The king's son, William, Duke of Clarence, becomes Keeper (or Ranger) of Bushy Park and establishes his mistress, the actress Dora Jordan, in Bushy House

Samuel Taylor Coleridge says that while writing Kubla Khan he is interrupted by 'a person on business from Porlock'

George Gostling II inherits Whitton Park and commisions Humphrey Repton to landscape the grounds.

Captain George Vancouver, who discovered Vancouver Island and retired to live in Petersham, is buried in St Peter’s

Dora gives birth in Bushy House to Mary, the first of seven children of the Duke of Clarence to be born in the house in the following nine years

English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly publish Lyrical Ballads, a milestone in the Romantic movement

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is published in Lyrical Ballads

English surveyor William Smith compiles a manuscript, Order of the Strata, revealing chronology through fossils in rocks

The British parliament passes a Combination Act, classing any association of labourers as a criminal conspiracy

The Queen’s Head pub is built in the orchard of John Dee’s house

Telford proposes a bold new London Bridge

Italian physicist Alessandro Volta describes to the Royal Society in London how his 'pile' of discs can produce electric current

Welsh industrialist Robert Owen takes charge of a mill at New Lanark and develops it as an experiment in paternalistic socialism

The Act of Union comes into effect, linking Ireland with Britain to form the United Kingdom

British prime minister William Pitt resigns when George III vetoes Catholic emancipation, but is recalled three years later

Both France and Britain, engaged against each other in the Napoleonic Wars, take the first census of their populations

The family of John Henry Newman (later Cardinal Newman) move to Grove House (now Grey Court House), where they stay for five years

King George III has the White House at Kew demolished and instructs James Wyatt to build a castellated palace by the river, which was never completed.

The British parliament passes the first Factory Act, limiting a child's working day in a factory to twelve hours

A steam tug designed by William Symington, the Charlotte Dundas, goes into service on the Forth and Clyde canal

The treaty agreed at Amiens between France and Britain brings a welcome lull after ten years of warfare in Europe

English journalist William Cobbett launches a weekly newspaper, The Political Register, that he continues till his death in 1835

A horse-drawn railroad opens between Wandsworth and Croydon

Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick drives a steam carriage in London, from Holborn to Paddington and back

The peace of Amiens comes to an abrupt end when Britain declares war again on France