1915 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1915 in the United Kingdom. The year was dominated by the First World War, which broke out in the August of the previous year.

Incumbents

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

Events

1 January – World War I: sinking of the battleship HMS Formidable, off Lyme Regis, Dorset, by an Imperial German Navy U-boat. 35 officers and 512 men are lost out of a total complement of 780.
19 January – World War I: German Zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn for the first time, killing more than twenty.
24 January – World War I: Battle of Dogger Bank: British Grand Fleet defeats the German High Seas Fleet, sinking the armoured cruiser.
January – enters service as the Royal Navy's first oil-fired battleship.
1 February – photographs required in British passports for the first time.
18 February – World War I: Germany regards waters around the British Isles to be a war zone from this date, as part of its U-boat campaign.
March – World War I: Option to enlist in the Territorial Force for home service only is abolished and the first complete territorial division to be deployed to the Western Front arrives in France.
7 March – World War I: British collier is torpedoed and sunk in the Bristol Channel 5 nautical miles north east of Ilfracombe, Devon, by SM U-20, with all 33 crew rescued.
11 March – World War I: Sinking of armed merchantman off Galloway by German U-boat SM U-27. Around 200 crew are lost, a number of bodies being washed up on the Isle of Man, with only 26 saved.
14 March – World War I:
* Battle of Más a Tierra: Off the coast of Chile, the Royal Navy forces the German light cruiser SMS Dresden to scuttle.
* Britain, France and the Russian Empire agree to give Constantinople and the Bosporus to Russia in case of victory.
18 March – World War I:
* Gallipoli campaign; British naval attack on the Dardanelles fails.
* Royal Navy battleship sinks German submarine U-29 with all hands in the Pentland Firth by ramming her, the only time this tactic is known to have been successfully used by a battleship.
24 April – the FA Cup is won by Sheffield United F.C., who defeat Chelsea 3–0 in the final at Old Trafford, Manchester. The competition will now be abandoned until the war is over.
25 April – World War I: Gallipoli Campaign: Landing at Cape Helles by British and French forces, heavily opposed by Ottoman troops. The Lancashire Fusiliers win 'six VCs before breakfast'.
3 May – the oldest continually operational Royal Air Force station, RAF Northolt, opens as the home to the Royal Flying Corps' No. 4 Reserve Aeroplane Squadron.
7 May – World War I: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania: British ocean liner is sunk by Imperial German Navy U-boat U-20 off the south-west coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 civilians en route from New York to Liverpool.
17 May – the last purely Liberal government ends when Prime Minister H. H. Asquith decides to form an all-party coalition, precipitated by reports in the Northcliffe press of deficiencies in the supply of shells for the army following the 9 May British defeat at the Battle of Aubers Ridge.
22 May – Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green in Scotland: collision and fire kill 226, mostly troops, the largest number of fatalities in a rail accident in the U.K.
25 May – the Prime Minister forms the Asquith coalition ministry, a national wartime coalition government of twelve Liberals, eight Unionists and one Labour member. David Lloyd George is appointed first Minister of Munitions.
27 May – explodes and sinks while loading mines off Sheerness with the loss of 352 lives.
31 May – World War I: Zeppelins effectively raid London for the first time, killing seven.
10 June – Vorticist exhibition opens at the Doré Gallery, London.
16 June – Women's Institutes organisation set up in Britain.
4 July – German aviator Gunther Plüschow escapes from an officers' prisoner-of-war camp at Donington Hall in Leicestershire and successfully makes his way home to Germany, the only enemy combatant in either World War to do so.
8 July – National Registration Act: All citizens aged 15–65 to be registered on 15 August.
14 July – beginning of McMahon–Hussein Correspondence in which, in exchange for assistance against the Ottoman Empire, the British offer Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, their recognition of an independent Arab kingdom, although clear terms are never agreed.
17 July – the "Women's Great Procession" is organised in London by the Women's Social and Political Union led by Emmeline Pankhurst to demonstrate that women should work in munitions and other areas where they could replace men.
August
* Munitions of War Act places munitions factories and their labour relations under control of the Minister of Munitions.
* Edith Smith in Grantham becomes the country's first woman police officer granted full power of arrest.
16 August – World War I: a German U-boat shells the north-west coast of England in an attack on the chemical plant at Lowca.
6 September – Little Willie, the prototype military tank developed by William Foster & Co. of Lincoln, is first tested by the British Army.
15 September – Pommern completes the English Triple Crown by finishing first in the 2,000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger.
16 September – first Women's Institute meeting held in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Wales. The first meeting in England is that of the Singleton Institute at Charlton, West Sussex on 9 November.
21 September – Cecil Chubb acquires Stonehenge at an auction for £6600.
25 September-14 October – World War I: Battle of Loos: British forces take the French town of Loos but with substantial casualties and are unable to press their advantage. This is the first time the British use poison gas in World War I and also the first large-scale use of 'New' or Kitchener's Army units. Three Members of Parliament are killed during the battle.
October-November – World War I: Derby Scheme, a voluntary military recruitment scheme.
12 October – World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium.
20 October – women are officially permitted to act as bus and tram conductors for the duration of the War; but have been employed in Glasgow and other places in the U.K. since April.
12 November – William Henry Bragg and his son William Lawrence Bragg win the Nobel Prize in Physics "For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays."
24 November – Bruce Bairnsfather's "Fragments from France" cartoon featuring "Old Bill" saying "Well, if you knows of a better 'ole, go to it" is published in the Bystander.
27 November – Government introduces legislation to restrict housing rents to their pre-war level following Glasgow rent strikes led by Mary Barbour.
10 December – World War I: Douglas Haig is appointed to succeed John French in command of the British Expeditionary Force.
30 December – armoured cruiser capsizes at anchor in the Cromarty Firth as the result of an internal explosion in her ammunition stores; 390 sailors and some civilians are killed.

Publications

Rupert Brooke's collection 1914 & Other Poems .
John Buchan's novel The Thirty-nine Steps.
Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear.
Ford Madox Ford's novel The Good Soldier.
D. H. Lawrence's novel The Rainbow.
W. Somerset Maugham's novel Of Human Bondage.
Dorothy Richardson's stream of consciousness novel Pointed Roofs.
P. G. Wodehouse's first Blandings Castle novel, Something Fresh.

Births

4 January – Meg Mundy, actress
6 January – Alan Watts, Zen Buddhist philosopher
12 January – Norman Cohn, historian
18 January – Sir Ralph Verney, 5th Baronet, soldier and conservationist
23 January – Arthur Lewis, economist, Nobel Prize laureate
27 January – Jack Brymer, clarinettist
30 January – John Profumo, cabinet minister
1 February – Stanley Matthews, footballer
4 February – Norman Wisdom, comedian, singer and actor
5 February – John Bridge, World War II sailor
8 February – Peter Hill-Norton, admiral
11 February – Patrick Leigh Fermor, travel writer and soldier
16 February – Michael Relph, film producer and director
18 February – Phyllis Calvert, actress
19 February – John Freeman, politician and television presenter
9 March – Johnnie Johnson, fighter pilot
19 March – Nancy Evans, opera singer
23 March – Arthur Owen, racing driver
28 March – Jeremy Hutchinson, Baron Hutchinson of Lullington, defence lawyer
31 March – Albert Hourani, historian
6 April – Geoffrey Sherman, Royal Marines officer
17 April – Bertram James, fighter pilot
23 April – Arnold Alexander Hall, aeronautical engineer and scientist
24 April – Michael Carver, Army general
25 April – John James Cowperthwaite, civil servant
27 April – Eric Kemp, theologian and Bishop of Chichester
2 May – Peggy Mount, actress
5 May – Ben Wright, actor
6 May – Sydney Carter, poet and songwriter
8 May
* John George Macleod, doctor
* Brian Pearce, Marxist historian and translator
10 May
* John Egerton, 6th Duke of Sutherland, Scottish peer
* Denis Thatcher, England businessman and married to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
13 May – John Habakkuk, economic historian
14 May – John Challens, scientist
15 May – Hilda Bernstein, English-born author, artist and activist
20 May – Peter Copley, actor
5 June – Lancelot Ware, barrister and biochemist
7 June – Dominic Bruce, RAF officer
8 June
* Julian Ridsdale, politician
* O. W. Wolters, academic, historian and author
17 June – Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, food writer
22 June – Duncan Clark, hammer thrower
23 June – Robin Montgomerie-Charrington, racing driver
24 June – Fred Hoyle, astronomer
26 June – David Caminer, computer programmer
1 July
* Bert Axell, naturalist
* Philip Lever, 3rd Viscount Leverhulme, peer
2 July
* Peggy Hubicki, composer and teacher
* Valerian Wellesley, 8th Duke of Wellington
11 July – Leonard Goodwin, pharmacologist
15 July
* David Tree, actor
* Charlie Wipfler, professional footballer
21 July – Miles Fitzalan-Howard, 17th Duke of Norfolk, army general
9 August – Michael Young, sociologist
10 August – Ralph Thomas, film director
14 August
* Victor Mishcon, lawyer and politician
* Derek Prince, Biblical scholar
22 August – Hugh Paddick, actor
28 August – Max Robertson, sports commentator
29 August
* Jack Agazarian, English World War II spy
* Denys Hay, historian
30 August
* Lillian May Davies, later Princess Lilian, Duchess of Halland, Welsh fashion model and Swedish princess
* Jack Simmons, historian
31 August – Napier Crookenden, army general
4 September – Roland Mathias, Welsh poet
8 September – Frank Pullen, businessman and racehorse owner
19 September – Duffy Ayers, portrait painter
22 September – Arthur Lowe, actor
23 September
* George Alfred Barnard, statistician
* John Rowlands, air marshal
25 September – Betty Box, film producer
8 October – Winifred Pennington, limnologist
11 October – T. Llew Jones, Welsh-language writer
13 October
* Joan Hunter Dunn, muse of poet John Betjeman
* Terry Frost, artist
* Frederick Rosier, Air Chief Marshal
* Barbara Wright, translator
27 October – Robert Alexander Rankin, mathematician
3 November – Gilbert Monckton, 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, major-general
4 November – Marguerite Patten, home economist
16 November – Maurice Oldfield, intelligence chief
19 November – Lena Jeger, politician
24 November – Helen Cherry, actress
14 December – Anthony Kershaw, politician
18 December – Peter Laslett, historian
22 December – Peter Elstob, soldier
28 December – Jack Milroy, comedian and actor

Deaths

3 January – James Elroy Flecker, poet, novelist and dramatist
13 January – Mary Slessor, Christian missionary
14 January – Richard Meux Benson, founder of an Anglican religious order
4 February – Mary Elizabeth Braddon, popular novelist
4 March – William Willett, promoter of daylight saving time
15 March – George Llewelyn Davies, one of the 'Lost Boys' who inspired Peter Pan
31 March – Wyndham Halswelle, runner
4 April – Andrew Stoddart, sportsman
23 April – Rupert Brooke, poet
27 April – William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse, airman
26 May – Julian Grenfell, war poet
26 July – Sir James Murray, Scottish-born lexicographer
10 August – Henry Moseley, physicist
25 September – Rex Hargreaves, a son of Alice Liddell
26 September – Keir Hardie, Scottish socialist, first chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party and pacifist
12 October – Edith Cavell, nurse
13 October – Charles Sorley, Scottish-born poet
23 October – W. G. Grace, cricketer
11 November – Robert Barker, footballer
23 December – Roland Leighton, war poet
In fiction – Sir Harry Flashman, soldier, bully and antihero