1811 in the United Kingdom

1811 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1809 | 1810 | 1811 | 1812 | 1813

Events from the year 1811 in the United Kingdom. This is a Census year and the start of the British Regency.

Incumbents

• Monarch - George III
• Prime Minister - Spencer Perceval (Tory)

Events

• 1 February - Bell Rock Lighthouse begins operation off the coast of Scotland.
• 5 February - George, Prince of Wales becomes Regent because of the perceived insanity of his father, King George III. He is known as the Prince Regent and this is the beginning of the Regency period.
• 21 February - The John and Jane, carrying troops bound for the Peninsular War, is accidentally run down and sunk by HMS Franchise off Lizard Point, Cornwall with the loss of a majority of the 300 on board.
• 13 March - Battle of Lissa: British fleet defeats the French.
• 25–27 March - Battle of Anholt: British naval forces defeat those of Denmark.
• 4 April - Huddersfield Narrow Canal completed by opening of Standedge Tunnel under the Pennines, the longest (5,413 yards (4,950 m)), deepest and highest canal tunnel in Britain.
• 27 May - The second national Census reveals that the population of England and Wales has increased in ten years by over a million to 10.1 million.
• 18 June - The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists leave the established Church of England by ordaining their own ministers in Bala, North Wales.
• 8 September - The first known landing on Rockall is made by a party from HMS Endymion.
• 16 October - National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church in England and Wales established by the Church of England to promote a system of National Schools.
• November - Luddite uprisings begin in northern England and Midlands.
• 4 December - Royal Navy frigate HMS Saldanha (1809) is driven in a gale onto rocks in Lough Swilly in Ireland with no survivors from the estimated 253 aboard.
• 7–19 December - Ratcliff Highway murders in London.

Ongoing

• Napoleonic Wars, 1803–1815
• Anglo-Russian War, 1807–1812
• Anglo-Swedish War 1810–1812
• Peninsular War, 1808–1814

Undated

• Highland Clearances: The Duke and Duchess of Sutherland begin mass expulsion of crofting tenants from their Scottish Highland estates.
• Building of Regent Street begins John Nash's development of the West End of London.
• The first complete ichthyosaur fossil is found by Mary Anning at Lyme Regis.

Publications

• Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility ('by a lady').
• Francis Place's Illustrations and Proofs of the Principles of Population, including an examination of the proposed remedies of Mr. Malthus, and a reply to the objections of Mr. Godwin and others, the first significant text in English to advocate contraception.

Births

• 9 January - Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, writer (died 1856)
• 6 February - Henry Liddell, academic and cleric (died 1898)
• 24 February - Edward Dickinson Baker, United States Senator from Oregon from 1860 (died 1861 in the United States)
• 7 June - James Simpson, Scottish obstetrician and pioneer of anaesthesia (died 1870)
• 13 June - Owen Stanley, Royal Navy officer (died 1850)
• 13 July - James "paraffin" Young, Scottish chemist (died 1883)
• 18 July - William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (died 1863)
• 21 December - Archibald Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 1882)

Deaths

• 9 February - Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal (born 1732)
• 14 March - Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1735)
• 7 May - Richard Cumberland, dramatist (born 1732)
• 28 May - Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, minister (born 1742)
• 27 November - Andrew Meikle, engineer (born 1719)