1909 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Edward VII
• Prime Minister – H. H. Asquith
• Parliament – 28th

  Events

• 1 January – national old age pension scheme comes into force.
• 9 January – Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole forced to turn back 112 miles from the pole.
• 23 January – the Tottenham Outrage, an armed robbery and the murder of a ten-year-old boy and a police constable in Tottenham, North London, carried out by two Latvian anarchists.
• 16 February – West Stanley Pit Disaster, a coal mining disaster in Stanley, County Durham, in which more than 160 miners are killed in an explosion.
• 26 February – first film shown in colour using Kinemacolor at the Palace Theatre, London.
• March – construction of the Rosyth Dockyard for the Royal Navy on the east coast of Scotland begins.
• 10 March – Anglo-Siamese Treaty signed in Bangkok.
• 15 March – Selfridges department store opens in London.
• 16 March – Port of London Authority established.
• 11 April – coming into effect of Children Act 1908, establishing separate juvenile courts for ten–sixteen-year-olds; abolishing the use of custody for under-fourteens and hanging for under-sixteens; introducing the registration of foster parents; and restricting access for under-16s to cigarettes and alcohol.
• 24 April – the FA Cup final is won by Manchester United for the first time, as they beat Bristol City 1–0 at Crystal Palace.
• 29 April – People's Budget introduced in the British Parliament by David Lloyd George.
• 2 May – John Moore-Brabazon becomes the first resident British citizen to make a recognised powered heavier-than-air flight in the UK, flying from The Aero Club's ground at Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey in his Voisin biplane Bird of Passage.
• 13 May – Lonmin is incorporated in the UK as the London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company Limited.
• 26 May – the King's horse, Minoru, wins the Epsom Derby.
• 15 June – representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lord's and form the Imperial Cricket Conference.
• 26 June
• * Edward VII and Queen Alexandra open the Victoria and Albert Museum, designed by Aston Webb.
• * The Science Museum in London comes into existence as an independent entity.
• July – Ivy Evelyn Woodward is admitted as the first woman Member of the Royal College of Physicians.
• 25 July – Louis Blériot flies a Blériot XI monoplane across the English Channel from Calais to Dover, winning a prize of £ from the Daily Mail.
• 23 August – the Secret Service Bureau counter-espionage unit is secretly established.
• 3 September – the first Boy Scout rally held at The Crystal Palace in London.
• 17 September – militant suffragette Mabel Capper is among the first to suffer force-feeding while on hunger strike, at Winson Green Prison in Birmingham.
• October – the Trade Boards Act, a form of minimum wage legislation, is passed.
• 2 October – the first rugby football match played in Twickenham.
• 15–23 October – "Aviation week" of demonstration flying held at Doncaster; this is followed by a similar event at Blackpool.
• 5 November – the first Woolworth's branch in the UK opens in Liverpool.
• 8 November – first contest for a Lonsdale Belt in boxing, won by Welsh lightweight Freddie Welsh in London.
• 30 November – the House of Lords rejects the People's Budget proposed by David Lloyd George, forcing a general election.
• 3 December – the Ellan Vannin sinks in Liverpool Bay resulting in the loss of all 15 passengers and 21 crew.
• 4 December – the University of Bristol is founded and receives its Royal Charter.
• 7 December – South Africa granted dominion status.

  Undated

• Labour Exchanges Act sets up labour exchanges as a source of information on employment.
• Thomas Beecham establishes the Beecham Symphony Orchestra.
• The mass-circulation Daily Mail hysterically informs its readers in a series of reports that Germany is deliberately preparing to destroy the British Empire.
• First British bird ringing programme initiated by Arthur Landsborough Thomson at Aberdeen.

  Publications

• Florence Barclay's novel The Rosary.
• Angela Brazil's schoolgirl story The Nicest Girl in the School.
• Daniel Jones' introductory The Pronunciation of English.
• H. G. Wells' novels Ann Veronica and Tono-Bungay.

  Births

• 24 January – Martin Lings, Islamic scholar
• 29 January – Phoebe Hesketh, poet
• 14 March – William Montgomery Watt, Anglican priest and professor
• 26 March – Martin Hodgson, rugby league footballer
• 30 April – F. E. McWilliam, sculptor
• 11 May – Herbert Murrill, organist and composer
• 15 May – James Mason, actor
• 18 May – Fred Perry, tennis player
• 19 May – Nicholas Winton, humanitarian
• 26 May – Matt Busby, football manager
• 7 June – Jessica Tandy, actress
• 28 June – Eric Ambler, novelist and playwright
• 5 July – Douglas Dodds-Parker, soldier and politician
• 28 July – Malcolm Lowry, novelist
• 30 July – C. Northcote Parkinson, historian and author
• 25 August – Michael Rennie, actor
• 14 September – Peter Scott, ornithologist and painter
• 6 October – Robert Potter, architect
• 28 October – Francis Bacon, painter
• 17 November – E. S. Turner, author and journalist
• 19 November – Griffith Jones, actor
• 23 November – Nigel Tranter, historian and writer
• 30 November – Nancy Carline, artist
• 1 December – Frank Gillard, radio broadcaster
• 4 December – Edward Britton, trade unionist
• 8 December – Lesslie Newbigin, bishop and theologian
• 10 December – F. W. Walbank, scholar of Greek history
• 23 December – Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury

  Deaths

• 8 January – Harry Seeley, palaeontologist
• 14 January – Arthur William a Beckett, journalist
• 10 April – Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet
• 13 April – Sir Donald Currie, Scottish shipping magnate
• 17 May – Sir Hugh Gough, general, Victoria Cross recipient
• 18 May – George Meredith, novelist and poet
• 31 May – Thomas Price, Welsh-born Prime Minister of South Australia
• 22 June – Edward John Gregory, painter
• 1 August – Sir Hugh Rowlands, Welsh general, first Welsh Victoria Cross recipient
• 14 August – William Stanley, inventor, precision engineer
• 25 October – Arthur Bromley, British Royal Navy officer, Admiral Superintendent of Malta Dockyard
• 9 November – William Powell Frith, painter
• 10 November – George Essex Evans, Welsh-Australian poet
• 11 December – Ludwig Mond, industrialist
• 13 December – Sir Alfred Lewis Jones, shipping magnate