1780 in Great Britain

1780 in Great Britain:

Other years

1778 | 1779 | 1780 | 1781 | 1782

Sport

1780 English cricket season

Events from the year 1780 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch - George III
• Prime Minister - Frederick North, Lord North, (Tory)

Events

The Gordon Riots, from a painting by John Seymour Lucas

• 16 January - American Revolutionary War: British naval victory at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent over a Spanish squadron.
• 8 March - American Revolutionary War: The League of Armed Neutrality is formed by Russia to try to prevent the Royal Navy from searching neutral vessels for contraband.
• 26 March - The British Gazette and Sunday Monitor, the first Sunday newspaper in Britain, begins publication.
• 4 May - The first Epsom Derby horse race is run on Epsom Downs, Surrey. The victor is Diomed.
• 12 May - American Revolutionary War: Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces.
• 2 June - An Anti-Catholic mob led by Lord George Gordon marches on Parliament leading to the outbreak of the Gordon Riots in London.
• 7 June - The Gordon Riots are ended by the intervention of troops. About 285 people are shot dead, with another 200 wounded and around 450 arrested.
• July - Robert Raikes initiates a Sunday school movement, in Gloucester.
• 10 July - American Revolutionary War: 6,000 French troops led by Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau land in Newport, Rhode Island but are pinned down by the British.
• September - Outbreak of the Second Anglo-Mysore War in India.
• 9 August - American Revolutionary War: Spanish admiral Luis de Córdova y Córdova captures a British convoy totalling 55 vessels amongst Indiamen, frigates and other cargo ships off Cape St. Vincent.
• 16 August - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Camden - The British defeat the Americans near Camden, South Carolina.
• 2 October - American Revolutionary War: British spy John André is hanged by American forces.
• 7 October - American Revolutionary War: Patriot militia defeat the Loyalist militia at the Battle of Kings Mountain.
• 20 November - American Revolutionary War: Britain declares war on the Dutch Republic to stop it from joining the League of Armed Neutrality.
• 20 December - Outbreak of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.

Undated

• The Duke of Richmond calls, in the House of Lords, for manhood suffrage and annual parliaments, which are rejected.
• William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, begins development of Buxton Crescent and the Devonshire Royal Hospital to promote Buxton in the Derbyshire Peak District as a spa resort.
• The market town of Middleton, Dorset, is demolished by order of the landowner, Joseph Damer, Lord Milton, and the population moved to a new model village, Milton Abbas.
• The original Craven Cottage is built by William Craven, 6th Baron Craven, in London.

Births

• 25 February - John Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 1862)
• 21 May - Elizabeth Fry, humanitarian (died 1845)
• 26 December - Mary Fairfax Somerville, mathematician (died 1872)

Deaths

• 14 February - William Blackstone, jurist (born 1723)
• 12 May - Herod, racehorse (born 1758)
• 18 May - Charles Hardy, governor of Newfoundland (born c. 1714)
• 3 June – Thomas Hutchinson, American-born last governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (born 1711)
• 4 September - John Fielding, magistrate and social reformer (born 1721)
• 2 October - John André, British Army officer of the American Revolutionary War (executed) (born 1750)
• 17 October - William Cookworthy, chemist (born 1705)
• 26 November - Sir James Denham Steuart, 4th Baronet, economist (born 1712)
• 26 December - John Fothergill, physician (born 1712)
• date unknown - Thomas Dilworth, cleric and writer (year of birth unknown)