1771 in Great Britain

Events from the year 1771 in the Kingdom of Great Britain.

• Monarch - George III
• Prime Minister - Lord North (Tory)

• 22 January - Spain cedes the Falkland Islands to Britain.
• 15 March - Society of Civil Engineers first meets (in London), the world's oldest engineering society.
• 12 July - First voyage of James Cook (begun 1768): HMS Endeavour anchors in The Downs, and Captain Cook goes ashore at Deal, Kent, following his global circumnavigation.
• 8 August - First recorded town cricket match played at Horsham; Horsham Cricket Club formed here soon after 1806.
• 17 August - Edinburgh botanist James Robertson makes the first recorded ascent of Ben Nevis.
• 30 September - Bath Assembly Rooms completed.
• 2 October - Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn, brother to the King, marries a commoner, the widow Anne Horton, in Mayfair, precipitating the Royal Marriages Act 1772.
• 16 November - During the night:
  • The River Tyne floods, destroying many bridges and killing several people; the replacement main bridge at Newcastle upon Tyne will not be completed until 1781.
  • Solway Moss, on the Cumberland/Scotland border, bursts, flooding local farms and settlements.

Undated

• Industrial Revolution: Richard Arkwright begins to develop cotton mills at Cromford in the Derwent Valley of Derbyshire, one of the earliest factory complexes.
• Harewood House, West Yorkshire, completed to the designs of John Carr and Robert Adam.
• Warren Hastings of the British East India Company becomes governor of Bengal in India.
• St George's Circus intersection built in London.

• Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 326–327. ISBN 0-304-35730-8. 
• Watson, Garth (1989). The Smeatonians: The Society of Civil Engineers. London: Thomas Telford. ISBN 0-7277-1526-7. 
• Roberts, Gwilym (1995). From Kendal's Coffee House to Great George Street. London: Thomas Telford. ISBN 0-7277-2022-8. 
• "Horsham Cricket Club History". Horsham Cricket Club. Retrieved 2011-11-01. 
• McEwen, Lindsey J.; Withers, Charles W. J. (1989). "Historical records and geomorphological events: the 1771 'eruption' of Solway Moss". Scottish Geographical Magazine. 105 (3): 149–157. doi:10.1080/14702548908554428. Retrieved 2016-01-28. 
• "BBC History British History Timeline". Archived from the original on 9 September 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-03. 
• Marshall, P. J. (September 2004). "Hastings, Warren (1732–1818)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/12587. Retrieved 2011-11-01.  (subscription or UK public library membership required)
•  Keene, Henry George (1891). "Hastings, Warren". In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 25. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 

• Encyclopædia Britannica completes publication.
• Henry Mackenzie's novel The Man of Feeling.
• Tobias Smollett's novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker.
• Peter Williams (1722-1796)'s Hymns on Various Subjects (includes "Prayer for Strength", the first English translation of the Welsh hymn "Cwm Rhondda").
• Arthur Young's The Farmer's Kalendar.
• Allegri's Miserere.

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• 5 February - John Lingard, Roman Catholic priest (died 1851)
• 13 April - Richard Trevithick, inventor (died 1833)
• 3 June - Sydney Smith, writer and clergyman (died 1845)
• 7 July - John Britton, antiquary and topographer (died 1857)
• 15 August - Sir Walter Scott, novelist and poet (died 1832)
• 11 September - Mungo Park, explorer (died 1806)
• 25 December - Dorothy Wordsworth, poet and diarist (died 1855)

• 5 January - John Russell, Duke of Bedford, statesman (born 1710)
• 21 May - Christopher Smart, poet (born 1722)
• 8 June - Lord Halifax, statesman (born 1716)
• 30 July - Thomas Gray, writer (born 1716)
• 17 September - Tobias Smollett, Scottish-born novelist (born 1721)
• 6 November - John Bevis, physician and astronomer (born 1695)
• 15 December - Benjamin Stillingfleet, botanist (born 1702)