1755 in Great Britain

1755 in Great Britain:

Other years

1753 | 1754 | 1755 | 1756 | 1757

Sport

1755 English cricket season

Events from the year 1755 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch - George II of the United Kingdom
• Prime Minister - Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Whig

Events

• 20 February - General Edward Braddock lands in Virginia to take command of the British forces against the French in North America.
• 9 July - French and Indian War: Braddock Expedition - British troops and colonial militiamen are ambushed and suffer a devastating defeat inflicted by French and Indian forces. During the battle, British General Edward Braddock is mortally wounded. Colonel George Washington survives.
• 20 November - William Pitt the Elder is dismissed from the position of Paymaster of the Forces while Henry Bilson Legge resigns as Chancellor of the Exchequer and George Grenville as Treasurer of the Navy in protest over payments made to Russia to protect Hanover.^[1]
• 2 December - The second Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed by fire.

Unknown dates

• Joseph Black discovers carbon dioxide and magnesium.
• Wolsey the clothes manufacturer was established in Leicester.

Publications

• 15 April - Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language; Johnson had begun the work in 1746.^[2]

Births

• 21 February - Anne Grant, poet and author (died 1838)
• 8 September - James Graham, 3rd Duke of Montrose, nobleman and statesman (died 1836)
• 17 November - Charles Manners-Sutton, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 1828)
• 23 November - Thomas Lord, cricketer and founder of Lord's Cricket Ground (died 1832)

• Dorothy Kilner, children's author (died 1836)

Deaths

• 6 April - Richard Rawlinson, English minister and antiquarian (born 1690)
• 13 July - Edward Braddock, British general (born c. 1695)
• 1 December - Maurice Greene, English composer (born 1696)

References

See also