1731 in Great Britain

1731 in Great Britain:

Other years

1729 | 1730 | 1731 | 1732 | 1733

Sport

1731 English cricket season

Events from the year 1731 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch - George II
• Prime Minister - Robert Walpole (Whig)

Events

• 16 March - Treaty of Vienna signed between the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic and Spain.
• April - Trader Robert Jenkins has his ear cut off by Spanish coast guards in Cuba, casus belli for the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739.
• 4 June - Great fire destroys much of the centre of Blandford Forum, Dorset.
• 5 June - Tiverton fire of 1731, a great fire in Tiverton, Devon.
• 23 October - Fire at Ashburnham House in London damages the nationally-owned Cotton library, housed there at this time.

Undated

• Legal proceedings in the courts to be conducted in the English language.
• William Hogarth produces his A Harlot's Progress series of paintings.

Publications

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

Births

• February - Charles Churchill, poet (died 1764)
• 8 May - Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London and abolitionist (died 1809)
• 10 October - Henry Cavendish, scientist (died 1810)
• 15 November - William Cowper, poet (died 1800)
• 12 December - Erasmus Darwin, scientist and grandfather of Charles Darwin (died 1802)
• date unknown - William Aiton, botanist (died 1793)

Deaths

• 24 April - Daniel Defoe, writer (born 1660)
• 24 August - William Godolphin, Marquess of Blandford, nobleman (born 1700)
• 29 December - Brook Taylor, mathematician (born 1685)