1914 in the United Kingdom
UK-related events during the year of 1914
Events from the year 1914 in the United Kingdom First World War , ending the Edwardian era .
Incumbents
Events
Edward Grey , Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at the outbreak of warJanuary–February – Leeds rent strike .[ 1]
20 February – the Fethard-on-Sea life-boat capsizes on service off the County Wexford coast: nine crew are lost.[ 2]
9 March – the prime minister proposes to allow the Ulster counties to hold a vote on whether or not to join a home rule parliament in Dublin .
10 March – suffragette Mary Richardson damages the Velázquez painting the Rokeby Venus National Gallery, London , with a meat cleaver.[ 3]
15 March – cover price of The Times penny .[ 4]
20 March – Curragh incident : British Army officers stationed in Ireland at the Curragh Camp resign their commissions rather than be ordered to resist action by Unionist Ulster Volunteers if the Government of Ireland Act 1914 ("Third Home Rule Bill"} is passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.[ 5]
29 March – Katherine Routledge and her husband arrive in Easter Island to make the first true study of it (departing August 1915).
9 April – showing of the first colour feature film in Britain: The World, the Flesh and the Devil [ 6]
11 April – first British performance of George Bernard Shaw 's play Pygmalion His Majesty's Theatre in London .[ 6]
17 April – suffragette arson attack on Britannia Pier, Great Yarmouth .[ 7]
24–25 April – Larne gun-running : 35,000 rifles and over 3 million rounds of ammunition from a German dealer are landed at Larne , Bangor and Donaghadee for the Unionist Ulster Volunteers .[ 5]
28 April – suffragette arson attack on the Bath Hotel, Felixstowe .[ 7]
4 May – suffragette Mary Wood attacks John Singer Sargent 's portrait of Henry James at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London with a meat cleaver. At the same exhibition on 12 May, Gertrude Mary Ansell attacks the recently deceased Hubert von Herkomer 's portrait of the Duke of Wellington, and on 26 May 'Mary Spencer' (Maude Kate Smith) attacks George Clausen 's painting Primavera .[ 8]
9 May – J. T. (Jack) Hearne becomes the first bowler to take 3000 first-class wickets.
21 May – a women's suffrage march on Buckingham Palace with a petition is thwarted by police.[ 7]
25 May – the House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Irish Home Rule Bill .
30 May
5 June – All Saints' Church, Breadsall , Derbyshire, gutted by fire, blamed on a suffragette arson attack.[ 7]
23 June
29 June – international exhibition opens at the "White City", Ashton Gate , Bristol . It closes on 15 August and the site is used as a military depot.[ 10]
14 July – the Government of Ireland Bill completes its passage through the House of Lords . It allows Ulster counties to vote on whether or not they wish to participate in Home Rule from Dublin.
18–20 July – fleet review by the King at Spithead .[ 11]
21–24 July – a conference at Buckingham Palace (called by the King on 19 July) fails to resolve differences between Irish unionists and nationalists over Home Rule.
26 July – Howth gun-running : former British civil servant and novelist Erskine Childers and his wife Molly sail into Howth in Ireland in his yacht Asgard Irish Volunteers from a German dealer. Troops of the King's Own Scottish Borderers , returning to Dublin having been called out to assist police in attempting to prevent the Volunteers from moving the arms to the city, perpetrate the Bachelor's Walk massacre , firing on a crowd of protestors at Bachelors Walk, killing three; a fourth man dies later from bayonet wounds and more than 30 others are injured.[ 12]
31 July – London Stock Exchange closes until 4 January 1915. August: London recruits for Kitchener's Army 3 August
Sir Edward Grey , the Foreign Secretary, makes a speech which encourages the House of Commons to support going to war with Germany. This evening, looking from the Foreign Office windows, he observes, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
Banks remain closed until 7 August.
English language teacher Henry Hadley is shot in an altercation with a Prussian officer on a train at Gelsenkirchen in Germany, dying two days later, just 3 hours after the UK declares war on Germany.
4 August
5 August – Imperial German Navy minelayer SS Königin Luise (1913) , laying a minefield about 40 miles (64 km) off the Thames Estuary (Lowestoft ), is intercepted by the Royal Navy 's 3rd Destroyer Flotilla . Destroyer HMS Lance (1914) fires the first British shot of the war (using her 4" Vickers gun) at her and light cruiser HMS Amphion (1911) sinks her, the first German naval loss of the war.
6 August
8 August
9 August – World War I: HMS Birmingham (1913) rams and sinks German Navy submarine U-15 Fair Isle , the first U-boat claimed by the Royal Navy.[ 6]
10 August – all suffragette prisoners released unconditionally.
12 August – World War I: formal declaration of war by the United Kingdom on Austria-Hungary .
13 August – World War I: twelve Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 observation aircraft from No. 2 Squadron , Royal Flying Corps , flying from Swingate, Kent , become the first British aircraft to arrive in France to join the British Expeditionary Force .
21 August – World War I: reconnaissance cyclist Private John Parr (aged 17) becomes the first British soldier to be killed on the Western Front , at Obourg in Belgium.
22 August – World War I: the British Expeditionary Force reaches Mons . Just after 06:30 British cavalryman Captain Hornby is reputed to have become the first British soldier to kill a German soldier using his sword, and Drummer Edward Thomas of the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards is reputed to have fired the British Army 's first shot of the War near the Belgian village of Casteau , the first British shot fired in anger in combat on mainland Europe since the Battle of Waterloo 99 years earlier.
23 August – World War I: in the first major action for the British Expeditionary Force , they hold the German forces at the Battle of Mons [ 6] Great Retreat to the Marne .
26 August
28 August – World War I: the Battle of Heligoland – British cruisers under Admiral Beatty sink three German cruisers.
30 August – World War I: "Amiens Dispatch" – in a special Sunday edition The Times Great Retreat (from its war correspondent Arthur Moore).
August – World War I: the Order of the White Feather is established by Admiral Charles Cooper Penrose-Fitzgerald , RN (retd), in Folkestone , aiming to persuade women to offer white feathers to men not in uniform to shame them into enlisting.[ 15] September: Lord Kitchener Wants You : London recruiting poster September
5 September
5–12 September – World War I: First Battle of the Marne begins:[ 6] Paris , the British Expeditionary Force and the French 6th Army under General Maunoury attack German forces nearing Paris. Over 2 million fight (500,000 killed/wounded) in the Allied victory.
8 September – World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the War, suffering execution by firing squad in France.
13–28 September – World War I: the First Battle of the Aisne involving British, French forces against those of the German Empire , ending indecisively.
18 September – the Government of Ireland Act , granting home rule to the whole of Ireland , and the Welsh Church Act , disestablishing the Church in Wales, receive royal assent (although George V has contemplated refusing the Irish act)[ 20] [ 5] Suspensory Act . The Government of Ireland Act in practice never comes into effect in its original form, and Welsh disestablishment is deferred until 1920.
20 September – in a speech at Woodenbridge , County Wicklow , John Redmond , leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party , calls on members of the Irish Volunteers to enlist in the National Volunteers as part of the British New Army . The majority do so, fighting in the 10th and 16th (Irish) Division alongside their Ulster Volunteer counterparts from the 36th (Ulster) Division (formed this month); the rump Irish Volunteers split off on 24 September.[ 5]
22 September – World War I: Action of 22 September 1914 : German submarine U-9 Royal Navy armoured cruisers , Aboukir Cressy Hogue
8 October – "Keep the Home Fires Burning " (music by Ivor Novello ; words by Lena Guilbert Ford ) is first published (as "Till the Boys Come Home") in London.
14 October – World War I: the Canadian Expeditionary Force arrives on 32 ocean liners in Plymouth Sound .
15 October – World War I: HMS Hawke (1891) is torpedoed by German submarine U-9
17 October – London anti-German riots break out in Deptford .[ 21] First Battle of Ypres : aftermath19 October–22 November – World War I: First Battle of Ypres : British and French forces are victorious against the Germans at Ypres in Belgium .
27 October – World War I: the British super-dreadnought battleship HMS Audacious (23,400 tons), is sunk off Tory Island , north-west of Ireland, by a minefield laid by the armed German merchant-cruiser Berlin , a loss not officially admitted until the end of the war.
30 October – the SS Rohilla , requisitioned as a military hospital ship, is lost by grounding in a storm on rocks off Whitby with the loss of 85 lives.
1 November – World War I: Battle of Coronel fought – a Royal Navy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock is met in the eastern Pacific and defeated by superior German forces led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee in the first British naval defeat of the war, resulting in the loss of HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth and 1,660 fatalities (including Cradock).
3 November – World War I: German naval raid on Yarmouth .
5 November – World War I: Britain annexes Cyprus and declares war on the Ottoman Empire .[ 6]
6 November – World War I: German reservist Carl Hans Lody becomes the first spy to be executed for war treason during the War, suffering execution at dawn by firing squad in the Tower of London , the first execution for treason here since 1747.
11–24 November – World War I: Battle of Basra results in British Empire forces taking Basra from the Ottoman Empire.
17 November – announcement that income tax is to be doubled as a result of the War.[ 22]
26 November – HMS Bulwark (1899) is blown apart by an internal explosion at her moorings on the Medway off Kingsnorth , Kent , killing all but nine of her 805 crew.[ 23] Raid on Scarborough used as a propaganda poster
Unknown dates
Publications
In fiction
Births
7 January – Edwin La Dell , artist (died 1970)
8 January – Norman Nicholson , poet (died 1987)
9 January
13 January – Ted Willis , television dramatist and author (died 1992)
15 January – Hugh Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton , historian (died 2003)[ 29]
20 January – Roy Plomley , radio broadcaster, producer, playwright and novelist (died 1985)
22 January – Syd Hartley , English association football player (died 1987)
4 February – Ida Lupino , actress, director and writer (died 1995)
5 February – Alan Hodgkin , scientist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1998)[ 30]
9 February – Helen Brotherton , conservationist (died 2009)
12 February – Alison Munro , civil servant and headmistress (died 2008)
13 February – Derek Gardner , artist (died 2007)
19 February – Henry Thomas Davies , lifeboatman (died 2002)
20 February – Peter Rogers , film producer (died 2009)
24 February – Ralph Erskine , architect (died 2005)
25 February – John Arlott , cricket commentator and writer (died 1991)[ 31]
27 February – Pat Fillingham , test pilot (died 2003)
10 March – Michael Torrens-Spence , pilot (died 2001)
12 March – Frank Soo , English footballer and manager (died 1991)
13 March – Olaf Pooley , actor and screenwriter (died 2015)
14 March – Bill Owen , actor (died 1999)[ 32]
22 March – Donald Stokes , industrialist (died 2008)
2 April – Alec Guinness , actor (died 2000)
5 April – Sheila Callender , physician (died 2004)
7 April – Arthur Hezlet , admiral and historian (died 2007)
12 April – Frances Macdonald , artist (died 2002)
14 April – Michael Maclagan , historian (died 2003)
22 April – C. H. Sisson , writer and poet (died 2003)
26 April – Charlie Chester , comedian (died 1997)
28 April – Philip E. High , science fiction author (died 2006)
10 May – John James , racing driver (died 2002)
13 May – Phil Drabble , country author and television personality (died 2007)
19 May – Max Perutz , Austrian-born molecular biologist (died 2002)
22 May
25 May
26 May – Geoffrey Unsworth , cinematographer (died 1978)
27 May – Frederick Erroll, 1st Baron Erroll of Hale , politician (died 2000)
28 May – W. G. G. Duncan Smith , World War II pilot (died 1996)
29 May
4 June
5 June
12 June – John Seymour , author and self-sufficiency campaigner (died 2004)
14 June
15 June
20 June – Celia Fremlin , writer of detective fiction (died 2009)
24 June
25 June – Mavis Pugh , actress (died 2006)[ 34]
26 June – Laurie Lee , poet and author (died 1997)[ 35]
27 June – William Stobbs , illustrator (died 2000)
1 July – Thomas Pearson , Army officer (died 2019)
5 July – Ilija Monte Radlovic , Army officer and author (died 2000)
10 July – Charles Donnelly , poet (died 1937)
14 July – Hubert Gregg , English broadcaster, writer and actor (died 2004)[ 36]
15 July
17 July – Paul Brand , doctor and surgeon (died 2003)
19 July – Hubert Gregg , actor and screenwriter (died 2004)
25 July – Winifred Foley , writer (died 2009)
29 July – Abram Games , graphic designer (died 1996)[ 37]
1 August
5 August – Bert Millichip , football manager (died 2002)
7 August – Constance Stuart Larrabee , journalist and war correspondent (died 2000)
9 August – Joe Mercer , football manager (died 1990)
10 August – Ken Annakin , film director (died 2009)
19 August – Rose Heilbron , barrister (died 2005)[ 38]
20 August
22 August – Trevor Leggett , author and translator (died 2000)
30 August – Sydney Wooderson , lawyer and athlete (died 2006)
31 August – Edward “Tap” Gordon Jones , Air Marshal (died 2007)
2 September – George Brown , politician (died 1985)
5 September – Stuart Freeborn , make-up artist (died 2013)
8 September – Denys Lasdun , architect (died 2001)
11 September – Sidney Hart , trade unionist and religious administrator (died 2005)
12 September – Desmond Llewelyn , actor (died 1999)
18 September – Jack Cardiff , cinematographer , director and photographer (died 2009)[ 39]
19 September – Fraser McLuskey , Church of Scotland minister (died 2005)
20 September – Kenneth More , actor (died 1982)[ 40]
23 September – Bethsabée de Rothschild , philanthropist and patron of dance (died 1999)
25 September – John Manners , cricketer and naval officer (died 2020)
29 September – Arnold W. G. Kean , civil aviation lawyer (died 2000)
1 October
6 October – Joan Littlewood , theatre director (died 2002)
27 October – Dylan Thomas , Welsh poet and author (died 1953)
28 October – Richard Laurence Millington Synge , chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (died 1994)
6 November
7 November – John Welsh , Irish-born actor (died 1985)
8 November – John Nevill, 5th Marquess of Abergavenny , peer (died 2000)
9 November – Alan Caillou , author (died 2006)
12 November – Peter Whitehead , racing driver (died 1958)
13 November – Leonard Appelbee , artist (died 2000)
21 November – Michael Grant , ancient historian (died 2004)
23 November – Roger Avon , actor (died 1998)
24 November – Lynn Chadwick , sculptor (died 2003)
28 November – David Croom-Johnson , judge (died 2000)
29 November – Coleridge Goode , Jamaican-born British jazz bassist (died 2015)
30 November – Charles Hawtrey , comedy actor (died 1988)
3 December – Trevor Foster , rugby union player (died 2005)
12 December
13 December – Alan Bullock , historian (died 2004)
16 December – Norman Blamey , painter (died 2000)
24 December – D. B. H. Wildish , admiral (died 2017)
25 December
28 December – Bernard Youens , actor (died 1984)
29 December – Margaret Hubble , radio presenter (died 2006)
Deaths
19 January – William Turner , Roman Catholic bishop (born 1844)
21 January – Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal , Scottish-born Canadian businessman and philanthropist (born 1820)
1 March – Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto , Viceroy of India (born 1845)
28 March – Robert Fraser , Scottish Roman Catholic bishop (born 1858)
30 March – Rollo Russell , meteorologist and science writer (born 1849)
4 April – Sir Henry Hallam Parr , army officer (born 1847)
19 April – Morton Betts , footballer (born 1847)
2 May – John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll , husband of Princess Louise of the United Kingdom (born 1845)
13 May – Isabella Fyvie Mayo , poet and novelist (born 1843)
23 May – Gustav Hamel , pioneer aviator (born 1889)
27 May – Sir Joseph Swan , scientist (born 1828)
19 June – Brandon Thomas , actor and playwright (born 1850)
2 July – Joseph Chamberlain , politician (born 1836)
7 August – Charles Davis Lucas , naval officer, Victoria Cross recipient (born 1834)
9 August – Henry Hadley , civilian shot in Germany (born 1863)
16 August – Mary Bird , Anglican missionary (born 1859)
17 August – Sir James Grierson , Scottish-born lieutenant general (of heart aneurism on service in France) (born 1859)
23 October – Edward Wilkinson , Anglican bishop in Africa and Europe (born 1837)[ 41]
25 October – Charles W. H. Douglas , general (born 1850)
1 November – Christopher Cradock , admiral (killed in action) (born 1862)
5 November – Robert Kekewich , general (suicide) (born 1854)
11 November – A. E. J. Collins , cricketer and soldier (killed in action) (born 1885)
14 November – Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts of Kandahar , field marshal (born 1832)[ 42]
9 December – Sir John Bonser , colonial judge, Chief Justice of Ceylon (born 1847)
26 December – Sir Thomas Kelly-Kenny , general (born 1840)
See also
References
^ Bradley, Quintin (1997). "The Leeds rent strike in 1914: A reappraisal of the radical history of the tenants movement" . Archived from the original on 24 January 2015. Retrieved 8 September 2014 . ^ Walsh, Dan (21 February 2008). "Lifeboat men pay the ultimate price" . Wexford Echo . Retrieved 7 September 2010 . [permanent dead link ] ^ "Women's History Timeline: 1910–1919" . Woman's Hour . BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 25 September 2007 .^ The Times: Past, Present, Future . 1985. pp. 46–7.^ a b c d Cottrell, Peter (2009). The War for Ireland, 1913–1923 . Oxford: Osprey. pp. 14–15. ISBN 978-1-84603-9966 ^ a b c d e f g h i j Penguin Pocket On This Day . Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0 ^ a b c d Housego, Molly; Storey, Neil R. (2012). The Women's Suffrage Movement . Oxford: Shire. ISBN 9780747810896 ^ Bonett, Helena (2 May 2014). " . London: Royal Academy of Arts . Retrieved 9 March 2016 . ^ "Wharncliffe Silkstone Colliery Explosion - Barnsley - 1914" . Northern Mine Research Society. Retrieved 23 October 2020 .^ "International exhibition became known as a city" . Bristol Post the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2014 .^ "Naval Spectacle at Spithead". The Times ^ Connolly, S. J., ed. (2007). Oxford Companion to Irish History (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-923483-7 ^ Jellicoe, Admiral Viscount (1919). The Grand Fleet, 1914–1916: its creation, development and work (PDF) . New York: George H. Doran. pp. 4–5. Retrieved 21 August 2013 . ^ Hurd, Michael (1983). "Rutland Boughton (1878–1960), The Immortal Hour" . Hyperion . Retrieved 1 September 2014 .^ Ellsworth-Jones, Will (2008). We Will Not Fight...: The Untold Story of World War One's Conscientious Objectors . London: Aurum. ISBN 9781845133009 ^ Carpenter, Humphrey (2000). J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography ISBN 978-0618057023 ^ Duriez, Colin (2012). J. R. R. Tolkien: The Making of a Legend . Oxford: Lion. pp. 77–9. ISBN 978-0-7459-5514-8 ^ "New Film Factory in Hertfordshire". Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly . 1 October 1914. p. 10. ^ Quinn, Tony (8 December 2001). "London Opinion – the most influential cover" . Magforum.com . Archived from the original on 11 September 2010. Retrieved 7 August 2010 . ^ Bogdanor, Vernon (1997). The Monarchy and the Constitution ISBN 0-19-829334-8 ^ "Anti-German Riots" . East End at War . 7 May 2015. Retrieved 16 April 2019 .^ "Notable Dates in History" . The Flag in the Wind . The Scots Independent . Archived from the original on 23 May 2014. Retrieved 11 July 2014 .{{cite web }}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link )^ "The HMS Bulwark Explosion" . Disasters in Medway . 2009. Archived from the original on 3 August 2012. Retrieved 17 June 2010 .^ The Hutchinson Factfinder . Helicon. 1999. p. 483. ISBN 1-85986-000-1 ^ "The Bombardment of Hartlepool, 16 December 1914" . The Western Front Association . 10 July 2011. Archived from the original on 1 November 2011. Retrieved 7 December 2011 .^ "Egypt: a constitution" . Time the original on 15 October 2007. Retrieved 24 August 2012 .^ a b Bostridge, Mark (2014). The Fateful Year: England 1914 . London: Penguin UK. pp. 354–5. ISBN 978-0-14-196223-8 ^ "Vorticism" . Msn Encarta . Archived from the original on 22 May 2007. Retrieved 17 October 2009 .^ Dod's Parliamentary Companion ISBN 978-0-905702-36-0 ^ Neil Schlager (2000). Science and Its Times: 1950-present ISBN 978-0-7876-3939-6 ^ British Film and Television Yearbook ^ Screen International Film and TV Year Book ISBN 978-0-900925-21-4 ^ Denis Greenhill (11 April 1992). "Obituary: Sir Peter Hayman" . The Independent . Retrieved 2 July 2014 .^ "Obituary - Mavis Pugh" The Independent . 13 December 2006. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022.^ "Lee, (Wilfred) Jack Raymond". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography doi :10.1093/ref:odnb/77340 . (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) ^ "Obituaries: Hubert Gregg" . The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 28 April 2012 .^ Alan Symons (1997). The Jewish Contribution to the 20th Century ISBN 978-0-9523751-1-1 ^ Morton, James (13 December 2005). "Obituary: Dame Rose Heilbron" . The Guardian . Retrieved 8 April 2020 . ^ Robert Murphy (25 July 2019). Directors in British and Irish Cinema: A Reference Companion ISBN 978-1-83871-532-8 ^ Paul Donnelley (2000). Fade to Black: A Book of Movie Obituaries ISBN 978-0-7119-7984-0 ^ American Church Almanac and Year Book ^ "Rugby Union Footballers are Doing their Duty. Over 90% Have Enlisted. British Athletes! Will You Follow this Glorious Example?" . World Digital Library . Retrieved 27 October 2013 .
_Britons_(Kitchener)_wants_you_(Briten_Kitchener_braucht_Euch)._1914_(Nachdruck),_74_x_50_cm._(Slg.Nr._552).jpg)
