1733 in Great Britain

Incumbents

• Monarch – George II
• Prime Minister – Robert Walpole

Events

• 23 January – first performance of George Frideric Handel's opera Orlando, at the His Majesty's Theatre in London.
• 12 February – British colonist James Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia.
• 25 March – English replaces Latin and Law French as the official language of English and Scottish courts on coming into effect of the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730.
• 6 April – after Prime Minister Robert Walpole's proposed excise tax bill to replace tariffs on wine and tobacco results in rioting over the imposition of additional taxes and the use of government agents to collect them, Walpole informs the House of Commons that he will withdraw the legislation.
• 17 May – the Molasses Act becomes law: intended to regulate the colonial molasses trade in favour of the British West Indies, it causes resentment in British North America.
• 26 May – John Kay patents the flying shuttle.
• 7 November – France and Spain sign the treaty of Escurial and form an alliance against Britain.
• Undated – with an average Central England temperature of, this is the hottest calendar year for which reliable records exist until being exceeded in 1834.

Births

• 13 February – Alexander Wedderburn, 1st Earl of Rosslyn, Lord Chancellor
• 13 March – Joseph Priestley, scientist and minister
• 27 July – Jeremiah Dixon, surveyor and astronomer
• Elizabeth Raffald, née Whitaker, cookery writer and entrepreneur

Deaths

• 21 January – Bernard Mandeville, economic philosopher
• 25 January – Gilbert Heathcote, Mayor of London
• 27 January – Thomas Woolston, theologian
• 19 April – Elizabeth Villiers, mistress of William III of England
• 10 May – Barton Booth, actor
• 16 August – Matthew Tindal, deist