1683 in England

Incumbents

• Monarch – Charles II

Events

• 9 January – Charles II gives orders establishing the dates on which he will perform the "Touching the King's Evil" ceremony.
• 22 March – great fire in Newmarket, Suffolk, consuming half the houses and forcing Charles II to flee the town.
• 24 May – the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, opens as the world's first purpose-built university museum.
• 12 June – the Rye House Plot to assassinate Charles II is discovered; at least 11 people will be executed for their connections with it.
• 21 July – Lord Russell is beheaded by Jack Ketch at Lincoln's Inn Fields for his part in the Rye House Plot.
• 28 July – The Lady Anne, the King's niece and fourth in line of succession, marries Prince George of Denmark in the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace, London.
• 12 December – start of exceptional cold spell. The River Thames freezes, allowing a frost fair to be held.

Undated

• Wild boars are hunted to extinction in Britain.The London Jilt; or, the Politick Whore, probably by Alexander Oldys, is published.

Births

• 1 March – Caroline of Ansbach, queen of George II of Great Britain
• 3 April – Mark Catesby, naturalist
• 25 October – Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, politician
• 10 November – King George II of Great Britain
• 27 December – Conyers Middleton, minister

Deaths

• 15 January – Philip Warwick, writer and politician
• 21 January – Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, politician
• 19 March – Thomas Killigrew, dramatist
• 13 July – Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex, statesman, implicated in Rye House Plot, suicide
• 18 August – Charles Hart, actor
• 21 July – William Russell, Lord Russell, politician, executed
• 24 August – John Owen, non-conformist theologian
• 25 October – William Scroggs, lord chief justice of England
• 7 December
• * John Oldham, poet
• * Algernon Sidney, parliamentarian and republican, executed
• 15 December – Izaak Walton, writer
• John Hingston, court composer, viol player and organist