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The Aneurin Great War Project: Timeline Part 6 - The Georgian Wars, 1764 to 1815 Copyright Notice: This material was written and published in Wales by Derek J. Smith (Chartered Engineer). It forms part of a multifile e-learning resource, and subject only to acknowledging Derek J. Smith's rights under international copyright law to be identified as author may be freely downloaded and printed off in single complete copies solely for the purposes of private study and/or review. Commercial exploitation rights are reserved. The remote hyperlinks have been selected for the academic appropriacy of their contents; they were free of offensive and litigious content when selected, and will be periodically checked to have remained so. Copyright © 2013-2021, Derek J. Smith. First published 09:00 BST 30th May 2013. This version 09:00 GMT 20th January 2021 [BUT UNDER CONSTANT EXTENSION AND CORRECTION, SO CHECK AGAIN SOON] This timeline supports the Aneurin series of interdisciplinary scientific reflections on why the Great War failed so singularly in its bid to be The War to End all Wars. It presents actual or best-guess historical event and introduces theoretical issues of cognitive science as they become relevant. UPWARD Author's Home Page Project Aneurin, Scope and Aims Master References List BACKWARD IN TIME Part 1 - (Ape)men at War, Prehistory to 730 Part 2 - Royal Wars (Without Gunpowder), 731 to 1272 Part 3 - Royal Wars (With Gunpowder), 1273-1602 Part 4 - The Religious Civil Wars, 1603-1661 Part 5 - Imperial Wars, 1662-1763 FORWARD IN TIME Part 7 - Economic Wars, 1816-1869 Part 8 - The War Machines, 1870-1894 Part 9 - Insults at the Weigh-In, 1895-1914 Part 10 - The War Itself, 1914 Part 10 - The War Itself, 1915 Part 10 - The War Itself, 1916 Part 10 - The War Itself, 1917 Part 10 - The War Itself, 1918 Part 11 - Deception as a Profession, 1919 to date The Timeline Items 1764 Automated Spinning Machinery (I): Based in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, the British textiles millwright James Hargreaves [Wikipedia biography=>1768] experiments with a device now known as a "spinning Jenny", a partly automated hand-powered machine for the simultaneous spinning of several strands of cotton weft1 for subsequent weaving into a linen warp1. Around the same time the inventor Thomas Highs [Wikipedia biography] and the clockmaker John Kay [of Warrington] [Wikipedia biography=>1769] are carrying out similar experimentation in Leigh, Lancashire. None of the resulting prototypes is commercially viable [continued 1767 ...]. [THREAD = THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION] 1ASIDE: Readers unfamiliar with the difference between warp and weft in the weaving process should click here for a Wikipedia technical briefing. 1764 The French government takes the gunsmiths at St. Étienne [<=1760] into state ownership as a Royal Arms Factory. [THREAD = WW1 ARTILLERY] 1764 [11th April] Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia [1763<=>1772] and Catherine II (the Great) of Russia [1762<=>1766] sign a mutual aid pact guaranteeing Prussian control of Silesia in exchange for Prussian support of Russia against both the Austrian and Ottoman Empires. [THREAD = THE SHAPING OF THE MODERN WORLD] 1764 [16th November] Based in New York City and having already been in post for some months Thomas Gage [Wikipedia biography=>1768] is confirmed as Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America. He also retains command of the 22nd Regiment of Foot [1751<=>1782]. [THREAD = THE SHAPING OF THE MODERN WORLD] 1765 The Scottish writer James Macpherson publishes "The Works of Ossian" in which he claims to have collected and translated the poems of a Dark Age Irish prince named Oisin ["Ossian"]. For reasons which still need to be fully investigated, "Ossian" receives a very mixed reception. Many were entranced by its being a record of the past travails of people who might just have been the reader's own ancestors [precisely why this should appeal is one of the outstanding psychological puzzles]; others doubted both its historical accuracy or its literary worth [Samuel Johnson would famously dismiss it as "a gross imposition" upon the intellect]. It inspired paintings by Gérard, Girodet (1805), and Ingres (1813). [THREAD = WW1 ROMANTIC NATIONALISM] 1765 [22nd March] The Stamp Act, 1765, and the "Loyal Nine": The British Parliament passes the Duties in American Colonies Act, 1765, imposing thereby a tax on all documentation produced in the Colonies in order to offset the costs of the troops stationed there. The Act will prove highly unpopular with the Colonials, who generally oppose taxation by a government wherein they are not properly represented. Opposition to the Act is led initially by the "Loyal Nine" - a pressure group of local Bostonian tradesmen including a journalist named Benjamin Edes [Wikipedia biography], editor of the Boston Gazette - and from 14th August, as numbers grow, by the "Sons of Liberty" [see separate entry below]. A Boston businessman named Paul Revere [Wikipedia biography=>1770 (5th March)] supports Edes by providing him with occasional inflammatory images. The Act will be repealed - not because it is wrong in any ethical sense, but because it has become uncollectable in a practical sense - on 18th March 1766. [THREADS = THE SHAPING OF WW1 EUROPE and WW1 PROPAGANDA AND ATROCITIES] 1765 [14th August] The "Sons of Liberty": The "Loyal Nine" [<=preceding entry] have now grown into a widespread network of provocateurs dedicated to fomenting direct action against the tax collectors who have been recruited to administer the Stamp Act [<=preceding entry]. They like to regard themselves as a "patriotic underground" (Holt, 2012 online), and amongst their ringleaders is one Ebenezer McIntosh [no convenient biography]. The tax collectors soon resign in fear for their lives. [THREADS = THE SHAPING OF WW1 EUROPE and WW1 PROPAGANDA AND ATROCITIES] 1765 [18th August] Upon the death of the Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke Francis I of Austria [<=1745] his major titles pass to his first-born son as Archduke Joseph II of Austria [Wikipedia biography=>1778], whilst the title of Grand Duke of Tuscany passes to his third-born (second surviving) son Leopold II of Austria [Wikipedia biography=>1770]. The 15th of his 16 children is the nine-year-old Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria [Dauphine of France]1770 [Queen Consort Marie Antoinette of France]1774 [Wikipedia biography=>1770]. [THREAD = THE SHAPING OF THE MODERN WORLD] 1765 [29th August or hereabouts] The British ironmaster Anthony Bacon I [National Library of Wales 1 2 biography=>1777] leases mining rights at Nantyglo [map=>1792], in the parish of Aberystruth , near Blaunau3, South Wales. At much the same time he joins with William Brownrigg 4 [Wikipedia biography=>1777] and Charles Wood [<=1763] in leasing a 4000-acre riverside site by the River Taff at Cyfarthfa [map, etc.=>1777], Merthyr Tydfil, where they build a potting and stamping [<=1763] ironworks. These facilities are extended the following year when works begins on a 50-foot-high coke-fuelled blast furnace [=>1777]. Bacon also acquires a 1763 lease from the Earl of Plymouth on land to the south-east of Merthyr Tydfil, naming the new site the Plymouth Ironworks [map=>1777]. [THREAD = THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION] 1ASIDE - NANTYGLO: The Welsh words nant-y-glo mean "brook of coal", indicating that a coal seam had been cut down into by a waterway. Such seams can then be readily exploited by following them away from the point of discovery using open-cast or deep methods of extraction as local circumstances dictate. 2ASIDE - ABERYSTRUTH: Not to be confused with Aberystwyth. Aberystruth is an ancient parish boundary, rather than a geographically distinct town, and hence is omitted from many modern maps. 3ASIDE - BLAENAU: This Welsh word rhymes rather conveniently with "miner" - compare the closing lines of Verse #1 of "The Bells of Rhymney" (Seeger-Davies, 1965) [hear it now at http://soundcloud.com/the-byrds-collective/bells-of-rhymney-remaster]. 4ASIDE - CYFARTHFA: The site would have been wild moorland prior to its development. This origin of the Welsh place-name is obscure but indicates a place of barking or howling, so perhaps a local hunting spot. The ruins of six of the original blast furnaces are nowadays an open air heritage museum [coordinates and image]. 1765 The British businessman Matthew Boulton [Wikipedia biography] erects a "manufactuary" at Soho, Birmingham, to produce small metal objects such as snuff boxes, candlesticks, buckles, and the like. [THREAD = THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION] 1765 [7th December] Upon the death of Capel Hanbury II [<=1741] his Pontypool Ironworks [1725<=>1784] passes to John Hanbury III [Wikipedia biography=>1774]. [THREAD = THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION] 1766 The Anglo-Russian Trade Agreement [1766]: Having already done likewise with Prussia [<=1764], Catherine II (the Great) of Russia [1764<=>1768] establishes trade cooperation with Britain. She then takes advantage of the relative stability on her northern borders to turn her attention to the troublesome Ottoman Empire in the south [continues =>1768 (6th October) ...]. [THREAD = THE SHAPING OF THE MODERN WORLD] 1766 A patent is awarded to Richard Ford [no convenient biography] of the Coalbrookdale Ironworks [1740<=>1768] for a system of "tandem rolling" iron sheet, that is to say, of passing the output from one rolling stand directly to another until the desired thickness of plate or bar is achieved. (This sounds easier than it is because the devil is in the detail - every stand must perforce be turning faster - and very precisely so - than the one before; too fast and the sheet will tear, too slow and it will ripple!) [THREAD = THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION] ********** LORRAINE FINALLY BECOMES FRENCH ********** 1766 [23rd February] Upon the death of Stanislaw Lesczczyński [<=1738] and as laid down in the Treaty of Vienna [<=1737 (12th July)] the Duchy of Lorraine duly becomes part of France, entering what Marshal Joffre will later describe as "France's maternal embrace".