1912 in the United Kingdom

1912 in the United Kingdom

Other years

1910 | 1911 | 1912 (1912) | 1913 | 1914

Constituent countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1912 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland

Events from the year 1912 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George V
• Prime Minister – H. H. Asquith (Liberal)
• Parliament – 30th

Events

Scott and team near the South Pole, 17 January.

RMS Titanic departs from Southampton for the first and only time, 10 April.

• 1 January – General Post Office (GPO) takes over National Telephone Company.[1]
• 17 January – British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott and a team of four reach the South Pole to find that Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it.[2]
• 31 January – G. K. Sowerby's drama Rutherford and Son premières at the Royal Court Theatre in London.[3][4][5]
• 2 February – With Our King and Queen Through India, a 2½-hour Kinemacolor feature film of the Delhi Durbar of 1911 made by Charles Urban, is first shown at the Scala Theatre, London.[6]
• 26 February–6 April – National coal strike of 1912.[7][8]
• 1 March – suffragettes smash shop windows in the West End of London, especially around Oxford Street.[9]
• 16 March – Lawrence Oates, ill member of Scott's South Pole expedition leaves the tent saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time". He is not seen again.[2]
• 19 March – minimum wage introduced for miners after national strike.[9]
• 29 March – the remaining members of Scott's expedition die.[2]
• 30 March – the University Boat Race on the Thames in London is abandoned after both crews sink.
• 1 April – the University Boat Race is restarted, and Oxford wins.
• 11 April – Irish Home Rule Bill introduced in the House of Commons, but fails to receive the support of the House of Lords.[9]
• 13 April – the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) is established by royal charter.
• 14–15 April – the RMS Titanic sinks: The White Star liner RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg and sinks on her maiden voyage from the United Kingdom to the United States.[2][10]
• 15 April – the syndicalist Daily Herald newspaper is first published on a permanent basis.
• 22 April – English aviator Denys Corbett Wilson completes the first aeroplane crossing of the Irish Sea, from Goodwick in Wales to Crane near Enniscorthy in Ireland.
• April/May – thousands of Jewish workers in London's garment trade in the West End strike, followed by thousands more in the East End inspired by Rudolf Rocker.
• May – Liberal Unionist Party formally merges into the Conservative And Unionist Party.
• 2 May – 3 July: Board of Trade inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
• 5 May – 22 July: Great Britain and Ireland compete at the Olympics in Stockholm and win 10 gold, 15 silver and 16 bronze medals.
• 13 May – the Air Battalion Royal Engineers becomes the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps.
• 15 July – the National Insurance Act 1911 comes into force introducing National Insurance payments.[2]
• 27 July – Bonar Law, leader of the Conservative Party in opposition, makes a defiant speech at a massive Irish Unionist rally at Blenheim Palace against Irish Home Rule implying support for armed resistance to it in Ulster.
• August
  • Cabinet ministers accused of corruption in the Marconi scandal.[9]
  • wettest British August on record.[11]
• 10 August – Frank McClean flies a Short Brothers floatplane up the River Thames between the upper and lower parts of Tower Bridge and underneath London Bridge.[12]
• 25–27 August – the wet summer climaxes in a major rainstorm across England, causing floods particularly in Norfolk and Norwich.[13]
• September – the tradition of the Blackpool Illuminations begins.[14]
• 24 October – formation of the Edinburgh and Leith Branch of the Workers' Educational Association at a meeting addressed by Albert Mansbridge.
• 31 October – Robert Baden-Powell marries Olave St Clair Soames at Parkstone.[15]
• 5 November – establishment of the British Board of Film Censors.[2]
• 12 November – the bodies of Captain Scott and his team are found in the Antarctic.[2]
• 27 November – concerted suffragette attacks on pillar boxes.[16]
• 18 December – Piltdown Man, thought to be the fossilised remains of a hitherto unknown form of early human, presented to the Geological Society of London. It is revealed to be a hoax in 1953.[2]

Undated

• Sir Rufus Isaacs, the Attorney General, becomes the first Jew appointed to the Cabinet.
• Judges' Rules are issued by the judges of the King's Bench to give English police forces guidance on the procedures to be followed in detaining and questioning suspects.[17]
• Glucozade, the predecessor of Lucozade, is first produced.

Publications

• Walter de la Mare's The Listeners, and Other Poems.
• Ethel M. Dell's novels Greatheart and The Way of an Eagle.[18]
• Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World.
• The first Georgian Poetry anthology Georgian Poetry 1911–12 edited by Edward Marsh.
• Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell's book Principia Mathematica vol. 2, one of the most important and seminal works in mathematical logic and philosophy.

Births

• 16 January – Norman Gash, historian (born in India; died 2009)
• 17 January – Edward Fennessy, electrical engineer (died 2009)
• 20 January – Reg Smith, footballer and football manager (died 2004)
• 3 February – John Bryan Ward-Perkins, archaeologist (died 1981)
• 8 February – Ann Lambton, historian (died 2008)
• 12 February – Gabrielle Brune, actress (died 2005)
• 13 February – Margaretta Scott, actress (died 2005)
• 11 February – Roy Fuller, poet and novelist (died 1991)
• 27 February – Lawrence Durrell, writer (born in India; died 1990)
• 4 March – Judith Furse, character actress (died 1974)
• 5 March – David Astor, editor of The Observer newspaper (died 2001)
• 10 March – Muriel Angelus, actress (died 2004)
• 19 March – Bill Frankland, immunologist (died 2020)
• 23 March – Betty Astell, actress (died 2005)
• 25 March – Melita Norwood, née Sirnis, secret agent (died 2005)
• 27 March
  • James Callaghan, Prime Minister (died 2005)
  • John Crofton, medical pioneer (died 2009)
• 5 April – John Le Mesurier, actor (died 1983)
• 18 April – Sandy Glen, explorer (died 2004)
• 22 April – Kathleen Ferrier, contralto (died 1953)
• 4 May – Frith Banbury, actor and theatre director (died 2008)
• 7 May – Frank Reginald Carey, fighter pilot (died 2004)
• 17 May – Percy M. Young, musicologist and composer (died 2004)
• 19 May – Noel Mander, organ builder (died 2005)
• 22 May – Herbert C. Brown, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2004)
• 28 May – Derek Cooper, soldier and campaigner for refugees (died 2007)
• 31 May – Alfred Deller, countertenor (died 1979)
• 8 June – Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, artist (died 2004)
• 10 June – William Gordon Harris, civil engineer (died 2005)
• 16 June – Enoch Powell, politician (died 1998)
• 19 June – Archie Butterworth, racing car designer (died 2005)
• 20 June – Anthony Buckeridge, author (died 2004)
• 23 June – Alan Turing, mathematician (died 1954)[19]
• 24 June
  • Brian Johnston, BBC cricket commentator (died 1994)
  • Mary Wesley, novelist (died 2002)
• 11 July – Peta Taylor, cricketer (died 1989)
• 17 July – Michael Gilbert, lawyer and crime fiction writer (died 2006)
• 21 July – Tommy Butler, Detective Chief Superintendent (died 1970)
• 13 August – Terence Wilmot Hutchison, economist (died 2007)
• 16 August – Ted Drake, footballer (died 1995)
• 16 August – Wendy Hiller, actress (died 2003)
• 1 September – Gwynfor Evans, politician (died 2005)
• 2 September – David Daiches, literary critic (died 2005)
• 11 September – Robin Jenkins, novelist (died 2005)
• 18 September – Frank Farmer, physicist (died 2004)
• 28 September – Peter Finch, actor (died 1977)
• 2 October – Eric Wilson, soldier (died 2008)
• 24 October – Peter Gellhorn, composer and conductor (born in Germany; died 2004)
• 28 October – Richard Doll, physiologist (died 2005)
• 30 October – Ian Robertson, Lord Robertson, judge (died 2005)
• 7 November – Alex Henshaw, test pilot (died 2007)
• 13 November – John Hill, politician (died 2007)
• 25 November – Francis Durbridge, playwright and author (died 1998)
• 27 December
  • Conroy Maddox, painter (died 2005)
  • Cyril Philips, historian (died 2005)

Deaths

• 14 January – Samuel W. Johnson, railway engineer (Midland Railway) (born 1831)
• 10 February – Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, surgeon (born 1827)
• 17 February – Edgar Evans, Welsh-born naval officer (born 1876), member of the Scott expedition to the South Pole
• 21 February – Osborne Reynolds, physicist (born 1842)
• 1 March – George Grossmith, actor and comic writer (born 1847)
• 17 March – Lawrence Oates, army officer (born 1880), member of the Scott expedition
• 29 March – remaining members of the Scott expedition:
  • Henry Bowers, Scottish-born naval officer (born 1883)
  • Robert Falcon Scott, naval officer and explorer (born 1868)
  • Edward Wilson, physician and naturalist (born 1872)
• 15 April – some victims of the sinking of the RMS Titanic:
  • Thomas Andrews, Jr., shipbuilder (born 1873)
  • Thomas Byles, Catholic priest (born 1870)
  • Wallace Hartley, ship's band leader and violinist (born 1878)
  • Jack Phillips, ship's senior wireless officer (born 1887)
  • Edward Smith, ship's captain (born 1850)
  • William Thomas Stead, campaigning journalist (born 1849)
• 20 April – Bram Stoker, writer (born 1847)
• 21 May – Julius Wernher, art collector (born 1850)
• 2 July – Tom Richardson, cricketer (born 1870)
• 13 August – Octavia Hill, social reformer (born 1838)
• 20 August – William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army (born 1829)
• 1 September – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, composer (born 1875)
• 8 November – Dugald Drummond, railway engineer (born 1840)
• 17 November – Richard Norman Shaw, architect (born 1831)

See also

• List of British films before 1920

References

1. Freshwater, Robert (2010). "A History of the British Post Office (BPO)". The Telephone File. Archived from the original on 23 September 2010. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
2. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
3. Brown, Mark (14 August 2009). "Githa Sowerby, the forgotten playwright, returns to the stage". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
4. "Tyneside honours forgotten writer". BBC. 26 August 2009. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
5. Hodgson, Barbara (17 September 2009). "Author Is Brought Back to Life". The Journal. Newcastle upon Tyne. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
6. "The Delhi Durbar". Charles Urban, Motion Picture Pioneer. 2006. Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 20 January 2011.
7. The Annual Register.
8. Gill, Peter (23 April 2008). "National Coal Strike". Archived from the original on 20 September 2012. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
9. Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 346–347. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
10. Lord, Walter (1955). A Night to Remember. New York: Holt.
11. Simons, Paul (2008). Since Records Began. London: Collins. pp. 75–8. ISBN 978-0-00-728463-4.
12. "Sir Francis McClean Pioneer Aviator". Obituaries. The Times (53297). London. 12 August 1955. p. 11C.
13. "The Great Flood – 1912". Norfolkcoast. 2006. Retrieved 9 September 2010.
14. "History of the Lights". Visit Blackpool. Archived from the original on 4 October 2012. Retrieved 1 September 2012.
15. "Olave St Clair Baden-Powell (née Soames), Baroness Baden-Powell; Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell". National Portrait Gallery, London. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
16. Farrugia, Jean Young (1969). The Letter Box: a history of Post Office pillar and wall boxes. Fontwell: Centaur Press. ISBN 0-900000-14-7.
17. St. Johnston, T. E. (1966). "Judges' Rules and Police Interrogation in England Today". Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. 57 (1). Retrieved 14 December 2014.
18. Leavis, Q. D. (1965). Fiction and the Reading Public (rev. ed.). London: Chatto & Windus.
19. "Alan Turing | Biography, Facts, & Education". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 14 February 2020.

See also