1912 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1912 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Monarch – George V
Prime Minister – H. H. Asquith

Events

1 January – General Post Office takes over National Telephone Company.
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.
31 January – G. K. Sowerby's drama Rutherford and Son premières at the Royal Court Theatre in London.
2 February – With Our King and Queen Through India, a 2-hour Kinemacolor feature film of the Delhi Durbar of 1911 made by Charles Urban, is first shown at the Scala Theatre, London.
26 February–6 April – National coal strike of 1912.
1 March – suffragettes smash shop windows in the West End of London, especially around Oxford Street.
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.
19 March – minimum wage introduced for miners after national strike.
29 March – the remaining members of Scott's expedition die.
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 the race is won by Oxford by six lengths.
11 April – Irish Home Rule Bill introduced in the House of Commons, but fails to receive the support of the House of Lords.
13 April – the Royal Flying Corps is established by royal charter.
14-15 April – the sinking of the Titanic: White Star liner strikes an iceberg and sinks on her maiden voyage from the United Kingdom to the United States.
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.
9 July – Cadeby Main pit disaster: two underground explosions in the South Yorkshire Coalfield kill 91 miners.
15 July – the National Insurance Act 1911 comes into force introducing National Insurance payments.
27 July – the Blenheim Unionist rally: 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.
* Wettest British August on record.
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.
25-27 August – the wet summer climaxes in a major rainstorm across England, causing floods particularly in Norfolk and Norwich.
September – the tradition of the Blackpool Illuminations begins.
31 October – Robert Baden-Powell marries Olave St Clair Soames at Parkstone.
5 November – establishment of the British Board of Film Censors.
12 November – the bodies of Captain Scott and his team are found in the Antarctic.
27 November – concerted suffragette attacks on pillar boxes.
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.

Undated

Sir Rufus Isaacs, the Attorney General, becomes the first believing 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.
Glucozade, the predecessor of Lucozade, is first produced.

Publications

Walter de la Mare's The Listeners, and Other Poems.
Ethel M. Dell's first novel The Way of an Eagle.
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
17 January – Edward Fennessy, electrical engineer
19 January – Margaret Wingfield, politician
20 January – Reg Smith, footballer and football manager
21 January – Laurence Whistler, poet and artist
3 February – John Bryan Ward-Perkins, archaeologist
6 February – Christopher Hill, historian
8 February
*Ann Lambton, historian
*Richard Southern, historian
12 February
* Eric Barker, comedy actor
* Gabrielle Brune, actress
11 February – Roy Fuller, poet and novelist
13 February
* Jenny Laird, actress
* Margaretta Scott, actress
20 February – Olive Cook, writer and artist
27 February – Lawrence Durrell, writer
4 March – Judith Furse, character actress
5 March – David Astor, editor of The Observer newspaper
10 March
*Muriel Angelus, actress
*Frank Smithies, mathematician
14 March – Vernon Harrison, photographer
19 March – Bill Frankland, immunologist
21 March – Peter Bull, actor
23 March – Betty Astell, actress
25 March – Melita Norwood, née Sirnis, secret agent
27 March
* James Callaghan, Prime Minister
* John Crofton, medical pioneer
29 March – Constance Chapman, actress
5 April
* John Le Mesurier, actor
* Bill Roberts, athlete
18 April – Sandy Glen, explorer
22 April – Kathleen Ferrier, contralto
4 May – Frith Banbury, actor and theatre director
7 May – Frank Reginald Carey, fighter pilot
10 May – Edward Gardner, politician
17 May – Percy M. Young, musicologist and composer
19 May – Noel Mander, organ builder
22 May – Herbert C. Brown, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
28 May – Derek Cooper, soldier and campaigner for refugees
31 May – Alfred Deller, countertenor
8 June – Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, artist
9 June – Gerald James Whitrow, mathematician and cosmologist
10 June – William Gordon Harris, civil engineer
16 June – Enoch Powell, politician
19 June – Archie Butterworth, racing car designer
20 June
* Anthony Buckeridge, children's author
* Olive Hirst, advertising agent
23 June – Alan Turing, mathematician
24 June
* Brian Johnston, BBC cricket commentator
* Mary Wesley, novelist
30 June – Arthur Walter James, journalist and Liberal Party politician
11 July – Peta Taylor, cricketer
12 July – Joseph Gold, lawyer
17 July – Michael Gilbert, lawyer and crime fiction writer
21 July – Tommy Butler, Detective Chief Superintendent
29 July – Myrtle Devenish, actress
30 July – Anne Ridler, poet and editor
31 July – Peter John Stephens, writer
5 August – Peggy Guido, archaeologist
7 August – Paul Hawkins, politician
13 August – Terence Wilmot Hutchison, economist
15 August – Wendy Hiller, actress
16 August – Ted Drake, footballer
17 August – Margaret Scriven, tennis player
18 August – Josephine Barnes, gynaecologist
26 August
* John Tinniswood, supercentenarian, world’s oldest living man from 29 June 2024 to 25 November 2024
* Alex Stuart-Menteth, naval officer
28 August – George Alcock, astronomer
1 September – Gwynfor Evans, Welsh politician
2 September – David Daiches, literary critic
11 September – Robin Jenkins, novelist
18 September – Frank Farmer, physicist
21 September – Ian MacGregor, industrialist
24 September – Ian Serraillier, novelist and poet
28 September – Peter Finch, actor
2 October – Eric Wilson, soldier
10 October – Clare Fell, archaeologist
12 October – Doreen Gorsky, politician and television producer
24 October – Peter Gellhorn, composer and conductor
27 October – Grahame Farr, maritime historian
28 October – Richard Doll, epidemiologist
30 October – Ian Robertson, Lord Robertson, judge
5 November – Paul Dehn, screenwriter and poet
7 November – Alex Henshaw, test pilot
12 November – Kenneth Porter, Air Force officer
13 November – John Hill, politician
25 November – Francis Durbridge, playwright and author
14 December – Desmond Fitzpatrick, general
27 December
* Conroy Maddox, painter
* Cyril Philips, historian

Deaths

7 January – Sophia Jex-Blake, physician and feminist
14 January – Samuel Johnson, railway locomotive engineer
24 January – James Allen, self-help writer and poet
29 January – Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife, Scottish aristocrat and politician
10 February – Joseph Lister, surgeon
13 February – Princess Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg
17 February – Edgar Evans, Welsh-born naval officer, member of the Scott expedition to the South Pole
21 February – Osborne Reynolds, physicist
28 February – Bill Storer, footballer and cricketer
1 March – George Grossmith, actor and comic writer
17 March – Lawrence Oates, army officer, member of the Scott expedition
29 March – remaining members of the Scott expedition:
* Henry Robertson Bowers, Scottish-born naval officer
* Robert Falcon Scott, naval officer and explorer
* Edward Wilson, physician and naturalist
15 April – some victims of the sinking of the RMS Titanic:
* Thomas Andrews, Jr., shipbuilder
* Dai Bowen, boxer
* Thomas Byles, Catholic priest
* Sidney Leslie Goodwin, youngest victim
* Wallace Hartley, ship's band leader and violinist
* William McMaster Murdoch, First Officer
* Jack Phillips, ship's senior wireless officer
* Edward Smith, ship's captain
* William Thomas Stead, campaigning journalist
18 April – Frederick Seddon, poisoner, hanged
20 April – Bram Stoker, writer
24 April – Justin McCarthy, Irish nationalist politician, historian and novelist
21 May – Sir Julius Wernher, businessman and art collector
13 June – Alice Diehl, novelist and concert pianist
24 June – Sir George White, field marshal
25 June – Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, painter
2 July – Tom Richardson, cricketer
20 July – Andrew Lang, Scottish poet, novelist and critic
31 July – Allan Octavian Hume, civil servant and ornithologist in India
13 August – Octavia Hill, social reformer
20 August
* William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army
* Walter Goodman, painter, illustrator and author
1 September – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, composer
6 September – Sir Charles Gough, general and Victoria Cross recipient
28 September – Frederick Richards, admiral
30 September – Frances Allitsen, song composer
8 November – Dugald Drummond, Scottish-born railway locomotive engineer
17 November – Richard Norman Shaw, architect
25 November – Sir Edward Moss, theatrical impresario
14 December – Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis, explorer and officer, lost on Antarctic expedition