1905 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1905 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Events

1 January – East Coast gales: Great Yarmouth flooded and pier at Scarborough washed away.
5 January – The play The Scarlet Pimpernel opens at the New Theatre in London and begins a run of 122 performances and numerous revivals.
16 February – At Haulbowline Base in Ireland, two explosions on board submarine, due to petrol fumes after refuelling, kill six of the eleven crew.
23 February – Beginning of Eliza Sheffield's unsuccessful breach of promise case against Lord Townshend.
February – Alf Common becomes the first £1,000 footballer in his transfer from Sheffield United to Middlesbrough.
10 March
* An underground explosion at Cambrian Colliery in Clydach Vale kills 33.
* Chelsea Football Club founded.
14 March – 23 of the 26 crew of the barque Kyber die when the ship is wrecked at Gwennap Head in Cornwall.
20 March – The title Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is officially recognised by Edward VII by a royal warrant.
29 March – Carmaker Vauxhall opens a factory at Luton, Bedfordshire, as its main manufacturing base following expansion from London.
6 May – The Naval, Shipping and Fisheries Exhibition opens in Earl's Court to mark 100 years since the Battle of Trafalgar
12 May
* First public protest by suffragettes, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, at Westminster.
* The Natural History Museum, London, unveils its popular exhibit of "Dippy", an exact replica of the skeleton of the Diplodocus carnegii dinosaur.
23 May – First performance of George Bernard Shaw's 1903 play Man and Superman, at the Royal Court Theatre, London.
29 May – The recently formed Chelsea F.C. are elected to the Football League for the 1905–06 football season; on 2 September they play their first match, at the new Stamford Bridge stadium.
June – Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar first produced, in Bournville.
1 June – General Post Office London to Brighton horse-drawn parcel post coach makes its last run, being replaced by a motor lorry the following day.
9 June – Charlton Athletic F.C. is founded.
15 June – Princess Margaret of Connaught marries Gustaf, Crown Prince of Sweden.
29 June – The Automobile Association inaugurated.
July – British Red Cross Society formally inaugurated.
3 July – Release of Cecil Hepworth's short silent drama film Rescued by Rover presenting a significant advance in film techniques.
11 July – National Colliery disaster at Wattstown in the Rhondda: an underground explosion kills 120, with just one survivor.
2 August – The Ancient Order of Druids initiates neo-Druidic rituals at Stonehenge in England.
11 August – Aliens Act 1905, the first modern legislation to control immigration into the U.K.
12 August – First running of the Shelsley Walsh Speed Hill Climb, the world's oldest motorsport event to have been staged continuously on its original course
25 August – 'Ancient Order of Druids' initiate neo-druidic rituals at Stonehenge.
26 September – Newbury Racecourse first used.
3 October – HMS Dreadnought is laid down at Portsmouth, revolutionising battleship design and triggering an international naval arms race.
13 October – Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst interrupt a Liberal Party rally at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester and choose imprisonment when convicted, the first militant action of the suffragette campaign.
18 October – London County Council's new street at Kingsway and redevelopment of Aldwych are opened.
21 October – Henry Wood first conducts a performance of his Fantasia on British Sea Songs at a centenary Trafalgar Day concert in London.
26 October – Aspirin sold in the UK for the first time.
5 November – Edward VII declares his eldest daughter The Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife, the Princess Royal. He also orders that the daughters of Princess Louise, Lady Alexandra Duff and Lady Maud Duff are to be styled as Princesses of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the style Highness.
19 November – 39 men die in a fire at a model lodging house in Watson Street, Glasgow.
28 November – Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin in Dublin as a political party whose goal is independence for all of Ireland.
4 December – Internal splits within the Conservative Party over tariff reform lead to the resignation of Balfour as Prime Minister. Campbell-Bannerman takes over for the Liberal Party, pending a general election in the new year.
6 December – "Jacky" Fisher promoted to Admiral of the Fleet.
1905
* Suicide rate of 303 per million, all-time UK peak year.
* Local authority expenditure reaches an all-time peak as a proportion of all government expenditure of 51%.

Publications

E. Clerihew Bentley's first published collection of clerihews Biography for Beginners, illustrated by G. K. Chesterton.
Angela Brazil's first novel A Terrible Tomboy.
Arthur Conan Doyle's anthology The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
E. M. Forster's novel Where Angels Fear to Tread.
Robert Hichens' novel The Garden of Allah.
W. J. Locke's novel The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne.
H. E. Marshall's Our Island Story: A Child's History of England.
E. Nesbit's children's novel The Railway Children.
Baroness Orczy's historical novel The Scarlet Pimpernel.
H. A. Vachell's school story The Hill.
H. G. Wells' novel Kipps.

Births

2 January – Michael Tippett, composer
6 January – Idris Davies, Anglo-Welsh poet
14 January – Jane Welsh, actress
15 January – Torin Thatcher, actor
1 February – Joan Morgan, actress
4 February – Hylda Baker, comic actress
7 February – Cyril Demarne, firefighter and author
10 February – Rachel Thomas, actress
16 February – Oliver Franks, public figure
18 February – Queenie Leonard, actress
21 February – Henry Mollison, actor
26 February
*Arthur Brough, actor
*Robert Byron, travel writer
*Kathleen Guthrie, graphic artist
2 March – Geoffrey Grigson, poet and literary critic
10 March – Richard Haydn, comic actor
18 March – Robert Donat, actor
26 March – Geoffrey Gorer, anthropologist and author
28 March – Audrey Withers, magazine editor
30 March – Albert Pierrepoint, hangman
3 May – Sebastian Shaw, actor
16 May – H. E. Bates, fiction writer
22 May – Tom Driberg, journalist and politician
27 June – Lady Rachel Pepys, Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent
4 July – Robert Hankey, 2nd Baron Hankey, diplomat
8 July – Kathleen Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn, courtier
12 July – Prince John
17 July – Marjorie Reeves, historian and educationalist
25 July – Denys Watkins-Pitchford, writer
15 August – Lady Jean Rankin, courtier
23 August – Constant Lambert, composer
4 September – Mary Renault, novelist
22 September – Muriel Box, film director and screenwriter
29 September – Marie Hartley, writer
4 October – Leslie Mitchell, announcer
15 October – C. P. Snow, novelist and physicist
29 October
* Reg Bunn, comic book artist
*Henry Green, novelist
*Berthold Wolpe, calligrapher, typographer and illustrator
31 October – Elizabeth Jenkins, novelist
4 November – Frank Owen, journalist and politician
21 November – Georgina Battiscombe, biographer
25 November – Patrick Devlin, judge
26 November – Emlyn Williams, dramatist and actor
4 December – Guy Mountfort, advertising executive and ornithologist
5 December – Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, peer, politician and reformer
21 December – Anthony Powell, novelist
22 December – Hugh Edward Richardson, diplomat and Tibetologist
25 December – Lewis Allen, film and television director
31 December – Jule Styne, songwriter

Deaths

9 April – Frederic Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford, British general
5 May – Edwin Bibby, wrestler
3 June – Hudson Taylor, British missionary
25 July – Thomas Spencer, joint founder of retailer Marks & Spencer
14 August – Simeon Solomon, artist
18 September – George MacDonald, Scottish author and poet, Christian minister
19 September – Thomas John Barnardo, philanthropist
13 October – Sir Henry Irving, stage actor
14 October – John Thomas, Welsh photographer
6 November – George Williams, founder of the YMCA
10 November – Rowland Williams (Hwfa Môn), poet and archdruid
14 November – Robert Whitehead, marine engineer
5 December – Henry Eckford, British horticulturist
9 December – Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb, British scholar and politician
17 December – Robert Jones Derfel, poet and dramatist