1912 in the United Kingdom

1912 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1910 | 1911 | 1912 (1912) | 1913 | 1914

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1912 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland

Events from the year 1912 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

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

Events

Scott and team near the South Pole, 17 January.

RMS Titanic departs from Southampton for the first and only time, 10 April.

• 1 January - Post Office takes over National Telephone Company.
• 17 January - British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott and a team of four reach the South Pole to find that Amundsen has beaten them to it.
• 2 February - With Our King and Queen Through India, a 2½-hour Kinemacolor feature film of the Delhi Durbar of 1911 made by Charles Urban, is first shown at the Scala Theatre, London.
• 26 February - Coal miners' strike begins.
• 1 March - Suffragettes smash shop windows in the West End of London, especially around Oxford Street.
• 16 March - Lawrence Oates, ill member of Scott's South Pole expedition leaves the tent saying, "I am just going outside and may be some time." He is not seen again.
• 19 March - Minimum wage introduced for miners after national strike.
• 29 March - The remaining members of Scott's expedition die.
• 11 April - Irish Home Rule Bill introduced in the House of Commons, but fails to receive the support of the House of Lords.
• 13 April - The Royal Flying Corps is established by royal charter.
• 14–15 April - Sinking of the RMS Titanic: The White Star liner RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg and sinks on her maiden voyage from the United Kingdom to the United States.
• 15 April - The syndicalist Daily Herald newspaper is first published on a permanent basis.
• 22 April - English aviator Denys Corbett Wilson completes the first aeroplane crossing of the Irish Sea, from Goodwick in Wales to Crane near Enniscorthy in Ireland.
• April/May - Thousands of Jewish workers in London's garment trade in the West End strike, followed by thousands more in the East End inspired by Rudolf Rocker.
• May - Liberal Unionist Party formally merges into the Conservative And Unionist Party.
• 2 May–3 July - Board of Trade inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
• 5 May–22 July - Great Britain and Ireland compete at the Olympics in Stockholm and win 10 gold, 15 silver and 16 bronze medals.
• 13 May - The Air Battalion Royal Engineers becomes the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps.
• 15 July - The National Insurance Act 1911 comes into force introducing National Insurance payments.
• 27 July - Bonar Law, leader of the Conservative Party in opposition, makes a defiant speech at a massive Irish Unionist rally at Blenheim Palace against Irish Home Rule implying support for armed resistance to it in Ulster.
• August
  • Cabinet ministers accused of corruption in the Marconi scandal.
  • Wettest British August on record.
• 10 August - Frank McClean flies a Short Brothers floatplane up the River Thames between the upper and lower parts of Tower Bridge and underneath London Bridge.
• 25–27 August - The wet summer climaxes in a major rainstorm across England, causing floods particularly in Norfolk and Norwich.
• September - The tradition of the Blackpool Illuminations begins.
• 24 October - Formation of the Edinburgh and Leith Branch of the Workers' Educational Association at a meeting addressed by Albert Mansbridge.
• 31 October - Robert Baden-Powell marries Olave St Clair Soames at Parkstone.
• 5 November - Establishment of the British Board of Film Censors.
• 12 November - The bodies of Captain Scott and his team found in the Antarctic.
• 27 November - Concerted Suffragette attacks on pillar boxes.
• 18 December - Piltdown Man, thought to be the fossilized remains of a hitherto unknown form of early human, presented to the Geological Society of London. It is revealed to be a hoax in 1953.

Undated

• Sir Rufus Isaacs, the Attorney General, becomes the first Jew appointed to the Cabinet.
• Glucozade, the predecessor of Lucozade, is first produced.
• G. K. Sowerby's drama Rutherford and Son premières in London, Court Theatre on 31 January

Publications

• Walter de la Mare's The Listeners, and Other Poems.
• Ethel M. Dell's novels Greatheart and The Way of an Eagle.
• Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World.
• The first Georgian Poetry anthology Georgian Poetry 1911-12 edited by Edward Marsh.
• Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell's book Principia Mathematica vol. 2, one of the most important and seminal works in mathematical logic and philosophy.

Births

• 1 January - Kim Philby, spy (died 1988)
• 11 February - Roy Fuller, poet and novelist (died 1991)
• 27 February - Lawrence Durrell, writer (died 1990)
• 29 February - Bobbery Jefferson, World president! (died 2000)
• 4 March - Judith Furse, character actress (died 1974)
• 5 March - David Astor, newspaper publisher (died 2001)
• 23 March - Betty Astell, actress (died 2005)
• 27 March - James Callaghan, Prime Minister (died 2005)
• 5 April - John Le Mesurier, actor (died 1983)
• 22 April - Kathleen Ferrier, contralto (died 1953)
• 22 May - Herbert C. Brown, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2004)
• 31 May - Alfred Deller, countertenor (died 1979)
• 16 June - Enoch Powell, politician (died 1998)
• 23 June - Alan Turing, mathematician (died 1954)
• 24 June
  • Brian Johnston, BBC cricket commentator (died 1994)
  • Mary Wesley, novelist (died 2002)
• 16 August - Ted Drake, footballer (died 1995)
• 16 August - Wendy Hiller, actress (died 2003)
• 28 September - Peter Finch, actor (died 1977)
• 25 November - Francis Durbridge, playwright and author (died 1998)
• 27 December - Conroy Maddox, painter (died 2005)

Deaths

• 10 February - Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, surgeon (born 1827)
• 17 February - Edgar Evans, naval officer (born 1876), member of the Scott Expedition to the South Pole
• 21 February - Osborne Reynolds, physicist (born 1842)
• 1 March - George Grossmith, actor and comic writer (born 1847)
• 17 March - Lawrence Oates, army officer (born 1880), member of the Scott Expedition
• 29 March - Remaining members of the Scott Expedition:
  • Henry Bowers (born 1883)
  • Robert Falcon Scott, explorer (born 1868)
  • Edward Wilsom, physician and naturalist (born 1872)
• 15 April - Some victims of the sinking of the RMS Titanic:
  • Thomas Andrews, Jr., shipbuilder (born 1873)
  • Father Thomas R. D. Byles, Catholic priest (born 1870)
  • Edward Smith, ship's captain (born 1850)
  • William Thomas Stead, journalist (born 1849)
• 20 April - Bram Stoker, writer (born 1847)
• 21 May - Julius Wernher, art collector (born 1850)
• 2 July - Tom Richardson, cricketer (born 1870)
• 13 August - Octavia Hill, social reformer (born 1838)
• 20 August - William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army (born 1829)
• 1 September - Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, composer (born 1875)