1921 in the United Kingdom
1921 in the United Kingdom |
Other years |
1919 | 1920 | 1921 | 1922 | 1923 |
Constituent countries of the United Kingdom |
Ireland | Scotland | Wales |
Popular culture |
Events from the year 1921 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
- Monarch – George V
- Prime Minister – David Lloyd George (Coalition)
- Parliament – 31st
Events
January to June
- 1 January – Car tax discs introduced.[1]
- 8 January – Chequers becomes an official residence of the Prime Minister.[1]
- 14 January – Unemployment stands at 927,000.
- 17 January – The first recorded public performance of the illusion of "sawing a woman in half" is given by stage magician P. T. Selbit at the Finsbury Park Empire variety theatre in London.[2]
- 20 January – Royal Navy K-class submarine HMS K5 sinks in the English Channel with the loss of all 56 crew on board.
- 26 January – Abermule train collision: seventeen people are killed when two passenger trains collide head-on in Montgomeryshire.
- January – Lord Rothermere's Sunday Pictorial announces formation of the Anti-Waste League as a political party opposing excessive government expenditure.[3]
- 12 February – Winston Churchill is appointed as Colonial Secretary.
- 16 February – Unemployment now stands at over 1,000,000. The Government announces an increase in unemployment benefit.
- 21 February – Conference of London of 1921–1922 convenes in an attempt to resolve problems arising from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1 March – The Australia national cricket team, led by Warwick Armstrong, becomes the first to complete a whitewash of the touring England team in The Ashes, something that will not be repeated for 86 years. This summer, the Australian cricket team in England will go on to win their first three Test matches.
- 5 March – Irish War of Independence: Clonbanin Ambush – Irish Republican Army kills Brigadier General Cumming.
- 11 March – Queen Mary becomes the first woman to be awarded an honorary degree by the University of Oxford.
- 16 March – The United Kingdom signs a trade agreement with the Russian SFSR.
- 17 March
- Bonar Law, the Conservative Party leader, resigns due to ill health.
- Dr Marie Stopes opens the United Kingdom's first birth control clinic in Holloway, London.[1]
- 19 March – Irish War of Independence: Crossbarry Ambush – British troops fail to encircle an outnumbered column of Irish Republican Army volunteers in County Cork, with at least ten British and three IRA deaths.
- 21 March
- Austen Chamberlain replaces Bonar Law as Conservative leader.
- Irish War of Independence: Headford Ambush – The IRA kills at least nine British troops.
- 26 March – Shaun Spadah wins the Grand National.
- 31 March – The government formally returns the coal mines from wartime control to their private owners, who demand wage cuts; in response, the Miners' Federation of Great Britain calls on its partner trade unions in the Triple Alliance to join it in strike action,[4] leading in turn to the government declaring a state of emergency for the first time under the Emergency Powers Act 1920.
- 1 April
- Lockout of striking coal miners begins.[5]
- Airship R36, the first to carry a British civilian registration (G-FAAF), makes her maiden flight from William Beardmore and Company's works at Inchinnan, Scotland. (Work on R37 at Cardington Airfield was suspended in February.)[6]
- 3 April – Coal rationing begins.
- 13 April – Lloyds Bank takes over Fox, Fowler and Company of Wellington, Somerset, the last provincial English bank to issue its own banknotes.
- 15 April
- "Black Friday": Transport union members of the 'Triple Alliance' refuse to support national strike action by coal miners.
- National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement set up by members of the Communist Party.[7][8]
- 23 April – Tottenham Hotspur F.C. beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 1–0 in the FA Cup Final.
- 26 April – Police patrol London on motorcycles for the first time.
- 3 May – The province of Northern Ireland is created within the United Kingdom under terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920.[9][10]
- 4 May – The IRA kill a former Royal Irish Constabulary inspector in Glasgow.
- 5 May
- London Schedule of Payments sets out the World War I reparations payable by the German Weimar Republic and other countries considered successors to the Central Powers.
- Only thirteen paying spectators attend the football match between Leicester City and Stockport County played at Old Trafford, the lowest attendance in The Football League's history.[11]
- 7 May – Crown Prince Hirohito of Japan arrives on an official visit.
- 15 May – The British Legion is founded as a voice for ex-servicemen by merger of the Comrades of the Great War, the National Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers, the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers and the Officers' Association, under the Presidency of Earl Haig.[12]
- 22 May – The United States beats the United Kingdom 9 rounds to 3 in the first golf international between the two countries.
- 24 May – Irish elections, under terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920: In the Northern Ireland general election for the new Parliament of Northern Ireland (held by single transferable vote), Ulster Unionists win 40 out of 52 seats. The dominant-party system in Northern Ireland will last for fifty years.
- 25 May – Irish War of Independence: the Irish Republican Army occupies and burns The Custom House in Dublin, the centre of local government in Ireland. Five IRA men are killed, and over eighty are captured by the British Army which surrounds the building.[13]
- 1 June – Humorist wins The Derby. For the first time the result is broadcast live by wireless.
- 6 June – King George V opens Southwark Bridge in London.
- 7 June
- The new Parliament of Northern Ireland assembles in Belfast City Hall; James Craig is elected as first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.
- J. M. M. Erskine, standing as an "Independent Anti-Waste" candidate, wins the Westminster St George's parliamentary seat in a by-election.
- 10 June – Unemployment reaches 2,200,000.
- 12 June – Sunday postal collection and delivery is suspended.[1]
- 14 June – First performance of the orchestral version of Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending conducted by Adrian Boult with Marie Hall as violin soloist in a concert at the Queen's Hall in London.
- 15 June – 2,000,000 workers are currently involved in pay disputes.
- 19 June – Census in the United Kingdom.
- 22 June – New Parliament of Northern Ireland, assembled at Belfast City Hall, is formally opened by King George V, making a speech (drafted by Jan Smuts) calling for reconciliation in Ireland.
- 24 June – The world's largest airship, the R.38, makes its maiden flight at Bedford.
- 25 June – Rainfall ends a drought which has lasted for one hundred days.
- 28 June – The coal strike ends with the Miners' Federation of Great Britain obliged to accept pay cuts and no national bargaining.[5]
July to December
- 2 July – Bill Tilden and Suzanne Lenglen retain their Wimbledon titles.
- 7 July – General Jan Smuts meets King George V to discuss the Irish situation.
- 9 July – The Irish War of Independence comes officially to an end when a truce, coming into effect at noon on 11 July, is agreed between British and Irish forces.
- 10/11 July - Heatwave with temperatures in the 90s in some parts of South-East England.[14]
- 10 July – Bloody Sunday: clashes between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast result in sixteen deaths (23 over the surrounding four-day period) and the destruction of over two hundred (mostly Catholic) homes.[15]
- 12 July – Sinn Féin representatives arrive in London for talks.
- 18 July – Ulster Unionist negotiators walk out of the truce talks in London.
- 28 July – First registration of practitioners of dentistry under the Dentists Act, making it a fully regulated profession.[16]
- 3 August – "Geddes Axe": announcement that the Prime Minister is appointing an advisory Committee on National Expenditure, made up of businessmen chaired by Sir Eric Geddes, to recommend reductions in government spending.[17]
- 19 August – Unemployment falls to 1,640,600.
- 24 August – Airship R.38 explodes on her fourth test flight near Kingston upon Hull, killing 44 of the 49 Anglo-American crew on board.[18][19]
- 27 August – The first games in the new Football League Third Division North are played, a year after the southern section was formed.[20] Among the new division's members are Stockport County, Walsall, Rochdale, Chesterfield and Tranmere Rovers.[21]
- 30 August – England defeat Australia, for the first time this year, in the final Test Match.
- 1 September – Poplar Rates Rebellion: led by George Lansbury, the Borough council in Poplar, London withholds collection of part of its rates, leading to six weeks' imprisonment for thirty councillors (including six women) and hasty passage of The London Authorities (Financial Provision) Act through Parliament to equalise tax burdens between rich and poor boroughs.[22][23]
- 7 September – David Lloyd George summons a meeting of the Cabinet at Inverness to discuss an independent Ireland's relationship with the British Empire.
- 9 September – Charlie Chaplin visits London and is met by thousands.
- 17 September – Shackleton-Rowett Expedition: Ernest Shackleton sets sail on his last expedition to Antarctica.[24]
- 23 September – The second female MP enters Parliament (Margaret Wintringham, in succession to her late husband at the Louth by-election).
- October – The first women are admitted to study for full academic degrees at the University of Cambridge, but have no associated privileges.[25]
- 8 October – The steamer SS Rowan sinks off the coast of Scotland. Twenty-two people lose their lives.
- 11 October – The Irish Treaty Conference opens in London.[26]
- 11 November – The British Legion holds the first official Poppy Day.[1]
- 21 November – Troops are sent to restore order after rioting breaks out in East Belfast.
- 22 November – At least ten people are killed in widespread shootings in Belfast.
- 30 November – Sir Basil Thomson retires after forty years as the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch.
- 6 December – British and Irish negotiators sign the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London giving independence to the Irish Free State.
- 9 December – John William Gott becomes the last person in England imprisoned for blasphemous libel.
- 10 December – Frederick Soddy wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes".[27]
- 13 December – In the Four-Power Treaty on Insular Possessions, the Empire of Japan, United Kingdom, United States and French Third Republic agree to recognize the status quo in the Pacific.
- 16 December – Parliament ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
Undated
- The Scottish county of Haddingtonshire is renamed East Lothian.
- Wicksteed Park in Kettering opens as the first inland amusement park in England.
- An exceptionally dry year over England and Wales with only 629.0 millimetres (24.8 in) making it the driest year on record since 1788, and not approached subsequently – the nearest being 1854 with 672.9 millimetres (26.5 in), 1864 with 703.3 millimetres (27.7 in), 1887 with 669.3 millimetres (26.4 in) and 1933 with 717.7 millimetres (28.3 in), 1964 with 725.5 millimetres (28.6 in) and 1973 with 739.9 millimetres (29.1 in).[28] In South East England the average is only 396.4 millimetres (15.6 in)[28] with some stations recording less than 300 millimetres (11.8 in). It reached 34C (94F) in Southern and Eastern England on 10 and 11 July.[29]
Publications
- Dorita Fairlie Bruce's children's novel The Senior Prefect, first of The Dimsie books.
- Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introducing Hercule Poirot (21 January; issued in the United States October 1920).
- Walter de la Mare's novel Memoirs of a Midget.
- Eleanor Farjeon's children's stories Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard.
- John Galsworthy's novel To Let, last of The Forsyte Saga.
- A. S. M. Hutchinson's novel If Winter Comes.[30]
- Aldous Huxley's novel Crome Yellow.
- Sheila Kaye-Smith's novel Joanna Godden.
- D. H. Lawrence's novel Women in Love (10 June; issued in a limited edition in the United States November 1920).
Births
- 1 January
- John Strawson, English general and military writer (died 2014)[31]
- Helen Yate, swimmer (died 2020)
- 2 January – Kenneth Griffith, actor (died 2006)
- 9 January – Roy Farran, soldier and author (died 2006)
- 14 January – Kenneth Bulmer, author (died 2005)
- 15 January – Frank Thornton, actor (died 2013)
- 16 January – George Thomson, journalist and politician (died 2008)
- 21 January – Charles Eric Maine, writer (died 1981)
- 22 January – Kevin Stoney, actor (died 2008)
- 26 January – Elisabeth Kirkby, English-born Australian actress, writer and politician
- 1 February
- Peter Sallis, actor (died 2017)
- Patricia Robins, writer and WAAF officer (died 2016)
- 27 January – Maurice Macmillan, politician (died 1984)
- 3 February – George E. Felton, French-born computer scientist (died 2019)
- 5 February
- Marion Eames, novelist (died 2007)
- John Pritchard, conductor (died 1989)
- Sir Ken Adam, German-born British production designer (died 2016)
- 6 February – Margaret Moncrieff, cellist (died 2008)
- 24 February – Pat Kirkwood, actress (died 2007)
- 28 February – J. F. C. Harrison, historian (died 2018)
- 1 March – Jack Clayton, film director (died 1995)[32]
- 2 March
- Christopher Lloyd, gardener and gardening writer (died 2006)
- Robert Simpson, composer (died 1997)
- 4 March
- Joan Greenwood, actress (died 1987)
- John Ryan, cartoonist (died 2009)
- 13 March – Cyril Poole, cricketer (died 1996)
- 19 March – Tommy Cooper, Welsh-born comedian and magician (died 1984)
- 23 March
- Donald Campbell, water and land speed record seeker (died 1967)
- Geoffrey Chater, actor and poet
- 25 March – Mary Douglas, social anthropologist (died 2007)
- 27 March – Richard Marner, actor (born in the Soviet Union; died 2004)
- 28 March – Dirk Bogarde, actor and author (died 1999)
- 29 March
- Hugh Neill, businessman (died 2017)
- Johnny Lawrenson, English rugby league winger (died 2010)
- 30 March
- Tony Honoré, lawyer and jurist (died 2019)
- Elizabeth Sutherland, 24th Countess of Sutherland, Scottish noblewoman (died 2019)
- 1 April – Steve Race, pianist, composer and radio presenter (died 2009)
- 5 April – Les Jackson, English cricketer (died 2007)
- 10 April – Robert Wade, New Zealand-born chess player (died 2008)
- 16 April – Peter Ustinov, actor, writer, dramatist and raconteur (died 2004)
- 20 April – Peter Baker, English soldier, author, publisher and politician (died 1966)
- 27 April – John Stott, British Anglican cleric, Christian author (d. 2011)
- 4 May – John Goodwin, theatre publicist and writer (died 2018)
- 7 May – Asa Briggs, historian (died 2016)
- 15 May – Alan Huggins, judge (died 2009)
- 17 May – Dennis Brain, horny player (died 1957)
- 18 May
- Joan Eardley, painter (died 1963)
- Sir Michael A. Epstein, medical researcher
- 21 May – Peggy Cripps Appiah, children's author and socialite (died 2006)
- 22 May – John Francis Marchment Middleton, anthropologist (died 2009)
- 23 May – Humphrey Lyttelton, jazz musician and broadcaster (died 2008)
- 26 May – Stan Mortensen, English footballer (died 1991)[33]
- 27 May – Cyril Tamplin, cricketer
- June – Dennis Wilson, poet
- 8 June
- Gordon Campbell, Baron Campbell of Croy, politician (died 2005)
- Alwyn Williams, geologist (died 2004)
- 12 June – Christopher Derrick, writer (died 2007)
- 22 June – Roland Gibbs, head of the British Army, from 1976 to 1979 (died 2004)[34]
- June – Dennis Wilson, poet
- 4 July – Frederick Sydney Waller, shipbuilder (died 2016)
- 7 July – Joe Wade, English footballer and manager (died 2005)
- 14 July – Leon Garfield, children's historical novelist (died 1996)[35]
- 15 July – Jean Heywood, actress[36] (died 2019)
- 19 July – Diana Elles, Baroness Elles, British barrister, United Nations representative from the United Kingdom (died 2009)
- 31 July – Peter Benenson, lawyer and human rights campaigner (died 2005)
- 5 August – Christopher Ewart-Biggs, ambassador and diplomat (died 1976)
- 8 August
- Alan Muir Wood, civil engineer (died 2009)
- David Pears, philosopher (died 2009)
- 9 August – Patricia Marmont, actress
- 10 August – Jack Archer, athlete (died 1997)
- 11 August – Tom Kilburn, co-inventor of the Williams-Kilburn tube, used for memory in early computer systems (died 1971)
- 17 August – Elinor Lyon, children's writer (died 2008)
- 1 September – Daphne Park, diplomat and spy (died 2010)
- 3 September – Thurston Dart, harpsichordist, conductor (died 1971)
- 6 September – John Bickersteth, British Anglican prelate (died 2018)
- 8 September – Harry Secombe, entertainer (died 2001)
- 15 September
- Richard Gordon, author (died 2017)
- Clive Rose, diplomat (died 2019)
- 19 September – Conway Berners-Lee, mathematician and computer scientist (died 2019)
- 20 September – Leon Comber, author
- 21 September – Jimmy Young, singer and radio broadcaster (died 2016)
- 29 September
- James Cross, Irish-English diplomat (died 2021)
- Francis Rose, botanist (died 2006)
- 30 September – Deborah Kerr, actress (died 2007)[37]
- 2 October
- Edmund Crispin, writer and composer (died 1978)
- Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 2000)
- 8 October – Michael Fox, judge (died 2007)
- 11 October – Paddy Ridsdale, Lady Ridsdale, politician and World War II agent (died 2009)
- 12 October
- Kenneth Griffith, actor (died 2006)
- Logie Bruce Lockhart, Scottish rugby player and journalist (died 2020)
- 23 October – Archie Lamb, diplomat, writer and businessman
- 2 November
- Pearl Carr, singer (died 2020)
- Sally Gilmour, ballerina (died 2004)
- 4 November – Hugh Cunningham, army officer (died 2019)
- 11 November – Ron Greenwood, footballer and manager (died 2006)
- 25 November – Johnny Johnson, Royal Air Force officer
- 8 December – Terence Morgan, actor (died 2005)
- 11 December – Liz Smith, character actress (died 2016)
- 12 December – John Papworth, clergyman, writer and activist (died 2020)
- 14 December – Simon Towneley, politician
- 22 December – John Aiken, air marshal (died 2005)
Deaths
- 1 January – Mary Macarthur, trade unionist (born 1880)
- 12 January – Gervase Elwes, tenor (born 1866)
- 18 January – Elizabeth Anne Finn, writer (born 1825 in Poland)
- 26 January – Lord Herbert Lionel Henry Vane-Tempest, company director (killed in the Abermule train collision) (born 1862)
- 8 February – George Formby Sr, entertainer (born 1876)
- 27 February – Schofield Haigh, cricketer (born 1871)
- 22 March – E. W. Hornung, author (born 1866)
- 27 March – Sir Harry Barron, army officer and Governor of Tasmania (1909-1913) and Western Australia (1913-1917) (born 1847)
- 1 April – Sir Edmund Poë, admiral (born 1849)
- 2 April – Charles Blackader, general (born 1869)
- 27 April – Arthur Mold, cricketer (born 1863)
- 12 May – Sir Melville Macnaghten, police officer (born 1853)
- 19 May – Michael Llewelyn Davies, inspiration for Peter Pan, drowned (born 1900)
- 25 May – Sir Arthur Wilson, admiral of the fleet (born 1842)
- 26 June – Alfred Percy Sinnett, theosophist (born 1840)
- 29 June – Lady Randolph Churchill, socialite mother of Winston Churchill (born 1854 in the United States)
- 13 July – Emily Davies, pioneer of women's rights and education (born 1830)
- 2 September – Henry Austin Dobson, poet (born 1840)
- 7 September – Alfred William Rich, watercolourist (born 1856)
- 17 October – Edward John Bevan, chemist, partner of Charles Frederick Cross (born 1856)
- 23 October – John Boyd Dunlop, inventor (born 1840)
- 10 December – George Ashlin, architect (born 1837)
- 11 December – Hardinge Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury, lawyer, Lord Chancellor (born 1823)
- 25 December – Sir George Atkinson-Willes, Royal Navy admiral (born 1847)
References
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- Statutory Rules & Orders published by authority, 1921, No. 533.
- Jackson, Alvin (2004). Home Rule – An Irish History. Oxford University Press. p. 198.
- It is estimated that between 1,000 and 2,000 people actually attended the match; Manchester United and Derby County had played immediately beforehand, and some of the spectators for that match had stayed on to watch the Stockport match for free. However, only thirteen people paid at the gate to watch the Stockport match by itself, staged here because bottom-of the-League Stockport's home ground had been closed due to earlier crowd trouble. "Two grounds have doubled up on staging League matches on the same day". footballsite.co.uk. Archived from the original on 31 July 2013. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
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- Driggs, Laurence La Tourette (7 September 1921). "The Fall of the Airship". The Outlook. New York. 129: 14–15.
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- "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1921". NobelPrize.org.
- Hadley Centre. "Monthly England & Wales precipitation". Meteorological Office. Retrieved 18 February 2014.
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