1718 in Great Britain

1718 in Great Britain:

Other years

1716 | 1717 | 1718 | 1719 | 1720

Sport

1718 English cricket season

Events from the year 1718 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George I

Events

• 7 January – Occasional Conformity Act repealed.
• 15 May – James Puckle patents the Puckle Gun.
• 2 August – Quadruple Alliance formed between Britain, the Kingdom of France, the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic.
• 11 August – A British fleet under Admiral Byng defeats a Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape Passaro, a prelude to the War of the Quadruple Alliance.
• 24 November – 'Calico Jack' Rackham becomes captain of the pirate sloop Ranger in The Bahamas.
• 17 December – War of the Quadruple Alliance: Britain, the Kingdom of France, the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic declare war on Spain.

Undated

• The Proper motion of stars discovered by Edmond Halley.
• Marrow Controversy, an ecclesiastical dispute, in Scotland.
• The Charitable Infirmary, Dublin, is founded by six surgeons in Ireland, the first public voluntary hospital in the British Isles.
• Greenwich Hospital receives a Royal Charter (revoked in 1829).
• The Transportation Act of 1718 creates the punishment of penal transportation as an alternative to a death sentence.

Births

• 18 February – Robert Henry, historian (died 1790)
• 4 April – Benjamin Kennicott, churchman and Hebrew scholar (died 1783)
• 7 April – Hugh Blair, preacher and man of letters (died 1800)
• 17 May – Robert Darcy, 4th Earl of Holderness, diplomat and politician (died 1778)
• 23 May – William Hunter, anatomist (died 1783)
• 30 May – Wills Hill, 1st Marquess of Downshire, politician (died 1793)
• 5 June – Thomas Chippendale, furniture maker (died 1779)
• 17 June – George Howard, field marshal (died 1796)
• 5 July – Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford, Viceroy of Ireland (died 1794)
• 31 July – John Canton, physicist (died 1772)
• 3 November – John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, statesman (died 1792)

Deaths

• 6 January – Richard Hoare, goldsmith and banker (born 1648)
• 1 February – Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, politician (born 1660)
• 18 February – Pierre Antoine Motteux, dramatist (born 1663, France)
• 30 July – William Penn, Quaker and founder of the Pennsylvania colony (born 1644)
• 22 November – Blackbeard, pirate (born c. 1680)
• 6 December – Nicholas Rowe, poet and dramatist (born 1674)