1920 in the United Kingdom
UK-related events during the year of 1920
Events from the year 1920 in the United Kingdom
Incumbents
Events
January–November – Experimental radio broadcasts including speech and music are made from a studio at the Marconi Company factory in Chelmsford , Essex.
9 January – The cargo steamer Treveal English Channel ; 35 people lose their lives.
23 February – War Secretary Winston Churchill announces that conscripts will be replaced by a volunteer army of 220,000 men.
10 March – The Ulster Unionist Council accepts the Government's plan for a Parliament of Northern Ireland .
17 March – Queen Alexandra unveils a monument to Nurse Edith Cavell in London .
27 March – Troytown wins the Grand National .
29 March – Sir William Robertson is promoted to Field Marshal , the first man to rise from private (enlisted 1877) to the highest rank in the British Army .[ 1]
31 March
5–30 April – 1920 blind march , a protest march of 250 blind men from across Britain to London.
10 April – West Bromwich Albion win the Football League title for the first time.[ 4]
20 April–12 September – Great Britain and Ireland compete at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp and win 15 gold, 15 silver and 13 bronze medals.
24 April – Aston Villa beat Huddersfield Town 1–0 in the first FA Cup Final since 1915.
29 April – Welwyn Garden City established by Ebenezer Howard . The first house is occupied just before Christmas.[ 5]
7 May – Morecambe F.C. is founded during a meeting at the West View Hotel on the town's promenade.
10 May – Forty Irish republican prisoners on hunger strike at Wormwood Scrubs are released.
11 May – Oswald Mosley , a Conservative MP, marries Cynthia Curzon , second daughter of ex-Viceroy of India , Earl Curzon of Kedleston , in the Chapel Royal of St James's Palace , London.
13 May – "Hands Off Russia " campaign: London dockers refuse to load the SS Jolly George with munitions intended for Poland in the Polish–Soviet War .[ 6]
17 May – Sinn Féin supporters and Unionists engage in pitched street battles in Derry .
18 May – Women lecturers are given equal status to their male colleagues at the University of Oxford .
21 May – The UK Government proposes a car tax of £1 per horsepower (13 p/kW).
29 May – Louth flood of 1920 in Lincolnshire kills 23.
9 June – King George V opens the Imperial War Museum at The Crystal Palace .
15 June – Australian soprano Nellie Melba becomes history's first well-known performer to make a radio broadcast when she sings two arias as part of the series of Marconi broadcasts from Chelmsford.
20 June – Five people are killed during severe rioting in Ulster .
24 June – Troops are sent to reinforce the Derry garrison.
3 July – The Scenic Railway (roller coaster) at Dreamland Margate amusement park opens, the first in the UK.
5 July – A new airmail service starts from London to Amsterdam .
13 July – London County Council bans foreigners from almost all council jobs.
16 July – World War I is officially declared over with Austria .
21 July – Protestants expel Catholic workers from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast .[ 7]
23 July – Fourteen die and one hundred are injured in fierce rioting in Belfast .
24 July – Frank T. Courtney wins the Aerial Derby aircraft race from Hendon at an average speed of 153.5 mph (247.0 km/h).[ 8]
28 July – The first women jury members in England are empanelled at Bristol quarter sessions .[ 9]
30 July–8 August – 1st World Scout Jamboree held at Olympia, London .[ 10]
31 July
1 August – The first Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain opens.
3 August – There are Catholic riots in Belfast in protest at the continuing British Army presence.
9 August – The Labour Party says it will call for a general strike if the United Kingdom declares war on Russia .
13 August – The Restoration of Order in Ireland Act receives Royal Assent , providing for Irish Republican Army activists to be tried by court-martial rather than by jury in criminal courts.[ 12]
16 August
Blind Persons Act 1920 passed, the world's first disability-specific legislation, providing a pension allowance for blind persons aged between 50 and 70 years of age, directing local authorities to make provision for the welfare of blind people and regulating charities in the sector.First Firearms Act passed.
18 August – The first night bus services are introduced in London .
28 August – The first games in the new Football League Third Division are played by the 22 clubs who were elected to the new division from the Southern League . Among the members of the new division are Southampton , Crystal Palace , Millwall , Norwich City , Queen's Park Rangers and Luton Town .[ 13] northern section is planned for next season .[ 14]
29 August – Eleven die and forty are injured in street battles in Belfast .
September
22 September – The Metropolitan Police forms the Flying Squad , following an announcement on 17 February that their horses will be replaced by cars.
7 October – The first one hundred women are admitted to study for full degrees at the University of Oxford .
10 October – It is announced that compulsory hand signals are to be introduced for all drivers. Hand signals will remain a crucial part of motoring life until the 1970s, when the increased use of indicators on vehicles renders them no longer necessary.
14 October – The first women receive degrees at the University of Oxford, these being awarded retrospectively. Dorothy L. Sayers and Ivy Williams are among them.[ 16]
16 October – Miners go on strike .
20 October – The suffragette activist Sylvia Pankhurst is charged with sedition after calling upon workers to loot the London Docks .
25 October
28 October – Sylvia Pankhurst is jailed for six months.
3 November – The miners' strike ends after only a small majority vote to continue.
8 November – Rupert Bear first appears in a cartoon strip in the Daily Express [ 17]
10 November – The body of The Unknown Warrior arrives from France aboard HMS Verdun .
11 November – King George V unveils The Cenotaph in London; The Unknown Warrior is buried in Westminster Abbey .[ 17]
15 November – First complete public performance of Gustav Holst 's suite The Planets London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Albert Coates .
21 November – Bloody Sunday : the Irish Republican Army , on the instructions of Michael Collins , shoot dead the Cairo gang , fourteen British undercover agents in Dublin , most in their homes. Later the same day in retaliation, the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary open fire on a crowd at a Gaelic Athletic Association Football match in Croke Park , killing thirteen spectators and one player and wounding 60.[ 12] [ 18] Dublin Castle "while trying to escape".
28 November – Kilmichael Ambush : the flying column of the 3rd Cork Brigade IRA, led by Tom Barry , ambushes two lorries carrying Auxiliaries at Kilmichael, County Cork , killing seventeen (with three of its men also dying), which leads to official reprisals.[ 12]
29 November – Rationing imposed during World War I ends when the restriction on availability of sugar is lifted by the Government.[ 19]
5 December – The Scots vote against prohibition .
9 December – The Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) is established by the government as a not-for-profit civilian organisation to provide canteens, shops and other recreational facilities for serving other ranks in the British armed forces and their families worldwide; it begins trading in 1921.[ 20]
11 December – Irish War of Independence : the Burning of Cork : British forces set fire to 5 acres (20,000 m2 ) of the centre of the city of Cork , including the City Hall, in reprisal attacks after a British auxiliary is killed in a guerilla ambush.
15 December – Vaughan Williams ' The Lark Ascending Marie Hall as violinist at Shirehampton near Bristol.
23 December
26 December – Dick, Kerr's Ladies F.C. draw the largest-ever crowd to attend a women's association football match, 53,000 spectators at Goodison Park , Liverpool , for a game against St. Helen's Ladies.[ 21]
Undated
Publications
Births
2 January – Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire , peer (died 2004)
3 January – Hugh McCartney , Labour MP (died 2006)
5 January – William Ward, 4th Earl of Dudley , life peer (died 2013)
6 January – John Maynard Smith , biologist and geneticist (died 2004)
9 January – Clive Dunn , actor (died 2012)[ 25]
12 January
20 January
22 January
24 January – Keith Douglas , poet (killed in action 1944)
26 January – Derek Bond , actor (died 2006)
27 January – John Box , film production designer (died 2005)
28 January – James A. Whyte , priest and theologian (died 2005)
30 January
31 January – Bert Williams , footballer (died 2014)
5 February – Frank Muir , actor, comedy writer and raconteur (died 1998)
6 February – Maurice Beresford , historian and archaeologist (died 2005)
10 February – Alex Comfort , physician and scientist (died 2000)
16 February – Tony Crook , racing driver (died 2014)
17 February – Ronald Butt , journalist (died 2002)
19 February – George Rose , actor (died 1988)
21 February – Logan Scott-Bowden , army general (died 2014)
25 February – Antony Duff , diplomat (died 2000)
26 February
27 February – Reg Simpson , cricketer (died 2013)
2 March – George Cowling , weatherman (died 2009)
3 March
5 March – Rachel Gurney , actress (died 2001)
6 March – Lewis Gilbert , film director (died 2018)
9 March
11 March – D. J. Enright , academic, poet, novelist and critic (died 2002)
14 March – Dorothy Tyler-Odam , high jumper (died 2014)
17 March – John Ehrman , historian (died 2011)
19 March – Jack Odell , inventor of Matchbox Toys (died 2007)
20 March
22 March – Fanny Waterman , pianist and musical educator (died 2020)
23 March – Barbara Low , biochemist (died 2019)
25 March
27 March – Robin Jacques , illustrator (died 1995)
31 March – Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire , aristocrat, writer and socialite (died 2014)
March – Walter Smith , land surveyor (died 2018)
2 April – Jack Stokes , animation director (died 2013)
9 April – Alex Moulton , mechanical engineer and inventor (died 2012)
11 April – Peter O'Donnell , fiction and comic strip writer (died 2010)
14 April – Ivor Forbes Guest , historian of dance (died 2018)
16 April – Alan Pegler , English businessman (died 2012)
17 April – Arnold Yarrow , actor (died 2024)
18 April – Roy Paul , Welsh footballer (died 2002)
21 April – Ronald Magill , actor (died 2007)
23 April – Eric Yarrow , businessman (died 2018)
27 April – Edwin Morgan , Scottish poet and translator (died 2010)
28 April – Hugh Bentall , surgeon (died 2012)
30 April
4 May – Ronald Chesney , harmonica player and comedy scriptwriter (died 2018)
5 May – Glanmor Williams , geographer (died 2005)
9 May
10 May
13 May – Gareth Morris , flautist (died 2007)
16 May – Geoffrey Page , air ace (died 2000)
18 May – Anthony Storr , psychiatrist and author (died 2001)
20 May
21 May
23 May – P. N. Furbank , writer and literary critic (died 2014)
28 May – Jim Russell , racing driver (died 2019)
30 May – Reginald Harland , Royal Air Force commander (died 2013)
2 June – Johnny Speight , television comedy scriptwriter (died 1998)
6 June – Aubrey Richards , actor (died 2000)
9 June – Sheila Keith , actress (died 2004)
11 June – Diana Armfield , artist
12 June – Peter Jones , actor (died 2000)
17 June
19 June
22 June – Marea Hartman , athletics administrator (died 1994)
23 June – Henry Chadwick , theologian (died 2008)
24 June – John Coplans , artist, curator and museum director (died 2003)
28 June
1 July – Geoffrey Lees , cricketer (died 2012)
2 July – Annette Kerr , actress (died 2013)
4 July – Anthony Barber , Conservative politician (died 2005)
10 July – Leslie Porter , businessman (died 2005)
12 July – Randolph Quirk , linguist (died 2017)
13 July – Bill Towers , footballer (died 2000)
14 July – Tom Neil , RAF pilot (died 2018)
17 July – Kenneth Wolstenholme , sports commentator (died 2002)
19 July – George Dawkes , cricketer (died 2006)
20 July – Jasper Blackall , racing yachtsman (died unknown)
21 July – John Horsley , actor (died 2014)
24 July
25 July – Rosalind Franklin , crystallographer (died 1958)
29 July – Jack Richardson , chemical engineer (died 2011)
30 July
31 July – Peter Thomas , politician (died 2008)
2 August
3 August
10 August – Tony Tenser , film producer (died 2007)
12 August – Peter West , sports commentator (died 2003)
13 August – Forbes Howie , businessman (died 2000)
15 August – Glyn Gilbert , major-general (died 2003)
17 August – Emrys Jones , geographer (died 2006)
18 August – David Lacy-Scott , amateur cricketer (died 2020)
19 August – Hugh Manning , actor (died 2004)
21 August – Christopher Robin Milne , author and bookseller (died 1996)
23 August – W. I. B. Crealock , yacht designer (died 2009)
27 August
3 September – Les Medley , footballer (died 2001)
6 September – Trevor Morris , footballer (died 2003)
7 September – Brian Pippard , physicist (died 2008)
9 September – Michael Aldridge , actor (died 1994)
12 September – Cornel Lucas , photographer (died 2012)
17 September – Dinah Sheridan , actress (died 2012)
21 September – Kenneth McAlpine , English racing driver (died 2023)
22 September – Nathaniel Fiennes, 21st Baron Saye and Sele , peer and businessman (died 2024)
24 September – Leo Marks , author and cryptographer (died 2001)
29 September – Peter D. Mitchell , chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1992)
1 October – David Jamieson , Army officer (died 2001)
2 October – Norman Whiting , cricketer (died 2014)
3 October
5 October
8 October – Alf Bellis , footballer (died 2013)
9 October – Michael Shaw, Baron Shaw of Northstead , politician (died 2021)
13 October – Donald Russell , classicist (died 2020)
15 October – Daniel Everett , RAF pilot (killed in action 1945)
16 October – Arthur Worsley , ventriloquist (died 2001)
18 October – Alexander Young , operatic tenor (died 2000)
19 October – Harry Alan Towers , film producer and screenwriter (died 2009)
24 October – Steve Conway , singer (died 1952)[ 26]
25 October – J. Denis Summers-Smith , ornithologist and tribologist (died 2020)
31 October – Dick Francis , steeplechase jockey and crime novelist (died 2010)
1 November – Ted Lowe , snooker commentator (died 2011)
3 November
4 November – Peter Ayerst , World War II RAF fighter and test pilot (died 2014)
5 November – Tommy Godwin , cyclist (died 2012)
11 November – Roy Jenkins , politician (died 2003)
13 November – Ian Gourlay , Army general (died 2013)
15 November
16 November – Laurence Stark , World War II air ace (died 2004)
18 November – Jerry Roberts , codebreaker and businessman (died 2014)
20 November – Ian McHarg , architect (died 2001)
22 November – Anne Crawford , film actress, in Mandatory Palestine (died 1956)
25 November
27 November – Buster Merryfield , character actor (died 1999)
28 November
3 December – Sheila K. McCullagh , author (died 2014)
6 December – George Porter , chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2002)
7 December – Frank Taylor , sports journalist (died 2002)
10 December – Alfred Goldie , mathematician (died 2005)
11 December – William Elliott, Baron Elliott of Morpeth , politician (died 2011)
12 December – Dick James , singer and record producer (died 1986)
16 December
18 December
23 December – Tim Elkington , RAF pilot (died 2019)
24 December – John Barron , actor (died 2004)
30 December – David Fraser , Army general (died 2012)
Deaths
6 January – Walter Cunliffe, 1st Baron Cunliffe , banker (born 1856)
11 January – Pryce Pryce-Jones , Welsh entrepreneur (born 1834)
18 January – John McClure , admiral in the Imperial Chinese Navy (born 1837)
24 January – William Plunket, 5th Baron Plunket , diplomat and administrator (born 1864)
7 February – Dollie Radford , poet (born 1858)
19 February – Ernest Hartley Coleridge , literary scholar and poet (born 1846)
13 March – Charles Lapworth , geologist (born 1842)
15 March – Edith Holden , nature artist, drowned (born 1871)
21 March – Evelina Haverfield , suffragette (born 1867)
26 March – Mary Augusta Ward (Mrs. Humphry Ward), novelist (born 1851 in Tasmania)
14 April – John George Bartholomew , cartographer (born 1860)
17 April – Alex Higgins , Scottish international footballer (born 1863)
20 April – Briton Rivière , painter (born 1840)
7 May – Hugh Thomson , illustrator (born 1860)
14 May – Ronald Montagu Burrows , archaeologist (born 1867)
18 May – Frank Matcham , theatrical architect and designer (born 1854)
28 May – Hardwicke Rawnsley , clergyman, hymnodist and conservationist (born 1851)
4 June – John Bruce Glasier , Scottish-born socialist politician (born 1859)
5 June – Rhoda Broughton , novelist (born 1840)
10 July – John ("Jackie") Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher , admiral (born 1841)
17 July – Sir Edmund Elton, 8th Baronet , studio potter (born 1846)
2 August – George W. Anson , actor (born 1847)
10 August – Erskine Beveridge , textile manufacturer and antiquarian (born 1851)
16 August – Sir Norman Lockyer , astronomer and science editor (born 1836)
5 October – William Heinemann , publisher (born 1863)
17 October – Reginald Farrer , botanist, in China (born 1880)
24 October – Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (Duchess of Edinburgh), member of the royal family, in Switzerland (born 1853)
23 November – Sir George Callaghan , admiral (born 1852)
3 December – William de Wiveleslie Abney , astronomer and photographer (born 1843)
20 December – Linton Hope , Olympic yachtsman and yacht and aircraft designer (born 1863)
See also
References
^ Woodward, David R. (September 2004). "Robertson, Sir William Robert, first baronet (1860–1933)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography doi :10.1093/ref:odnb/35786 . Retrieved 7 December 2007 . (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) ^ Hansard debate 31 Mar 1920 ^ Price, D.T.W. (1990). A History of the Church in Wales in the Twentieth Century . Penarth: Church in Wales Publications. ISBN 0-85326-026-5 ^ "1950s - Games, results and tables" . 3 September 2020.^ "Review of C. B. Purdom, The Building of Satellite Towns , J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1925" . Archived from the original on 7 September 2010. Retrieved 4 October 2010 .^ Macfarlane, L. J. (December 1967). "Hands off Russia: Labour and the Russo–Polish War, 1920" . Past and Present 38 (38): 126–152. doi :10.1093/past/38.1.126 . ^ "21st July 1920: Expulsions from Harland & Wolff" . Decade of Centenaries: Ulster 1885-1925 . Retrieved 29 November 2018 .^ Results of Fifth Aerial Derby at Hendon Flight ^ Robertson, Patrick (1974). The Shell Book of Firsts . London: Ebury Press. p. 203. ISBN 0-7181-1279-2 ^ "1st World Jamboree" . The Pine Tree Web . 1998. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2011 .^ O'Farrell, Patrick (2004). "Mannix, Daniel (1864–1963)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography doi :10.1093/ref:odnb/55446 . Retrieved 11 November 2011 . (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) ^ a b c d Cottrell, Peter (2009). The War for Ireland, 1913–1923 . Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84603-9966 ^ "English Division Three (South) results on 28th August 1920 - Statto.com" . Archived from the original on 5 October 2015. Retrieved 23 April 2011 .^ "Official Southport Website - History" . Archived from the original on 20 June 2013. Retrieved 23 April 2011 .^ Georgano, N. (2000). Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile . London: HMSO. ISBN 1-57958-293-1 ^ Hibbert, Christopher (1988). The Encyclopædia of Oxford . London: Macmillan. p. 427. ISBN 0-333-39917-X ^ a b Penguin Pocket On This Day . Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0 ^ a b Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History 488–490 . ISBN 0-304-35730-8 ^ Cooper, Charlie (24 June 2014). "Britons are forced to tighten their belts" The Independent Archived from the original on 1 May 2022. Retrieved 24 June 2014 . ^ Morley, Nathan (2018). Canteen Army: the NAAFI Story . ISBN 9781719947367 ^ "Trail-blazers who pioneered women's football" . BBC News . Retrieved 19 February 2010 .^ Blastland, Michael (2 February 2012). "Go Figure: When was the real baby boom?" . BBC News Magazine . Retrieved 5 February 2012 . ^ Walker, Andrew (29 January 2003). "Profile: King George VI" . BBC News . ^ "Huddersfield History" . Huddersfield Local History Society. Archived from the original on 18 August 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2021 .^ Barker, Dennis (7 November 2012). "Clive Dunn obituary" . The Guardian . Retrieved 3 August 2023 . ^ "Steve Conway Biography, Songs, & Albums" . AllMusic . Retrieved 23 September 2021 .^ "Ethel Lote, nurse who cared for the wounded in the aftermath of Dunkirk – obituary" . The Telegraph . 4 July 2024.(registration required )
External links
