Chronology

Full chronology version

1719

Publication of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, widely considered the first novel in the English language

John McMurray (John Murray I)

1737

John McMurray is born in Edinburgh to Robert McMurray, a lawyer, and his wife, Jean

1754

Birth of the Reverend George Crabbe, poet, surgeon and clergyman

Montagu House, Bloomsbury, London (later the British Museum) from the north by James Simon, (c. 1715)

1759

The British Museum - one of the first national museums - is opened to the public in London

1762

John McMurray is commissioned into the 34th Company of Marines as a second lieutenant

Fleet Street, London, 1890

1768

The publishing firm is founded when John McMurray buys the bookselling business of William Sandby at 32 Fleet Street; in reaction to anti-Scottish sentiments in London, he changes his name to "Murray"

Sir Walter Scott (portrait by Sir Henry Raeburn, 1822)

1771

Sir Walter Scott is born

1774

Birth of Archibald Constable, publisher and bookseller

1774

Donaldson v Beckett ruling in the House of Lords holds that copyright of published works is not perpetual, but subject to statutory limits

1774

Birth of Robert Southey, poet

1775

Jane Austen is born

1776

Birth of William Blackwood, publisher

Portrait of John Murray II (n.d.)

1778

John Murray II is born, the son of John Murray and his second wife, Hester

1779

William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, is born

1780

William Wilberforce is elected Member of Parliament

Portrait of Mary Somerville (1834)

1780

Birth of Mary Fairfax, later Somerville, a polymath and noted science writer

1780 - 1840

The Industrial Revolution takes place

1785

Birth of Lady Caroline Ponsonby, later Lamb, aristocrat and novelist

1786

Birth of John Cam Hobhouse (1st Baron Broughton), politician, diarist and friend of Lord Byron

Coloured engraving of Lord Byron (1873)

1788

George Gordon Byron (6th Baron Byron) is born

1788

John Murray I publishes the first volume of the English translation of Johann Kaspar Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy, in partnership with Joseph Johnson

1789

Start of the French Revolution

Portrait of Michael Faraday by Thomas Phillips (1842)

1791

English scientist, Michael Faraday, a pioneer in the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry, is born in London

1793

War breaks out between England and the French Republic

Indenture, contracting John Murray II in apprenticeship to Samuel Highley (1793)

1793

John Murray I dies and his son enters into an apprenticeship with Samuel Highley, a former assistant who now became manager of the firm

1794

Byron begins his studies at Aberdeen Grammar School

1797

Scottish geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, is born in Angus

1801 - 1804

Byron attends Harrow School

1801

Act of Union

1802

The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ends hostilities between England and France

1802

The Edinburgh Review is founded by Francis Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Henry Brougham and Francis Horner, and published by Archibald Constable

1803 - 1815

Napoleonic Wars

1804

Birth of Benjamin Disraeli, politician, writer and two-time Prime Minister

Frontispiece to the 1810 edition of A New System of Domestic Cookery

1805

John Murray publishes the first mass-market cookery book: A New System of Domestic Cookery, by a Lady [Maria Rundell]

Caricature of John Cam Hobhouse (c. 1820).

1805

Byron enters Trinity College, Cambridge, where he meets John Cam Hobhouse, John Edleston and Francis Hodgson

1805

Marriage of Caroline Ponsonby to William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

1806

Byron writes The Cornelian, inspired by a gift from John Edleston

1806

Ridge of Newark prints the first volume of Byron's poetry, Fugitive Pieces, which Byron promptly recalls and burns

1807

John Murray II marries Anne, daughter of the late Charles Elliot, an Edinburgh bookseller and publisher

1807

Byron's Hours of Idleness is printed and published by Ridge of Newark

1807

Slavery Trade Act

1807

The Slave Trade Act prohibits the slave trade in the British Empire

Portrait of Caroline Norton by George Hayter (n.d.)

1808

Birth of Caroline Sheridan, later Norton, author and social reformer

Photograph of John Murray III (c. 1845)

1808

John Murray III is born to John Murray II and his wife, Anne Elliot

1808

The Edinburgh Review prints a harsh anonymous review (by Henry Brougham) of Byron's Hours of Idleness

1809 - 1967

The Quarterly Review is founded to provide opposition to the Whiggish politics of the Edinburgh Review; it remains in circulation for over 150 years

1809

Byron responds to Brougham's harsh review by writing English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, which is published anonymously

1809

Birth of Elizabeth Rigby, later Eastlake, author and art critic

Lord Byron in Albanian dress

1809

Byron embarks on a Grand Tour through the Mediterranean, avoiding much of Europe due to the Napoleonic Wars

1809

Birth of William Gladstone, statesman and four-time Prime Minister

Photograph of Charles Darwin by Julia Margaret Cameron (1868)

1809

Charles Darwin is born

1811

Byron's mother, Catherine Gordon Byron, dies

50 Albemarle St, London

1812

Murray's publishing firm moves to 50 Albemarle Street, where it remains for the next 191 years

Part page proof of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" by Lord Byron

1812

Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, cantos I and II, are offered for public sale by Murray

1812

Byron uses his maiden speech in the House of Lords to oppose the Frame Work Bill, which introduced more severe penalties for Luddite behaviour

Portrait of Lady Caroline Lamb by Thomas Lawrence (c.1805)

1812

Byron begins an affair with Lady Caroline Lamb

Frontispiece from page proofs of a new edition of The Giaour (1842)

1813

Murray publishes Byron's The Giaour

1813

Murray publishes Byron's Bride of Abydos

1813

David Livingstone is born

1813

John Murray II secures a lucrative contract to publish the Navy List; begins styling himself as Bookseller to the Admiralty

1814

Murray publishes Byron's The Corsair, Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte and Lara

1814

New Copyright Act is enacted

1814

The first of the Waverley Novels, Waverley, or Tis Sixty Years Since, is published by Archibald Constable & Co.; author Walter Scott chooses to remain anonymous

1815

Murray introduces Byron to Sir Walter Scott; the two form a long-lasting friendship

Title page from Jane Austen's first edition of Emma, published by John Murray in 1816

1815

Jane Austen moves her work to the Murray firm from Thomas Egerton. John Murray publishes Emma

Sketch of Lord and Lady Byron by Lady Caroline Lamb (c.1815)

1815

Byron marries Anne Isabella Noel Milbanke; known as Annabella, or Lady Byron

Watercolour portrait of Ada, Countess of Lovelace by Alfred Edward Chalon (c. 1840).

1815

Augusta Ada Byron, the daughter of Lord and Lady Byron is born; she would later become better known by her married name, Ada Lovelace

1816

Robert Cooke (cousin of John Murray III) is born; he later becomes a key member of the firm

1816

Murray publishes Byron's Parisina, Siege of Corinth, Prisoner of Chillon and Other Poems and canto III of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

1816

Lady Byron leaves Byron, taking Ada; Byron signs a Deed of Separation on April 21

1816

In the summer of 1816, Lord Byron and John Polidori rent the Villa Diodati in Switzerland; in June they are joined by Mary and Percy Shelley and tell each other the ghost stories which will later become cornerstones of the Gothic genre - Frankenstein and The Vampyre

Portrait of Austen Henry Layard (c. 1890)

1817

Austen Henry Layard is born in Paris

Scene from an adaptation of Byron's Manfred performed at the Drury Lane Theatre in London (1863)

1817

Murray publishes Byron's Manfred and Lament of Tasso

1817

Jane Austen dies. Her novels Persuasion and Northanger Abbey are published, posthumously, by the House of Murray

1817

Clara Allegra Byron, the illegitimate child of Lord Byron and the teenage Claire Clairmont, is born in Bath on 12th January

Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire

1817

Byron sells Newstead Abbey, his family's ancestral home

1818

Murray publishes Byron's Beppo anonymously

1818

Murray publishes Childe Harold's Pilgrimage canto IV

1818

Byron begins the first canto of Don Juan

1819

Murray publishes Don Juan cantos I and II anonymously

1819

Maria Rundell asks the firm to stop publishing Domestic Cookery; a court case ensues

1819

Byron announces that he has given his memoirs to a friend, Thomas Moore, to publish after his death

1819

Queen Victoria is born

1819

After falling in love with the newly married Italian aristocrat, Teresa Guiccioli, Byron moves to Ravenna to be near her; during this time he writes his Ravenna Diary and continues Don Juan

Daguerreotype portrait of Washington Irving, c. 1861

1820

Murray publishes Washington Irving's The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, at the instigation of Irving's friend, Sir Walter Scott

1820

King George III dies and is succeeded by his son, George IV

1821

Murray offers Byron 1,000 guineas for Don Juan cantos III, IV and V and an additional 1,000 guineas for Sardanapalus and The Two Foscari

Playbill advertising a performance of Byron's Sardanapalus at the Drury Lane Theatre in London (1834)

1821

Murray publishes Don Juan cantos III, IV, and V, as well as Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari and Cain

1821

With the poet's blessing, Thomas Moore sells Byron's memories to Murray for the sum of £2,100; later he changes his mind and the deal is renegotiated to give Moore and he the power to buy back the memoirs during Byron's lifetime

1821 - 1829

Greek War of Independence

1822

Byron expresses a desire to end his connection with Murray after Murray publishes Don Juan anonymously and omits Byron's dedication of Sardanapalus to Goethe

1822

Murray publishes Byron's Werner

1822

Robert Peel becomes Home Secretary

Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Alfred Clint (c. 1819)

1822

The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowns in his boat, the Don Juan

1822

While boarding at a convent in Italy, Allegra Byron dies at age five

1823

Maria Rundell accepts Murray's offer of £2,100 for the rights to Domestic Cookery

1823

Byron moves to Missolonghi in Greece, becoming involved in the Greek War of Independence

1824

Murray publishes John Franklin's account of his doomed expedition to the mouth of the Coppermine River in 1819

1824

Byron takes ill in Greece while planning a naval attack on Lepanto in support of the Greek rebellion

1824

Weakened by illness and possible sepsis from unsterilised medical instruments, Byron dies in Missolonghi, Greece, at the age of 36

1824

After much debate between Byron's friends, Wilmot Horton (acting for Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh), Colonel Francis Doyle (acting for Lady Byron), Moore, Hobhouse and Murray gather in front of the fireplace at 50 Albermarle Street and burn Byron's memoirs

1826

William Wilberforce resigns from Parliament

Proof of an advertisement for The Representative (1826)

1826

John Murray II and Benjamin Disraeli establish The Representative, a daily newspaper which fails within months

1827

While studying geology and minerology at the University of Edinburgh, John Murray III attends a lecture given by Sir Walter Scott in which he reveals himself to be the author of the Waverley novels

1827

Archibald Constable dies

1827

Michael Faraday's first work, Chemical Manipulation, Being Instructions to Students in Chemistry is published by Murray

1830

John Murray II becomes a founding member of the Royal Geographical Society

Portrait of Charles Lyell (c. 1870s)

1830

The first edition of Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology is published by the house of Murray. Though little known today, this and other work by Lyell would help form Darwin's thinking around the processes of evolution

Portrait of Sir William Jackson Hooker by Gambardella (n.d.)

1830 - 1833

John Murray publishes Botanical Miscellany, a short-lived botany magazine edited by botanist and illustrator, William Jackson Hooker

1831

Murray begins publishing the journal of the Royal Geographic Society

1831

Birth of Isabella Lucy Bird (later Bishop), explorer, photographer and travel writer

Advertisement for Brewster's Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton

1831

David Brewster's Life of Sir Isaac Newton is published as part of the Murray's Family Library series; Brewster would later expand this to the fuller Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, published in 1855.

HMS Beagle in the Straits of Magellan, reproduced from the frontispiece of Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle (1890)

1831 - 1836

The second surveying expedition of HMS Beagle, during which Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands and began to develop his theory of evolution

1832

Sir Walter Scott dies

1832

The Reverend George Crabbe dies

1832

The Representation of the People Act, also known as the Great Reform Act, introduces wide-ranging changes to the electoral system in England and Wales

1834

John Murray II publishes Mary Somerville's On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences

1834

William Blackwood dies

1834

Robert Peel's first term as Prime Minister

1834

Lord Melbourne's first term as Prime Minister

1835

Lord Melbourne's second term as Prime Minister; during his premiership, he faces accusations of an extramarital affair with Caroline Norton

1835

Alongside Caroline Herschel, Mary Somerville is the first woman to be elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society

Map illustration from an annotated proof of the 3rd edition of Handbook for Travellers in Scotland (c. 1868)

1836

John Murray begins publishing Murray's Handbooks for Travellers, the first travel guide books

1836

John Murray III becomes a co-partner of the firm with his father, John Murray II

Marked proof of Caroline Norton's A Voice from the Factories (1836)

1836

Murray publishes Caroline Norton's poem, A Voice from the Factories

1837

Robert Cooke joins the firm

1837

Queen Victoria's accession