1902 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1902 in the United [Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom].

Incumbents

Events

January – the General Post Office becomes the world's first postal administration to accept divided-back postcards, initiating a craze for sending and collecting them.
5 January – first performance, privately, of George Bernard Shaw's controversial 1893 play Mrs. Warren's Profession in London.
17 January – The Times Literary Supplement first published.
30 January – the Anglo-Japanese Alliance is signed in London ending Japan's policy of "splendid isolation".
13 February – the 1902 World Figure Skating Championships held in London.
7 March – Second Boer War: South African Boers win their last battle over British forces, with the capture of a British general and 200 of his men.
2 April – first performance of William Butler Yeats's play Cathleen Ní Houlihan in Dublin.
5 April – the first Ibrox disaster: a stand at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow collapses during an England versus Scotland football match. 25 people die and 517 are injured.
26 April – Hibernian F.C. win the Scottish F.A. Cup, a feat they will not repeat until 2016.
28 April – Manchester United Football Club is formed by John Henry Davies in a name change from Newton Heath, the Football League Second Division club that he recently saved from going out of business.
April – Vladimir Lenin begins a year's stay in London where he edits the newspaper Iskra, studies in the British Museum Reading Room and in October first meets Leon Trotsky.
22 May – the White Star Liner SS Ionic is launched by Harland and Wolff in Belfast.
29 May – the London School of Economics is opened.
31 May – Treaty of Vereeniging signed by the United Kingdom, the South African Republic and the Republic of the Orange Free State bringing the Second Boer War to an end.
2 June – Land of Hope and Glory receives its London premiere, sung by Clara Butt.
17 June – Norwich City F.C. formed as an amateur club, playing its first match on 6 September.
26 June
* Scheduled date for the Coronation of [Edward VII and Alexandra], postponed due to the King's appendicitis.
* Edward VII institutes The Order of Merit, an order bestowed personally by the British monarch on up to 24 distinguished Empire recipients.
30 June–11 August – a conference held in London supports the principle of Imperial Preference, a system of reciprocally-levelled tariffs or Free trade agreements between different Dominions and colonies within the British Empire.
11 July – retirement of Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister due to ill health. He is succeeded by his nephew Arthur Balfour and will be the last person to have sat in the House of Lords as Prime Minister.
22 July – Cremation Act allows burial authorities to establish crematoria with effect from 1 April 1903.
9 August – coronation of Edward VII and Alexandra at Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Frederick Temple.
13 September – Harry Jackson becomes the first British person to be convicted on the basis of fingerprint evidence.
1 October – in the Royal Navy:
* launch of its first submarine,, at Barrow-in-Furness.
* establishment of the Home Fleet.
16 October – the first Borstal youth detention centre is opened at Borstal, Kent.
4 November – first performance of J. M. Barrie's play The Admirable Crichton in London.
8 December – Committee of Imperial Defence first meets.
9 December – British and German forces seize the navy of Venezuela in a dispute over compensation claims.
10 December – Ronald Ross wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his work on malaria, by which he has shown how it enters the organism and thereby has laid the foundation for successful research on this disease and methods of combating it".
18 December – the Balfour Education Act replaces School Boards by a system of Local Education Authorities in England and Wales and permits them to build and maintain secondary schools and deliver teacher training; also provides for rate aid for teacher salaries in voluntary schools.
30 December – Discovery Expedition: Scott, Shackleton and Wilson reach the furthest southern point reached thus far by man, south of 82°S.

Undated

Oliver Heaviside proposes existence of the Kennelly–Heaviside layer.
William Bayliss and Ernest Starling make the first discovery of a hormone, secretin.
The British Army adopts a dark khaki serge Service Dress, replacing the traditional red coat for regular wear; the style will remain standard issue until 1939.
Marmite first produced, in Burton upon Trent.
Will Barker founds Ealing Studios.
Edible dormouse begins invasion of an area of the Chilterns having escaped from Walter Rothschild's private collection.

Publications

Edward Harold Begbie's political satire Clara in Blunderland.
Arnold Bennett's novels Anna of the Five Towns and The Grand Babylon Hotel.
Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness.
Walter de la Mare's first poetry collection Songs of Childhood.
Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.
John A. Hobson's book Imperialism.
W. W. Jacobs' short story collection The Lady of the Barge, including "The Monkey's Paw".
Henry James's novel The Wings of the Dove.
Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories and short story "Below the Mill Dam".
John Masefield's Salt-Water Ballads, including "Sea-Fever".
A. E. W. Mason's historical adventure novel The Four Feathers.
E. Nesbit's children's novel Five Children and It.
Beatrix Potter's children's book The Tale of Peter Rabbit with her own colour illustrations.
W. Heath Robinson's children's book The Adventures of Uncle Lubin with his own illustrations.
Saki's work The Westminster Alice.
The Times Literary Supplement.

Births

5 January – Stella Gibbons, novelist, journalist, poet and short-story writer
11 January – Evelyn Dove, singer
16 January – Eric Liddell, runner and missionary, in China
21 January – Webster Booth, tenor
January – Billy Pigg, Northumbrian piper
3 February – Joseph Bentwich, British-born Israeli educator
4 February – Hartley Shawcross, prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials
8 February – Anne Parsons, English socialite
21 February – Arthur Nock, English classicist, theologian, and Harvard University professor
28 March – Dame Flora Robson, English actress
29 March – William Walton, English composer
30 March – Ted Heath, bandleader
8 April
* Andrew Irvine, mountaineer
* Arthur Wellard, cricketer
9 April – Lord David Cecil, literary critic and biographer
20 April – Donald Wolfit, actor-manager
22 April – Megan Lloyd George, Welsh politician
1 May – Sonnie Hale, actor, singer and director
2 May – Brian Aherne, actor
10 May – Ian Richmond, Roman archaeologist
27 May – Peter Marshall, Scottish-born preacher, 57th Chaplain of [the United States Senate]
31 May – Billy Mayerl, pianist and light music composer
4 June – Harry Beck, graphic designer, creator of the London Underground map
17 June – F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, secret agent
18 June – Morgan Phillips, Welsh politician
29 June – Ellen Pollock, character actress
24 July
* Renée Houston, née Katherina Houston Gribbin, Scottish comedy actress
* Nora Swinburne, actress
28 July – Roger Fleetwood-Hesketh, soldier and politician
8 August – Paul Dirac, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
12 August – Jack de Leon, Panamanian-born theatre manager, impresario and playwright
16 August
* Evelyn Colyer, tennis player
* Georgette Heyer, novelist
19 August – Fyfe Robertson, Scottish television presenter
4 September – Lorna Johnstone, equestrian
20 September – Stevie Smith, poet and novelist
21 September – Allen Lane, publisher
17 October – Melford Stevenson, judge
26 October – Beryl Markham, aviator and author
28 October – Elsa Lanchester, actress
9 November – Anthony Asquith, film director
27 November – George Camsell, footballer
8 December – Jack Solomons, boxing promoter
15 December – Mary Skeaping, choreographer
19 December – Ralph Richardson, actor
20 December – Prince George, Duke of Kent

Deaths

11 January
* Johnny Briggs, cricketer
* James James, harpist and composer of the Welsh national anthem
17 February – Charles Alexander, cricketer
18 February – Sigismund Koelle, missionary
26 February – Edward Henry Cooper, army officer and politician
15 March – Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet, colonial administrator
26 March – Cecil Rhodes, imperialist
29 March – Sir Andrew Clarke, army officer and colonial governor
8 April – John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley, politician
18 June – Samuel Butler, novelist
6 September – Sir Frederick Abel, chemist
29 September – William McGonagall, Scottish doggerel 'poet and tragedian'
4 October – Lionel Johnson, poet, essayist and critic
5 October – Henry Lascelles Carr, newspaper proprietor
12 November – William Henry Barlow, railway civil engineer
16 November – G. A. Henty, historical novelist
17 November – Hugh Price Hughes, Welsh-born Methodist social reformer
23 December – Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury