1931 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1931 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Monarch – George V
Prime Minister – Ramsay MacDonald

Events

6 January – Sadler's Wells Theatre opens in London.
9 January – Ulster Canal abandoned.
26 January – Winston Churchill resigns from Stanley Baldwin's shadow cabinet after disagreeing with the policy of conciliation with Indian nationalism.
29 January – for the fourth time in nine years, there is a fatal underground explosion at Haig Pit, Whitehaven, in the Cumberland Coalfield, killing 27 people.
4 February – RAF Blackburn Iris III seaplane S 238 crashes in Plymouth Sound after a senior officer takes control from the pilot and fails to make a safe landing, resulting in multiple fatalities. One of the first to the rescue is T. E. Lawrence, stationed locally at this time.
1 March – Oswald Mosley forms the New Party, having resigned from the Labour Party a day earlier.
19 March – Westminster St George's by-election results in the victory of the Conservative candidate Duff Cooper. The by-election has been treated virtually as a referendum on the leadership of the Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin, and Duff Cooper's victory ends the campaign by the press barons Lord Beaverbrook and Viscount Rothermere to oust Baldwin.
14 April – the Highway Code first issued.
26 April – census in England, Wales and Scotland.
1 May – National Trust for Scotland established and acquires its first property, Crookston Castle.
5 May – the Vic-Wells Ballet, later to become The Royal Ballet, debuts in London.
15 May – shoppers in London escape with their lives when a chemical factory in Bayswater explodes.
23 May – Whipsnade Zoo is opened in Bedfordshire by the Zoological Society of London.
June – publication of Report of the Committee on Finance and Industry on the relationship between the banking and financial system and British trade and industry, largely written by John Maynard Keynes.
7 June – the Dogger Bank earthquake is felt across Britain.
9 June – submarine sinks after collision with a Chinese freighter off Weihai, China. Twenty lives are lost but a few submariners become the first to surface using the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus.
12 June
* The Christian Marxist Hewlett Johnson is installed as Dean of Canterbury, being transferred from Manchester.
* Cricketer Charlie Parker equals J. T. Hearne's record for the earliest date to reach 100 wickets.
July – new Royal Corinthian Yacht Club clubhouse at Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex, a pioneering British example of International Style designed by Joseph Emberton, is opened.
31 July – the May Report of the Committee on National Expenditure recommends extensive cuts in government spending. This produces a political crisis as many members of the Labour Party government object to the proposals.
11 August – a run on the pound leads to a political and economic crisis in Britain, part of the European banking crisis of 1931.
24 August – Labour Government of Ramsay MacDonald resigns and is replaced by a National Government of people drawn from all parties also under MacDonald, as suggested by King George V earlier in the year.
5 September – John Thomson, goalkeeper of Celtic, dies in hospital after fracturing his skull in a collision with Rangers forward Sam English in the 'Old Firm' League derby at Ibrox Park.
6 September – Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden announces salary cuts for all government employees and reductions to unemployment benefit.
7 September – second Round Table Conference on the constitutional future of India opens in London. Mahatma Gandhi represents the Indian National Congress and on the weekend of 26 September visits the Lancashire cotton town of Darwen.
13 September – Schneider Trophy seaplane race flown at Calshot Spit. For the third successive time the British team wins with Flt. Lt. John Boothman flying the course in Supermarine S.6B serial S1595 designed by R. J. Mitchell with Rolls-Royce R engines at a world record speed of 340.09 mph. On 29 September Flt Lt. George Stainforth in S.6B serial S1596 breaks the 400 mph air speed record barrier at 407.5 mph.
15 September – Invergordon Mutiny: Strikes in the Royal Navy as a result of pay cuts.
20 September – pound sterling comes off the gold standard.
Autumn – means test introduced for those in receipt of unemployment insurance for more than six months.
15 October – MI5 ceases to be a section of the War Office, being officially renamed the Security Service, and takes over the counter-subversion section from Scotland Yard's Special Branch.
17 October – Leeds Bradford International Airport is opened as Leeds and Bradford Municipal Aerodrome.
27 October – general election results in victory for the National Government in the country's greatest ever electoral landslide. Ramsay MacDonald remains Prime Minister. This election is held on a Tuesday: all subsequent ones will be held on Thursdays.
12 November – Abbey Road Studios in London are opened by Sir Edward Elgar.
20 November – an underground firedamp explosion at Bentley Colliery in the South Yorkshire Coalfield kills 45.
21 November – the infamous Red-and-White Party, given by Arthur Jeffress in Maud Allan's Regent's Park town house in London, marks the end of the "Bright young things" subculture in Britain.
11 December – Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster, which establishes a status of legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand and the Union of South Africa.
12 December – Great Depression: work on construction of "Hull Number 534", the future ocean liner, at John Brown & Company's shipyard on Clydebank is suspended for more than two years.
27 December – the statue of Eros returns to London's Piccadilly Circus after a nine-year absence.

Publications

Arthur Bryant's biography King Charles the Second.
Herbert Butterfield's study The Whig Interpretation of History.
Agatha Christie's novel The Sittaford Mystery.
A. J. Cronin's first novel Hatter's Castle.
Frances Iles' novel Malice Aforethought.
Anthony Powell's novel Afternoon Men.
Vita Sackville-West's novel All Passion Spent.
Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novel The Five Red Herrings.
Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves.
Second edition of the hymnal Songs of Praise, including Eleanor Farjeon's Morning Has Broken.

Births

1 January – Mona Hammond, Jamaican-born British actress
2 January – Robin Marlar, cricket player and journalist
6 January – P. J. Kavanagh, writer and broadcaster
10 January – Peter Barnes, playwright and screenwriter
13 January
* Ian Hendry, English actor
* Chris Wiggins, English-born Canadian actor
19 January – Patsy Rowlands, actress
20 January – Harry Ewing, Baron Ewing of Kirkford, politician
26 January – Alfred Lynch, actor
27 January – Nigel Vinson, Baron Vinson, businessman
29 January – Leslie Bricusse, English-born film and stage composer and lyricist
2 February – Les Dawson, comedian
14 February – Jonathan Adams, actor
17 February – Fay Godwin, photographer
18 February – Ned Sherrin, broadcaster and entertainer
23 February – Robin Wood, film critic
24 February – Brian Close, cricketer
26 February – Ally MacLeod, football manager
28 February – Peter Alliss, golfer and commentator
6 March – Jimmy Stewart, racing driver
11 March – Allan Ganley, jazz musician
13 March – Michael Podro, art historian
14 March – Frank Sando, long-distance runner
19 March – Alan Newton, track cyclist
22 March – Leslie Thomas, Welsh novelist
25 March
*Humphrey Burton, television music and arts presenter
*Erik Smith, record producer
29 March
*Anthony Benjamin, painter, sculptor and printmaker
*Norman Tebbit, politician
6 April – Brian Jackson, actor
7 April – Geoff Elliott, decathlete and pole vaulter
8 April – Beryl Vertue, television producer
9 April – Ken Wilmshurst, triple jumper
11 April – Lewis Jones, rugby player
14 April – Vic Wilson, racing driver
20 April
* Michael Allenby, 3rd Viscount Allenby, English lieutenant and politician
* John Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles, English businessman and politician
25 April – David Shepherd, artist and conservationist
29 April – Lonnie Donegan, musician
4 May – Thomas Stuttaford, British doctor, politician
10 May – Michael Mustill, Baron Mustill, English lawyer and judge
11 May – Angus McBride, illustrator
16 May – Peter Levi, poet, Jesuit priest and scholar
18 May – Bruce Halford, racing driver
21 May – Desmond Wilcox, journalist and television producer
25 May – John Littlewood, chess player
7 June
* Virginia McKenna, actress
* Malcolm Morley, painter
11 June – Ray Wood, footballer
14 June – Kenneth Cope, actor
20 June – Richard Southwood, biologist
24 June
* George Petchey, footballer
* John Shearman, art historian
26 June
* Alan Bailey, senior civil servant
* Colin Wilson, writer
29 June – Brian Hutton, Baron Hutton, Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and British Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
30 June
* Allan Jay, foil and épée fencer
* James Loughran, conductor
2 July
* Johnnie Mortimer, comedy scriptwriter
* Frank Williams, actor
3 July
* Angus Campbell-Gray, 22nd Lord Gray, Scottish peer
* Mick Cullen, footballer
* Dickie Dowsett, footballer
4 July – Peter Richardson, cricketer
6 July – Gordon Barker, cricketer and footballer
7 July – Alex South, footballer
9 July – Laurence O'Keeffe, diplomat
13 July
* Jim Cairney, footballer
* James Cellan Jones, television and film director
14 July – Robert Stephens, actor
15 July – Brian Sewell, art critic
16 July – Fergus Gordon Kerr, Scottish Roman Catholic priest of the English Dominican Province
17 July – Ted Cullinan, architect
20 July – Tony Marsh, racing driver
22 July – Charles Huxtable, Army officer
5 August – Billy Bingham, Northern Irish footballer and manager
8 August – Roger Penrose, mathematical physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
10 August – L. J. K. Setright, motoring journalist
21 August – Barry Foster, actor
23 August – Richard Vincent, Baron Vincent of Coleshill, British military officer, life peer
26 August – Geoffrey Dickens, Conservative politician
28 August – John Shirley-Quirk, bass-baritone
29 August – Evelyn de Rothschild, English banker and businessman
30 August – Ifor James, horn player
31 August – Bernard Bennett, snooker player
1 September – Cecil Parkinson, Conservative politician
8 September
* Susan Bradshaw, pianist
* Jack Rosenthal, playwright
12 September – Ian Holm, actor
13 September - Brian Dobson, archaeologist
22 September
* Fay Weldon, playwright and author
* George Younger, 4th Viscount Younger of Leckie, Scottish politician
24 September – Elizabeth Blackadder, painter
25 September – Peter Woodthorpe, actor
27 September – Malcolm Caldwell, academic and writer
4 October – Terence Conran, designer and businessman
8 October – Bill Brown, football goalkeeper
9 October – Tony Booth, actor
19 October – John le Carré, novelist
22 October – Jim Parks, cricketer
23 October – Diana Dors, actress
25 October – Jimmy McIlroy, footballer
27 October – David Bryant, bowls player
30 October – David M. Wilson, art historian and museum curator
4 November – Clinton Ford, singer
5 November – Diane Pearson, book editor and novelist
10 November – Don Henderson, actor
11 November – Roy Sandstrom, track and field sprinter
13 November – Jean Rook, journalist
14 November – Jennifer Jayne, actress
21 November – Stanley Kalms, Baron Kalms, businessman and life peer
27 November – Geoffrey Jones, film director
28 November – John Anderson
29 November – Geoffrey Moorhouse, journalist and writer
7 December – Maurice Agis, sculptor
18 December – Alison Plowden, historian
21 December – Margaret M. McGowan, historian
27 December – John Charles, footballer
30 December – John Houghton, climate scientist

Deaths

4 January – Louise, Princess Royal
22 January – Alfred Maudslay, colonial diplomat, explorer and archaeologist
11 February – Sir Charles Parsons, inventor
5 March – Arthur Tooth, Anglican clergyman prosecuted for Ritualist practices in the 1870s
17 March – James Stewart, Scottish politician
27 March
* Arnold Bennett, novelist
* Margaret McMillan, pioneer of nursery education
6 April – William Lionel Wyllie, marine painter
16 April – St. George Littledale, traveller and big game hunter
30 April – Sammy Woods, cricketer
26 May – Kate Marsden, medical missionary
27 May – Agnata Butler, classical scholar
13 June – Jesse Boot, 1st Baron Trent, businessman
18 August John Sherwood-Kelly, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross
22 August – Joseph Tabrar, songwriter
5 September – John Thomson, footballer
2 October – Sir Thomas Lipton, retailer and yachtsman
14 November – Sir William Peyton, army general
20 November – Julius Drewe, businessman, retailer and entrepreneur
31 December – Lancelot Speed, illustrator and silent film director