1915 in the United Kingdom

1915 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1913 | 1914 | 1915 (1915) | 1916 | 1917

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1915 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland

Events from the year 1915 in the United Kingdom. This year was dominated by World War I, which broke out in the August of the previous year.

Incumbents

• Monarch - George V
• Prime Minister - H. H. Asquith (Liberal and coalition)

Events

1915 propaganda poster

• 1 January - World War I: Sinking of the battleship HMS Formidable, off Lyme Regis, Dorset, by an Imperial German Navy U-boat. 35 officers and 512 men are lost out of a total complement of 780.^[1]
• 19 January - World War I: German zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn for the first time, killing more than twenty.^[2]
• 24 January - World War I: Battle of Dogger Bank: British Grand Fleet defeats the German High Seas Fleet, sinking the armoured cruiser SMS Blücher.^[2]
• January - HMS Queen Elizabeth enters service as the Royal Navy's first oil-fired battleship.
• 1 February - Photographs required in British passports for the first time.^[2]
• 18 February - World War I: Germany regards waters around the British Isles to be a war zone from this date, as part of its U-boat campaign.
• 11 March - World War I: Sinking of armed merchantman HMS Bayano (1913) off Galloway by German U-boat SM U-27. Around 200 crew are lost, a number of bodies being washed up on the Isle of Man, with only 26 saved.^[3]
• 14 March - World War I:
  • Battle of Más a Tierra: Off the coast of Chile, the Royal Navy forces the German light cruiser SMS Dresden to scuttle.
  • Britain, France and the Russian Empire agree to give Constantinople and the Bosporus to Russia in case of victory (the treaty is later nullified by the Bolshevik Revolution).
• 18 March - World War I:
  • British attack on the Dardanelles fails.
  • Royal Navy battleship HMS Dreadnought (1906) sinks German submarine U-29 with all hands in the Pentland Firth by ramming her, the only time this tactic is known to have been successfully used by a battleship.
• 24 April - The FA Cup is won by Sheffield United F.C., who defeat Chelsea 3-0 in the final at Old Trafford, Manchester. The competition will now be abandoned until the war is over.^[4]
• 25 April - World War I: Gallipoli Campaign: Landing at Cape Helles by British and French forces, heavily opposed by Ottoman troops. The Lancashire Fusiliers win 'six VCs before breakfast'.
• 7 May - World War I: Sinking of the RMS Lusitania: British ocean liner RMS Lusitania is sunk by Imperial German Navy U-boat U-20 off the south-west coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 civilians en route from New York to Liverpool.^[2]
• 17 May - The last purely Liberal government ends when Prime Minister Herbert Asquith decides to form an all-party coalition, precipitated by reports in the Northcliffe press of deficiencies in the supply of shells for the army.^[5]
• 22 May - Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green in Scotland: collision and fire kill 226, mostly troops, the largest number of fatalities in a rail accident in the U.K.^[6]
• 25 May - The Prime Minister forms the Second Asquith ministry, a national wartime coalition government of twelve Liberals, eight Unionists and one Labour member (Arthur Henderson). David Lloyd George is appointed first Minister of Munitions.
• 27 May - HMS Princess Irene explodes and sinks while loading mines off Sheerness with the loss of 352 lives.

1915 propaganda poster

• 31 May - World War I: Zeppelins raid London for the first time.^[7]
• 10 June - Vorticist exhibition opens at the Doré Gallery, London.^[8]
• 16 June - Foundation of the British Women's Institute.
• 8 July - National Registration Act: All citizens (men and women) aged 15–65 to be registered on 15 August.
• August
  • Munitions of War Act places munitions factories and their labour relations under control of the Minister of Munitions.
  • Edith Smith in Grantham becomes the country's first woman police officer granted full power of arrest.^[9]
• 6 September - Little Willie, the prototype military tank developed by William Foster & Co. of Lincoln, is first tested by the British Army.
• 16 September - First Women's Institute meeting held in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Wales.^[2] The first meeting in England is that of the Singleton Institute at Charlton, West Sussex on 9 November.
• 21 September - Cecil Chubb acquires Stonehenge at an auction for £6600.^[2]
• 25 September–14 October - World War I: Battle of Loos: British forces take the French town of Loos but with substantial casualties and are unable to press their advantage. This is the first time the British use poison gas in World War I and also the first large-scale use of 'New' or Kitchener's Army units.
• October–November - Derby Scheme, a voluntary military recruitment scheme.
• 12 October - World War I: British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from Belgium.^[2]
• 20 October - Women officially permitted to act as bus and tram conductors for the duration of the War;^[7][10] but have been employed in Glasgow and other places in the U.K. since April.^[11]
• 12 November - William Henry Bragg and his son William Lawrence Bragg win the Nobel Prize in Physics "For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays."^[12]
• 27 November - Government introduces legislation to restrict housing rents to their pre-war level following Glasgow rent strikes led by Mary Barbour.
• 10 December - World War I: Douglas Haig is appointed to succeed John French in command of the British Expeditionary Force.
• 30 December - Armoured cruiser HMS Natal (1905) capsizes at anchor in the Cromarty Firth as the result of an internal explosion in her ammunition stores; 390 sailors and some civilians are killed.^[13]

Undated

• In exchange for assistance against the Ottoman Empire, the British offer Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, their recognition of an independent Arab kingdom, although clear terms are never agreed.^[14]
• Pommern wins the English Triple Crown by finishing first in the Derby, 2,000 Guineas and St Leger.

Publications

• Rupert Brooke's collection 1914 & Other Poems (including the sonnet The Soldier) (posthumous).
• John Buchan's novel The Thirty-nine Steps.
• Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear.
• Ford Madox Ford's novel The Good Soldier.
• D. H. Lawrence's novel The Rainbow (suppressed after prosecution for obscenity).^[15]
• W. Somerset Maugham's novel Of Human Bondage.
• Dorothy Richardson's stream of consciousness novel Pointed Roofs.
• P. G. Wodehouse's first Blandings Castle novel, Something Fresh.

Births

• 6 January - Alan Watts, Zen Buddhist philosopher (died 1973)
• 23 January - Arthur Lewis, economist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1991)
• 30 January - John Profumo, cabinet minister (died 2006)
• 1 February - Stanley Matthews, footballer (died 2000)
• 4 February - Norman Wisdom, comedian, singer and actor (died 2010)
• 11 February - Patrick Leigh Fermor, author and soldier (died 2011)
• 19 February - John Freeman, politician (died 2014)
• 9 March - Johnnie Johnson, fighter pilot (died 2001)
• 31 March - Albert Hourani, historian (died 1993)
• 15 May - Hilda Bernstein, English-born author, artist and activist (died 2006)
• 20 May - Peter Copley, actor (died 2008)
• 22 June - Duncan Clark, hammer thrower (died 2003)
• 24 June - Fred Hoyle, astronomer (died 2001)
• 22 August - Hugh Paddick, actor (died 2000)
• 28 August - Max Robertson, sports commentator (died 2009)
• 30 August - Lillian May Davies, later Princess Lilian, Duchess of Halland, Welsh fashion model and Swedish princess (died 2013)
• 22 September - Arthur Lowe, actor (died 1982)
• 13 October - Terry Frost, artist (died 2003)
• 4 November - Marguerite Patten, home economist (died 2015)
• 16 November - Maurice Oldfield, intelligence chief (died 1981)

Deaths

• 3 January - James Elroy Flecker, poet, novelist and dramatist (born 1884; died of tuberculosis)
• 13 January - Mary Slessor, Christian missionary (born 1848)
• 14 January - Richard Meux Benson, founder of an Anglican religious order (born 1824)
• 4 February - Mary Elizabeth Braddon, popular novelist (born 1837)
• 4 March - William Willett, promoter of daylight saving time (born 1856)
• 15 March - George Llewelyn Davies, one of the 'Lost Boys' who inspired Peter Pan (born 1893; killed in action)
• 31 March - Wyndham Halswelle, runner (born 1882; killed in action)
• 23 April - Rupert Brooke, poet (born 1887; died on active service)
• 27 April - William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse, airman (born 1887; killed in action; awarded posthumous Victoria Cross)
• 9 May - Alan Hargreaves, a son of Alice Liddell (born 1881; killed in action)
• 26 May - Julian Grenfell, war poet (born 1888; killed in action)
• 26 July - James Murray, Scottish-born lexicographer (born 1837)
• 30 July - Gerald William Grenfell, war poet (born c.1890; killed in action)
• 10 August - Henry Moseley, physicist (born 1887; killed in action)
• 25 September - Rex Hargreaves, a son of Alice Liddell (born 1883; killed in action)
• 26 September - Keir Hardie, Scottish socialist, first chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party and pacifist (born 1856)
• 12 October - Edith Cavell, nurse (born 1865; executed for treason)
• 13 October - Charles Sorley, Scottish-born poet (born 1895; killed in action)
• 23 October - W. G. Grace, cricketer (born 1848)
• 23 December - Roland Leighton, war poet (born 1895; died of wounds)

References