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Key to Royal Academicians

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Key to Royal Academicians

by Charles (Cantelowe, Cantlo) Bestland, after Henry Singleton
stipple engraving, published 1802 (1795)
11 1/2 in. x 15 in. (292 mm x 381 mm) plate size; 13 1/2 in. x 19 1/2 in. (343 mm x 494 mm) paper size
acquired unknown source, 1963
Reference Collection
NPG D36021

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Events of 1802back to top

Current affairs

After returning from Naples, Nelson tours England with the diplomat and antiquarian Sir William Hamilton and his wife Emma, with whom he was having an affair. With Nelson's status confirmed as a national hero, their reception outrivals that of the King.
Extensive strikes in government shipyards led by John Gast.

Art and science

Francis Jeffrey, MP and arbiter of literary taste, co-founds the Edinburgh Review, the influential Whig quarterly which voiced strong criticism of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey.
The Exchange, where stocks were traded, is rebuilt to cope with an increase in business during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

International

Peace of Amiens; Britain finally agrees to unpopular peace, leaving France the chief power in Europe and returning recent British colonial acquisitions.
Napoleon is declared First Consul of the French Empire for life.
English flock to see the international war plunder now on display at the Louvre in Paris.

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