1725 in Great Britain explained

Events from the year 1725 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George I
• Prime Minister – Robert Walpole (Whig)^[1]

Events

• 2 March – in London, a night watchman finds a severed head by the Thames; it is later recognized to be that of the husband of Catherine Hayes. She and an accomplice are executed the following year.^[2]
• 12 May – the Black Watch is raised as a military company as part of the pacification of the Scottish Highlands under General George Wade.^[3]
• 18 May – the Order of the Bath is founded by King George I.^[4]
• 24 May – Jonathan Wild, fraudulent "Thief Taker General", is hanged in Tyburn, for actually aiding criminals.^[5]
• 3 September – Treaty of Hanover signed between Great Britain, France and Prussia.^[6]
• 20 November – the horse-post from Edinburgh to London vanishes after passing through Berwick-upon-Tweed; horse and rider are thought to have perished on tidal sands near Lindisfarne.^[3]

Undated

• A fire in Wapping, England destroys 70 houses.^[7]
• Alexander Pope produces an English language translation of Homer's Odyssey.^[4]

Births

• 4 February – Dru Drury, entomologist (died 1804)
• 6 March – Henry Benedict Stuart, cardinal and Jacobite claimant to the British throne (born, and died 1807, in Italy)
• 28 March – Andrew Kippis, non-conformist clergyman and biographer (died 1795)
• 25 April – Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel, admiral (died 1786)
• 23 May – Robert Bakewell, agriculturalist (died 1795)
• 1 July – Rhoda Delaval, portrait painter (died 1757)
• 24 July – John Newton, cleric and hymnist (died 1807)
• 29 August – Charles Townshend, politician (died 1767)
• 29 September – Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, general and statesman (died 1774)
• 17 October – John Wilkes, politician and journalist (died 1797)
• Paul Sandby, cartographer and painter (died 1809)

Deaths

• 8 April – John Wise, clergyman (born 1652)
• 24 May – Jonathan Wild, criminal (born 1682)

See also

• 1725 in Wales

Notes and References

1. Web site: History of Sir Robert Walpole - GOV.UK . www.gov.uk . 12 June 2023 . en.
2. Blake's Murderesses: Visionary Heads of Wickedness. Bentley, G. E. Jr.. Huntington Library Quarterly. 72. 1. March 2009. 69–105. University of California Press. 10.1525/hlq.2009.72.1.69. At Catherine's urging, "Billings went into the room with a hatchet, with which he struck Hayes so violently that he fractured his skull" but did not kill him. Wood, "taking the hatchet out of Billings's hand, gave the poor man two more blows, which effectually dispatched him." They were then faced with the problem of how to dispose of the body..
3. Web site: Notable Dates in History. The Flag in the Wind. The Scots Independent. 2016-02-26. https://web.archive.org/web/20160126115905/http://scotsindependent.scot/oldsitearchive/scotind/dates1-d.htm. 2016-01-26. dead.
4. Book: Williams, Hywel. Cassell's Chronology of World History. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2005. 0-304-35730-8. 300.
5. Web site: Icons, a portrait of England 1700–1750. 2007-08-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20070817164123/http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/icons-timeline/1700-1750. 2007-08-17.
6. Book: Cates, William L. R.. William Leist Readwin Cates

   . The Pocket Date Book. Chapman and Hall. William Leist Readwin Cates. 1863.

7. Book: The London Encyclopaedia. Weinreb, Ben. Ben Weinreb. Hibbert, Christopher. Christopher Hibbert . Macmillan. 1995. 0-333-57688-8. 287.