Shelley, Mary Timeline

Year Historical Literary Author
1797 Failure of French attempt to invade through Wales. Mutinies in navy
Naval mutinies at Spithead and Nore
Birth of Schubert
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin born in London; her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, dies ten days later
1798 French forces land in Ireland. Government extends control of newspapers. Nelson defeats French in Egypt at Battle of the Nile

Battle of the Nile; Nelson destroys French fleet

Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads
Wollstonecraft's The Wrongs of Woman published

Malthus: An Essay on the Principle of Population

Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin, marries Mary Clairmont
1799 Combination Act bans some political societies
Introduction of income tax
Britain at war with France
Godwin's St Leon
1800 Act of Union of Ireland with Britain (takes effect 1801)
Food riots in many places in Britain
Volta generates electricity
Maria Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent
Walter Scott: The Eve of St John
1801 High food prices and economic and social unrest
First Factory Act
First cencus of England and Wales
Thomas Jefferson elected President of the USA
Union of Great Britain and Ireland
1802 Peace of Amiens ends war with France
Health and Morals of Apprentices Act passes Parliament
1803 War with France begins again
Richard Trevithick builds first working railway steam engine
Godwin's Life of Chaucer
1804 Napoleon preparing invasion of England
Napoleon crowned Emperor
War with Spain
Ann and Jane Taylor's Original Poems for Infant Minds
1805 Nelson's victory at Trafalgar
Battle of Austerlitz

Walter Scott: The Lay of the Last Minstrel 


Robert Southey: Poems 
1806 Napoleon defeats Prussians and establishes trade blockade of Britain
End of the Holy Roman Empire
1807

Slave trade abolished in all British possessions

Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare
Bowdler: The Family Shakespeare

Hazlitt: Essays 


Leigh Hunt: Essays
1808 Start of Peninsular War

Beethoven: Fifth and Sixth Symphonies

Cowper: Poems
1809 Proposals for Parliamentary reform are defeated in the House of Commons
Quarterly Review founded
First use of gas-lighting in central London
Battle of Corunna 

Arthur Wellesley defeats the French at Talavera and is created Duke of Wellington


Tennyson is born
Birth of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet
1810 George III suffering from mental illness
Napoleon annexes the Netherlands
Chopin and Schumann are born
Coleridge lectures on Shakespeare
1811 Luddite machine-breakers active in the Midland counties of England.

Prince of Wales becomes Regent following the insanity of his father George III


Luddites begin destroying factory machinery
Shelley is expelled from Oxford
1812 War with America begins (until 1814)
Further Luddite unrest
Prime Minister Spencer Percival assassinated
Napoleon begins invasion of Russia
Wellington defeats French at Salamanca
Battle of Borodino

Napoleon enters Moscow but begins a retreat one month later
Birth of Robert Browning, poet
The Brothers Grimm publish their Tales
Shelley publishes Declaration of Rights
Visits Dundee and meets Percy Bysshe Shelley
1813 Toleration Act for Unitarians
Leigh Hunt imprisoned for libelling Prince Regent
Wellington enters France
Napoleon defeated at Battle of Leipzig
Prussian army begins invasion of France
1814 Robert Stephenson builds steam locomotive
Napoleon abdicates and is banished to Elba
End of war with America
Congress of Vienna
Allies enter Paris
British burn Washington in USA
Scott's Waverley Mary Shelley elopes with Percy Bysshe Shelley. Travels to Continent with Percy Bysshe Shelley and her stepsister Claire Clairmont. Returns to England in the autumn
1815 Napoleon returns from Elba and is defeated at Waterloo
Corn Law passed

Leigh Hunt released from prison on Feb. 3 


Napoleon returns to France and enters Paris
Napoleon finally defeated by Wellington at the battle of Waterloo
Napoleon banished to St Helena
John Nash begins the Brighton Pavilion
Scott's Guy Mannering Mary Shelley gives birth to a daughter who dies within two weeks
1816 Riots in East Anglia and the manufacturing districts of the north of England
Economic depression
William Cobbett's Political Register

 Shelley marries Mary Godwin

Scott's The Antiquary Gives birth to son, William.
Travels with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Claire to Continent; they stay at the Villa Deodati with Lord Byron and Polidori
Begins writing Frankenstein
Returns to England. Fanny Imlay, Mary's half-sister, and Percy Bysshe Shelley's wife, Harriet, commit suicide.
Marries Percy Bysshe Shelley in December
1817 Prince Regent's coach attacked: further repressive measures by Government. Further social unrest
Manchester 'Blanketeers' march to London
Scott's Rob Roy
Hazlitt's Characters of Shakespeare's Plays
Southey's Wat Tyler
Shelley completes Frankenstein while living in Marlow, Bucks
Gives birth to daughter, Clara.
History of a Six Week's Tour published
Shelley's Laon and Cythna
1818 Proposals for Parliamentary reform are twice defeated in the House of Commons
Percy and Mary Shelley depart from England for the final time
Peacock's Nightmare Abbey
Scott's Heart of Midlothian
Shelley's Frankenstein published
1819 Peterloo massacres in Manchester and passing of Six Acts placing restrictions on the press and public assemblies
Poor Relief Act passed
Factory Act passed
Queen Victoria born
Birth of Albert (later Prince Consort)
Scott's Ivanhoe; The Bride of Lammermoor

Leigh Hunt: Hero and Leander


J.H. Reynolds: Benjamin the Waggoner; Peter Bell (both parodies of Wordsworth)

Shelleys travel to Italy, living in Lucca, Este (where Clara dies), Rome and Naples. Move to Rome, where William dies, and then Livorno (Leghorn). Mary writes Mathilda
1820 Death of George III and accession of George IV
Royal Astronomical Society founded
Lamb's Essays of Elia
Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer
Shelleys move to Florence, where son, Percy Florence, is born.
Move to Pisa. Mary writes Prosperine and Midas
1821 Another reform bill defeated in Commons
Greek War of Independence
Scott's Kenilworth
Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
Shelley's move to Livorno, Bagni di San Giuliano and back to Pisa
1822

Colony for freed slaves founded in Liberia 

Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater Shelleys move to Lerici. Mary Shelley suffers a miscarriage. Percy Bysshe Shelley drowns. Mary moves to Genoa
1823 Scott's Quentin Durward
Hazlitt's Liber Amoris
Shelley's Valperga and second edition of Frankenstein published. Returns to London
1824 Combination Acts repealed, thus giving trade unions right to exist Scott's Redgauntlet
1825 Stockton - Darlington Railway opens Hazlitt's The Spirit of the Age
1826 Power looms destroyed by unemployed weavers
Further attempts at Parliamentary reform defeated
Shelley's The Last Man published
1828 Test and Corporation Acts repealed
Duke of Wellington becomes Prime Minister
1829 Catholic Emancipation Act
Robert Peel creates metropolitan police force
Carlyle's Signs of the Times
1830 Death of George IV and accession of William IV
Earl Grey's Whig reforming government
'Captain Swing' rural riots
Opening of Manchester - Liverpool Railway
July Revolution in France
Greek independence from Ottoman Empire secured
Cobbett's Rural Rides
Charles Lyell (Dante Gabriel?s Godfather), Principles of Geology
Shelley's Perkin Warbeck published
1831 Wellington resigns as Prime Minister in opposition to Parliamentary reform
National Union of the Working Class founded
Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction
Cholera outbreak in England
Mill's The Spirit of the Age Mary Shelley: Revised third edition of Frankenstein published
1832 Parliamentary Reform Act passed
Passage of the Great Reform Act
Morse invents the telegraph
Chambers' Edinburgh Journal and Penny Magazine (-1837) begin
1833 First Tracts for the Times published
Factory Act limits children's working hours and includes provision for education
Abolition of Slavey Act
Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (-1834)
1834 New Poor Law
British Empire abolishes slavery
1836 Mary Shelley's father, William Godwin dies
1837 Death of William IV and accession of Queen Victoria
Brunel, Great Western Railway
Carlyle's The French Revolution
Sarah Stickney Ellis, The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits
1838 Anti-Corn Law League founded
Chartist petitions published
London to Birmingham railway opens
People's Charter issued
Letitia Landon dies, Gold Coast
1839 First Factory Inspector's report Carlyle's Chartism
Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle
Ellis' The Women of England:Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits
1840 Penny post begins
Queen Victoria marries her cousin Albert, who becomes Prince Consort.
Mary Shelley visits Europe again
1841 The Tories come to power. Sir Robert Peel becomes Prime Minister
Punch begins
1842 Jowett becomes tutor at Balliol College, Oxford
Chartist riots. Report on Sanitary Conditions of Labouring Population
Mudie's Lending Library opens
Illustrated London News begins
1842-43: Visits Continent again
1843 Theatre Regulation Act Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present
Ruskin's Modern Painters (vol. 1)
1844 Co-operative Society founded in Rochdale
Factory Act (women and children)
Expansion of railways across Britain
Disraeli's Coningsby, or The New Generation published Percy Bysshe Shelley's father dies and Percy Florence succeeds to his estate and title
1845 John Henry Newman converts to Catholicism
Financial speculation in Railways
Onset of the Irish potato famine
The first Anglican sisterhood, Park Village, is founded in the Christ Church parish
Disraeli's Sybil, or The Two Nations published
E. A. Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination
1846 Repeal of Corn Laws
Famine in Ireland
Whigs come to Power
1847 Railway reaches Dorchester
Ten Hours' Factory Act
Disraeli's Tancred
1848 Chartist demonstrations in London following by the collapse of the Chartist movement
Democratic Revolutions in Europe.
Cholera epidemic
Public Health Act
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founded
Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto
Newman's Loss and Gain
1849 Bedford College for Women founded Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke
1850 Roman Catholic hierarchy established
Public Libraries Act
Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
1851 Great Exhibition in London
Taylor Mill's The Enfranchisement of Women
Ruskin's Stones of Venice

Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe

Mary Shelley dies from a brain tumour, aged 53
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