1906 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1906 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Monarch – Edward VII
Prime Minister – Henry Campbell-Bannerman

Events

8 February – the Liberal Party led by Henry Campbell-Bannerman win the general election with a large majority. The Conservatives lose 246 seats, including that of their leader, Arthur Balfour.
10 February –, the first all-big-gun battleship, is launched at Portsmouth and sparks the naval race between Britain and Germany.
15 February – representatives of the Labour Representation Committee in Parliament take the name [Labour Party (UK)|Parliamentary Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party].
10 March – Bakerloo line of the London Underground opened.
15 March – Rolls-Royce Limited is registered as a car manufacturer.
22 March – first international rugby match. England defeats France 25–8.
21 April – Manchester United F.C., known as Newton Heath until four years ago, secure promotion to the Football League First Division.
15 May – Our Dumb Friends League opens its first animal hospital, in Victoria, London.
26 May – opening of Vauxhall Bridge in London.
30 May – Royal Navy battleship HMS Montagu runs aground on the island of Lundy and becomes a loss.
22 June – the present King's daughter Maud is crowned as queen consort of Norway.
27 June – Swansea earthquake causes considerable damage.
1 July – Salisbury rail crash: a London and South Western Railway express train suffers derailment and collision passing through Salisbury station at excessive speed; 24 passengers and 4 railwaymen are killed.
12 July – Handcross Hill bus crash: 10 people are killed when a Vanguard Milnes-Daimler bus crashes on Handcross Hill whilst on a private hire excursion to Brighton.
31 August–3 September – Heat wave reaches its peak.
15 September – anti-vivisection Brown Dog statue is erected in Battersea, provoking riots.
19 September – Grantham rail accident: a Great Northern Railway sleeping car train suffers derailment passing through Grantham station at excessive speed; 14 are killed.
30 September – the first Gordon Bennett Cup in ballooning is held, starting in Paris; the winners, in the balloon United States, land in Fylingdales, Yorkshire.
October – new City Hall, Cardiff, opens in Cathays Park.
8 October – German inventor and hairdresser Karl Nessler gives the first public demonstration of his permanent wave machine in London.
23 October – suffragettes disrupt the State Opening of Parliament.
2 December – HMS Dreadnought commissioned.
10 December – J. J. Thomson wins the Nobel Prize in Physics "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases."
13 December
* Trade Disputes Act legalises picketing.
* Workmen's Compensation Act entitles workers to compensation for industrial injuries or disease.
15 December – Piccadilly line of the London Underground opened.
21 December – Education (Provision of Meals) Act allows local education authorities to provide cheap or free school meals to the poorest children.

Undated

Hampstead Garden Suburb established in north London.
Richard Oldham argues that the Earth has a molten interior.
Alice Perry becomes the first woman to graduate with a degree in civil engineering in the British Isles, at Queen's College, Galway, Ireland, and is appointed in December as an acting county surveyor.
J. K. Farnell of London manufacture the first British teddy bear.
Gillingham Park opens in Gillingham, Kent, becoming the area's first significant public recreation space.

Publications

Angela Brazil's schoolgirl story The Fortunes of Philippa.
William De Morgan's novel Joseph Vance.The English Hymnal edited by Percy Dearmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Henry Watson Fowler and Frank Fowler's usage guide The King's English.
John Galsworthy's first Forsyte Saga novel The Man of Property.
Rudyard Kipling's historical fantasy Puck of Pook's Hill.
William Le Queux and H. W. Wilson's invasion literature novel The Invasion of 1910.
E. Nesbit's novel The Railway Children.
J. M. Dent and Company commence publication of the Everyman's Library series with Boswell's Life of Johnson.

Births

5 January – Kathleen Kenyon, archaeologist of the Middle East and college principal
12 January – Eric Birley, historian and archaeologist
16 January – Diana Wynyard, actress
19 January – Leader Stirling, missionary surgeon
22 January – Joe Gladwin, actor
23 January – Lady May Abel Smith, royalty, great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria
10 February – Arthur Elton, pioneer documentary film maker
13 February – E. M. Wright, mathematician
19 February – Grace Williams, Welsh composer
26 February – Madeleine Carroll, actress
28 February – Percy Shakespeare, painter
3 March – Rose Hacker, activist
13 March – Dave Kaye, pianist
16 March – Henny Youngman, American-domiciled comedian
19 March – Stella Ross-Craig, floral illustrator
25 March – A. J. P. Taylor, historian
26 March – Ronald Urquhart, general
31 March – David Heneker, composer
8 April – Marjorie Lewty, writer
9 April – Hugh Gaitskell, Labour politician
11 April – Julia Clements, flower arranger
18 April – George Wallace, politician
21 April
* Lillian Browse, art dealer
* Stephen Tennant, eccentric socialite
29 May – T. H. White, Indian-born novelist
1 June – Walter Legge, classical record producer
5 June – Margaret Sampson, Anglican nun
19 June – Ernst Boris Chain, German-born biochemist, Nobel laureate
20 June
* Catherine Cookson, novelist
* Robert Trent Jones, American-domiciled golf course designer
26 June – John Wolfenden, Baron Wolfenden, educationist
27 June
* Catherine Cookson, novelist
* Vernon Watkins, Welsh poet
30 June – Ralph Allen, footballer
1 July
* Ritchie Calder, Scottish socialist author, journalist and academic
* Ivan Neill, major and Irish Unionist politician
3 July – George Sanders, screen actor
7 July – Hugh McMahon, Scottish footballer
10 July – Harold Ridley, ophthalmologist
5 August – Joan Hickson, actress
7 August – Launcelot Fleming, Anglican bishop and polar explorer
28 August – John Betjeman, poet laureate
30 August – Elizabeth Longford, biographer
1 September – Eleanor Hibbert, historical romantic novelist under several pseudonyms
16 September – Norman Lumsden, opera singer
27 September – William Empson, poet and literary critic
30 September – J. I. M. Stewart, Scottish-born novelist and academic critic
20 October – Winifred Watson, novelist
21 October – Elsie Widdowson, dietician and nutritionist
24 October – Robert Sainsbury, businessman and art collector
1 November – Beryl Cooke, actress
4 November – Arnold Cooke, composer
5 November – "Pip" Roberts, general
6 November – Alastair Graham, zoologist
13 November
* Hermione Baddeley, character actress
* John Sparrow, literary scholar
18 November
* Neville Ford, cricketer
* Alec Issigonis, Ottoman-born car designer
19 November – Alan Bloom, horticulturalist
21 November – Georgina Battiscombe, biographer
29 November – Barbara C. Freeman, writer and poet
8 December – Richard Llewellyn, novelist
24 December – James Hadley Chase, novelist
30 December – Carol Reed, film director

Deaths

5 January – Sir William Gatacre, general
22 January – George Holyoake, secularist and proponent of the cooperative movement
1 February – J. P. Seddon, architect and designer
2 March – Ellen Mary Clerke, writer
8 March – Henry Baker Tristram, ornithologist and clergyman
19 April – Spencer Gore, tennis player and cricketer
5 May – Eliza Brightwen, naturalist
6 June – Sir Frederick Peel, politician
20 June – John Clayton Adams, landscape painter
3 August – Sir Sydney Waterlow, businessman, politician and philanthropist
19 August – Agnes Catherine Maitland, academic, novelist and cookery writer
24 September – Charlotte Riddell, fiction writer and editor
9 October – Wilhelmina FitzClarence, Countess of Munster, fiction writer
30 October – Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 1st Earl of Cranbrook, politician
9 November – Dorothea Beale, proponent of women's education
30 November – Sir Edward Reed, naval architect, politician and Florida railroad magnate
19 December – Frederic William Maitland, historian and jurist
30 December
* Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts, philanthropist
* Josephine Butler, feminist and social reformer
* Eugène Goossens, père, conductor