1921 in the United Kingdom

1921 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1919 | 1920 | 1921 (1921) | 1922 | 1923

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1921 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland

Events from the year 1921 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - George V
• Prime Minister - David Lloyd George (coalition)

Events

January to June

• 1 January - Car tax discs introduced.
• 3 January - The airships R.36 and R.37 are completed.
• 8 January - Chequers becomes an official residence of the Prime Minister.
• 14 January - Unemployment stands at 927,000.
• 20 January - The Royal Navy K-class submarine HMS K5 sinks in the English Channel with the loss of all 56 on board.
• 26 January - Abermule train collision: seventeen people are killed when two passenger trains collide head-on in Montgomeryshire.
• January - Lord Rothermere's Sunday Pictorial announces formation of the Anti-Waste League as a political party opposing excessive government expenditure.
• 12 February - Winston Churchill is appointed Colonial Secretary.
• 16 February - Unemployment now stands at over one million. The Government announces an increase in unemployment benefit.
• 5 March - Irish War of Independence: Clonbanin Ambush: Irish Republican Army kills Brigadier General Cumming.
• 11 March - Queen Mary becomes the first woman to be awarded an honorary degree by Oxford University.
• 16 March - The United Kingdom signs a trade agreement with the Russian SFSR.
• 17 March
  • Andrew Bonar Law, the Conservative leader, resigns due to ill-health.
  • Dr Marie Stopes opens the United Kingdom's first birth control clinic in Holloway, London.
• 19 March - Irish War of Independence: Crossbarry Ambush: British troops fail to encircle an outnumbered column of Irish Republican Army volunteers in County Cork, with at least ten British and three IRA deaths.
• 21 March
  • Austen Chamberlain replaces Bonar Law as Conservative leader.
  • Irish War of Independence: Headford Ambush: IRA kills at least nine British troops.
• 26 March - Shaun Spadah wins the Grand National.
• 31 March - A state of emergency is declared after another coal miners' strike is called.
• 3 April - Coal rationing begins.
• 13 April - Lloyds Bank takes over Fox, Fowler and Company of Wellington, Somerset, the last provincial English bank to issue its own banknotes.
• 15 April - The national strike, due to be declared by the 'Triple Alliance', is called off.
• 23 April - Tottenham Hotspur beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 in the FA Cup Final.
• 26 April - Police patrol London on motorcycles for the first time.
• 3 May - The province of Northern Ireland is created within the United Kingdom under terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920.
• 4 May - The IRA kill a former Royal Irish Constabulary inspector in Glasgow.
• 5 May - Only thirteen paying spectators attend the football match between Leicester City and Stockport County played at Old Trafford, the lowest attendance in The Football League's history.
• 7 May - Crown Prince Hirohito of Japan arrives on an official visit.
• 10 May - Ivy Williams becomes the first woman to become a member of the English Bar.
• 15 May - The British Legion is founded as a voice for ex-servicemen by merger of the Comrades of the Great War, the National Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers, the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers and the Officers' Association, under the Presidency of Earl Haig.
• 22 May - The United States beats the United Kingdom 9 rounds to 3 in the first golf international between the two countries.
• 24 May - Irish elections, under terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920: In the Northern Ireland general election for the new Parliament of Northern Ireland (held by single transferable vote), Ulster Unionists win 40 out of 52 seats. The dominant-party system in Northern Ireland will last for fifty years.
• 25 May - Irish War of Independence: The Irish Republican Army occupies and burns The Custom House in Dublin, the centre of local government in Ireland. Five IRA men are killed and over eighty captured by the British Army which surrounds the building.
• 1 June - Humorist wins the Epsom Derby. For the first time the result is broadcast live by wireless.
• 6 June - King George V opens Southwark Bridge in London.
• 7 June
  • The new Parliament of Northern Ireland assembles in Belfast City Hall; James Craig is elected as first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.
  • J. M. M. Erskine, standing as an "Independent Anti-Waste" candidate, wins the Westminster St George's parliamentary seat in a by-election.
• 10 June - Unemployment reaches 2.2 million.
• 12 June - Sunday postal collection and delivery is suspended.
• 14 June - First London performance of Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending under conductor Adrian Boult with Marie Hall as violin soloist.
• 15 June - Two million workers are currently involved in pay disputes.
• 19 June - Census in the United Kingdom.
• 22 June - New Parliament of Northern Ireland, assembled at Belfast City Hall, is formally opened by King George V, making a speech (drafted by Jan Smuts) calling for reconciliation in Ireland.
• 24 June - The world's largest airship, the R.38, makes its maiden flight at Bedford.
• 25 June - Rainfall ends a 100-day drought.
• 28 June - The coal strike ends.

July to December

• 2 July - Bill Tilden and Suzanne Lenglen retain their Wimbledon titles.
• 7 July - General Jan Smuts meets King George V to discuss the Irish situation.
• 9 July - The Irish War of Independence comes officially to an end when a truce, coming into effect on 11 July, is agreed between British and Irish forces.
• 10 July - Bloody Sunday: Clashes between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast result in 16 deaths (23 over the surrounding four-day period) and the destruction of over 200 (mostly Catholic) homes.
• 12 July - Sinn Féin representatives arrive in London for talks.
• 18 July - Ulster Unionist negotiators walk out of the truce talks in London.
• 3 August - "Geddes's Axe": Announcement that the Prime Minister is appointing an advisory Committee on National Expenditure, made up of businessmen chaired by Sir Eric Geddes, to recommend reductions in government spending.
• 19 August - Unemployment falls to 1,640,600.
• 24 August - R38 class airship ZR-2 explodes on her fourth test flight near Kingston upon Hull, killing 44 of the 49 Anglo-American crew on board.
• 27 August - The first games in the new Football League Third Division North are played, a year after the southern section was formed. Among the new division's members are Stockport County, Walsall, Rochdale, Chesterfield and Tranmere Rovers.
• 30 August - England beat Australia, for the first time this year, in the final Test Match.
• 1 September - Poplar Rates Rebellion: Led by George Lansbury, the Borough council in Poplar, London withholds collection of part of its rates, leading to six weeks’ imprisonment for thirty councillors (including six women) and hasty passage of The London Authorities (Financial Provision) Act through Parliament to equalise tax burdens between rich and poor boroughs.
• 7 September - David Lloyd George summons a meeting of the Cabinet at Inverness to discuss an independent Ireland's relationship with the British Empire.
• 9 September - Charlie Chaplin visits London and is met by thousands.
• 17 September - Shackleton-Rowett Expedition: Ernest Shackleton sets sail on his last expedition to Antarctica.
• 23 September - The second female MP enters Parliament (Margaret Wintringham, at the Louth by-election).
• October - The first women are admitted to study for full academic degrees in the University of Cambridge, but have no associated privileges.
• 8 October - The steamer Rowan sinks off the coast of Scotland. 36 people lose their lives.
• 11 October - The Irish Treaty Conference opens in London.
• 11 November - The British Legion holds the first official Poppy Day.
• 21 November - Troops are sent to restore order after rioting breaks out in East Belfast.
• 22 November - At least ten people die in widespread shootings in Belfast.
• 30 November - Sir Basil Thomson retires after forty years as the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch.
• 6 December - British and Irish negotiators sign the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London giving independence to the Irish Free State.
• 10 December - Frederick Soddy wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes".
• 16 December - Parliament ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Undated

• National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement set up by members of the Communist Party.
• Dentists Act requires the registration of anyone practicing dentistry, making it a fully regulated profession.
• The Scottish county of Haddingtonshire is renamed East Lothian.
• An exceptionally dry year over England and Wales with only 629.0 millimetres (24.8 in) being the driest year since 1788 and not approached since - the nearest being 1854 with 672.9 millimetres (26.5 in), 1864 with 703.3 millimetres (27.7 in), 1887 with 669.3 millimetres (26.4 in) and subsequently 1933 with 717.7 millimetres (28.3 in), 1964 with 725.5 millimetres (28.6 in) and 1973 with 739.9 millimetres (29.1 in). In South East England the average was only 396.4 millimetres (15.6 in) with some stations recording less than 300 millimetres (11.8 in).

Publications

• Dorita Fairlie Bruce's children's novel The Senior Prefect, first of The Dimsie books.
• Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introducing Hercule Poirot (21 January; issued in the United States October 1920).
• Walter de la Mare's novel Memoirs of a Midget.
• Eleanor Farjeon's children's stories Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard.
• John Galsworthy's novel To Let, last of The Forsyte Saga.
• A. S. M. Hutchinson's novel If Winter Comes.
• Aldous Huxley's novel Crome Yellow.
• Sheila Kaye-Smith's novel Joanna Godden.
• D. H. Lawrence's novel Women in Love (10 June; issued in a limited edition in the United States November 1920).

Births

• 15 January - Frank Thornton, actor (died 2013)
• 1 February - Peter Sallis, actor
• 13 March - Cyril Poole, cricketer (died 1996)
• 28 March - Dirk Bogarde, actor and author (died 1999)
• 29 March - John Lawrenson, British rugby league player (died 2010)
• 16 April - Peter Ustinov, actor, writer, dramatist and raconteur (died 2004)
• 23 May - Humphrey Lyttelton, jazz musician and broadcaster (died 2008)
• 14 July - Leon Garfield, writer (died 1996)
• 1 September - Daphne Park, diplomat and spy (died 2010)
• 8 September - Harry Secombe, entertainer (died 2001)
• 30 September - Deborah Kerr, actress (died 2007)
• 2 October - Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 2000)
• 11 November - Ron Greenwood, footballer and manager (died 2006)
• 11 December - Liz Smith, actress

Deaths

• 1 January - Mary Macarthur, trade unionist (born 1880)
• 18 January - Elizabeth Anne Finn, writer (born 1825)
• 27 February - Schofield Haigh, cricketer (born 1871)
• 22 March - E. W. Hornung, author (born 1866)
• 27 April - Arthur Mold, cricketer (born 1863)
• 2 September - Henry Austin Dobson, poet (born 1840)
• 7 September - Alfred William Rich, watercolour painter (born 1856)
• 23 October - John Boyd Dunlop, inventor (born 1840)
• 10 December - George Ashlin, architect (born 1837)