1901 in the United Kingdom

'1901 in the United Kingdom':

Other years

1899 | 1900 | 1901 | 1902 | 1903

Sport

1901 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

Events from the year 1901 in the United Kingdom. This year marks the transition from the Victorian to the Edwardian era.

Incumbents

• Monarch — Queen Victoria (until 22 January), Edward VII thereafter
• Prime Minister — Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative)

Events

• 1 January
  • The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia.^[1] Edmund Barton becomes first Prime Minister.
  • Nigeria becomes a British protectorate.
• 19 January — Queen Victoria is reported to be seriously ill.^[2]
• 22 January — Queen Victoria dies at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. She was 81 years old and had served as monarch for nearly 64 years – longer than any other British monarch in history.^[3] Her eldest son, The Prince Albert Edward, Prince of Wales becomes King, reigning as Edward VII. His son, The Prince George (later George V) becomes Duke of Cornwall and York.
• 2 February — Funeral of Queen Victoria takes place at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
• 18 February — Winston Churchill makes his maiden speech in the House of Commons, concerning the Boer War.^[4]
• 21 February — The Apollo Theatre opens in Shaftesbury Avenue, London.
• 5 March — Police eject jeering Irish Nationalists from the House of Commons.
• 12 March — The Whitechapel Art Gallery opens.
• 31 March — Census in England and Wales. The number of people employed in manufacturing is at its highest-ever level.
• 26 April — First meeting of the Engineering Standards Committee, predecessor of the BSI Group.^[5]
• 2 May - Glasgow International Exhibition opens^[6]
• 18 May — Alexandra Palace opens to the public.^[3]
• 12 July — Maidenhead enters the UK Weather Records with the highest 60-minute total rainfall at 92 mm. As of July 2010 this record remains.
• 22 July — The House of Lords rules in the Taff Vale case that trade unions can be held liable for damages caused by members.^[7]
• 22 July — British congress on tuberculosis opens.
• 5 August — Britain's first cinema opens in Islington.^[3]
• 6 August — Discovery Expedition: Robert Falcon Scott sets sail on the RRS Discovery to explore the Ross Sea in Antarctica.
• 30 August — Engineer Hubert Cecil Booth patents the electrically powered vacuum cleaner.^[3]
• 7 September — The United Kingdom is amongst the signatories of the Boxer Protocol ending the Boxer Rebellion in China.^[3]
• October — First performance of Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, in Liverpool.^[7]
• 2 October — Royal Navy's first submarine, Holland 1, launched at Barrow-in-Furness.
• 29 October — The Aero Club of the United Kingdom is established.^[8]
• 4 November - Glasgow International Exhibition closes^[6]
• 9 November — The Prince George, Duke of Cornwall and York (later George V) becomes Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.
• 14 November — Caister Lifeboat Disaster: Life-boat Beauchamp capsizes on service off Caister-on-Sea, Norfolk, during a major storm: 9 of 12 crew killed.^[9]
• 18 November — The United Kingdom and United States sign the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty allowing the US to build a canal through Panama.^[7]
• 30 November — Frank Hornby of Liverpool is granted a patent for the construction toy that will become Meccano.^[10]
• 12 December — Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from Poldhu in Cornwall to Newfoundland, the letter "S" in Morse.^[11]

Undated

• Factory and Workshop Act raises minimum working age to 12 and extends legislation regarding the education of working of children, employees' meal times, and provision of fire escapes.
• Imperial Tobacco founded by W. H. Wills.^[7]
• Electric trams introduced in London, Glasgow, and Portsmouth.^[12]

Ongoing events

• Second Boer War (1899–1902)

Publications

• Dictionary of National Biography concludes publication.
• Thomas Hardy's collection Poems of the Past and the Present.
• Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim.
• Seebohm Rowntree's survey of York Poverty, A Study of Town Life.
• H. G. Wells' novel The First Men in the Moon and his collected articles on futurology Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought.

Births

• 13 February — Lewis Grassic Gibbon, writer (died 1935)
• 12 June — Norman Hartnell, fashion designer (died 1979)
• 9 July — Barbara Cartland, novelist (died 2000)
• 15 September
  • Donald Bailey, engineer (died 1985)
  • Sylvia Crowe, landscape architect (died 1997)
• 17 September — Francis Chichester, aviator and sailor (died 1972)
• 28 November — Edwina Ashley, afterwards Countess Mountbatten of Burma (died 1960)
• 25 December — Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (died 2004)

Deaths

• 22 January — Queen Victoria (born 1819)
• 11 February — Henry Willis, organ builder (born 1821)
• 6 March — John Jabez Edwin Mayall, photographer (born 1813
• 3 April — Richard D'Oyly Carte, theatrical impresario (born 1844)
• 5 August — Victoria, Empress of Germany, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria (born 1840)
• 6 November — Kate Greenaway, children's book illustrator and writer (born 1846)
• 30 November — Edward John Eyre, explorer (born 1815)
• 1 December — George Lohmann, English cricketer (tuberculosis) (born 1865)

References

See also