1723 in Great Britain

Events from the year 1723 in Great Britain.

Incumbents edit

8 March – the Chelsea Waterworks Company receives a Royal Charter.^[2]
17 May – Christopher Layer is hanged, drawn and quartered for his part in the Jacobite Atterbury Plot
May – Parliament passes the Black Act making poaching a capital offence.^[3]
June – Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, receives a pardon for his part in the Jacobite Rebellion and is allowed to return to Britain, but not to sit in the House of Lords.^[4] Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, is banished from the country during the year for his part in Jacobite plotting.^[5]
10 October – Treaty of Charlottenburg signed with Prussia.^[6]

23 February – Richard Price, philosopher (died 1791)
24 February – John Burgoyne, general (died 1792)
3 March – John Brown, merchant and ship-owner (died 1808)
5 March – Princess Mary of Great Britain (died 1772)
23 April – Hannah Snell, soldier (died 1792)
16 June (5 June O.S.) – Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher (died 1790)
20 June
- Adam Ferguson, Scottish philosopher and historian (died 1816)
- Theophilus Lindsey, theologian (died 1808)
10 July – William Blackstone, jurist (died 1780)
16 July – Sir Joshua Reynolds, painter (died 1792)
8 November – John Byron, admiral (died 1786)

25 February – Sir Christopher Wren, architect, astronomer and mathematician (born 1632)
26 February – Thomas d'Urfey, writer (born 1653)
31 March – Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, Governor of New York and New Jersey (born 1661)
11 April – John Robinson, diplomat (born 1650)
27 May – Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond, illegitimate son of Charles II (born 1672)
26 July – Robert Bertie, 1st Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, statesman (born 1660)
17 August – Joseph Bingham, scholar (born 1668)
10 October – William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper, Lord Chancellor (born c.1665)
19 October – Godfrey Kneller, painter (born 1646, Lübeck)
1 December – Susanna Centlivre, dramatist and actress (born 1669)

^ "History of Sir Robert Walpole - GOV.UK". www.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
^ "Royal Charters, Privy Council website". Archived from the original on 24 August 2007. Retrieved 24 August 2007.
^ "BBC History British History Timeline". Archived from the original on 9 September 2007. Retrieved 3 September 2007.
^ Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
^ Hayton, D. W. (2004). "Atterbury, Francis (1663–1732)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/871. Retrieved 22 November 2012. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
^ Everett, Jason M., ed. (2006). "1723". The People's Chronology. Thomson Gale.
^ "Icons, a portrait of England 1700–1750". Archived from the original on 17 August 2007. Retrieved 24 August 2007.