1767 in Great Britain
Events from the year 1767 in Great Britain.
Incumbents
Events
- 9 June – the Townshend Acts are passed by Parliament, placing a tax on common products, such as lead, paper, paint, glass, and tea.
- 17 June – Cornish Royal Navy Captain Samuel Wallis becomes the first European to visit the island of Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean, during HMS Dolphin second circumnavigation.
- 3 July – Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean is sighted from HMS Swallow by 15-year-old Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on a Royal Navy expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret, the first definite European sighting.
- 7 October – Frederick North, Lord North, becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer after the sudden death of Charles Townshend.
- 12 October – Dr William Watson, at the Foundling Hospital in London, conducts an early planned and controlled clinical trial.
- 28 October – a boycott of 38 types of goods imported from England is resolved by merchants in Boston, Massachusetts, as a response to the taxes imposed by Britain.
- 20 November – the "Declaratory Act" goes into effect, repealing unpopular duties imposed in 1765 on the Thirteen Colonies but declaring Parliament's authority to be the same in North America as in Britain.
- Undated – Josiah Spode establishes the Spode pottery manufactory at Stoke-on-Trent.
Publications
- The final volume of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne.The History and Present State of Electricity by Joseph Priestley.An Essay on the History of Civil Society by Adam Ferguson.The Farmer's Letters to the People of England, containing the sentiments of a practical husbandman... by Arthur Young.
- First annual volume of The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris, produced by Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, giving navigators the means to find longitude at sea using tables of lunar distance.
Births
- January – William Shearman, physician and medical writer
- 1 January – Maria Edgeworth, novelist
- 6 March – Davies Gilbert, engineer, author, and politician
- 22 March – Robert Grosvenor, 1st Marquess of Westminster, Member of Parliament
- 24 April – Dorothy Ripley, missionary and writer
- 20 August – Lord William Russell, Member of Parliament
- 3 October – Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton, politician
- 2 November – Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, member of the Royal Family
- 2 December – Lord Charles Somerset, governor of the Cape Colony unknown dates
- * George Barret, Jr., painter
- * Bewick Bridge, mathematician
- * Lewis Lavenu, musician, music seller and publisher
Deaths
- 1 April – Laurence Oliphant, Jacobite soldier
- 10 July – Alexander Monro, physician
- 26 July – Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, mistress of George II of Great Britain
- 4 September – Charles Townshend, politician
- 17 September – Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany, member of the Royal Family
- 26 October – Harry Pulteney, soldier and Member of Parliament
- 1 December – Henry Erskine, 10th Earl of Buchan, Freemason
- 22 December – John Newbery, publisher