10th March

First official government Census for England records the combined population for the parishes of Basildon (62), Dunton (121), Laindon (242), Langdon Hills (195), Nevendon (147), Pitsea (211) and Vange (130) as 1008.

James Hornsby born at Great Burstead, Essex. He is best known as the last Schoolmaster of 48 years at the former Puckle's charity school housed in an annexe on the west end of St. Nicholas Church, Laindon. He lived above the school in the Priest House and was also sexton to the church and a parish clerk. He married three times and outlived all his wives: Sarah, d. 1851, Catherine, d. 1859 and his last, also called Catherine, d. 1883. He died on 14th May, 1887, aged 83, and was interred on the 20th May in the churchyard within sight of the schoolhouse in a shared grave with his final wife Catherine. His two other wives are buried in the adjacent plot. In 1998 the Laindon and Nicholas senior schools amalgamated on the Laindon site as the James Hornsby High School in recognition of the former schoolteachers past connection to the area. In 2000 the school transferred to the former Nicholas site at Leinster Road where it remains today.

16th October

National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church in England and Wales is set up by the Church of England to provide schools. A new school run by the society would later open around 1860 at the summit of Langdon Hills. This is now a private residence.

6th October

A lease to run Pitsea Windmill is agreed between Thomas James of West Tilbury in the County of Essex, Miller; Jonathan Hill of Melton in the County of Kent, Flour Factor; Henry Prescott Blencowe of Bath in the County of Somerset, Esquire and James Stock of Cold Norton in the County of Essex, Miller. The contents of the lease agreement relate to a Messuage or Tenement with stables, outhouses, yards and gardens. It also includes ‘a piece or parcel of land or pasture known by the name of Mill Close - since renamed Howard Close after the Howard family - containing by estimation four acres and a half with the Windmill for grinding corn thereon erected.’ Includes all the Going Gears, Utensils and Implements of the windmill. The post mill, to which no known photographs exist, stood above Howard's Park and may have been 18th century. It was destroyed by fire in the late 19th century and the bricks used in the construction of Pound Lane Mission. A tombstone dated 1831 to James Miller, a party to this lease agreement, was known to exist.