1919 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1919 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Monarch – George V
Prime Minister – David Lloyd George

Events

1 January – HMY Iolaire is wrecked on rocks off Stornoway on the Scottish Isle of Lewis: 205 die, mostly servicemen returning home.
3 January – Soldiers blockade Folkestone harbour in a successful protest against being returned to France. This month, other mutinies take place in France and across England.
18 January
* The Paris Peace Conference opens in France, with delegates from 27 nations present for meetings at the Palace of Versailles; Lloyd George attends as one of the "Big Four".
* Bentley Motors Ltd. is incorporated in England.
21 January – Dáil Éireann meets for the first time in the Mansion House, Dublin. It comprises Sinn Féin members elected in the 1918 general election who, in accordance with their manifesto, have not taken their seats in the Parliament of the United Kingdom but chosen to declare an independent Irish Republic. In the first shots of the Anglo-Irish War, two Royal Irish Constabulary men are killed in an ambush at Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary.
23 January – "Harbour Riot" in Glasgow: confrontation between white and black merchant seamen.
27 January – General strike call over working hours led by engineering workers in Glasgow and Belfast; in Belfast the strike collapses after a month.
31 January – Battle of George Square: the police deal with riots associated with a strike to gain a 40-hour working week in Glasgow; the civil authorities call in the army.
3 February – Éamon de Valera, the leader of Sinn Féin, and two other prisoners escape from Lincoln Prison in England in a break personally arranged by Michael Collins and Harry Boland.
27 February – Marriage of Princess Patricia of Connaught to Commander The Hon. Alexander Ramsay, the first royal wedding at Westminster Abbey since the 14th century.
4–5 March – Kinmel Park riots by troops of the Canadian Expeditionary Force awaiting repatriation at Kinmel Camp, Bodelwyddan, in North Wales. Five men are killed, 28 injured, and 25 convicted of mutiny.
3 April – Government agrees to begin release of imprisoned conscientious objectors.
7 April – The Original Dixieland Jass Band brings Dixieland jazz to England, opening a 15-month tour at the Hippodrome, London.
13 April – Amritsar Massacre: British and Gurkha troops kill 379 Sikhs and injure more than 1200 at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab Province (British India).
May – Third Anglo-Afghan War begins.
12 May – The Pip, Squeak and Wilfred comic strip debuts in the Daily Mirror.
15 May – Greek landing at Smyrna : The Hellenic Army lands at Smyrna assisted by ships of the British Royal Navy.
29 May – Observations made by Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse test part of Einstein's general theory of relativity.
June – Riots break out in West Midlands towns.
14–15 June – A Vickers Vimy piloted by John Alcock DSC with navigator Arthur Whitten Brown makes the first nonstop transatlantic flight, from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, to Clifden, Connemara, Ireland.
17 June – Epsom Riot by Canadian troops: English police sergeant Thomas Green is killed.
21 June – Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow: Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the interned German fleet in Scapa Flow, Scotland. Nine German sailors are killed.
23 June – Women's Engineering Society founded.
28 June – Treaty of Versailles signed, formally ending World War I.
2–6 July – The British airship R34 makes the first transatlantic flight by dirigible, and the first westbound flight, from RAF East Fortune, Scotland, to Mineola, New York.
15 July – Naval sloops HMS Gentian and HMS Myrtle sunk by mines in the Gulf of Finland while assisting Estonia against the Bolsheviks, with nine crew lost.
18 July – The Cenotaph in London, as designed by Edwin Lutyens, is unveiled to commemorate the dead of World War I.
19 July – Peace Day: victory parades across Britain celebrate the end of World War I. Rioting ex-servicemen burn down Luton Town Hall.
31 July
* Police strike in London and Liverpool for recognition of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers. Rioting breaks out in Liverpool on 1 August. Over 2,000 strikers are dismissed.
* Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 provides government subsidy for the provision of council houses, with the target of completing 500,000 houses by 1922.
8 August – The Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919, signed in Rawalpindi, ends the Third Anglo-Afghan War, with the UK recognising the right of the Emirate of Afghanistan to manage its own foreign affairs and Afghanistan recognising the Durand Line as the border with British India.
9 August – The Anglo-Persian Agreement, signed in Tehran, grants the UK access to all Iranian oilfields in exchange for financial and other contributions. The Majlis refuses to ratify it on 22 June 1921.
15 August – The Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act provides for returning servicemen to get their old jobs back.
18 August – Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War: The Bolshevik fleet at Kronstadt, protecting Petrograd on the Baltic Sea, is substantially damaged by seven British Royal Navy Coastal Motor Boats and military aircraft in a combined operation.
30 August – The Football League is resumed, four years after it was abandoned due to the war.
1 September – Forestry Commission set up.
27 September – Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War: The last British troops leave Archangel, leaving fighting to the Russians.
27 September–6 October – Railway workers stage a strike, called by the National Union of Railwaymen.
29 September – Rupert D'Oyly Carte returns the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company to London's West End for the first time in a decade with an initial 18-week season of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas opening at the Prince's Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue.
30 September – Compositors and pressmen working at the Daily Sketch newspaper in London refuse to print the paper until an editorial criticising the railway strike is deleted.
October – Creation of the "Mobile Patrol Experiment", the forerunner of the Metropolitan Police Service's Flying Squad.
1 October – Women's Royal Naval Service disbanded.
13 October – Leeds City F.C., of the Football League Second Division, are expelled from the Football League amid financial irregularities.
17 October – With the collapse of Leeds City, a new football club is formed for the city – Leeds United. With Port Vale set to take the old club's place in the Football League, the new Leeds club will have to wait until at least the next football season for a chance of Football League membership.
20 October – Collapse of the man engine at Levant Mine in Cornwall kills 31.
21 October – Atlas Copco Ltd is incorporated in the UK as a subsidiary of the Swedish mechanical engineering company.
4 November – The Cabinet's Irish Committee settles on a policy of creating two Home Rule parliaments in Ireland – one in Dublin and one in Belfast – with a Council of Ireland to provide a framework for possible unity.
11 November – First Remembrance Day observed with two minutes silence at 11:00 hrs.
December
* Cunliffe Committee on Currency and Foreign Exchange Rates recommends an early return to an effective Gold standard.
* Nurses Registration Act 1919 passed.
1 December – Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor becomes the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons, and the second to be elected, having stood at the Plymouth Sutton by-election on 28 November to succeed her husband as a Unionist member.
15 December – Meat rationing ends.
22 December – A bill "to provide for the better government of Ireland" is introduced into the House of Commons, proposing two parliaments: one for the six counties of north-east Ulster and one for the other twenty-six.
23 December – Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act removes legal disabilities on women entering the secular professions, becoming justices of the peace or being granted university degrees.
25 December – Opening of Cliftonhill stadium in Coatbridge, the home of Albion Rovers F.C. The opening match sees them lose 2–0 to St Mirren.
30 December – Lincoln's Inn, in London, admits its first female bar student.
31 December – First female justice of the peace sworn in, Ada Summers, Mayor of Stalybridge.
Undated
* University Grants Committee begins to function.
* Panacea Society founded by Mabel Barltrop in Bedford as the Community of the Holy Ghost.
* 1919 British race riots
Ongoing – 1918 flu pandemic.

Publications

February – Richmal Crompton's anarchic schoolboy William Brown is introduced in the first published Just William story, "Rice-Mould" in Home magazine.
22 March – The Children's Newspaper, edited by Arthur Mee, begins publication.
Daisy Ashford's novel The Young Visiters.
Gilbert Frankau's novel Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant: a romance of married life.
E. M. Hull's romantic novel The Sheik.
Dean William Inge's first series of Outspoken Essays.
John Maynard Keynes' book The Economic Consequences of the Peace.
W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Moon and Sixpence.The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon.
Arthur Graeme West's posthumous The Diary of a Dead Officer.
P. G. Wodehouse's short story collection My Man Jeeves.

Births

1 January – Sheila Mercier, actress
8 January – Gabrielle Blunt, actress
11 January
* Denis Avey, World War II veteran and memoirist
* Margot Rufus Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, aristocrat and campaigner
20 January
* Derick Ashe, diplomat
* John Wilson, blind activist
21 January
* Eric Brown, World War II naval and test pilot
* Jim Wallwork, World War II glider pilot
23 January – Bob Paisley, football player and manager
25 January – Norman Newell, record producer and lyricist
26 January – Bill Nicholson, footballer and manager
27 January
* Tom Addington, soldier
* David Clark, cricketer
29 January – N. F. Simpson, playwright
4 February
* Peter Butterworth, actor and comedian
* John Miller, World War II lieutenant-colonel and equerry
6 February – Sidney De Haan, businessman
16 February – Irene Brown, author and codebreaker
17 February – Marguerite Wolff, pianist
19 February – Samuel Falle, diplomat
20 February – James O'Meara, Battle of Britain Spitfire flying ace
23 February – Derek Ezra, chairman of the National Coal Board
24 February
* Henry Kitchener, 3rd Earl Kitchener, nobleman
* Betty Marsden, comedy actress
28 February – Brian Urquhart, war veteran and diplomat
1 March – Jock Hamilton-Baillie, World War II soldier and escapee
3 March – Mary Cosh, journalist, historian and author
11 March – Hans Keller, Austrian-born musician and writer
12 March – Donald Zec, journalist
16 March – Julian Pitt-Rivers, social anthropologist and ethnographer
17 March – Mad Mike Hoare, mercenary leader
18 March – G. E. M. Anscombe, analytic philosopher
20 March – Peter Conder, ornithologist and conservationist
21 March – R. M. Hare, moral philosopher
26 March – Joe Egan, rugby player
28 March – Tony Bartley, television executive
29 March – William S. Anderson, Chinese-born businessman, president and chairman of NCR Corporation
30 March – Henry Danton, dance teacher
1 April – Nicholas Henderson, diplomat
3 April
* Victor Cannings, cricketer
* Hugh FitzRoy, 11th Duke of Grafton, nobleman
4 April – Frederick E. Smith, author
5 April
* Nigel Malim, World War II rear admiral
* Charles Parker, radio documentary producer
9 April
* Nicholas Goodhart, rear-admiral and aviator
* Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, Officer of Arms and genealogist
11 April
* Raymond Carr, historian
* William Clark, Royal air force officer
* John Nunn, Royal Air Force officer and politician
* Don Smoothey, actor and comedian
12 April – Ion Calvocoressi, Army officer and stockbroker
14 April – Leslie Lloyd Rees, Anglican prelate
15 April
* Emyr Humphreys, Welsh novelist, poet and author
* Sonia Rolt, canal conservationist
18 April – Natasha Spender, pianist and writer
19 April – Nancie Colling, lawns bowls player
20 April
* Richard Hillary, pilot and author
* Angela Lascelles, actress
23 April – Andrew Roth, biographer and journalist
25 April – Ambrose Weekes, Anglican priest
26 April – Barrie Edgar, television producer
4 May – Basil Yamey, South African-born economist and academic
7 May
* Emanuel Hurwitz, violinist
* Joe Mitty, entrepreneur and co-founder of Oxfam
9 May – Arthur English, actor
14 May – Denis Cannan, dramatist, playwright and scriptwriter
16 May – Richard Mason, novelist
18 May – Margot Fonteyn, born Margaret Hookham, ballet dancer
22 May – Glyn Davies, Welsh economist
23 May – Gayatri Devi, British-born Indian princess and politician
29 May – Dickie Dodds, English cricketer
30 May – Eric Lomax, Army officer and author
1 June – Tod Sweeney, Army officer
6 June – Peter Carington, politician
11 June
* Cynthia Cooke, military nurse and nursing administrator
* Richard Todd, actor
* Victor P. Whittaker, biochemist
12 June – David Innes Williams, paediatric urologist
14 June – June Spencer, actress
15 June – Eleanor Warren, cellist
17 June
* Maurice Brown, RAF fighter pilot
* John Moffat, Scottish Royal Navy pilot
* Beryl Reid, actress
18 June – Gordon A. Smith, English-born Canadian artist
19 June
* Rolf Noskwith, German-born businessman and codebreaker
* Francis Purchas, judge
24 June – Michael Schofield, sociologist and campaigner
26 June
* Donald M. Ashton, art director
* Freddie Mills, boxer
27 June
* Bryn Knowelden, rugby player
* John Macquarrie, theologian and priest
* Alec Stokes, physicist
29 June – Walter Babington Thomas, Commander of British Far East Land Forces
4 July
* Keith Batey, codebreaker
* Douglas Birks, English cricketer
7 July
*Jon Pertwee, actor
*Bill Stroud, English football player and coach
10 July
* George Mackie, Baron Mackie of Benshie, Scottish politician
* Ian Wallace, bass-baritone opera singer
14 July – John Pott, British Army officer
15 July – Iris Murdoch, Irish-born novelist and philosopher
17 July – Alan Cottrell, metallurgist
19 July – Patricia Medina, actress
20 July – Jacquemine Charrott Lodwidge, writer
21 July
* Pentland Hick, entrepreneur, author and publisher
* Lady Rose McLaren, aristocrat
26 July
* James Lovelock, scientist, proponent of the Gaia hypothesis
* Kenneth Snowman, jeweller
27 July
* Raymond Cohen, violinist
* Jack Goody, social anthropologist
29 July – Patricia H. Clarke, biochemist
31 July – Frank Giles, journalist and historian
1 August – Stanley Middleton, novelist
2 August – Julie Dawn, singer
3 August
* David Aubrey Scott, diplomat
* Dare Wilson, army general
8 August – John David Wilson, artist and animator
13 August – George Shearing, musician
14 August – Richard Keynes, physiologist
15 August – Bernard Barrell, composer
16 August – Reginald James Wallace, civil servant and governor
18 August – Patrick Shovelton, civil servant
22 August – Michael Langham, actor and director
27 August
* Jack Dormand, politician
* Bruce Kinloch, Army officer and author
28 August – Godfrey Hounsfield, electrical engineer and inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
29 August – Helen Shingler, actress
2 September – Lance Macklin, racing driver
4 September – Teddy Johnson, popular singer
6 September – Philip Woodward, mathematician and radar engineer
7 September – Neil Shields, politician and businessman
8 September – Alistair Urquhart, Scottish businessman and author
11 September
* Bernard Feilden, conservation architect
* Tony Iveson, Royal Air Force pilot and World War II veteran
13 September
* Mary Midgley, moral philosopher
* James Stuart-Smith, judge
* George Weidenfeld, Baron Weidenfeld, publisher, philanthropist and politician
14 September – Olga Lowe, actress
15 September – Alfie Scopp, English-born Canadian actor
21 September – Nigel Stock, actor
27 September
* Peter Coe, athletics coach
* James H. Wilkinson, mathematician
2 October
* John W. Duarte, composer and guitarist
* Walter Luttrell, colonel and public servant
4 October – John Sawyer, romance novelist in collaboration with his wife Nancy Buckingham
5 October
* Robert Kee, writer, journalist and broadcaster
* Donald Pleasence, actor
6 October
* Tommy Lawton, footballer
* Molly Lefebure, writer
7 October – Irene Astor, Baroness Astor of Hever, philanthropist
8 October – Peter Ramsbotham, diplomat
14 October – Shaun Sutton, television executive
15 October
* Howard Colvin, architectural historian
* Edwin Charles Tubb, science fiction writer
18 October – George E. P. Box, statistician
19 October – David Pritchard, chess player
20 October – Maurice Michael Stephens, World War II fighter pilot
21 October – Maurice Hodgson, business executive
22 October
* Kathleen Ankers, English-American actress and set designer
* Doris Lessing, Persian-born novelist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature
23 October
* John Hunt, civil servant
* Sid Ottewell, footballer
25 October – Peter Howell, actor
28 October – Grahame Vivian, army officer
31 October
*George Boscawen, 9th Viscount Falmouth, politician
*Daphne Oxenford, broadcast actress
3 November
* Ludovic Kennedy, journalist, broadcaster and writer
* Peter Morgan, motor-car manufacturer
4 November
* Wilfred Fienburgh, politician
* Eric Thompson, racing driver
10 November – Cliff Ashby, poet and novelist
11 November – Hamish Henderson, Scottish poet
15 November – Nova Pilbeam, actress
16 November – Geoffrey Lilley, aeronautical scientist
17 November – Colin Hayes, artist
18 November – Norman Cornish, artist
19 November – Alan Young, English-born character actor
20 November – Lucilla Andrews, Egyptian-born romantic novelist
21 November – Martin Aitchison, illustrator
23 November – P. F. Strawson, philosopher
24 November
* David Kossoff, actor
* David Peter Lafayette Hunter, Royal Marines officer
26 November
* Harry Catterick, footballer and manager
* Noel Coleman, actor
29 November – Frank Kermode, literary critic
1 December – John Freeborn, World II air ace
3 December – Charles Chester, rugby player
5 December – Alun Gwynne Jones, Baron Chalfont, politician and historian
6 December
* Eric Newby, travel writer
* Leonard E. H. Williams, pilot and businessman
7 December
* Frederick Atkinson, civil servant
* Lyndon Wainwright, metrologist, ballroom dancer and author
8 December – Ian Sneddon, mathematician
11 December – Cliff Michelmore, broadcast presenter
12 December – Cliff Holden, painter and designer
14 December – M. R. D. Foot, military historian
18 December – Ken Reid, comic artist and writer
19 December – Albert Richards, war artist
23 December – Peggy Fortnum, illustrator
24 December – Charles Wylie, Army officer and mountaineer
25 December
* Noele Gordon, actress
* Sid Storey, footballer
29 December – David Nixon, magician
30 December – David Willcocks, choirmaster
31 December – Morris Sugden, physical chemist

Deaths

2 January – Arthur Gould, Wales international rugby captain
3 January – James Hills-Johnes, Indian-born Welsh Victoria Cross recipient
12 January – Sir Charles Wyndham, actor-manager
18 January – Prince John of the United Kingdom
24 February – Edward Bishop, Wales international rugby player
26 February – Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, novelist and essayist
27 February – Robert Harris, Welsh-born painter
20 March – Pauline Markham, English-born vaudeville actress
4 April – Sir William Crookes, chemist and physicist
12 June – Jeremiah Williams, Coalition Liberal Member of Parliament for Swansea East
14 June – Weedon Grossmith, humorous writer, actor and artist
30 June – John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1 July – Sir John Brunner, British industrialist and politician
13 July – Theo Harding, Wales international rugby player
26 July
*Sir Edward Poynter, painter
*Richard Hughes Williams, Welsh-language writer
31 July – Dick Barlow, cricketer
11 August – Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American philanthropist
21 August – Laurence Doherty, tennis champion
23 August – Augustus George Vernon Harcourt, chemist
15 October
* Howard Colvin, architectural historian
* Arthur Owen Vaughan, English-born Welsh writer
17 October – James Wolfe Murray, British Army general
18 October – William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, American-born financier and statesman
23 October – Charles Judd, missionary to China
25 October – Ernest Albert Waterlow, painter
2 December – Sir Evelyn Wood, field marshal and Victoria Cross recipient
18 December – Sir John Alcock, aviator, pilot of first nonstop transatlantic flight by aeroplane, June 1919, in aviation accident
22 December – Boy Capel, industrialist, polo player, writer, and lover/muse of Coco Chanel