1912 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

Monarch - George V

Prime Minister - H. H. Asquith (Liberal)

Events

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 Ronald Amundsen had beaten them to it.

31 January - G. K. Sowerby's drama Rutherford and Son premières in London, Court Theatre on 31 January

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.

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)

5 January - Brian Johnston, sportscaster and author (died 1994)

3 February - John Bryan Ward-Perkins, archaeologist (died 1981)

11 February - Roy Fuller, poet and novelist (died 1991)

27 February - Lawrence Durrell, writer (died 1990)

4 March - Judith Furse, character actress (died 1974)

5 March - David Astor, editor of The Observer newspaper (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 of Famous People

14 January - Samuel W. Johnson, railway engineer (MR) (born 1831)

10 February - Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, surgeon (born 1827)

17 February - Edgar Evans, Welsh-born 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, Scottish-born naval officer (born 1883)

Robert Falcon Scott, naval officer and explorer (born 1868)

Edward Wilson, physician and naturalist (born 1872)

15 April - Some victims of the sinking of the RMS Titanic:

Thomas Andrews, Jr., shipbuilder (born 1873)

Thomas Byles, Catholic priest (born 1870)

Wallace Hartley, ship's bandleader and violinist (born 1878)

Jack Phillips, ship's senior wireless officer (born 1887)

Edward Smith, ship's captain (born 1850)

William Thomas Stead, campaigning 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)

8 November - Dugald Drummond, railway engineer (born 1840)

17 November - Richard Norman Shaw, architect (born 1831)