1910 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1910 in the United Kingdom. This year sees a change of monarch.

Incumbents

Monarch - Edward VII, George V
Prime Minister – H. H. Asquith

Events

January – Cinematograph Act 1909 comes into effect providing for licensing of cinemas by local authorities.
15 January – A general election held in response to the House of Lords' rejection of the 1909 budget results in a reduced Liberal Party majority.
31 January – Dr. Crippen poisons his wife and buries her body in the cellar of their London home.
1 February – The first labour exchanges open in the UK.
7 February – Dreadnought hoax: Horace de Vere Cole and members of the Bloomsbury Group make an "official visit" to the battleship HMS Dreadnought at Portland Harbour in disguise as a royal delegation from Abyssinia.
15 February – The Royal Aero Club is granted its "Royal" prefix.
19 February – Old Trafford, the largest football stadium in England with an 80,000 capacity, is opened. Manchester United's first game there is a 4–3 home defeat to Liverpool in the Football League First Division.
March – King Edward VII falls very ill with bronchitis in France, returning to London a few weeks later.
31 March – Federation of Stoke-on-Trent: Administrative amalgamation of the six towns of The Potteries in north Staffordshire into the single county borough of Stoke-on-Trent, the first such merger in the history of local government in England.
April – It is reported that King Edward VII's health has deteriorated further and he is likely to die soon.
4 April – A bill to abolish the legislative veto of the House of Lords is introduced in the House of Commons, starting a prolonged clash between the two Houses of Parliament.
27 April – The House of Commons passes David Lloyd George's 'People's Budget' for the second time; it is passed by House of Lords on 29 April.
28 April – Frenchman Louis Paulhan completes the Daily Mail's 1910 London to Manchester air race in under 24 hours; the other competitor, Claude Grahame-White, is forced to retire.
6 May – George V succeeds to the British throne as King on the death of his father, Edward VII, at Buckingham Palace.
11 May – A firedamp explosion at Wellington Colliery, Whitehaven, in the Cumberland Coalfield, kills 136. 64 Edward Medals are awarded to rescuers.
20 May – Funeral of Edward VII held, one of the largest and last gatherings of European royalty to take place, following the first public lying in state in Westminster Hall.
2 June – Charles Rolls becomes the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane, including the first eastbound flight. He is also the first British resident to make the crossing in a British-built plane.
15 June – Terra Nova Expedition: Robert Falcon Scott's ship Terra Nova sets sail from Cardiff on an expedition with the purpose of undertaking scientific research and exploration along the coast and interior of Antarctica.
14–23 June – Edinburgh Missionary Conference is held in Scotland, presided over by Nobel Peace Prize recipient John R. Mott, launching the modern ecumenical movement and the modern missions movement.
21 June – Truro Cathedral, Cornwall, completed.
28 June – Consecration of the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral in London.
July – First Girl Guide troops registered, under the supervision of Agnes Baden-Powell.
9–10 July – 'Fowler's match': the Eton v Harrow cricket match at Lord's, known after the captain of Eton College, Robert St Leger Fowler, and described as "what might just be the greatest cricket match of all time".
12 July – Charles Rolls becomes the first British aviation fatality when his French-built Wright aeroplane suffers a broken rudder at an altitude of and crashes during a contest at Bournemouth.
29 July – In a legal cause célèbre, the Crown drops its charge against naval cadet George Archer-Shee for stealing a postal order.
31 July – Dr. Crippen is arrested on board the SS Montrose after a telegraph is sent to the ship's captain.
1 September – Ninian Park football stadium is opened in Cardiff, to serve Cardiff City F.C., who are members of the English Football League despite being based in Wales.
6 September – Vaughan Williams' string orchestral work Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is premiered under the composer's baton at Gloucester Cathedral for the Three Choirs Festival.
11 September – English-born actor-aviator Robert Loraine makes an aeroplane flight from Wales across the Irish Sea, landing some short of the Irish coast in Dublin Bay.
5 October – Portugal becomes a republic; King Manuel II flees to England.
18 October
* Dr. Crippen put on trial for murder at the Old Bailey.
* First B-type double-decker bus, built and operated by the London General Omnibus Company, enters service. Designed by Frank Searle and considered the first mass-produced bus, around 2,800 are built up to 1919, displacing LGOC's last horse-drawn buses by the end of 1911 and with examples in regular use up to 1926, about 900 seeing service on the Western Front (World War I).
20 October – RMS Olympic is launched at the Harland and Wolff Shipyards in Belfast.
22 October
* Dr. Crippen found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
* Women chainmakers of Cradley Heath in the Black Country, led by Mary Macarthur, win a minimum wage following a ten-week strike; this effectively doubles their pay.
November – Education Act establishes the school careers service.
1 November – Coal miners are balloted for strike action by the South Wales Miners' Federation following a lock-out, resulting in 12,000 men working for the Cambrian Combine beginning a 10-month strike.
7–8 November – Conflict between striking miners and police forces in the Rhondda, South Wales, leads to the Tonypandy riots.
8 November–15 January 1911 – Manet and the Post-Impressionists exhibition at the Grafton Galleries in London, organised by Roger Fry, introduces the term Post-Impressionism.
18 November – Black Friday: 300 suffragettes clash with police outside Parliament over the failure of the Conciliation Bill.
23 November – Dr. Crippen hanged at Pentonville Prison, London.
26 November – Suffragist Hugh Franklin attempts to whip Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, on a train over the police treatment of suffragettes.
3–19 December – The [December 1910 United Kingdom general election|second January 1910 United Kingdom general election|general election of 1910] is held for the electorate to resolve the battle of wills between the Houses of Commons and the House of Lords. The results are: Liberals, 272; Labour, 42; Irish Nationalists, 84; Unionists, 272 – making a majority of 126 for restriction of the powers of the Lords and for Irish Home Rule. This will be the last UK general election before the end of World War I, the last on which regular voting extends over several days, the last in which only men can vote, and the last in which a party other than the Conservatives or Labour will gain a majority of seats.
16 December – In Houndsditch, London, four anarchists shoot three policemen in a botched raid on a jewellers – three are arrested, other members of the gang escape but are later cornered in the 'siege of Sidney Street'.
21 December – The Pretoria Pit disaster: a massive underground explosion in a colliery belonging to the Hulton Colliery Company at Westhoughton in Lancashire, kills 344, with just one survivor, the second-worst mining accident in England and the third-worst in Britain.
25 December – Suffragette Mary Jane Clarke dies in London from a brain hemorrhage two days after being released from prison, where she had been force-fed, "the first woman martyr who has gone to death for this cause".
26 December – London Palladium music hall opens.

Undated

Autumn – Charlie Chaplin and Stan Jefferson, later known as Stan Laurel, embark from Southampton on the same ship, SS Cairnrona, on their first trip to North America, as part of Fred Karno's comedy troupe.
Bamforths of Holmfirth begin publishing 'saucy' seaside postcards.
New Birmingham Oratory building completed.
Admiralty Arch in London completed.

Publications

Arnold Bennett's novel Clayhanger, first in The Clayhanger Family series set in the Staffordshire Potteries.
John Buchan's novel Prester John.
Gilbert Cannan's novel Devious Ways.
Jeffery Farnol's novel The Broad Highway.
E. M. Forster's novel Howards End.
Rudyard Kipling's collection Rewards and Fairies containing the first publication of the poem "If—".
H. G. Wells' novel The History of Mr Polly.
Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell's book Principia Mathematica vol. 1, one of the most important and seminal works in mathematical logic and philosophy.

Births

2 January – Kingsley Dunham, geologist
9 January – Tom Evenson, runner
11 January – Maurice Buckmaster, head of Special Operations Executive
15 January – Stephen Gilbert, artist
28 January – Hopper Read, cricketer
29 January – Colin Middleton, artist
8 February – G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, historian
10 February – Joyce Grenfell, actress, comedian and singer-songwriter
11 February – L. T. C. Rolt, writer
13 February – William Shockley, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
21 February – Douglas Bader, World War II fighter pilot
1 March
* Archer Martin, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
* David Niven, actor
4 March – Basil Boothroyd, humorous writer
17 March – Molly Weir, actress
22 March – Nicholas Monsarrat, novelist
23 March – Jerry Cornes, athlete
27 March – Robert Harling, typographer
31 March – Edward Seago, artist
6 April – Desmond Dreyer, admiral
8 April – Denis Redman, major-general
14 April – Kathleen Sully, novelist
19 April – Humphrey Spender, photojournalist
3 May – Bernard Orchard, biblical scholar
5 May – Charles Harington, Army officer
10 May – Arthur Marshall, writer and broadcaster
12 May – Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
16 May
* Noreen Branson, communist activist
* Richard Usborne, journalist and author
22 May – Molly Lamont, actress
28 May – Rachel Kempson, actress
30 May – Harry Bernstein, author
1 June – Robert Megarry, judge
3 June – Wilfred Thesiger, soldier and explorer
4 June – Christopher Cockerell, inventor
6 June – Dorothy Carrington, writer
12 June – Bill Naughton, playwright
13 June
* Bill Alexander, communist activist and Spanish Civil War commander
* Mary Whitehouse, 'Clean-Up TV' and Christian morality campaigner
15 June – Alf Pearson, singer and part of Bob and Alf Pearson double act
17 June
* Sam Costa, crooner, radio actor and disc jockey
* Diana Mosley, socialite
18 June – M. S. Bartlett, statistician
21 June – Clive Sansom, poet and playwright
22 June
* Peter Pears, tenor
* Anne Ziegler, born Irené Frances Eastwood, soprano
28 June – Barbara Bailey, nun and artist
3 July – Bernard Burrows, diplomat
7 July – Edgar Claxton, rail engineer
11 July – Hugh B. Cave, science fiction writer
14 July – Vincent Brome, biographer and novelist
20 July – Veronica Wedgwood, historian
24 July – Edward Ford, courtier
4 August – William Cooper, novelist
5 August – Jacquetta Hawkes, prehistoric archaeologist
8 August – Jimmy Murphy, football player and manager
11 August – Hermione Hammond, painter
19 August – Gerald Ellison, Bishop of London
20 August – Harry Errington, World War II firefighter
2 September – Donald Watson, animal rights activist, pioneer of veganism
5 September – Leila Mackinlay, romance writer
10 September
*Eric de Maré, architectural photographer
*Betty Neels, novelist
*Denis Richards, historian
11 September – Donald Wilson, screenwriter and television producer
30 September – Edward Hyams, author, historian and gardener
6 October – Barbara Castle, politician
16 October
*Misha Black, architect and designer
*Will Reed, composer
20 October – Hopper Read, cricketer
29 October – A. J. Ayer, philosopher
31 October – Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild, banker, zoologist and intelligence officer
8 November – Denis Mahon, art historian and collector
14 November – Eric Malpass, novelist
15 November – Hugh Greene, television director and journalist
19 November – Griffith Jones, actor
20 November – George Devine, theatrical manager
29 November – Hans Singer, German-born economist
1 December – Alicia Markova, ballerina
2 December – Penelope Aitken, socialite
3 December – Jane Shaw, children's author
4 December – Harry Wingfield, illustrator
16 December – Derek Bryan, diplomat, sinologist and writer
18 December – Leon Greenman, anti-fascist campaigner
19 December – Billie Yorke, tennis player
25 December – Howard Johnson, politician
29 December – Ronald Coase, economist Nobel Prize laureate

Deaths

27 January – Thomas Crapper, inventor
3 May – Lottie Collins, singer and dancer
6 May – Edward VII
10 May – Anna Laetitia Waring, poet
12 May – Sir William Huggins, astronomer
31 May – Elizabeth Blackwell, American-domiciled abolitionist and women's rights activist
7 June – Goldwin Smith, historian
9 June – Sir George Newnes, periodical publisher
12 July – Charles Rolls, aviator and automobile manufacturer
13 August – Florence Nightingale, nurse
7 September – William Holman Hunt, painter
12 September – Cuthbert A. Brereton, civil engineer
19 September – William Maclagan, Archbishop of York
29 December – Reginald Doherty, tennis player