1924 in the United Kingdom

1924 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1922 | 1923 | 1924 | 1925 | 1926

Sport

1924 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

Events from the year 1924 in the United Kingdom. This is a General Election year.

Incumbents

• Monarch - King George V
• Prime Minister - Stanley Baldwin, Conservative (until 16 January), Ramsay MacDonald, Labour (until 4 November), Stanley Baldwin, Conservative

Events

• 1 January - Meteorological Office issues its first broadcast Shipping Forecast, at this time called Weather Shipping.^[1]
• 10 January - British submarine L-34 sinks in the English Channel - 43 dead.
• 22 January - Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government. This follows Stanley Baldwin's resignation after his government lost a vote of no confidence.^[2]
• 23 January - Margaret Bondfield becomes the first woman to be appointed a government minister.^[3]
• 25 January–4 February - Great Britain and Ireland compete at the Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France and win 1 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze medals.
• February
  • Baldwin establishes the Conservative Consultative Committee, the first organised Shadow Cabinet.^[4]
  • John Logie Baird sends rudimentary television pictures over a short distance.^[5]
• 1 February - The United Kingdom recognises the Soviet Union.^[6]
• 5 February - GMT: Hourly time signals from Royal Greenwich Observatory are broadcast for the first time.^[2]
• 28 March - First BBC broadcast from Plymouth (station 5PY).

First UK Commemorative stamps

• 23 April - First broadcast by King George V, opening the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium.^[7]
• 26 April - Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrates his "death ray" in London but fails to convince the War Office.
• 4 May–27 July - Great Britain and Ireland compete at the Olympics in Paris and win 9 gold, 13 silver and 12 bronze medals.
• 3 June - Gleneagles Hotel opens in Scotland.^[8]
• 8 June - George Mallory and Andrew Irvine are last seen "going strong for the top" of Mount Everest by teammate Noel Odell at 12:50 PM. The two mountaineers are never seen alive again.
• 7 July - Harold Abrahams wins 100m gold at the Paris Olympics in a time of 10.6 seconds.
• 11 July - Eric Liddell wins 400m gold at the Paris Olympics in a new world record time of 47.6 seconds.
• 13 August - Campbell Case: The government forces the charges against John Ross Campbell to be dropped leading to a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons.
• 30 August - Britain accepts the Dawes Plan for receiving German war reparations.^[4]
• 14 September - First BBC broadcast from Belfast (station 2BE).
• 24 October - The Foreign Office publishes the Zinoviev Letter.
• 25 October - British authorities in India arrest Subhas Chandra Bose and jail him for the next two and half years.
• 29 October - The general election is won by the Conservative Party under Stanley Baldwin.^[6] Among the new members of parliament is 30-year-old Harold Macmillan, the new Conservative MP for Stockton-on-Tees (born in Chelsea to a British father and American mother).^[9]
• 2 November - The Sunday Express becomes the first newspaper to publish a crossword.^[2]
• 24 December - Air crash at Croydon air field - 8 dead.

Undated

• Housing Act provides government subsidy for the building of houses to rent, principally by local authorities.^[10]
• Air Raid Precautions committee set up.^[11]
• Edward Victor Appleton investigates the Heaviside layer.^[12]
• Frigidaire becomes the first make of refrigerator marketed in the U.K.^[3]
• First nudist camp established, at Wickford, Essex.^[13][14]

Publications

• Michael Arlen's novel The Green Hat.^[15]
• Agatha Christie's novel The Man in the Brown Suit.
• E. M. Forster's novel A Passage to India.
• A. A. Milne's poem collection When We Were Very Young.
• Mary Webb's novel Precious Bane.
• P. C. Wren's novel Beau Geste.^[15]

Births

• 8 January - Ron Moody, actor
• 21 January - Benny Hill, comedian and actor (died 1992)
• 7 February - Hattie Jacques, star of the Carry On film series (died 1980)
• 3 March - John Woodnutt, actor (died 2006)
• 28 March - Freddie Bartholomew, actor (died 1992)
• 30 March - Alan Davidson, author (died 2003)
• 15 April - Sir Neville Marriner, conductor and violinist
• 24 April - Clement Freud, writer, radio personality and politician (died 2009)
• 11 May
  • Antony Hewish, radio astronomer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
  • Jackie Milburn, footballer (died 1988)
• 12 May - Tony Hancock, comedian (died 1968)
• 19 May - Sandy Wilson, composer
• 24 May - Vincent Cronin, historical writer and biographer (died 2011)
• 27 June - Bob Appleyard, cricketer
• 11 July - Charlie Tully, footballer (died 1971)
• 14 July - James W. Black, pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 2010)
• 7 August - Kenneth Kendall, newsreader and presenter
• 12 August - Derek Shackleton, cricketer (died 2007)
• 15 August - Robert Bolt, writer (died 1995)
• 4 September - Joan Aiken, writer (died 2004)
• 22 September - Charles Keeping, illustrator (died 1988)
• 22 September - Rosamunde Pilcher, novelist
• 19 November - William Russell, actor
• 21 November - Christopher Tolkien, son and editor of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien
• date unknown - Peter Halliday, actor

Deaths

• 2 January - Sabine Baring-Gould, composer and novelist (born 1834)
• 21 April - Marie Corelli, novelist (born 1855)
• 4 May - E. Nesbit, author (born 1858)
• 8/9 June - Andrew Irvine, mountaineer (lost on Everest) (born 1902)
• 10 June - George Mallory, mountaineer (lost on Everest) (born 1886)
• 3 August - Joseph Conrad, novelist (born 1857, Poland)
• 27 August - William Bayliss, physiologist (born 1860)
• 29 October - Frances Hodgson Burnett, author (born 1849)
• 31 December - Samuel Knaggs, colonial administrator (born 1856)

References

See also