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Events from the year 1773 in Great Britain.
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- 1 January – the words of the hymn "Amazing Grace" (written by the curate John Newton) are probably first used in a prayer meeting at Olney, Buckinghamshire.
- 17 January – second voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook in HMS Resolution (1771) becomes the first European explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle.[2]
- March – General Turnpike Act regulates the system of road tolls.[3]
- 15 March – first performance of Oliver Goldsmith's comedy She Stoops to Conquer at the Covent Garden Theatre in London.[4]
- 27 April – Parliament passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.
- 10 May – Tea Act comes into force.[5]
- 27 May
- Parliament passes an Act permitting assay offices in Birmingham and Sheffield.
- Major landslip at Buildwas in the valley of the River Severn.
- May – England and Wales Precipitation totals 151.8 millimetres or 5.98 inches, the wettest May on record and the solitary still-standing record wet month from the eighteenth century.[6]
- 4 June – 1773 Phipps expedition towards the North Pole sets out from the Nore.
- 21 June – Parliament passes the Regulating Act creating the office of governor general, with an advising council, to exercise political authority over the territory under British East India Company rule in India.[5]
- June – John Harrison receives the Longitude prize for his invention of the first marine chronometer.[7]
- 1 July – Parliament passes the Inclosure Act.
- 16 December – a group of American colonists, dressed as Mohawk Indians, steal aboard ships of the East India Company and dump their cargo of tea into Boston Harbor in a protest against British tax policies that became known as the Boston Tea Party.[5]
Undated
- An informal Stock Exchange opens at Threadneedle Street in London.[3]
- First London catering establishment to offer curry, Norrish Street Coffee House.[8]
- Penny Post introduced in Edinburgh.[9]
- Scottish judge James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, begins publication of Of the Origin and Progress of Language, a contribution to evolutionary ideas of the Enlightenment.
- Hester Chapone publishes the conduct book for young women Letters on the Improvement of the Mind.
- The Jockey Club's first Race calendar, edited by James Weatherby.[3]
- 14 January – William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst, ambassador to China and Governor-General of India (died 1857)
- 27 January – Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (died 1843)
- 6 April – James Mill, historian, economist, political theorist and philosopher (died 1836)
- 19 May – Arthur Aikin, chemist and mineralogist (died 1854)
- 13 June – Thomas Young, physicist (died 1829)
- 23 July – Thomas Brisbane, Scottish astronomer and Governor of New South Wales (died 1860)
- 23 October – Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey, judge and literary critic (died 1850)
- 28 October – Simon Goodrich, mechanical engineer (died 1847)
- 6 November – Henry Hunt, politician (died 1835)
- 21 December – Robert Brown, botanist (died 1858)
- 27 December – George Cayley, aviation pioneer (died 1857)
- 9 February – John Gregory, physician, medical writer and moralist (born 1724)
- 24 March – Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, statesman and man of letters (born 1694)
- 15 May – Alban Butler, Catholic priest and writer (born 1710)
- 23 July – George Edwards, naturalist (born 1693)
- 24 August – George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, politician (born 1709)
- 7 November – Andrew Brice, printer and writer (born 1690)
- 15 November – Bernard Gates, composer (born 1686)
- 16 November – John Hawkesworth, writer (born c. 1715)
- 20 November – Charles Jennens, landowner (born c. 1700)
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