1717 in Great Britain

Incumbents

• Monarch – George I
• Regent – George, Prince of Wales
• Parliament – 5th

  Events

• 1 January – Count Carl Gyllenborg, the Swedish ambassador, is arrested in London over a plot to assist the Pretender James Francis Edward Stuart.
• 4 January – the Dutch Republic, Britain and France sign the Triple Alliance.
• February – as part of the treaty between France and Britain, James Stuart leaves France and seeks refuge with the Pope.
• 2 March – dancer John Weaver performs in the first ballet in Britain, shown at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, The Loves of Mars and Venus.
• 31 March – Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, extends the Bangorian Controversy by delivering a sermon to, and supposedly at the request of, King George on The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ with the text "My kingdom is not of this world", concluding there is no Biblical justification for church government.
• 24 June – Grand Lodge of London and Westminster, the first Freemasonic Grand Lodge, is founded.
• 1 July – Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, is acquitted of conspiracy with the French to put the Pretender on the throne.
• 17 July – George Frideric Handel's Water Music performed on a barge on the River Thames for King George I.
• July – Indemnity Act frees most Jacobites from imprisonment.
• August – Handel becomes house composer at Cannons.
• September – the first known Druid revival ceremony is held by John Toland at Primrose Hill, in London, at the Autumnal Equinox, to found the Mother Grove, which is later to become the Ancient Order of Druids.
• November – a rift between the King and his son the Prince of Wales leads to the latter being banished from the royal household.
• The King ceases to attend meetings of the Cabinet regularly.
• Thomas Fairchild, a nurseryman at Hoxton in the East End of London, becomes the first person to produce a successful scientific plant hybrid, Dianthus Caryophyllus barbatus, known as "Fairchild's Mule".
• The Board of Ordnance establishes an Officer Corps of Engineers within the British Army, the immediate predecessor of the Royal Engineers.
• Kentish Post newspaper begins publication in Canterbury.

  Births

• 2 January – Edward Seymour, 9th Duke of Somerset, son of Edward Seymour, 8th Duke of Somerset and Mary Webb
• 5 January – William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington, statesman
• 23 January – Benjamin Beddome, Baptist minister and hymnist
• 29 January – Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, soldier and conqueror of Quebec
• c. 11 February – William Williams Pantycelyn, Welsh hymn writer
• 19 February – David Garrick, actor
• 5 June – Emanuel Mendez da Costa, botanist
• 28 June – Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician
• 15 August – John Metcalf, roadbuilder
• 4 September – Job Orton, dissenting minister
• 24 September – Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, writer
• 28 September – William Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, diplomat and statesman
• c. October – James Paine, architect
• 30 October – Jonathan Hornblower, pioneer of steam power
• 13 November – Prince George William, member of the Royal Family
• 17 November – Caroline Townshend, 1st Baroness Greenwich, peeress
• 16 December – Elizabeth Carter, writer
• 25 December – George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield

  Deaths

• 8 March – Abraham Darby I, first of that name of three generations of a Quaker family that was key to the development of the Industrial Revolution
• 19 March – John Campbell, 1st Earl of Breadalbane and Holland, royalist
• 20 May – John Trevor, Speaker of the House of Commons
• August
• *William Blathwayt, civil servant and politician
• *William Cochrane, MP
• 30 August – William Lloyd, bishop
• 17 September – Robert Cotton, politician
• 26 October – Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, mistress of James II of England
• 26 November – Daniel Purcell, English composer
• 4 December – William Hamilton, surgeon in the British East India Company
• 5 December – Richard Onslow, 1st Baron Onslow, politician

  Unknown dates

• Jane Wiseman, actress, poet and playwright
• William Diaper, poet of the Augustan era
• William Boyd, 3rd Earl of Kilmarnock, nobleman