James Brewer doubles the site and establishes the Star and Garter as a major hotel

English chemist John Dalton reads a paper describing his Law of Partial Pressure in gases (discovered in 1801)

At the end of his Partial Pressure paper, John Dalton makes brief mention of his radical theory of differing atomic weights

Richard Trevithick runs the first locomotive on rails, pulling heavy weights a distance of 9 miiles (15 km) near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales

William Blake includes his poem 'Jerusalem' in the Preface to his book Milton

Lord Castlereagh becomes secretary of state for war in William Pitt's government

Walter Scott publishes The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the long romantic poem that first brings him fame

Napoleon imposes his Continental System, designed to strangle Britain's trade

To counteract Napoleon's Continental System, Britain passes orders in council penalizing any vessel trading into French-held ports

English chemist Humphry Davy uses electrolysis to isolate the elements sodium and potassium

J M W Turner, the artist, buys a plot of land in Twickenham. The site is bounded by what are now Sandycombe Road and St Margaret's Road. Turner also buys a separate plot nearby.

A Scottish clergyman, Alexander Forsyth, invents the percussion cap to help in his pursuit of wildfowl

Legislation abolishing the slave trade is passed in both Britain and America

Anglo-US tensions are heightened by a clash between the frigates Leopard and Chesapeake off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia

George Canning is appointed British foreign secretary in the new administration of the Duke of Portland

English collector Thomas Hope publishes his Greek and Egyptian designs in Household Furniture and Interior Decoration

Baroness Howe acquires Pope's Villa.

The French capture of Madrid provokes a British response and the resulting Peninsular War

Baroness Howe demolishes Pope's Villa, earning herself the sobriquet Queen of the Goths, and builds a new house next door. The demolition is recorded by J M W Turner in his painting 'Pope's Villa at Twickenham'.

Rival British politicians Lord Castlereagh and George Canning fight a duel in which Canning is wounded

The destruction of Drury Lane Theatre lights up the night sky

Mrs Daymer finds Strawberry Hill too expensive to keep up and relinquishes the estate to the eventual heir, Laura Countess of Waldegrave, the grand-daughter of Horace Walpole's brother Edward.

Walter Scott's poem Lady of the Lake brings tourists in unprecedented numbers to Scotland's Loch Katrine

Johann Zoffany (1733-1810) is buried in St Anne's churchyard in Kew.

The British king George III, suffering from porphyria, is deemed unfit to govern and his eldest son becomes Prince Regent