Is it safe to assume from your resulting graph that "warming" in England has been fairly steady from 1750 and the mean temperature actually rose more dramatically from 1750-1850 than in modern times?
Not really. Because of the high variance it's difficult to make claims of that sort. You have to bear in mind that prior to the late 19th century Stevenson screens were not in use, and thermometers themselves were less accurate. Also it's pretty clear that there are systematic biases in the data, meaning that WMO stations on average move closer to the equator over time. I havn't checked whether this bias exists for the UK data, but it does for the overall data set.
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Is it safe to assume from your resulting graph that "warming" in England has been fairly steady from 1750 and the mean temperature actually rose more dramatically from 1750-1850 than in modern times?
Not really. Because of the high variance it's difficult to make claims of that sort. You have to bear in mind that prior to the late 19th century Stevenson screens were not in use, and thermometers themselves were less accurate. Also it's pretty clear that there are systematic biases in the data, meaning that WMO stations on average move closer to the equator over time. I havn't checked whether this bias exists for the UK data, but it does for the overall data set.