The following events occurred in Great Britain in the year 1724.

Incumbents Monarch – George I Prime Minister – Robert Walpole (Whig)

Events

20 February – Giulio Cesare in Egitto, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, is premiered in London. 6 April – Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne becomes Secretary of State for the Southern Department; Henry Pelham becomes Secretary at War. August – Longman, the oldest surviving publishing house in England, is founded in London by Thomas Longman. 31 October – Handel's opera Tamerlano is premiered in London 16 November – Thief Jack Sheppard is hanged in London. (His partner-in-crime, highwayman Joseph Blake, alias "Blueskin", was similarly executed five days earlier.) Undated – Blenheim Palace construction is completed. It has been built as a gift from the nation to the Duke of Marlborough (died 1722) for his involvement in the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.

Publications Daniel Defoe's A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain begins publication. Jonathan Swift's Drapier's Letters begin publication. Isaac Watts' textbook Logic.

Births 24 January – Frances Brooke, writer (died 1789) 28 February – George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend, field marshal (died 1807) 19 May – Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol, admiral and politician (died 1779) 3 June – John Gregory, physician, medical writer and moralist (died 1773) 8 June – John Smeaton, civil engineer (died 1792) 25 August – George Stubbs, painter (died 1806) 3 September – Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, soldier and Governor of Quebec (died 1808) 31 October – Christopher Anstey, writer (died 1805) 12 December – Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, admiral (died 1816) 25 December – John Michell, scientist and geologist (died 1793)

Deaths 1 January – Charles Gildon, critic and dramatist (born c. 1665) 12 February – Elkanah Settle, writer (born 1648) 21 May – Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, statesman (born 1661) 15 June – Henry Sacheverell, churchman and politician (born 1674) 29 October – William Wollaston, philosophical writer (born 1659) 11 November – Joseph Blake (alias Blueskin), highwayman (executed) (born 1700) 16 November – Jack Sheppard, criminal (executed) (born 1702) 29 November – Laurence Braddon, writer and politician (year of birth not known) 27 December – Thomas Guy, philanthropist (born 1644)

See also 1724 in Wales

References