1925 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1925 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Monarch – George V
Prime Minister – Stanley Baldwin

Events

January – Construction of the Royal Tweed Bridge in Berwick-upon-Tweed begins.
February – The statue of Eros is taken away from Piccadilly Circus in London so that the new Underground station can be built. It will not return until 1931.
9 March–1 May – Pink's War: The British Royal Air Force bombards mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South Waziristan.
9 April – Administration of Estates Act abolishes the legal rule of primogeniture in England and Wales and the remnants of gavelkind in Kent; Law of Property Act modernises the law relating to real estate.
28 April – Presenting the Baldwin ministry's budget, Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill announces Britain's return to the gold standard.
1 May – Cyprus becomes a Crown Colony.
29 May – Last communication from the British explorer Percy Fawcett, a telegram to his wife, before he disappears in the Amazon.
10 June – Dibbles Bridge coach crash: a tour coach runs away following brake failure and falls off a bridge near Hebden, North Yorkshire, en route to Bolton Abbey, killing seven passengers.
1–30 June – The second-driest month in the EWP series with an average rainfall of only.
27 July – The British Broadcasting Company's Daventry transmitting station on Borough Hill, Daventry in central England opens as the world's first longwave broadcast radio transmitter, taking over from its Chelmsford facility.
31 July – Red Friday: the Government announces that it will grant a subsidy to the coal industry for nine months to maintain existing wage levels while a Royal Commission conducts an inquiry into the industry's problems.
5 August – Establishment of political party Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru, initially focussing on Welsh language issues.
7 August
* Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 passed in the aftermath of Lloyd George's sale of peerages and other honours for political party funds.
* National Library of Scotland established by Act of Parliament to take over the national responsibilities of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh.
2 October – In London:
* John Logie Baird successfully transmits the first television pictures with a greyscale image.
* The city's first double-decker buses with covered top decks are introduced.
29 October – Observer Corps established as a volunteer civil defence organisation for the visual detection, identification, tracking and reporting of raids by aircraft over Britain.
2 November – Eigiau Dam disaster kills seventeen in the North Wales village of Dolgarrog.
3 November – Alfred Hitchcock's first (silent) film, The Pleasure Garden, completed.
7 November – The Morning Post, a Conservative London newspaper, publishes a leaked report of the Irish Boundary Commission's proposals for altering the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, which are contrary to the Free State's view; publication effectively ends the work of the commission.
12 November – Submarine sinks in the English Channel after collision with a civilian surface vessel with the loss of all 69 hands.
16 November – Carmaker Vauxhall Motors of Luton is purchased by American giant General Motors for $2.5 million.
1 December – Locarno Treaties signed in London. The United Kingdom is a joint guarantor of the boundaries of Belgium, France and Germany.
3 December – A settlement on the boundary question between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland is presented in London. Controversially, there is no change to the border, in exchange for the Free State's liability for service of the U.K. public debt in respect of war pensions being dropped. The agreement is approved during this month by the U.K. and Free State legislatures.
10 December – Austen Chamberlain wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Locarno Pact.
16 December – Construction of the Queensway Tunnel beneath the River Mersey begins.

Undated

Clough Williams-Ellis begins construction of Portmeirion in North Wales.
American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst buys the medieval St Donat's Castle in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Publications

Elinor Brent-Dyer's schoolgirl story The School at the Chalet, first in the Chalet School series.
G. K. Chesterton's book The Everlasting Man.
Agatha Christie's novel The Secret of Chimneys.
Warwick Deeping's novel Sorrell and Son.
T. S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men".
Aldous Huxley's novel Those Barren Leaves.
Margaret Kennedy's novel The Constant Nymph.
Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway.

Births

3 January – Jill Balcon, actress
7 January – Gerald Durrell, naturalist, zookeeper, author and television presenter
8 January – James Saunders, playwright
13 January – David Francis Clyde, physician
19 January – Nina Bawden, writer
24 January – Owen Maddock, racing car designer
26 January
* Desmond Cassidi, admiral
* David Jenkins, Anglican bishop
31 January – Fred Brown, virologist
2 February – David Whitfield, actor and singer
3 February – John Gingell, air marshal
11 February – Peter Berger, admiral
13 February – Stuart Wagstaff, English-Australian actor
10 February – Joseph McKeown, photojournalist
12 February – Anthony Berry, British Conservative politician
17 February – Ron Goodwin, composer and conductor
28 February
* Harry H. Corbett, actor
*Billy March, footballer
4 March – Alan R. Battersby, organic chemist
7 March – Richard Vernon, actor
11 March – Peter R. Hunt, film director
14 March – John Jacobs, English golfer
15 March – Francis Dennis Ramsay, portrait painter
20 March – Billy Elliott, footballer
21 March
* Peter Brook, theatre and film director
* Ronald Whittam, scientist
23 March – David Watkin, cinematographer
24 March – Bill Nankeville, Olympic middle distance runner
25 March – Anthony Quinton, philosopher
26 March
*Ted Graham, Baron Graham of Edmonton, politician
*Michael Ward, mountaineer and surgeon
27 March – Henry Plumb, Baron Plumb, farmer and politician
28 March - Morris Perry, actor
1 April – Kathy Stobart, saxophonist
2 April – George MacDonald Fraser, author
3 April – Tony Benn, politician
9 April – Michael Richardson, investment banker
12 April – Oliver Postgate, animator, puppeteer and writer
14 April – William Lucas, actor
15 April – Geraint Howells, politician
21 April – John Swinton of Kimmerghame, English general and politician
22 April – George Cole, actor
24 April – Leslie Alcock, archaeologist
25 April
* Tony Christopher, Baron Christopher, businessman
* Patrick David Wall, neuroscientist
27 April – Vere Harmsworth, 3rd Viscount Rothermere, newspaper publisher
1 May – Helen Bamber, psychotherapist and academic
4 May – Rex Roe, air marshal
11 May – Rhodes Boyson, English educator and politician
14 May – Tristram Cary, composer
15 May – Roy Stewart, actor
26 May – Alec McCowen, actor
27 May – John L. Harper, biologist
30 May – John Marks, physician and author
3 June – Thomas Winning, Archbishop of Glasgow
4 June – Gerald Sim, actor
5 June – Bill Sellars, television producer
6 June – Michael ffolkes, illustrator and cartoonist
9 June – Margaret Rhodes, aristocrat and courtier
15 June – Richard Baker, broadcaster
18 June – Carmel Budiardjo, human rights activist
19 June – Charlie Drake, comedian, actor and singer
22 June – Frank Hindle, footballer
23 June – Miriam Karlin, actress
26 June – Richard Waring, comedy writer
29 June – Mervyn Alexander, Roman Catholic bishop
11 July – David Graham, actor and voice artist
12 July – Rosie Harris, author
17 July – Hugh David, actor and director
18 July – Hubert Doggart, sports administrator, cricketer and schoolmaster
19 July – Jack Petchey, businessman
27 July – Harry Towb, actor
28 July
* Kenneth Alwyn, conductor, composer and writer
* John Stonehouse, disgraced government minister
29 July – Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley, nobleman
30 July
* Stan Stennett, Welsh comedian, actor and jazz musician
* Alexander Trocchi, Scottish writer
1 August – Pam Gems, English playwright
11 August – Michael Argyle, psychologist
12 August
* Norris McWhirter, co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records
* Ross McWhirter, co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records
18 August – Brian Aldiss, science fiction author
22 August
* Honor Blackman, actress
* Ivor Salter, actor
26 August – Sangharakshita, born Dennis Lingwood, Buddhist teacher
27 August – Nat Lofthouse, footballer
28 August – Philip Purser, author and television critic
2 September – Ronnie Stevens, comedian and actor
5 September – Patrick Leo McCartie, Roman Catholic bishop
6 September – Nina Lowry, judge
8 September – Peter Sellers, comedian and actor
10 September – Dick Lucas, minister and cleric
15 September – John Eden, Baron Eden of Winton, politician
22 September
* William Franklyn, actor
* Stratford Johns, actor
23 September – Denis Twitchett, Cambridge scholar and Chinese historian
27 September – Robert Edwards, physiologist and pioneer of in vitro fertilisation
1 October
* Christine Pullein-Thompson, English children's novelist
* Diana Pullein-Thompson, English children's novelist
5 October – Ken Middleditch, motorcycle speedway racer
6 October – John Stanier, field marshal
13 October – Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
14 October – Christopher French, judge
15 October
* Tony Hart, artist and television presenter
* Jean Briggs Watters, cryptanalyst and Women's Royal Naval Service personnel
16 October – Angela Lansbury, actress
17 October
* Harry Carpenter, boxing commentator
* Patricia Kneale, actress
19 October – Bernard Hepton, stage and television actor and director
27 October
* Paul Fox, television executive
* Monica Sims, radio executive
29 October
* Paul Daneman, actor
* Sir William Gladstone, 7th Baronet, aristocrat and Chief Scout
* Robert Hardy, actor
31 October
* John Pople, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
* Tommy Watt, jazz bandleader
1 November – Dickson Mabon, politician
9 November – Ken Ashton, journalist and trade unionist
10 November – Richard Burton, actor
11 November
* Nigel Cecil, naval officer
* John Guillermin, director
* June Whitfield, comic actress
15 November – Paul Raymond, publisher
23 November – Elaine Horseman, author and educator
25 November – Priscilla Young, social worker
27 November
* John Maddox, science writer
* Ernie Wise, comedian
30 November – Gordon Parry, Baron Parry, politician
5 December – Alastair McCorquodale, cricketer and athlete
6 December – Oliver Bernard, English poet and translator
11 December – Patrick Reyntiens, stained glass artist
23 December
* Duncan Hallas, Trotskyist
* Rayner Unwin, publisher
30 December – Ian MacNaughton, Scottish actor
31 December
* Richard Gordon, producer
* Daphne Oram, composer and musician

Deaths

14 January – Harry Furniss, cartoonist, illustrator and pioneer animator
18 January – J. M. E. McTaggart, English philosopher
26 January – Sir James Mackenzie, Scottish cardiologist
30 January – Jim Driscoll, Welsh featherweight boxer
3 February – Oliver Heaviside, mathematician and physicist
4 February – William Haggar, cinema pioneer
6 February – James Kenyon, businessman and cinema pioneer
22 February – Sir Clifford Allbutt, physician
24 February – Joseph Rowntree, Quaker sweet manufacturer and philanthropist
4 March – James Ward, philosopher and psychologist
20 March – George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, Viceroy of India
23 March – Bessie Rayner Parkes, journalist and feminist
28 March – Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson, general
4 April – W. W. Rouse Ball, mathematician and lawyer
6 April – Xie Kitchin, child photographic model for Lewis Carroll
14 April – John Singer Sargent, American-born portrait painter
20 April – Herbert Lawford, tennis player
7 May
* William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, soap-maker and philanthropist
* Sir Doveton Sturdee, admiral
13 May – Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner, politician and colonial administrator
14 May – H. Rider Haggard, adventure novelist
22 May – John French, 1st Earl of Ypres, World War I field marshal
19 July – John Indermaur, lawyer
30 July – William Wynn Westcott, freemason
20 November – Alexandra of Denmark, dowager queen consort of Edward VII of the United Kingdom
24 November – Margaret Sinclair, Scottish-born nun and venerable
26 November – Sir Jervoise Baines, colonial civil servant
17 December – A. N. Hornby, cricketer and rugby player
18 December – Sir Hamo Thornycroft, figure sculptor
28 December – Louisa Aldrich-Blake, surgeon