1907 in the United Kingdom

1907 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909

Sport and Music

1907 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

Events from the year 1907 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - King Edward VII
• Prime Minister - Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Liberal

Events

• January - The steamship Pengwern founders in the North Sea: crew and 24 men lost.
• 26 January
  • First performance of J. M. Synge's play The Playboy of the Western World at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin triggers a week of rioting.^[1]
  • The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III is officially introduced into British Military Service.
• 5 February - Alarm at an epidemic of meningitis in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast
• 7 February - The "Mud March", the first large procession organized by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), takes place in London.
• 21 February - Mail steamer Berlin wrecked off the Hook of Holland: 142 lives lost.
• 27 February - The Old Bailey criminal court opens in London.^[2]
• 19 March - National Library and National Museum of Wales are established by Royal Charter.^[3]
• 6 April - Horatio Phillips achieves the first, limited, powered heavier-than-air flight in the UK when his multiplane makes a 500 ft (150 m) hop.^[4][5]
• 1 June - Colin Blythe of Kent takes 17 wickets for 48 runs against Northamptonshire at Northampton in one day. It is the best analysis ever recorded for a county cricket match (or for a single day's bowling), and not bettered in first-class cricket until 1956.
• 11 June - George Dennett of Gloucestershire, aided by Gilbert Jessop, dismisses Northamptonshire for 12 runs, the lowest total in first-class cricket.
• 17 June - Brooklands, the world's first motor racing track opens, at Weybridge, Surrey.^[6]
• 6 July - Guardians of the Irish Crown Jewels notice that they have been stolen.
• 1–9 August - Baden-Powell leads the first Scout camp on Brownsea Island.
• 12 August - Troops open fire during rioting in Belfast, killing four nationalists.^[7]
• 31 August - Formation of the Anglo-Russian Entente.
• 27 September - New Zealand granted dominion status.^[7]
• 10 September - British Army Dirigible No 1, Nulli Secundus, the UK's first powered airship, makes her first flight. On 5 October she flies from the School of Ballooning, Farnborough, Hampshire, to London in 3 hours 25 minutes.^[8]
• 11 September - Camden Town Murder.
• 15 October – Shrewsbury rail accident: A London & North Western Railway sleeping car train suffers derailment passing through Shrewsbury station at excessive speed; 18 lives lost.^[9]
• 1 November - First performance of John Hughes' hymn tune Cwm Rhondda, at Capel Rhondda Welsh Baptist Chapel, Hopkinstown, Pontypridd.^[10]
• 9 November - The Cullinan Diamond is presented to King Edward VII on his 66th birthday.^[2]
• 29 November - Florence Nightingale becomes the first woman to receive the Order of Merit, for her work during the Crimean War.^[2]
• 10 December - Rudyard Kipling wins the Nobel Prize in Literature "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author".^[11]

Undated

• The Criminal Appeal Act creates a Court of Criminal Appeal in English law.
• The Companies Act introduces an explicit distinction between private and public companies.
• Initiation of a system of free places in Grammar schools in England and Wales.^[12]
• Hampstead Garden Suburb established.
• The Moine Thrust Belt in the Scottish Highlands is identified, one of the first to be discovered.^[13]

Publications

• The Cambridge History of English Literature begins publication.
• Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent.
• E. M. Forster's novel The Longest Journey.
• R. Austin Freeman’s novel The Red Thumb Mark.^[14]
• Elinor Glyn's novel Three Weeks.
• Edmund Gosse's autobiography Father and Son.
• Elsie J. Oxenham's children's novel Goblin Island.

Births

• 22 January - Dixie Dean, footballer (died 1980)
• 26 January - Henry Cotton, golfer (died 1987)
• 21 February - W. H. Auden, poet (died 1973)
• 27 February - Kenneth Horne, comedian (died 1969)
• 18 March - John Zachary Young, biologist (died 1997)
• 24 April - William Sargant, psychiatrist (died 1988)
• 13 May - Daphne du Maurier, author (died 1989)
• 22 May - Laurence Olivier, actor and director (died 1989)
• 1 June - Frank Whittle, aeronautical engineer (died 1996)
• 14 June - Nicolas Bentley, writer and illustrator (died 1978)
• 23 June - James Meade, economist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1995)
• 27 July - Richard Beesly, Olympic gold medal rower (died 1965)
• 13 August - W. W. Astor, politician (died 1966)
• 12 September - Louis MacNeice, poet (died 1963)
• 27 September - Bernard Miles, actor and director (died 1991)
• 2 October - Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1997)
• 9 October - Quintin Hogg, politician (died 2001)
• 22 December - Peggy Ashcroft, actress (died 1991)

Deaths

• 21 January – Fletcher Robinson, author, editor and journalist, (born 1870)
• 26 February - C. W. Alcock, footballer, journalist, and football promoter (born 1842)
• 19 May - Sir Benjamin Baker, civil engineer (born 1840).
• 14 July - Sir William Henry Perkin, chemist (born 1838)
• 16 August - James Hector, geologist (born 1834)
• 25 August - Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, poet and novelist (born 1861)
• 17 December - Lord Kelvin, physicist and engineer (born 1824)
• 31 December - Michael Marks, joint founder of Marks & Spencer retail chain (born 1859)^[15]

References

See also