1754 in Great Britain

Incumbents

• Monarch – George II
• Prime Minister – Henry Pelham ; Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle

Events

• 28 January – Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity.
• 6 March – Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne becomes Prime Minister following the death of his brother Henry Pelham.
• 25 March – Lord Harwicke's Marriage Act 1753 "for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage" comes into force in England and Wales.
• 18 April–20 May – General election increases the Whig Party's majority. Corruption is particularly notorious in the Oxfordshire election.
• 14 May – The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews is founded in Scotland; it will come to control the rules of golf.
• 28 May – Battle of Jumonville Glen in Pennsylvania: British colonial militia from Virginia under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Washington with Indian allies ambush a small force of French Canadians under Joseph Coulon de Jumonville in the first action of the global Seven Years' War and the North American French and Indian War.

Publications

• 2 July – Leeds Intelligencer first published.
• Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director.
• Jane Collier and Sarah Fielding's The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable.
• David Hume's The History of Great Britain begins publication.
• Isaac Newton 's 1690 dissertation An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture.

Births

• 6 February – Andrew Fuller, Particular Baptist minister, promoter of missionary work
• 16 June – Peter Burrell, 1st Baron Gwydyr, English politician and co-founder of the Marylebone Cricket Club
• 11 July – Thomas Bowdler, physician
• 21 August – William Murdoch, inventor
• 7 September – Elizabeth Ann Linley, singer, wife of Richard Brinsley Sheridan
• 9 September – William Bligh, sailor
• 24 December – George Crabbe, poet

Deaths

• 10 January – Edward Cave, editor and publisher
• 16 February – Richard Mead, physician
• 27 February – John Brownlow, 1st Viscount Tyrconnel, English politician
• 6 March – Henry Pelham, Prime Minister
• 2 April – Thomas Carte, historian
• 23 May – John Wood, the Elder, architect
• 2 June – Ebenezer Erskine, Scottish Secessionist minister
• 7 July – Frances Seymour, Duchess of Somerset
• 23 August – William Cleghorn, Scottish philosopher
• 29 September – William Keen, first resident judicial officer in the British colony of Newfoundland
• 8 October – Henry Fielding, novelist