Timeline |
1676 CE | Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745), the first and longest serving prime minister of England, was born. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge and first intended to enter the Church but changed his mind and instead became active in politics. He collected a large number of paintings by old masters at his Houghton Hall home in Norfolk. | |
1701 CE | Robert Walpole, a Whig, was elected to the British House of Commons. | |
1708 CE | Robert Walpole was appointed Secretary of War. | |
1710 CE | Robert Walpole was appointed Treasurer of the Navy. | |
1714 CE | Britain's Queen Anne dies and King George I arrives in England as the reigning monarch. | |
1714 CE | George I of Hanover became King of England inheriting the throne under the Act of Settlement. | |
1715 CE | Robert Walpole was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. | |
1730 CE | Robert Walpole becomes England first prime minister (chief minister). He was not then called the prime minister as the king held all honors. | |
1732 CE | Robert Walpole was given 10 Downing Street by King George II. It became the permanent home of all future British Prime Ministers. | |
1739 CE | Britain and Spain sign the second Convention of Pardo. | |
Feb 1742 CE | The Tory opposition accused Robert Walpole of not supplying enough money for the British armed forces in the war with Spain. Walpole gradually lost the support of the House of Commons, and so the British Walpole government resigned. | |
1742 CE | British ex-premier Walpole becomes earl of Orford. | |
1745 CE | Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, died. | |