1738 in Great Britain

1738 in Great Britain:

Other years

1736 | 1737 | 1738 | 1739 | 1740

Sport

1738 English cricket season

Events from the year 1738 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

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

Events

• 28 March - Robert Jenkins presents a pickled ear, which he claims was cut off by a Spanish captain in the Caribbean in 1731, to Parliament, stirring up war fever against Spain leading to the War of Jenkins' Ear the following year.
• 15 April - Première in London of Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel.
• May
  • Tiverton riot: wool trade workers riot over prices in Tiverton, Devon.
  • The Fetter Lane Society is founded by followers of the Moravian Church in London.
• 24 May - John Wesley experiences a spiritual rebirth at a Moravian Church meeting in Aldersgate in the City of London, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day. His younger brother Charles had a similar experience three days earlier.
• Late (dated 1739) - David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature is published anonymously.
• Undated
  • William Champion of Bristol patents a process to distill zinc from calamine using charcoal in a smelter.
  • William Kent is appointed to remodel Rousham House and gardens in Oxfordshire, "a landmark in the history of the Romantic movement."

Births

• 9 February (bapt.) - Mary Whateley, poet and playwright (died 1825)
• 14 April - William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1809)
• 26 April - Henry Clinton, officer (died 1795)
• 9 May - John Wolcot, satirist and poet (died 1819)
• 4 June (New Style, 24 May Old Style) - King George III of the United Kingdom (died 1820)
• 11 October - Arthur Phillip, admiral and Governor of New South Wales (died 1814)
• 15 November - William Herschel, German-born British astronomer (died 1822)
• 31 December - Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, general (died 1805)

Deaths

• 1 May - Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, English statesman (born c. 1669)
• 21 June - Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, English politician (born 1674)
• 22 December - Constantia Jones, prostitute (executed) (born c. 1708)