1909 in the United Kingdom

1909 in the United Kingdom

Other years

1907 | 1908 | 1909 (1909) | 1910 | 1911

Constituent countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1909 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland

Events from the year 1909 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Edward VII
• Prime Minister – H. H. Asquith (Liberal)
• Parliament – 28th

Events

• 1 January – national old age pension scheme comes into force.[1]
• 9 January – Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole forced to turn back 112 miles from the pole.[2]
• 23 January – the Tottenham Outrage, an armed robbery and the murder of a ten-year-old boy and a police constable in Tottenham, North London, carried out by two Latvian anarchists.
• 16 February – West Stanley Pit Disaster, a coal mining disaster in Stanley, County Durham, in which more than 160 miners are killed in an explosion.[3][4]
• 26 February – first film shown in colour using Kinemacolor at the Palace Theatre, London.[2]
• March – construction of the Rosyth Dockyard for the Royal Navy on the east coast of Scotland begins.
• 10 March – Anglo-Siamese Treaty signed in Bangkok.
• 15 March – Selfridges department store opens in London.[2]
• 16 March – Port of London Authority established.[2]
• 11 April – coming into effect of Children Act 1908, establishing separate juvenile courts for ten–sixteen-year-olds; abolishing the use of custody for under-fourteens and hanging for under-sixteens; introducing the registration of foster parents; and restricting access for under-16s to cigarettes and alcohol.
• 24 April – the FA Cup final is won by Manchester United for the first time, as they beat Bristol City 1–0 at Crystal Palace.[5]
• 29 April – People's Budget introduced in the British Parliament by David Lloyd George.[6]
• 2 May – John Moore-Brabazon becomes the first resident British citizen to make a recognised powered heavier-than-air flight in the UK, flying from The Aero Club's ground at Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey in his Voisin biplane Bird of Passage.[7]
• 13 May – Lonmin is incorporated in the UK as the London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company Limited.[8]
• 26 May – the King's horse, Minoru, wins the Epsom Derby.[9]
• 15 June – representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lord's and form the Imperial Cricket Conference.
• 26 June
  • Edward VII and Queen Alexandra open the Victoria and Albert Museum, designed by Aston Webb.[1]
  • The Science Museum in London comes into existence as an independent entity.
• July – Ivy Evelyn Woodward is admitted as the first woman Member of the Royal College of Physicians.[10][11]
• 25 July – Louis Blériot flies a Blériot XI monoplane across the English Channel from Calais to Dover, winning a prize of £1000 from the Daily Mail.[12]
• 23 August – the Secret Service Bureau counter-espionage unit (later known as MI5) is secretly established.[1]
• 3 September – the first Boy Scout rally held at The Crystal Palace in London.[2]
• 17 September – militant suffragette Mabel Capper is among the first to suffer force-feeding while on hunger strike, at Winson Green Prison in Birmingham.[13]
• October – the Trade Boards Act, a form of minimum wage legislation, is passed.
• 2 October – the first rugby football match played in Twickenham.
• 15–23 October – "Aviation week" of demonstration flying held at Doncaster;[14] this is followed by a similar event at Blackpool.
• 5 November – the first Woolworth's branch in the UK opens in Liverpool.[2]
• 8 November – first contest for a Lonsdale Belt in boxing, won by Welsh lightweight Freddie Welsh in London.
• 30 November – the House of Lords rejects the People's Budget proposed by David Lloyd George, forcing a general election.[1]
• 3 December – the Ellan Vannin sinks in Liverpool Bay resulting in the loss of all 15 passengers and 21 crew.
• 4 December – the University of Bristol is founded and receives its Royal Charter.
• 7 December – South Africa granted dominion status.[1]

Undated

• Labour Exchanges Act sets up labour exchanges as a source of information on employment.
• Thomas Beecham establishes the Beecham Symphony Orchestra.[15]
• The mass-circulation Daily Mail (London) hysterically informs its readers in a series of reports that Germany is deliberately preparing to destroy the British Empire.
• First British bird ringing programme initiated by Arthur Landsborough Thomson at Aberdeen.[16]

Publications

• Florence Barclay's novel The Rosary.[17]
• Angela Brazil's schoolgirl story The Nicest Girl in the School.
• Daniel Jones' introductory The Pronunciation of English.
• H. G. Wells' novels Ann Veronica and Tono-Bungay.

Births

• 24 January – Martin Lings, Islamic scholar (died 2005)
• 29 January – Phoebe Hesketh, poet (died 2005)
• 14 March – William Montgomery Watt, Anglican priest and professor (died 2006)
• 26 March – Martin Hodgson, rugby league footballer (died 1991)
• 30 April – F. E. McWilliam, sculptor (died 1992)
• 11 May – Herbert Murrill, organist and composer (died 1952)
• 15 May – James Mason, actor (died 1984)
• 18 May – Fred Perry, tennis player (died 1995)
• 19 May – Nicholas Winton, humanitarian (died 2015)
• 26 May – Matt Busby, football manager (Manchester United) (died 1994)
• 7 June – Jessica Tandy, actress (died 1994)
• 28 June – Eric Ambler, novelist and playwright (died 1998)
• 5 July – Douglas Dodds-Parker, soldier and politician (died 2006)
• 28 July – Malcolm Lowry, novelist (died 1957)
• 30 July – C. Northcote Parkinson, historian and author (died 1993)
• 25 August – Michael Rennie, actor (died 1971)
• 14 September – Peter Scott, ornithologist and painter (died 1989)
• 6 October – Robert Potter, architect (died 2010)
• 28 October – Francis Bacon, painter (died 1992)
• 17 November – E. S. Turner, author and journalist (died 2006)
• 19 November – Griffith Jones, actor (died 2007)
• 23 November – Nigel Tranter, historian and writer (died 2000)
• 30 November – Nancy Carline, artist (died 2004)
• 1 December – Frank Gillard, radio broadcaster (died 1998)
• 4 December – Edward Britton, trade unionist (died 2005)
• 8 December – Lesslie Newbigin, bishop and theologian (died 1998)
• 10 December – F. W. Walbank, scholar of Greek history (died 2008)
• 23 December – Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 2000)

Deaths

• 8 January – Harry Seeley, palaeontologist (born 1839)
• 14 January – Arthur William a Beckett, journalist (born 1844)
• 10 April – Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet (born 1837)
• 13 April – Sir Donald Currie, Scottish shipping magnate (born 1825)
• 17 May – Sir Hugh Gough, general, Victoria Cross recipient (born 1833)
• 18 May – George Meredith, novelist and poet (born 1828)
• 31 May – Thomas Price, Welsh-born Prime Minister of South Australia (born 1852)
• 22 June – Edward John Gregory, painter (born 1850)
• 1 August – Sir Hugh Rowlands, Welsh general, first Welsh Victoria Cross recipient (born 1828)
• 14 August – William Stanley, inventor, precision engineer (born 1829)
• 25 October – Arthur Bromley, British Royal Navy officer, Admiral Superintendent of Malta Dockyard (born 1847)
• 9 November – William Powell Frith, painter (born 1819)
• 10 November – George Essex Evans, Welsh-Australian poet (born 1863)
• 11 December – Ludwig Mond, industrialist (born 1839)
• 13 December – Sir Alfred Lewis Jones, shipping magnate (born 1845)

See also

• List of British films before 1920

References

1. Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 342–343. ISBN 978-0-7126-5616-0.
2. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 978-0-14-102715-9.
3. "Ceremony to remember dead miners". BBC News. 4 March 2005. Retrieved 14 October 2010.
4. "Memorial marks pit deaths tragedy". BBC News. 16 February 2009. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
5. "F A Cup Final 1909". F A Cup Final Programmes. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007.
6. Raymond, E. T. (1922). Mr. Lloyd George: a biography. New York: George H. Doran Co. p. 118. april 29.
7. Fryer, Jonathan (September 2008). "Where British aviation began". The Journal of Kent History. 67: 18–19.
8. Page, Melvin E., ed. (2003). Colonialism: an International Social, Cultural and Political Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. pp. 350–351. ISBN 978-1-57607-335-3.
9. "Minoru Wins Derby; Sir Martin Falls". The New York Times. 27 May 1909. p. 1.
10. Cooke, A. M. (1972). A history of the Royal College of Physicians of London. 3. Clarendon Press for the Royal College of Physicians. p. 976.
11. Witz, Anne (2016). Professions and Patriarchy. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781138135796. OCLC 938993033.
12. Blériot, Louis (25 July 1909). "Bleriot Tells of his Flight" (PDF). The New York Times (published 26 July 1909). ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Retrieved 26 July 2009.
13. WSPU Hunger Strike Medal with Fed by Force bar 17.9.09.
14. Blake, Richard. The Book of Postal Dates, 1635–1985. Caterham: Marden. p. 20.
15. Jefferson, Alan (2004). "Beecham, Sir Thomas, second baronet (1879–1961)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30670. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
16. Williamson, Kenneth (1977). "Sir Arthur Landsborough Thomson". Bird Study. 24 (3): 202–3. doi:10.1080/00063657709476557.
17. Leavis, Q.D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (rev. ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.

See also