Events from the year 1919 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents Monarch – George V Prime Minister – David Lloyd George (Coalition)
Events
1 January – HMY Iolaire is wrecked on rocks off Stornoway on the Scottish Isle of Lewis: 205 die, mostly servicemen returning home. 3 January – Soldiers blockade Folkestone harbour in a successful protest against being returned to France. This month, other mutinies take place in France and across England. 18 January The Paris Peace Conference opens in France, with delegates from 27 nations present for meetings at the Palace of Versailles; Lloyd George attends as one of the "Big Four". Bentley Motors Ltd. is incorporated in England. 21 January – Dáil Éireann meets for the first time in the Mansion House, Dublin. It comprises Sinn Féin members elected in the 1918 general election who, in accordance with their manifesto, have not taken their seats in the Parliament of the United Kingdom but chosen to declare an independent Irish Republic. In the first shots of the Anglo-Irish War, two Royal Irish Constabulary men are killed in an ambush at Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary. 23 January – "Harbour Riot" in Glasgow: confrontation between white and black merchant seamen. 27 January – General strike call over working hours led by engineering workers in Glasgow and Belfast; in Belfast the strike collapses after a month. 31 January – Battle of George Square: the police deal with riots associated with a strike to gain a 40-hour working week in Glasgow; the civil authorities call in the army (with tanks).
3 February – Éamon de Valera, the leader of Sinn Féin, and two other prisoners escape from Lincoln Prison in England in a break personally arranged by Michael Collins and Harry Boland. 27 February – Marriage of Princess Patricia of Connaught to Commander The Hon. Alexander Ramsay, the first royal wedding at Westminster Abbey since the 14th century. 4–5 March – Kinmel Park riots by troops of the Canadian Expeditionary Force awaiting repatriation at Kinmel Camp, Bodelwyddan, in North Wales. Five men are killed, 28 injured, and 25 convicted of mutiny. 3 April – Government agrees to begin release of imprisoned conscientious objectors. 7 April – The Original Dixieland Jass Band brings Dixieland jazz to England, opening a 15-month tour at the Hippodrome, London. 13 April – Amritsar Massacre: British and Gurkha troops kill 379 Sikhs and injure more than 1200 at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab Province (British India). May – Third Anglo-Afghan War begins. 12 May – The Pip, Squeak and Wilfred comic strip debuts in the Daily Mirror. 15 May – Greek landing at Smyrna (as part of the Greco-Turkish War): The Hellenic Army lands at Smyrna assisted by ships of the British Royal Navy. 29 May – Observations made by Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse test part of Einstein's general theory of relativity (confirmed 6 November). June – Riots break out in West Midlands towns. 14–15 June – A Vickers Vimy piloted by John Alcock DSC with navigator Arthur Whitten Brown makes the first nonstop transatlantic flight, from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, to Clifden, Connemara, Ireland. 17 June – Epsom Riot by Canadian troops: English police sergeant Thomas Green is killed. 21 June – Scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow: Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the interned German fleet in Scapa Flow, Scotland. Nine German sailors are killed. 23 June – Women's Engineering Society founded. 28 June – Treaty of Versailles signed, formally ending World War I.
2–6 July – The British airship R34 makes the first transatlantic flight by dirigible, and the first westbound flight, from RAF East Fortune, Scotland, to Mineola, New York. 15 July – Naval sloops HMS Gentian and HMS Myrtle sunk by mines in the Gulf of Finland while assisting Estonia against the Bolsheviks, with nine crew lost. 18 July – The Cenotaph in London, as designed by Edwin Lutyens, is unveiled to commemorate the dead of World War I. 19 July – Peace Day: victory parades across Britain celebrate the end of World War I. Rioting ex-servicemen burn down Luton Town Hall. 31 July Police strike in London and Liverpool for recognition of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers. Rioting breaks out in Liverpool on 1 August. Over 2,000 strikers are dismissed. Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 provides government subsidy for the provision of council houses, with the target of completing 500,000 houses by 1922. 8 August – The Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919, signed in Rawalpindi, ends the Third Anglo-Afghan War, with the UK recognising the right of the Emirate of Afghanistan to manage its own foreign affairs and Afghanistan recognising the Durand Line as the border with British India. 9 August – The Anglo-Persian Agreement, signed in Tehran, grants the UK access to all Iranian oilfields in exchange for financial and other contributions. The Majlis (Iranian parliament) refuses to ratify it on 22 June 1921. 15 August – The Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act provides for returning servicemen to get their old jobs back. 18 August – Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War: The Bolshevik fleet at Kronstadt, protecting Petrograd on the Baltic Sea, is substantially damaged by seven British Royal Navy Coastal Motor Boats (torpedo boats) and military aircraft in a combined operation. 30 August – The Football League is resumed, four years after it was abandoned due to the war. 1 September – Forestry Commission set up. 27 September – Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War: The last British troops leave Archangel, leaving fighting to the Russians. 27 September–6 October – Railway workers stage a strike, called by the National Union of Railwaymen. 29 September – Rupert D'Oyly Carte returns the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company to London's West End for the first time in a decade with an initial 18-week season of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas opening at the Prince's Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. 30 September – Compositors and pressmen working at the Daily Sketch newspaper in London refuse to print the paper until an editorial criticising the railway strike is deleted. October – Creation of the "Mobile Patrol Experiment", the forerunner of the Metropolitan Police Service's Flying Squad. 1 October – Women's Royal Naval Service disbanded. 13 October – Leeds City F.C., of the Football League Second Division, are expelled from the Football League amid financial irregularities. 17 October – With the collapse of Leeds City, a new football club is formed for the city – Leeds United. With Port Vale set to take the old club's place in the Football League, the new Leeds club will have to wait until at least the next football season for a chance of Football League membership. 20 October – Collapse of the man engine at Levant Mine in Cornwall kills 31. 21 October – Atlas Copco Ltd is incorporated in the UK as a subsidiary of the Swedish mechanical engineering company. 4 November – The Cabinet's Irish Committee settles on a policy of creating two Home Rule parliaments in Ireland – one in Dublin and one in Belfast – with a Council of Ireland to provide a framework for possible unity. 11 November – First Remembrance Day observed with two minutes silence at 11:00 hrs. December Cunliffe Committee on Currency and Foreign Exchange Rates recommends an early return to an effective Gold standard. Nurses Registration Act 1919 passed. 1 December – Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor becomes the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons, and the second to be elected, having stood at the Plymouth Sutton by-election on 28 November to succeed her husband as a Unionist member. The first elected was Constance Markievicz in 1918. 15 December – Meat rationing ends. 22 December – A bill "to provide for the better government of Ireland" is introduced into the House of Commons, proposing two parliaments: one for the six counties of north-east Ulster and one for the other twenty-six. 23 December – Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act removes legal disabilities on women entering the secular professions, becoming justices of the peace or being granted university degrees. 25 December – Opening of Cliftonhill stadium in Coatbridge, the home of Albion Rovers F.C. The opening match sees them lose 2–0 to St Mirren. 30 December – Lincoln's Inn, in London, admits its first female bar student. 31 December – First female justice of the peace sworn in, Ada Summers, Mayor of Stalybridge. Undated University Grants Committee begins to function. Panacea Society founded by Mabel Barltrop ("Octavia") in Bedford as the Community of the Holy Ghost. 1919 British race riots Ongoing – 1918 flu pandemic.
Publications February – Richmal Crompton's anarchic schoolboy William Brown is introduced in the first published Just William story, "Rice-Mould" in Home magazine. 22 March – The Children's Newspaper, edited by Arthur Mee, begins publication. Daisy Ashford's novel The Young Visiters (written in 1890 when she was nine). Gilbert Frankau's novel Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant: a romance of married life. E. M. Hull's romantic novel The Sheik. Dean William Inge's first series of Outspoken Essays. John Maynard Keynes' book The Economic Consequences of the Peace. W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Moon and Sixpence. The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon. Arthur Graeme West's posthumous The Diary of a Dead Officer. P. G. Wodehouse's short story collection My Man Jeeves.
Births 1 January – Sheila Mercier, actress (died 2019) 8 January – Gabrielle Blunt, actress (died 2014) 11 January Denis Avey, World War II veteran and memoirist (died 2015) Margot Rufus Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, aristocrat and campaigner (died 2015) 20 January Derick Ashe, diplomat (died 2000) John Wilson, blind activist (died 1999) 21 January Eric Brown, World War II naval and test pilot (died 2016) Jim Wallwork, World War II glider pilot (died 2013) 23 January – Bob Paisley, football player and manager (died 1996) 25 January – Norman Newell, record producer and lyricist (died 2004) 26 January – Bill Nicholson, footballer and manager (died 2004) 27 January Tom Addington, soldier (died 2011) David Clark, cricketer (died 2013) 29 January – N. F. Simpson, playwright (died 2011) 4 February Peter Butterworth, actor and comedian (died 1979) John Miller, World War II lieutenant-colonel and equerry (died 2006) 6 February – Sidney De Haan, businessman (died 2002) 16 February – Irene Brown, author and codebreaker (died 2017) 17 February – Marguerite Wolff, pianist (died 2011) 19 February – Samuel Falle, diplomat (died 2014) 20 February – James O'Meara, Battle of Britain Spitfire flying ace (died 1974) 23 February – Derek Ezra, chairman of the National Coal Board (died 2015) 24 February Henry Kitchener, 3rd Earl Kitchener, nobleman (died 2011) Betty Marsden, comedy actress (died 1998) 28 February – Brian Urquhart, war veteran and diplomat (died 2021) 1 March – Jock Hamilton-Baillie, World War II soldier and escapee (died 2003) 3 March – Mary Cosh, journalist, historian and author (died 2019) 11 March – Hans Keller, Austrian-born musician and writer (died 1985) 12 March – Donald Zec, journalist (died 2021) 16 March – Julian Pitt-Rivers, social anthropologist and ethnographer (died 2001) 17 March – Mad Mike Hoare, mercenary leader (died 2020) 18 March – G. E. M. Anscombe, analytic philosopher (died 2001) 20 March – Peter Conder, ornithologist and conservationist (died 1993) 21 March – R. M. Hare, moral philosopher (died 2002) 26 March – Joe Egan, rugby player (died 2012) 28 March – Tony Bartley, television executive (died 2001) 29 March – William S. Anderson, Chinese-born businessman, president and chairman of NCR Corporation (died 2021) 30 March – Henry Danton, dance teacher (died 2022) 1 April – Nicholas Henderson, diplomat (died 2009) 3 April Victor Cannings, cricketer (died 2016)