKing William IVPrince Edward, Duke of Kent and StrathearnKing Ernest Augustus of HanoverPrince Augustus Frederick, Duke of SussexPrince Adolphus, Duke of CambridgePrince OctaviusPrince AlfredPrince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh
5th generation
Prince Albert1King George V of HanoverPrince George, Duke of Cambridge
6th generation
King Edward VIIPrince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg and GothaPrince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and StrathearnPrince Leopold, Duke of AlbanyPrince Ernest Augustus
7th generation
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and AvondaleKing George VPrince Alexander John of WalesAlfred, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and GothaPrince Arthur of ConnaughtPrince Charles Edward, Duke of Albany and of Saxe-Coburg and GothaPrince George William of HanoverPrince Christian of HanoverPrince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick
8th generation
King Edward VIIIKing George VIPrince Henry, Duke of GloucesterPrince George, Duke of KentPrince JohnAlastair, 2nd Duke of Connaught and StrathearnJohann Leopold, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and GothaPrince Hubertus of Saxe-Coburg and GothaPrince Ernest Augustus of HanoverPrince George William of Hanover
9th generation
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh2Prince William of GloucesterPrince Richard, Duke of GloucesterPrince Edward, Duke of KentPrince Michael of Kent
10th generation
King Charles IIIPrince Andrew, Duke of YorkPrince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh
11th generation
William, Prince of WalesPrince Harry, Duke of SussexJames Mountbatten-Windsor, Earl of Wessex
12th generation
Prince George of WalesPrince Louis of WalesPrince Archie of Sussex
1 Not a British prince by birth, but created Prince Consort. 2 Not a British prince by birth, but created a Prince of the United Kingdom.
Princes whose titles were removed and eligible people who do not use the title are shown in italics.
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Princes of Wales
Edward of Caernarfon (1301–1307)Edward the Black Prince (1343–1376)Richard of Bordeaux (1376–1377)Henry of Monmouth (1399–1413)Edward of Westminster (1454–1471)Edward (1471–1483)Edward of Middleham (1483–1484)Arthur (1489–1502)Henry (1504–1509)Edward (1537–1547)Henry Frederick (1610–1612)Charles (1616–1625)Charles (1641–1649)James (1688)George (1714–1727)Frederick (1728–1751)George (1751–1760)George (1762–1820)Albert Edward (1841–1901)George (1901–1910)Edward (1910–1936)Charles (1958–2022)William (2022–present)
See also: Principality of Wales
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Rulers of Hanover
Electors of Hanover
Ernest Augustus I (Elector-designate)George I Louis*George II*George III*
Kings of Hanover
George III*George IV*William*Ernest Augustus II**George V**
* also British monarch **also Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale
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Categories: Pages with image sizes containing extra pxGeorge III1738 births1820 deaths18th-century British people19th-century British monarchs18th-century Irish monarchsEnglish blind peopleBlind royalty and nobilityBritish art collectorsBritish book and manuscript collectorsBritish people of the American RevolutionBritish princesBurials at St George's Chapel, Windsor CastleBritish blind peopleBritish deaf peopleBritish people of German descentDeaf royalty and nobilityBritish royalty and nobility with disabilitiesDeafblind peopleChildren of Frederick, Prince of WalesDeaths from pneumonia in EnglandDukes of Bremen and VerdenDukes of EdinburghDukes of Saxe-LauenburgEnglish people with disabilitiesEnglish pretenders to the French throneHeirs to the British throneKings of HanoverKnights of the GarterMonarchs of Great BritainMonarchs of the Isle of ManMonarchs of the United KingdomPeople from WestminsterPrince-electors of HanoverPrinces of WalesRegency eraRoyal Botanic Gardens, KewPeople of the War of the First Coalition
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Millennium: 2nd millennium
Centuries:
18th century19th century 20th century
Decades:
1790s1800s1810s 1820s1830s
Years:
1814181518161817 181818191820
1817 by topic
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1817 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar 1817
MDCCCXVII
Ab urbe condita 2570
Armenian calendar 1266
ԹՎ ՌՄԿԶ
Assyrian calendar 6567
Balinese saka calendar 1738–1739
Bengali calendar 1224
Berber calendar 2767
British Regnal year 57 Geo. 3 – 58 Geo. 3
Buddhist calendar 2361
Burmese calendar 1179
Byzantine calendar 7325–7326
Chinese calendar 丙子年 (Fire Rat)
4514 or 4307
— to —
丁丑年 (Fire Ox)
4515 or 4308
Coptic calendar 1533–1534
Discordian calendar 2983
Ethiopian calendar 1809–1810
Hebrew calendar 5577–5578
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat 1873–1874
- Shaka Samvat 1738–1739
- Kali Yuga 4917–4918
Holocene calendar 11817
Igbo calendar 817–818
Iranian calendar 1195–1196
Islamic calendar 1232–1233
Japanese calendar Bunka 14
(文化１４年)
Javanese calendar 1744–1745
Julian calendar Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar 4150
Minguo calendar 95 before ROC
民前95年
Nanakshahi calendar 349
Thai solar calendar 2359–2360
Tibetan calendar 阳火鼠年
(male Fire-Rat)
1943 or 1562 or 790
— to —
阴火牛年
(female Fire-Ox)
1944 or 1563 or 791
Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1817.
February 12: Battle of Chacabuco
1817 (MDCCCXVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1817th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 817th year of the 2nd millennium, the 17th year of the 19th century, and the 8th year of the 1810s decade. As of the start of 1817, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Events
January–March
January 1 – Sailing through the Sandwich Islands, Otto von Kotzebue discovers New Year Island.
January 19 – An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, starts crossing the Andes from Argentina, to liberate Chile and then Peru.
January 20 – Ram Mohan Roy and David Hare found Hindu College, Calcutta, offering instructions in Western languages and subjects.
February 12 – Battle of Chacabuco: The Argentine–Chilean patriotic army defeats the Spanish.
March 3
President James Madison vetoes John C. Calhoun's Bonus Bill.
The U.S. Congress passes a law to split the Mississippi Territory, after Mississippi drafts a constitution, creating the Alabama Territory, effective in August.[1]
March 4 – James Monroe is sworn in as the fifth President of the United States.
March 21 – The flag of the Pernambucan Revolt is publicly blessed by the dean of Recife Cathedral, Brazil.[2]
April–June
April 3 – Princess Caraboo appears in Almondsbury in Gloucestershire, England.
April 15
The American School for the Deaf opens in Hartford, Connecticut.
An earthquake strikes Palermo in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.[3]
April 29 – The Rush–Bagot Treaty is signed.
May 27 – The General Convention of the Episcopal Church founds the General Theological Seminary, while meeting in New York City.[4]
June 12
German inventor Karl Drais drives his dandy horse ("Draisine" or Laufmaschine), the earliest form of bicycle, in Mannheim.
Tradesman Jeffery Sedwards establishes the Skibbereen Abstinence Society in Ireland, considered the first organisation devoted to teetotalism in Europe.[5]
June 22 – King Ferdinand VII of Spain, by royal decree, makes the production and sale of tobacco a legal endeavor in Cuba, thus sparking the birth of the Cuban cigar industry.[6]
June 25 – A large riot breaks out in Copenhagen Prison; the army is sent to quell it.
July–September
July 4: Construction on the Erie Canal starts.
July 4
At Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins.
1817 Santiago del Estero earthquake. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hits Argentina's Santiago del Estero Province.
August 15 – By act of the U.S. Congress (March 3), the Alabama Territory is created by splitting the Mississippi Territory in half, on the day the Mississippi constitution is drafted, four months before Mississippi becomes a U.S. state.[1]
August 22 – The town of Araraquara, Brazil is founded.
August 23 – An earthquake near the site of the ancient Greek city of Helike results in 65 deaths.
August 26 – The University of Michigan is founded in Detroit, Michigan.
September 11 – The Great Rebellion of 1817-18 begins in Sri Lanka.
October–December
October 9 – Official opening of the University of Ghent
October 17 – Frigate HMS Trincomalee is launched in Bombay for the British Royal Navy; she will still be afloat two centuries later.
October 30 – The independent government of Venezuela is established by Simón Bolívar.
October 31 – Emperor Ninkō accedes to the throne of Japan.
November 3 – The Bank of Montreal opens in Montreal.
November 5 – Third Anglo-Maratha War breaks out with the Battle of Khadki.
November 6 – The death in childbirth of the heir presumptive, Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent, throws the succession to the British throne into doubt.
November 20 – The first Seminole War begins in Florida.
November 22 – Frédéric Cailliaud discovers the old Roman emerald mines at Sikait, Egypt.
December 10 – Mississippi is admitted as the 20th U.S. state, formerly the Mississippi Territory.[1]
Date unknown
The first cholera pandemic originates in Bengal, reaching Calcutta by September.
A typhus epidemic occurs in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Births
January–June
William III of the Netherlands
Joseph Dalton Hooker
January 8 – Sir Theophilus Shepstone, British-born South African statesman (d. 1893)
January 28 – Francisco de Lersundi y Hormaechea, Spanish noble and politician, Prime Minister of Spain (d. 1874)
February 17 – Édouard Thilges, 7th Prime Minister of Luxembourg (d. 1904)
February 18 – Lewis Armistead, American Confederate general (d. 1863)
February 19 – King William III of the Netherlands (d. 1890)
February 22 – Carl Wilhelm Borchardt, German mathematician (d. 1880)
February 24 – Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot, French general (d. 1882)
March 6 – Princess Clémentine of Orléans, daughter of King Louis Philippe I of France, mother of Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria (d. 1907)
March 22 – Braxton Bragg, American Confederate general (d. 1876)
April 1 – Nissen Shonin, Japanese Buddhist priest Honmon Butsuryū-shū, Kyoto city (d. 1890)
April 15 – Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, Oxford (d. 1893)
April 24 – Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac, Swiss chemist (d. 1894)
May 15 – Debendranath Tagore, Indian philosopher (d. 1905)
May 19 – Theodor August Heintzman, Canadian piano manufacturer (d. 1899)
June 30 – Joseph Dalton Hooker, English botanist (d. 1911)
July–December
Mihail Kogălniceanu
July 6 – Albert von Kölliker, Swiss biologist, zoologist (d. 1905)
July 12
Alphonse Lecointe, French general and politician (d. 1890)
Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher (d. 1862)
July 15 – John Fowler, British civil engineer (d. 1898)
July 24 – Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (d. 1905)
July 29 – Ivan Aivazovsky, Armenian-Russian painter (d. 1900)
August 3 – Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen, Austrian general (d. 1895)
August 4 – Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, 29th United States Secretary of State (d. 1885)
August 14 – Alexander H. Bailey, American politician (d. 1874)
August 24 – Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Russian writer (d. 1875)
August 25 – Marie-Eugénie de Jésus, French religious (d. 1898)
September 6
Helga de la Brache, Swedish con artist (d. 1885)
Mihail Kogălniceanu, 3rd Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1891)
September 14 – Theodor Storm, German writer (d. 1888)
October 10 – Christophorus Buys Ballot, Dutch chemist, meteorologist (d. 1890)
October 17 – Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (Bahadaur), Indian founder of the Two Nation Theory for a future Pakistan (d. 1898)
October 30 – Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp, German chemist (d. 1892)
November 3 – Leonard Jerome, American entrepreneur, grandfather of Sir Winston Churchill (d. 1891)
November 12 – Bahá'u'lláh, Persian founder of the Bahá'í Faith (d. 1892)
November 17 – Benjamin Champney, American painter (d. 1907)
November 30 – Theodor Mommsen, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1903)
December 8 – Christian Emil Krag-Juel-Vind-Frijs, Prime Minister of Denmark (d. 1896)
December 10 – Alexander Wood (physician), Scottish inventor of the first true hypodermic syringe (d. 1884)
December 23 – Warren Felt Evans, American writer (d. 1889)
Date unknown
Sophia Wilkens, Swedish social reformer, pioneer in the education of the intellectually disabled (d. 1889)
Deaths
January–June
Thomas McKean
January 1 – Martin Heinrich Klaproth, German chemist who discovered uranium (1789), zirconium (1789), and cerium (1803) (b. 1743)
January 11 – Timothy Dwight IV, American educator, theologian (b. 1752)
January 11 – Margherita Dalmet, Venetian dogaressa (b. 1739)
January 12 – Juan Andrés, Spanish Jesuit (b. 1740)
January 16 – Alexander J. Dallas, American statesman, financier (b. 1759)
February 8 – Francis Horner, Scottish politician, economist (b. 1778)
March 8 – Anna Maria Lenngren, Swedish writer (b. 1754)
April 2 – Johann Heinrich Jung, German writer (b. 1740)
April 4 – André Masséna, French marshal (b. 1758)
April 12 – Charles Messier, French astronomer (b. 1730)
April 20 – Infante Antonio Pascual of Spain, Spanish prince (b. 1755)
June 2 – Clotilde Tambroni, Italian philologist, linguist (b. 1758)
June 4 – George Farragut, American naval officer (b. 1755)
June 9 – Théroigne de Méricourt, French revolutionary (b. 1762)
June 13
Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Anglo-Irish, politician writer and inventor (b. 1744)
Esther de Gélieu, Swiss educator (b. 1757)
June 18 – Leonard Neale, American Catholic bishop (b. 1746)
June 20 – Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-Gouffier, French diplomat (b. 1752)
June 24 – Thomas McKean, American lawyer, signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1734)
June 30 – Abraham Gottlob Werner, German geologist (b. 1750)
July–December
Jane Austen
Karađorđe
William Bligh
July 14 – Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, French writer (b. 1766)
July 18 – Jane Austen, English novelist (b. 1775)
July 19 – John Palmer, Bath architect (b. c. 1738)
July 24 – Karađorđe Petrović, Serb leader of the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire, founder of the Serbian Karađorđević dynasty (b. 1768)
August 7 – Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, French politician (b. 1739)
August 10 – Leopold III, Duke of Anhalt-Dessau (b. 1740)
September 18 – David Hall, American judge (b. 1752)
October 11 – Gertrudis Bocanegra, Mexican national heroine (b. 1765)
October 13 – Julius Caesar Ibbetson, English artist (b. 1759)
October 15 – Tadeusz Kościuszko, exiled Polish general, nationalist (b. 1746)
October 16 – Manuel Piar, Venezuelan military leader (b. 1774)
November 6 – Princess Charlotte of Wales, heir presumptive to the British throne (b. 1796)
November 7 – Jean-André Deluc, Swiss geologist (b. 1727)
November 11 – Francisco Javier Mina, Spanish military leader (b. 1789) (executed)
November 14 – Policarpa Salavarrieta, Colombian spy, revolutionary who worked for the independence of Colombia (b. 1795)
November 30 – Jean-Baptiste-Melchior Hertel de Rouville, Canadian politician (b. 1748)
December 7 – William Bligh, British admiral (b. 1754)
December 1 – Justin Heinrich Knecht, German composer, organist and music theorist (b. 1752)
December 12 – Emperor Tekle Giyorgis I of Ethiopia, (b. c. 1751)
December 15
Usman dan Fodio, founder of Sokoto caliphate (b. 1754)
Federigo Zuccari, astronomer, director of the Astronomical Observatory of Naples (b. 1783)
References
"An 1820 Claim to Congress: Alabama Territory : 1817", The Intruders, TNGenNet Inc., 2001, quick webpage: TN-537[permanent dead link].
Pernambucan Revolution, 1817, From crwflags.com. Retrieved June 30, 2006.
"Prof. Ferrara on the Earthquakes in Sicily in 1823", The Edinburgh Journal of Science p366
James Grant Wilson, The Memorial History of the City of New-York: From Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, Volume IV (New York History Company, 1893) p596
Winskill P. T., The Temperance Movement: And Its Workers (Blackie & Son, Ltd. 1891) p80
Cuba (International Bureau of the American Republics, 1905) p82
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Millennium: 2nd millennium
Centuries:
18th century19th century 20th century
Decades:
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Years:
1815181618171818 181918201821
1818 by topic
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1818 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar 1818
MDCCCXVIII
Ab urbe condita 2571
Armenian calendar 1267
ԹՎ ՌՄԿԷ
Assyrian calendar 6568
Balinese saka calendar 1739–1740
Bengali calendar 1225
Berber calendar 2768
British Regnal year 58 Geo. 3 – 59 Geo. 3
Buddhist calendar 2362
Burmese calendar 1180
Byzantine calendar 7326–7327
Chinese calendar 丁丑年 (Fire Ox)
4515 or 4308
— to —
戊寅年 (Earth Tiger)
4516 or 4309
Coptic calendar 1534–1535
Discordian calendar 2984
Ethiopian calendar 1810–1811
Hebrew calendar 5578–5579
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat 1874–1875
- Shaka Samvat 1739–1740
- Kali Yuga 4918–4919
Holocene calendar 11818
Igbo calendar 818–819
Iranian calendar 1196–1197
Islamic calendar 1233–1234
Japanese calendar Bunka 15 / Bunsei 1
(文政元年)
Javanese calendar 1745–1746
Julian calendar Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar 4151
Minguo calendar 94 before ROC
民前94年
Nanakshahi calendar 350
Thai solar calendar 2360–2361
Tibetan calendar 阴火牛年
(female Fire-Ox)
1944 or 1563 or 791
— to —
阳土虎年
(male Earth-Tiger)
1945 or 1564 or 792
Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1818.
January 3 (21:52 UTC): Venus occults Jupiter.
1818 (MDCCCXVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar, the 1818th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 818th year of the 2nd millennium, the 18th year of the 19th century, and the 9th year of the 1810s decade. As of the start of 1818, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Events
Original Laufmaschine of 1817 made to measure.
January–March
January 1
Battle of Koregaon: Troops of the British East India Company score a decisive victory over the Maratha Empire.
English author Mary Shelley published the novel Frankenstein.
January 3 (21:52 UTC) – Venus occults Jupiter. It is the last occultation of one planet by another before November 22, 2065.
January 6 – The Treaty of Mandeswar brings an end to the Third Anglo-Maratha War, ending the dominance of Marathas, and enhancing the power of the British East India Company, which controls territory occupied by 180 million Indians.
January 12 – The Dandy horse (Laufmaschine bicycle) is invented by Karl Drais in Mannheim.[1]
February 3 – Jeremiah Chubb is granted a British patent for the Chubb detector lock.[2]
February 4 – Sir Walter Scott finds the Honours of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle.
February 5 – Upon his death, King Charles XIII of Sweden (Charles II of Norway) is succeeded on both thrones by his adoptive son Charles XIV/III John, starting the Royal House of Bernadotte.
February 11 – Marie André Cantillon attempts to assassinate the Duke of Wellington in Paris.
February 12 – Chilean Declaration of Independence from Spain is proclaimed in Chile.
March 15 – First Seminole War: General Andrew Jackson and his American army invade Florida.[citation needed]
March 22 – Easter Sunday in Western Christianity falls on its earliest possible date. In Western Christianity, it will not occur on this date again until 2285.
April–June
April 5: Battle of Maipú
April 1 – First Seminole War – Battle of Miccosukee, Florida: General Andrew Jackson defeats chief Kinhagee.
April 4 – The United States Congress adopts the flag of the United States as having thirteen red and white stripes, and one star for each state (twenty), with additional stars to be added whenever a new state is added to the Union.
April 5 – Chilean War of Independence – Battle of Maipú: Patriot rebels, led by José de San Martín, decisively defeat the Spanish Royalists.
April 7 – Brooks Brothers, the oldest men's clothier in the United States, opens its first store on the northeast corner of Catherine and Cherry Streets in New York City, where the later South Street Seaport stands.
April 14–August 9 – The United States Survey of the Coast operations is suspended.
April 18 – John Ross sets sail on his ship, the Isabella, in search of the Northwest Passage.[3]
May 11
Charles XIV of Sweden–Norway is crowned king of Sweden.
The Old Vic Theatre is founded (as the Royal Coburg Hall) in London.
The Westmorland Gazette is first published at Kendal in the Lake District of England; in July, Thomas De Quincey will begin a 16-month term as editor.
June – Battle of Kafir Qala: The Afghans defeat a Persian invasion.
June 10 – The British Parliament is dissolved by Prime Minister Jenkinson, and new elections are scheduled for August 4 for the House of Commons.[4]
June 11 – Prince William, Duke of Clarence and St Andrews, third oldest son of King George III and the future King William IV of the United Kingdom, marries Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen.[5]
June 18 – At least 34 people are killed in Switzerland, when the melting of a glacier releases the natural dam of Lac de Mauvoisin, sending the waters of the lake and the Dranse River into the valley of Bagnes.[6]
July–September
July 1 – After a war that began on November 5, 1817, the forces of the East India Company defeat Baji Rao II in battle and acquire control over the Maratha Empire.[7]
July 3 – English poet Lord Byron, resident in Italy, begins work on his satirical epic Don Juan. Although he completes the first canto by September 19, he will die in 1824 before he can finish the poem, after completing 16 cantos and working on the 17th.[8]
July 11 – The Bank of the United States reverses its policy of expanding credit, and sends notices to its borrowers nationwide demanding immediate repayment of balances due; the defaults during the next six months will trigger the Panic of 1819.[9]
July 15 – U.S. President James Monroe convenes a cabinet meeting, to discuss whether General Andrew Jackson's unauthorized invasion and conquest of Spanish Florida should be disavowed by the White House. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams persuades the President that the action is justifiable, in stopping terror caused by the Seminole tribes.[10]
July 29 – French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel submits his prizewinning "Memoir on the Diffraction of Light" to the French Academy of Sciences, precisely accounting for the limited extent to which light spreads into shadows, and thereby demolishing the oldest objection to the wave theory of light.
July 31 – The first newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio is issued by publisher Andrew Logan.[11] Using the original name of the small settlement (population 172), Logan names the weekly paper The Cleaveland Gazette & Commercial Register.[12]
August 1 – A separate Topographical Bureau of the United States Department of War is established.
August 4 – 1818 United Kingdom general election for the House of Commons. The Tory Party, led by Prime Minister Robert Jenkinson, retains its control of the government but loses some seats.[4]
September – Sir Stamford Raffles sets out to visit Lord Hastings, Governor-General of India, to gain his approval to establish a trading station at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula (modern-day Singapore).
September 7 – Carl III of Sweden–Norway is crowned king of Norway, in Trondheim.
September 23 – Border markers are formally installed for the European territory of Moresnet.
October–December
October 5 – Claudine Thévenet (known as Mary of St. Ignatius) founds the Roman Catholic order Religieuses de Jésus-Marie ("Religious of Jesus And Mary") in Lyon, France.
October 20 – A treaty between the U.S. and the United Kingdom establishes the boundary between the U.S. and British North America as the 49th parallel, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, also creating the Northwest Angle.
November 11 – Anglo-Chinese College is founded by Robert Morrison in Malacca (later renamed Ying Wa College).
November 16 – The Saint Louis Academy, which later becomes Saint Louis University, is founded by Reverend Louis William Valentine Dubourg in the United States.
December 3 – Illinois is admitted as the 21st U.S. state.
December 13 – Cyril VI of Constantinople quits his place as an Ecumenical Patriarch.
December 24 – The Christmas carol "Silent Night" (Stille Nacht), with words by the priest Josef Mohr, set to music by organist Franz Xaver Gruber, is first performed at St. Nikolaus Parish Church, in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria.
Date unknown
Catholic–Orthodox clash in Aleppo.
The first edition of the Farmers' Almanac is published in the United States.
The first Serbian dictionary is published by Vuk Karadžić.
Besses o' th' Barn Brass Band is formed in Whitefield, near Manchester in the north of England, by this date.
The Barakzai brothers expel Mahmud Shah and the Sadozais out of Afghanistan, dividing the provinces up amongst themselves.
Akure–Benin War, Benin invasion of Akure
Births
January–June
Karl Marx
Alexander II of Russia
Sophie of Württemberg
January 1 – J. P. C. Emmons, American attorney and politician (d. 1877)
January 30 – Artúr Görgey, Hungarian military general, politician (d. 1916)
February 4 – Emperor Norton, San Francisco eccentric and visionary (d. 1880)
February 13 – Angelica Singleton Van Buren, Acting First Lady of the United States (d. 1877)
February 14 – Frederick Douglass (his day of birth was never established; he adopted this date), American abolitionist author, statesman (d. 1895)
February 18 – Pedro Figueredo, Cuban poet, musician, and freedom writer (d. 1870)
March 11 – Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville, French chemist (d. 1881)
March 22 – John Ainsworth Horrocks, English-born explorer of South Australia (d. 1846)
March 24 – William E. Le Roy, American admiral (d. 1888)
March 28 – Wade Hampton III, Confederate soldier and South Carolinian politician (d. 1902)
April 4 – Thomas Mayne Reid, Irish-American novelist (d. 1883)
April 6 – Aasmund Olavsson Vinje, Norwegian journalist and poet (d. 1870)
April 8 –
King Christian IX of Denmark (d. 1906)
August Wilhelm von Hofmann, German chemist (d. 1892)
April 17 – Emperor Alexander II of Russia (d. 1881)
April 19 – Sir Arthur Elton, 7th Baronet, English writer, Liberal Party politician (d. 1883)
May 5 – Karl Marx, German political philosopher, co-author of The Communist Manifesto (d. 1883)
May 27 – Amelia Bloomer, American dress reformer, women's rights activist (d. 1894)
June 3 – Louis Faidherbe, French general and colonial administrator (d. 1889)
June 17
Sophie of Württemberg, Dutch queen (d. 1877)
Charles Gounod, French composer (d. 1893)
June 18 – Angelo Secchi, Italian astronomer (d. 1878)
July–December
Emily Brontë
Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe
James Prescott Joule
July 1 – Ignaz Semmelweis, Hungarian physician, obstetrician (d. 1865)
July 18 – Louis Gerhard De Geer, 1st Prime Minister of Sweden (d. 1896)
July 22 – J. Gregory Smith, Vermont governor (d. 1891)
July 27 – Agostino Roscelli, Italian priest, founder of the Institute of Sisters of the Immaculata (d. 1902)
July 30
Emily Brontë, British novelist (d. 1848)[13]
Jan Heemskerk, 2-time prime minister of the Netherlands (d. 1897)
August 11 – Méry von Bruiningk, Estonian democrat (d. 1853)
August 25 – Shiv Dayal Singh, Founder and first SatGuru of RadhaSoami Faith (d. 1878)
September 1 – José María Castro Madriz, first President of Costa Rica, founder of the republic (d. 1892)
September 12 – Richard Jordan Gatling, American inventor, gunsmith (d. 1903)
September 27 – Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe, German chemist (d. 1884)
October 8 – John Henninger Reagan, American Confederate politician (d. 1905)
October 12 – Maximilian Cercha, Polish painter and drawer (d. 1907)
October 15 – Irvin McDowell, American general (d. 1885)
October 18 – Francis Dutton, Germany-born Premier of South Australia (d. 1877)
November 5 – Benjamin Franklin Butler, American lawyer, politician, and general (d. 1893)
November 9 (October 28 (O.S.)) – Ivan Turgenev, Russian writer (d. 1883)
November 23 – József Szlávy, 6th Prime Minister of Hungary (d. 1900)
November 29 – George Brown, Canadian politician (d. 1880)
December 13 – Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States (d. 1882)
December 18 – Max Joseph von Pettenkofer, German chemist and hygienist (d. 1901)
December 24 – James Prescott Joule, English physicist (d. 1889)[14]
December 27 – J. Lawrence Smith, American chemist (d. 1883)
Date unknown
Dimitrie Brătianu, 15th Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1892)
Deaths
January–June
Charles XIII of Sweden
Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp
January 2 – Martha Christina Tiahahu, Moluccan freedom fighter, national heroine of Indonesia (b. 1800)[15]
January 11 – Johann David Wyss, Swiss author (b. 1743)
February 5 – Charles XIII/Charles II, King of Sweden and Norway (b. 1748)
February 13 – George Rogers Clark, American Revolutionary leader (b. 1752)
February 15 – Friedrich Ludwig, Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, Prussian general (b. 1746)
February 21 – David Humphreys, American diplomat (b. 1752)
March 24 – Humphry Repton, English garden designer (b. 1752)[16]
April 16 – Nikolaus von Krufft, Austrian composer and civil servant (b. 1779)
May 2 – Herman Willem Daendels, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (b. 1762)
May 10 – Paul Revere, American patriot, silversmith (b. 1735)
May 13 – Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé (b. 1736)
May 18 – Maddalena Laura Sirmen, Italian musician and composer (b. 1745)[17]
May 26 – Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, Russian military commander (b. 1761)
June 12 – Egwale Seyon, Emperor of Ethiopia
June 20 – Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp, queen consort of Sweden and Norway (b. 1759)[18]
June 24 – Alexander Kurakin, Russian diplomat (b. 1752)
July–December
Abigail Adams
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
July 28 – Gaspard Monge, French mathematician and geometer (b. 1746)
August 4 – Tom Molineaux, African-American boxer (b. 1784)
August 5 – Sir John Barrington, 9th Baronet of Great Britain (b. 1752)
August 11 – Robert Carr Brackenbury, English Methodist preacher (b. 1752)
August 12 – Nikolay Novikov, Russian writer (b. 1744)
August 22 – Warren Hastings, English Governor-General of India (b. 1732)
August 31 – Arthur St. Clair, American soldier, politician (b. 1737)
September 1 – Robert Calder, British naval officer (b. 1745)
September 9 – Seymour Fleming, British noblewoman (b. 1758)
October 28 – Abigail Adams, First Lady of the United States (b. 1744)
October 28 – Henri Jacques Guillaume Clarke, duc de Feltre, French marshal, politician (b. 1765)
November 17 – Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, queen of George III of the United Kingdom (b. 1744)
December 25 – Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon, Marshal of France (b. 1754)
Date unknown
Ghaliyya Al Bogammiah, Saudi Arabian war heroine
References
"Patent for Drais' "Laufmaschine", the ancestor of all bicycle". Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt. Retrieved June 26, 2021.
"A Brief History of Chubb 1818–1990s". Chubb Archive. Retrieved December 16, 2018.
Robert Huish, The Last Voyage of Capt. Sir John Ross, R.N. to the Arctic Regions (J. Saunders, 1835) p77
John Styles, Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. George Canning, Volume 2 (Thomas Tegg, 1828) pp270-273
John Burke, A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire (Henry Colburn Co., 1833) p xxxiii
Jean Frédéric Ostervald, et al., Picturesque Tour from Geneva to Milan, by Way of the Simplon (R. Ackermann, 1820) pp43-44
The Oriental Herald and Journal of General Literature April 1826. p. 150.
Jump, John D. (2016). Byron. London: Routledge. p. 103.
"Congressional Register", Niles Weekly Register July 3, 1824. p. 251.
Pyle, Christopher H.; Pious, Richard M. (1984). The President, Congress, and the Constitution: Power and Legitimacy in American Politics. Simon and Schuster. p. 294.
Robison, W. Scott (1887). History of the City of Cleveland: Its Settlement, Rise and Progress. Robison & Cockett. p. 28.
Rich, Bob (2013). A Touch of Cleveland History: Stories from the First 200 Years. Gray & Company. p. 43.
"Emily Bronte | Biography, Works, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
Glazebrook, Richard Tetley (1892). "Joule, James Prescott" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 30. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Alaidrus, Syarivah (April 27, 2010). "Martha Christina Si Pemberani dari Timur" [Martha Christina, the Brave One from the East]. Kompas (in Indonesian). Jakarta. Archived from the original on April 22, 2012. Retrieved December 27, 2011.
Courtney, William Prideaux (1896). "Repton, Humphry" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 48. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Blom, Eric ed.; Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th edition, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1954.
"Hedvig Elisabet Charlotta, drottning". SKBL. Retrieved January 28, 2024.
Category: 1818