Events from the year 1816 in the United Kingdom. Incumbents Monarch – George III Regent – George, Prince Regent Prime Minister – Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (Tory) Foreign Secretary – Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh Parliament – 5th Events 9 January – Sir Humphry Davy's Davy lamp is first tested underground as a coal mining safety lamp at Hebburn Colliery in the Durham Coalfield. 30 January – wrecking of the Sea Horse, Boadicea and Lord Melville (military transport ships) off the coast of Ireland in a gale with the loss of around 570. 20 February – Preston becomes the first English town outside London with gas lighting publicly available, promoted by the Jesuit priest Joseph Dunn. 18 March – income tax abolished. 24 April – Lord Byron flees Britain to escape a growing scandal, his failed marriage and his growing debts. 2 May – Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (later King of the Belgians) marries Princess Charlotte Augusta, daughter of the Prince Regent, but she dies the following year. 16 May – Beau Brummell flees England by way of the port of Dover, sailing to France in order to escape his gambling debts. 22 May – Littleport and Ely riots break out as a result of economic distress in East Anglia. 14 June – Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace established in London. 26 June – first prisoners admitted to the National Penitentiary, Millbank Prison, in London. 28 June – Luddites destroy the bobbinet lace machines in John Heathcoat's Loughborough factory. 13 August – an earthquake in Aberdeen is the strongest ever in Scotland. 27 August – Britain and the Netherlands bombard Algiers in an attempt to suppress slavery by the North African Barbary states. 23–27 October – completion of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. 10 November – troop transport Harpooner, returning from Quebec to Britain, is wrecked at Cape Pine on Newfoundland (island) with the loss of 208 of the 385 people on board. 2 December – Spa Fields riots: a mass meeting of conspirators dispersed by the police. Unknown dates The Coinage Act and Great Recoinage attempt to stabilise the currency by reintroduction of a silver coinage (for transactions under forty shillings) and changing the gold coinage from the guinea valued at 21 shillings to the slightly lighter sovereign worth 20 shillings and defining the value of the pound sterling relative to gold. By the Pillory