Famous People Who Died In 1788

One of the leaders of the Methodist revival movement, Charles Wesley is better known as the author numerous hymns and carols. Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and Christ the Lord Is Risen Today being some of his more popular works.  Averaging ten poetic lines per day for fifty years, he published more than 4,500 hymns, leaving some 3,000 in manuscript.

Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse served the French Navy for over three- decades and participated in several wars including Seven Years' War and American Revolutionary War. He was inducted to lead a scientific expedition across the world which saw him sailing to places like Chile, California, Japan, Russia, and Australia, before his ships wrecked on reefs of Vanikoro island.  

Giovanni Antonio Scopoli was an Italian naturalist and physician. He published a number of taxonomic works, such as Entomologia Carniolica, which described hundreds of new species. Giovanni Antonio Scopoli also served as a professor at the University of Pavia and the Mining Academy in Schemnitz.

Born to a publisher and bookseller, Salomon Gessner initially focused on landscape painting and etching and later devoted himself to poetry and pastoral prose. He co-founded the Helvetic Society and also served as a town councillor. Idyllen and Der Tod Abels remain his most significant written works.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was a French mathematician, encyclopédiste, cosmologist, and naturalist. He is best known for authoring and publishing Histoire Naturelle, an encyclopaedic collection of 36 volumes, which he worked on for 50 years. His work had a strong influence on two subsequent generations of naturalists, including popular French scientists like Georges Cuvier and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.

Charles III succeeded his heir-less half-brother, King Ferdinand VI, to the throne of Spain. Apart from rejuvenating the areas of scientific research and agriculture, Charles also reduced the powers of the Church. He was also known for his signature Bourbon nose, his cynicism, and his sharp tongue.

William Brodie was a Scottish cabinet-maker, Edinburgh city councilor, and deacon of a trades guild. Brodie was also a housebreaker, a secret which he maintained almost all his life. He used the stolen money to fund his gambling habit and to maintain the household of his two mistresses. He was captured in 1788 and was sentenced to death by hanging.

Gaetano Filangieri was an Italian philosopher and jurist whose works had a strong influence on several prominent personalities including Benjamin Franklin; Franklin was one of his ardent admirers and the two exchanged several letters from 1780 until Gaetano Filangieri's demise in 1788.

Welsh poet Evan Evans was one of the prominent figures of the classical revival in Welsh poetry. After dropping out of Oxford, he became a priest and served in at least 18 parishes. His height also earned him the nickname The Tall Poet. He is also known as Ieuan the Poet.