1813 in science

Biology

• April – William Charles Wells reads a paper to the Royal Society of London making the first clear statement about natural selection.
• Charles Waterton begins the process of turning his estate at Walton Hall, West Yorkshire, England, into what is, in effect, the world's first nature reserve.

  Chemistry

• Mathieu Orfila publishes his groundbreaking Traité des poisons, formalizing the field of toxicology.
• Louis Jacques Thénard commences publication of his textbook Traité de chimie élémentaire, théorique et pratique in Paris.
• Edward Howard invents the enclosed vacuum pan for refining sugar.

  Exploration

• May 11 – Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth leave on an expedition to cross the Blue Mountains.

  Mathematics

• S. D. Poisson publishes Poisson's equation, his correction of Laplace's second order partial differential equation for potential.

  Physics

• British engineer Peter Ewart supports the idea of the conservation of energy in his paper "On the measure of moving force".

  Sociology

• Henri de Saint-Simon publishes Physiologie sociale.

  Technology

• Probable date – George E. Clymer invents the Columbian press.

  Institutions

• March 1 – Sir Humphry Davy employs Michael Faraday as "chemical assistant" at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: William Thomas Brande

  Births

• January 19 – Henry Bessemer, English inventor
• February 18 – Karl Weltzien, Russian-born German inorganic chemist, an organizer of the Karlsruhe Congress
• March 19 – David Livingstone, Scottish missionary and explorer
• July 12 – Claude Bernard, French physiologist
• October 17 – Georg Büchner, Hessian-born writer and anatomist.
• December 19 – Thomas Andrews, Irish chemist

  Deaths

• April 10 – Joseph Louis Lagrange, Piedmont-born mathematician
• April 19 – Benjamin Rush, Founding Father of the United States, chemist and physician
• April 27 – General Zebulon Pike, American explorer
• May – Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger, German zoologist
• July 22 – George Shaw, English naturalist
• August 23 – Alexander Wilson, Scottish American ornithologist