The Times, England's oldest daily newspaper, becomes the first to print on a steam press

Britain and the United States sign the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812

English chemist Humphry Davy invents a safety lamp that shields the naked flame and prevents explosions in mines

Scottish engineer John McAdam builds the first macadamized road, in the Bristol region of southwest England

The first news of the victory at Waterloo is given to the British government by a private citizen, Nathan Mayer Rothschild

Napoleon, held on a British warship off Torquay and hoping now to live in Britain, becomes an instant tourist attraction

Wellington is presented with a twice-life-size nude marble statue, by Canova, of his vanquished enemy Napoleon

English architect John Nash designs the exotic Royal Pavilion in Brighton for the Prince Regent

On the death of Princess Charlotte, not one of seven princes has an heir to succeed to the British throne in the next generation

Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes probably his best-known poem, the sonnet Ozymandias

Two of Jane Austen's novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, are published in the year after her death

Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, a Gothic tale about giving life to an artificial man

William Cobbett brings back to England the bones of Thomas Paine, who died in the USA in 1809

Magistrates order troops to fire on a crowd in Manchester, in what becomes known as the Peterloo massacre

Byron begins publication in parts of his longest poem, Don Juan an epic satirical comment on contemporary life

The United Kingdom formally adopts the gold standard for its currency, after using it on a de facto basis since 1717

Walter Scott publishes Ivanhoe, a tale of love, tournaments and sieges at the time of the crusades

The British king George III dies after 59 years on the throne – a longer reign than any of his predecessors

On the death of his father, George III, the Prince Regent succeeds to the British throne as George IV

English poet John Keats publishes Ode to a Nightingale, inspired by the bird's song in his Hampstead garden

English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Ode to the West Wind, written mainly in a wood near Florence

French painter Théodore Géricault begins a two-year visit to Britain

English painter John Constable acquires a house in Hampstead, a region of London that features frequently in his work

English author Thomas De Quincey publishes his autobiographical Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

English poet John Keats dies in Rome at the age of twenty-five