1909 in the United Kingdom

1909 in the United Kingdom

Other years

1907 | 1908 | 1909 (1909) | 1910 | 1911

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1909 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland

Events from the year 1909 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Edward VII
• Prime Minister – H. H. Asquith (Liberal)

Events

• 1 January – national old age pension scheme comes into force.^[1]
• 9 January – Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole forced to turn back 112 miles from the pole.^[2]
• 23 January – the Tottenham Outrage, an armed robbery and the murder of a ten-year-old boy and a police constable in Tottenham, North London, carried out by two Latvian anarchists.
• 16 February – West Stanley Pit Disaster, a coal mining disaster in Stanley, County Durham, in which more than 160 miners are killed in an explosion.^[3][4]
• 26 February – first film shown in colour using Kinemacolor at the Palace Theatre, London.^[2]
• March – construction of the Rosyth Dockyard for the Royal Navy on the east coast of Scotland begins.
• 10 March – Anglo-Siamese Treaty signed in Bangkok.
• 15 March – Selfridges department store opens in London.^[2]
• 16 March – Port of London Authority established.^[2]
• 11 April – coming into effect of Children Act 1908, establishing separate juvenile courts for ten–sixteen-year-olds; abolishing the use of custody for under-fourteens and hanging for under-sixteens; introducing the registration of foster parents; and restricting access for under-16s to cigarettes and alcohol.
• 24 April – the FA Cup final is won by Manchester United for the first time, as they beat Bristol City 1–0 at Crystal Palace.^[5]
• 29 April – People's Budget introduced in the British Parliament by David Lloyd George.^[6]
• 2 May – John Moore-Brabazon becomes the first resident British citizen to make a recognised powered heavier-than-air flight in the UK, flying from The Aero Club's ground at Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey in his Voisin biplane Bird of Passage.^[7]
• 13 May – Lonmin is incorporated in the UK as the London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company Limited.^[8]
• 26 May – the King's horse, Minoru, wins the Epsom Derby.^[9]
• 15 June – representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lord's and form the Imperial Cricket Conference.
• 26 June
  • Edward VII and Queen Alexandra open the Victoria and Albert Museum, designed by Aston Webb.^[1]
  • The Science Museum in London comes into existence as an independent entity.
• 25 July - Louis Blériot flies a Blériot XI monoplane across the English Channel from Calais to Dover, winning a prize of £1000 from the Daily Mail.^[10]
• 23 August – the Secret Service Bureau counter-espionage unit (later known as MI5) is secretly established.^[1]
• 3 September – the first Boy Scout rally held at The Crystal Palace in London.^[2]
• 17 September – militant suffragette Mabel Capper is among the first to suffer force-feeding while on hunger strike, at Winson Green Prison in Birmingham.^[11]
• October – the Trade Boards Act, a form of minimum wage legislation, is passed.
• 2 October – the first rugby football match played in Twickenham.
• 15–23 October – "Aviation week" of demonstration flying held at Doncaster.^[12]
• 5 November – the first Woolworth's branch in the UK opens in Liverpool.^[2]
• 30 November – the House of Lords rejects the People's Budget proposed by David Lloyd George, forcing a general election.^[1]
• 3 December – the Ellan Vannin sinks in Liverpool Bay.
• 4 December – the University of Bristol is founded and receives its Royal Charter.
• 7 December – South Africa granted dominion status.^[1]

Undated

• Labour Exchanges Act sets up labour exchanges as a source of information on employment.
• Thomas Beecham establishes the Beecham Symphony Orchestra.^[13]
• The mass-circulation Daily Mail (London) hysterically informs it's readers in a series of reports that Germany is deliberately preparing to destroy the British Empire.
• First British bird ringing programme initiated by Arthur Landsborough Thomson at Aberdeen.^[14]

Publications

• Florence Barclay's novel The Rosary.^[15]
• Angela Brazil's schoolgirl story The Nicest Girl in the School.
• Daniel Jones' introductory The Pronunciation of English.
• H. G. Wells' novels Ann Veronica and Tono-Bungay.

Births

• 24 January – Martin Lings, Islamic scholar (died 2005)
• 26 March – Martin Hodgson, rugby league footballer (died 1991)
• 30 April – F. E. McWilliam, sculptor (died 1992)
• 11 May – Herbert Murrill, organist and composer (died 1952)
• 15 May – James Mason, actor (died 1984)
• 18 May – Fred Perry, tennis player (died 1995)
• 19 May – Nicholas Winton, humanitarian (died 2015)
• 26 May – Matt Busby, football manager (Manchester United) (died 1994)
• 7 June – Jessica Tandy, actress (died 1994)
• 28 June – Eric Ambler, novelist and playwright (died 1998)
• 28 July – Malcolm Lowry, novelist (died 1957)
• 30 July – C. Northcote Parkinson, historian and author (died 1993)
• 25 August – Michael Rennie, actor (died 1971)
• 14 September – Peter Scott, ornithologist and painter (died 1989)
• 6 October – Robert Potter, architect (died 2010)
• 28 October – Francis Bacon, painter (died 1992)
• 19 November – Griffith Jones, actor (died 2007)
• 23 November – Nigel Tranter, historian and writer (died 2000)
• 23 December – Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 2000)

Deaths

• 14 January – Arthur William a Beckett, journalist (born 1844)
• 10 April – Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet (born 1837)
• 31 May – Thomas Price, Welsh-born Prime Minister of South Australia (born 1852)
• 22 June – Edward John Gregory, painter (born 1850)
• 1 August – Hugh Rowlands, first Welshman to win a VC (born 1828)
• 10 November – George Essex Evans, Welsh-Australian poet (born 1863)
• 11 December – Ludwig Mond, industrialist (born 1839)
• 13 December – Sir Alfred Lewis Jones, shipping magnate (born 1845)

See also

• List of British films before 1920

References

See also