1781 in Great Britain

• Monarch – George III • Prime Minister – Frederick North, Lord North (Tory) ==Events==

• 1 January – Industrial Revolution: The Iron Bridge opens across the River Severn. • 5 January – American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia, is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold. • 6 January – Battle of Jersey: British troops prevent the French from occupying Jersey in the Channel Islands. • 17 January – American Revolutionary War: the American Continental Army under Daniel Morgan decisively defeats British forces at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina. • January – William Pitt the Younger, later Prime Minister, enters Parliament, aged 21. • 3 February – American Revolutionary War and Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: The Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius (which has been supplying the United States) surrenders to Admiral Rodney. • 13 March – Sir William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus. • Henry Hurle officially founds the Ancient Order of Druids in London. • 3 December – first known building society established, in Birmingham. • 12 December – American Revolutionary War: Second Battle of Ushant – the Royal Navy, commanded by Rear Admiral Richard Kempenfelt in , decisively defeats the French fleet in the Bay of Biscay. • Last year in which the monarch participates in a regular peacetime meeting of the Cabinet. ==Publications==

• Peter Beckford's Thoughts on Hunting. • Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volumes 2 and 3. ==Births==

• 21 February – Bulkeley Bandinel, scholar-librarian (died 1861) • 29 May – John Walker, inventor (died 1859) • 9 June – George Stephenson, locomotive engineer (died 1848) • 6 July – Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore (died 1826) • 8 July – Tom Cribb, bare-knuckle boxer (died 1848) • 14 September – James Walker, Scottish civil engineer (died 1862) • 3 November – Sarah Elizabeth Utterson, translator and author (died 1851) • 6 November – Lucy Aikin, English writer (died 1864) • 30 November – Alexander Berry, adventurer and Australian pioneer (died 1873) • 11 December – Sir David Brewster, physicist (died 1868) ==Deaths==

• 12 January – Richard Challoner, Catholic prelate (born 1691) • 21 February – Matchem, racehorse (born 1748) • 24 February – Edward Capell, critic (born 1713) • 19 April – Elizabeth Raffald, cookery writer and entrepreneur (born 1733) • 23 April – James Abercrombie, general (born 1706) • 8 May – Richard Jago, poet (born 1715) • 17 May – William Aislabie, politician (born 1700) • 28 September – William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, diplomat and statesman (born 1717) • 16 October – Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, naval officer (born 1705) ==See also==