1919 in the United Kingdom

	1919 in the United Kingdom
	Other years
	1917 \| 1918 \| 1919 \| 1920 \| 1921
	Constituent countries of the United Kingdom
	England \| Ireland \| Scotland \| Wales
	Sport
	1919 English cricket season; Football: England \| Scotland;

Events from the year 1919 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Monarch – George V
Prime Minister – David Lloyd George (Coalition)
Parliament – 31st (starting 4 February)

Events

1 January: Iolaire sinks.

1 January – HMY Iolaire is wrecked on rocks off Stornoway on the Scottish Isle of Lewis: 205 die, mostly servicemen returning home.
3 January – soldiers blockade Folkestone harbour in a successful protest against being returned to France.[1] This month, other mutinies take place in France and across England.[2]
18 January
- The Paris Peace Conference opens in France,[3] with delegates from 27 nations present for meetings at the Palace of Versailles; Lloyd George attends as one of the "Big Four".[4]
- Bentley Motors Ltd. is incorporated in England.
21 January – Dáil Éireann meets for the first time in the Mansion House, Dublin. It comprises Sinn Féin members elected in the 1918 general election who, in accordance with their manifesto, have not taken their seats in the Parliament of the United Kingdom but chosen to declare an independent Irish Republic. In the first shots of the Anglo-Irish War, two Royal Irish Constabulary men are killed in an ambush at Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary.
23 January – "Harbour Riot" in Glasgow: confrontation between white and black merchant seamen.[1]
27 January – general strike call over working hours led by engineering workers in Glasgow and Belfast;[1] in Belfast the strike collapses after a month.
31 January – Battle of George Square: the army is called in (with tanks ) to deal with riots associated with a strike to gain a 40-hour working week in Glasgow.[1]

January: David Kirkwood is detained by police during the Battle of George Square.

3 February – Éamon de Valera, the leader of Sinn Féin, and two other prisoners escape from Lincoln Prison in England in a break personally arranged by Michael Collins and Harry Boland.
27 February – marriage of Princess Patricia of Connaught to Commander The Hon. Alexander Ramsay, the first royal wedding at Westminster Abbey since the 14th century.
4–5 March – Kinmel Park riots by troops of the Canadian Expeditionary Force awaiting repatriation at Kinmel Camp, Bodelwyddan, in North Wales. Five men are killed, 28 injured, and 25 convicted of mutiny.[5]
3 April – Government agrees to begin release of imprisoned conscientious objectors.
7 April – the Original Dixieland Jazz Band brings Dixieland jazz to England, opening a 15-month tour at the Hippodrome, London.
13 April – Amritsar Massacre: British and Gurkha troops kill 379 Sikhs and injure more than 1200 at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab Province (British India).
May – Third Anglo-Afghan War begins.
15 May – Greek landing at Smyrna (as part of the Greco-Turkish War): The Hellenic Army lands at Smyrna assisted by ships of the British Royal Navy.
12 May – the Pip, Squeak and Wilfred comic strip debuts in the Daily Mirror.
29 May – observations made by Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse test part of Einstein's general theory of relativity (confirmed 6 November).[6]
June – riots break out in west midlands towns.[1]
14–15 June – a Vickers Vimy piloted by John Alcock DSC with navigator Arthur Whitten Brown makes the first nonstop transatlantic flight, from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, Ireland.[7]
17 June – Epsom Riot by Canadian troops: English police sergeant Thomas Green is killed.
21 June – Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow: Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the interned German fleet in Scapa Flow, Scotland. Nine German sailors are killed.
23 June – Women's Engineering Society founded.[8]
28 June – Treaty of Versailles signed, formally ending World War I.

6 July: R34 lands at Mineola, New York.

2–6 July – the British airship R34 makes the first transatlantic flight by dirigible, and the first westbound flight, from RAF East Fortune, Scotland, to Mineola, New York.[7]
15 July – naval sloops HMS Gentian and HMS Myrtle sunk by mines in the Gulf of Finland while assisting Estonia against the Bolsheviks, with nine crew lost.[9]
18 July – the Cenotaph in London, as designed by Edwin Lutyens, is unveiled to commemorate the dead of World War I.[7]
19 July – Peace Day: victory parades across Britain celebrate the end of World War I.[10] Rioting ex-servicemen burn down Luton Town Hall.
31 July
- Police strike in London and Liverpool for recognition of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers. Rioting breaks out in Liverpool on 1 August.[1] Over 2,000 strikers are dismissed.
- Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 provides government subsidy for the provision of council houses,[11] with the target of completing 500,000 houses by 1922.[12]
8 August – the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919, signed in Rawalpindi, ends the Third Anglo-Afghan War, with the UK recognising the right of the Emirate of Afghanistan to manage its own foreign affairs and Afghanistan recognising the Durand Line as the border with British India.
15 August – the Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act provides for returning servicemen to get their old jobs back.[13]
18 August – Russian Civil War: North Russia intervention – the Bolshevik fleet at Kronstadt, protecting Petrograd on the Baltic Sea, is substantially damaged by seven British Royal Navy Coastal Motor Boats (torpedo boats) and military aircraft in a combined operation.
30 August – the Football League is resumed, four years after it was abandoned due to the war.[14]
1 September – Forestry Commission set up.[15]
27 September – Russian Civil War: North Russia intervention – last British troops leave Archangel, leaving fighting to the Russians.
27 September–6 October – railway workers stage a strike, called by the National Union of Railwaymen.[16]
29 September – Rupert D'Oyly Carte returns the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company to London's West End for the first time in a decade with an initial 18-week season of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas opening at the Prince's Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue.
30 September – compositors and pressmen working at the Daily Sketch newspaper in London refuse to print the paper until an editorial criticising the railway strike is deleted.
October – creation of the "Mobile Patrol Experiment", the forerunner of the Metropolitan Police Service's Flying Squad.
1 October – Women's Royal Naval Service disbanded.
13 October – Leeds City F.C., of the Football League Second Division, are expelled from the Football League amid financial irregularities.[17]
17 October – with the collapse of Leeds City, a new football club is formed for the city – Leeds United. With Port Vale set to take the old club's place in the Football League, the new Leeds club will have to wait until at least the next football season for a chance of Football League membership.[18]
20 October – collapse of the man engine at Levant Mine in Cornwall kills 31.
21 October – Atlas Copco Ltd is incorporated in the UK as a subsidiary of the Swedish mechanical engineering company.
4 November – the Cabinet's Irish Committee settles on a policy of creating two Home Rule parliaments in Ireland – one in Dublin and one in Belfast – with a Council of Ireland to provide a framework for possible unity.[19]
11 November – first Remembrance Day observed with two minutes silence at 11:00 hrs.[20]
December – Cunliffe Committee on Currency and Foreign Exchange Rates recommends an early return to an effective Gold standard.[21]
1 December – Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor becomes the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons, and the second to be elected, having stood at the Plymouth Sutton by-election on 28 November to succeed her husband as a Unionist member.[22]
15 December – meat rationing ends.[23]
22 December – a bill "to provide for the better government of Ireland" is introduced into the House of Commons, proposing two parliaments: one for the six counties of north-east Ulster and one for the other twenty-six.[24]
23 December – Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act removes legal disabilities on women entering the secular professions.[25]
25 December – opening of Cliftonhill stadium in Coatbridge, the home of Albion Rovers F.C. The opening match sees them lose 2–0 to St Mirren.
30 December – Lincoln's Inn, in London, admits its first female bar student.
Undated
- University Grants Committee begins to function.
- Panacea Society founded by Mabel Barltrop ("Octavia") in Bedford as the Community of the Holy Ghost.
- by bribing corrupt Iranians liberally, the UK negotiates a treaty allowing the installation of British advisers in every department of the government. The Majlis refuses to ratify the treaty.
Ongoing – 1918 flu pandemic.

Publications

February – Richmal Crompton's anarchic schoolboy William Brown is introduced in the first published Just William story, "Rice-Mould" in Home magazine.
22 March – The Children's Newspaper begins publication.
Daisy Ashford's novel The Young Visiters (written in 1890 when she was nine).
Gilbert Frankau's novel Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant: a romance of married life.[26]
Dean William Inge's first series of Outspoken Essays.
John Maynard Keynes' book The Economic Consequences of the Peace.
W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Moon and Sixpence.
Siegfried Sassoon's The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon.
Arthur Graeme West's posthumous The Diary of a Dead Officer.
P. G. Wodehouse's short story collection My Man Jeeves.

Births

1 January – Sheila Mercier, actress (died 2019)
21 January
- Eric Brown, World War II naval & test pilot (died 2016)
- Jim Wallwork, World War II glider pilot (died 2013)
23 January – Bob Paisley, football player and manager (died 1996)
27 January – Tom Addington, soldier (died 2011)
4 February
- Peter Butterworth, actor and comedian (died 1979)
- John Miller, World War II lieutenant-colonel and equerry (died 2006)
16 February – Irene Brown, author and codebreaker (died 2017)
20 February – James O'Meara, Battle of Britain Spitfire flying ace (died 1974)
23 February – Derek Ezra, chairman of the National Coal Board (died 2015)
24 February – Betty Marsden, comedy actress (died 1998)
28 February – Brian Urquhart, war veteran and diplomat (died 2021)
3 March – Mary Cosh, journalist, historian and author (died 2019)
12 March – Donald Zec, journalist[27]
17 March – Mad Mike Hoare, mercenary leader (died 2020)
29 March – William S. Anderson, Chinese-born businessman, president and chairman of NCR Corporation
30 March – Henry Danton, dance teacher
5 April
- Nigel Malim, World War II rear admiral (died 2006)
- Charles Parker, radio documentary producer (died 1980)
9 April – Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, Officer of Arms and genealogist (died 1985)
11 April – William Clark, Royal air force officer (died 2020)
15 April – Emyr Humphreys, Welsh novelist, poet and author (died 2020)
19 April – Nancie Colling, lawns bowls player (died 2020)
20 April
- Richard Hillary, pilot and author (died 1943)
- Angela Lascelles, actress (died 2007)
4 May – Basil Yamey, South African-born economist and academic (died 2020)[28]
7 May
- Emanuel Hurwitz, violinist (died 2006)
- Joe Mitty, entrepreneur and co-founder of Oxfam (died 2007)
9 May – Arthur English, actor (died 1995)
14 May – Denis Cannan, dramatist, playwright and scriptwriter (died 2011)
16 May – Richard Mason, novelist (died 1997)
18 May – Margot Fonteyn, born Margaret Hookham, ballet dancer (died 1991)
6 June – Peter Carington, politician (died 2018)
11 June – Richard Todd, actor (died 2009)
14 June – June Spencer, actress
15 June – Eleanor Warren, cellist (died 2005)
17 June – Beryl Reid, actress (died 1996)
26 June – Donald M. Ashton, art director (died 2004)
27 June – John Macquarrie, theologian and priest (died 2007)
29 June – Walter Babington Thomas, Commander of British Far East Land Forces (died 2017)
4 July – Douglas Birks, English cricketer (died 2004)
7 July
- Jon Pertwee, actor (died 1996)
- Bill Stroud, English football player and coach (died 2006)
10 July – Ian Wallace, bass-baritone opera singer (died 2009)
14 July – John Pott, British Army officer (died 2005)
15 July – Iris Murdoch, Irish-born novelist and philosopher (died 1999)
19 July – Patricia Medina, actress (died 2012)
20 July – Jacquemine Charrott Lodwidge, writer (died 2012)
21 July
- Pentland Hick, entrepreneur, author and publisher (died 2016)
- Lady Rose McLaren, aristocrat (died 2005)
26 July – James Lovelock, scientist and proponent of the Gaia hypothesis
31 July – Frank Giles, journalist and historian (died 2019)
1 August – Stanley Middleton, novelist (died 2009)
15 August – Bernard Barrell, composer (died 2005)
28 August – Godfrey Hounsfield, electrical engineer and inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 2004)
29 August – Helen Shingler, actress died 2019)
4 September – Teddy Johnson, popular singer (died 2018)
11 September – Bernard Feilden, conservation architect (died 2008)
13 September – Mary Midgley, moral philosopher (died 2018)
27 September
- Peter Coe, athletics coach (died 2008)
- James H. Wilkinson, mathematician (died 1986)
2 October
- John W. Duarte, composer and guitarist (died 2004)
- Walter Luttrell, colonel and public servant (born in Australia; died 2007)
4 October – John Sawyer, romance novelist in collaboration with his wife Nancy Buckingham (died 1994)
5 October – Donald Pleasence, actor (died 1995)
6 October – Tommy Lawton, footballer (died 1996)
19 October – David Pritchard, chess player (died 2005)
20 October – Maurice Michael Stephens, World War II fighter pilot (died 2004)
22 October
- Kathleen Ankers, English-American actress and set designer (d. 2001)
- Doris Lessing, Persian-born novelist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (died 2013)
23 October – John Hunt, civil servant (died 2008)
31 October
- George Boscawen, 9th Viscount Falmouth, politician
- Daphne Oxenford, broadcast actress (died 2012)
3 November – Ludovic Kennedy, journalist, broadcaster and writer (died 2009)
4 November – Wilfred Fienburgh, politician (died 1958)
15 November – Nova Pilbeam, actress (died 2015)
19 November – Alan Young, English-born character actor (died 2016 in the United States)
20 November – Lucilla Andrews, Egyptian-born romantic novelist (died 2006)
23 November – P. F. Strawson, philosopher (died 2006)
24 November – David Kossoff, actor (died 2005)
5 December – Alun Gwynne Jones, Baron Chalfont, politician and historian (died 2020)
6 December
- Eric Newby, travel writer (died 2006)
- Leonard E. H. Williams, pilot and businessman (died 2007)
7 December – Lyndon Wainwright, metrologist, ballroom dancer and author (died 2018)
11 December – Cliff Michelmore, broadcast presenter (died 2016)
12 December – Cliff Holden, painter and designer (died 2020)

Deaths

2 January – Arthur Gould, Wales international rugby captain (born 1864)
3 January – James Hills-Johnes, Indian-born Welsh Victoria Cross recipient (born 1833)
12 January – Sir Charles Wyndham, actor-manager (born 1837)
18 January – Prince John of the United Kingdom (born 1905)
24 February – Edward Bishop, Wales international rugby player (born 1864)
26 February – Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, novelist and essayist (born 1837)
27 February – Robert Harris, Welsh-born painter (born 1849)
20 March – Pauline Markham, English-born vaudeville actress (born 1847)
4 April – Sir William Crookes, chemist and physicist (born 1832)
12 June – Jeremiah Williams, Coalition Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Swansea East (born 1872)
14 June – Weedon Grossmith, humorous writer, actor and artist (born 1854)
30 June – John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1842)
1 July – Sir John Brunner, British industrialist and politician (b. 1842)
13 July – Theo Harding, Wales international rugby player (born 1860)
26 July
- Sir Edward Poynter, painter (born 1836)
- Richard Hughes Williams (Dic Tryfan), Welsh-language writer (born 1878)
31 July – Dick Barlow, cricketer (born 1851)
11 August – Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American philanthropist (born 1835)
21 August – Laurence Doherty, tennis champion (born 1875)
23 August – Augustus George Vernon Harcourt, chemist (born 1834)
15 October
- Howard Colvin, architectural historian (died 2007)
- Arthur Owen Vaughan (Owen Rhoscomyl), English-born Welsh writer (born 1863)
17 October – James Wolfe Murray, British Army general (born 1853)
18 October – William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, American-born financier and statesman (born 1848)
23 October – Charles Judd, missionary to China (born 1842)
25 October – Ernest Albert Waterlow, painter (born 1850)
2 December – Sir Evelyn Wood, field marshal and Victoria Cross recipient (born 1838)
18 December – Sir John Alcock, aviator, pilot of first nonstop transatlantic flight by aeroplane, June 1919, in aviation accident (born 1892)
22 December – Boy Capel, industrialist, polo player, writer, and lover/muse of Coco Chanel (b. 1881)

Notes

Webb, Simon (2016). 1919: Britain's year of revolution. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-47386-286-9.
Tatchell, Peter (1 August 2014). "WW1: The hidden story of soldier's mutinies, strikes and riots". Left Foot Forward. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
"Peace Conference Opens: Memorable Ceremony at the Quai d'Orsay". The Globe (38539). London. 18 January 1919. p. 1.
MacMillan, Margaret (2002). Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. Random House.
Nicholson, G. W. L. (1962). Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919: Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War. Ottawa: Queen's Printer.
Dyson, F. W.; Eddington, A. S.; Davidson, C. R. (1920). "A Determination of the Deflection of Light by the Sun's Gravitational Field, from Observations Made at the Solar eclipse of May 29, 1919". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. London. 220 (571–581): 291–333. Bibcode:1920RSPTA.220..291D. doi:10.1098/rsta.1920.0009.
Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
"History | Women's Engineering Society". www.wes.org.uk. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
Wainwright, Martin (23 August 2010). "British warships sunk 90 years ago found off Estonian coast". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 26 August 2010. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 357–358. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
The History Today Companion to British History. London: Collins & Brown. 1995. p. 392. ISBN 1-85585-178-4.
"Council housing". Parliament of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
"ROYAL ASSENT. (Hansard, 15 August 1919)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
"English Division One (old) 1919-1920: Results". statto.com. Archived from the original on 22 August 2011. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
"History of the Forestry Commission". Forestry Commission. Retrieved 22 October 2010.
Wells, Jeffrey (2010). "The Nine Days' Strike of 1919". BackTrack. 24: 22–7, 120–4.
"History of the Club – The birth of Leeds United, 1919". The Mighty Mighty Whites. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
"Review of 1920-21". The Mighty Mighty Whites. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
Fox, Seamus (31 August 2008). "November 1919". Chronology of Irish History 1919–1923. Dublin. Archived from the original on 23 November 2004. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
Beadle, Jeremy; Harrison, Ian (25 September 2007). "First two-minute silence". Military. Firsts, Lasts & Onlys. London: Robson. p. 113. ISBN 9781905798063.
"Economic slump". The Cabinet Papers 1915–1986. Kew: The National Archives (United Kingdom). Retrieved 16 February 2016.
Sykes, Christopher (1984). Nancy: the Life of Lady Astor. Academy Chicago Publishers. ISBN 0-89733-098-6. The first elected was Constance Markievicz in 1918.
"The Family Butcher: Further Concessions By Controller". The Times (42282). London. 13 December 1919. p. 14.
Fox, Seamus (31 August 2008). "December 1919". Chronology of Irish History 1919–1923. Dublin. Archived from the original on 15 November 2004. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
Oliver & Boyd's New Edinburgh Almanac and National Repository for the Year 1921. p. 213.
Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (rev. ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.
Noble, Peter (1970). British film and television year book. Cinema TV Today. p. 394.
Stephen W. Massil (2003). The Jewish Year Book. Greenberg & Company.