1919 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – George V
• Prime Minister – David Lloyd George
• Parliament – 31st

  Events

• 1 January – HMY Iolaire is wrecked on rocks off Stornoway on the Scottish Isle of Lewis: 205 die, mostly servicemen returning home.
• 3 January – soldiers blockade Folkestone harbour in a successful protest against being returned to France. This month, other mutinies take place in France and across England.
• 18 January
• * The Paris Peace Conferenceopens in France, with delegates from 27 nations present for meetings at the Palace of Versailles; Lloyd George attends as one of the "Big Four".
• * Bentley Motors Ltd. is incorporated in England.
• 21 January – Dáil Éireann meets for the first time in the Mansion House, Dublin. It comprises Sinn Féin members elected in the 1918 general election who, in accordance with their manifesto, have not taken their seats in the Parliament of the United Kingdom but chosen to declare an independent Irish Republic. In the first shots of the Anglo-Irish War, two Royal Irish Constabulary men are killed in an ambush at Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary.
• 23 January – "Harbour Riot" in Glasgow: confrontation between white and black merchant seamen.
• 27 January – general strike call over working hours led by engineering workers in Glasgow and Belfast; in Belfast the strike collapses after a month.
• 31 January – Battle of George Square: the army is called in to deal with riots and protests to gain a 40-hour working week in Glasgow.

• 3 February – Éamon de Valera, the leader of Sinn Féin, and two other prisoners escape from Lincoln Prison in England in a break personally arranged by Michael Collins and Harry Boland.
• 27 February – marriage of Princess Patricia of Connaught to Commander The Hon. Alexander Ramsay, the first royal wedding at Westminster Abbey since the 14th century.
• 4–5 March – Kinmel Park riots by troops of the Canadian Expeditionary Force awaiting repatriation at Kinmel Camp, Bodelwyddan, in North Wales. Five men are killed, 28 injured, and 25 convicted of mutiny.
• 3 April – Government agrees to begin release of imprisoned conscientious objectors.
• 7 April – the Original Dixieland Jazz Band brings Dixieland jazz to England, opening a 15-month tour at the Hippodrome, London.
• 13 April – Amritsar Massacre: British and Gurkha troops kill 379 Sikhs and injure more than 1200 at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab Province.
• May – Third Anglo-Afghan War begins.
• 15 May – Greek landing at Smyrna : The Hellenic Army lands at Smyrna assisted by ships of the British Royal Navy.
• 12 May – the Pip, Squeak and Wilfred comic strip debuts in the Daily Mirror.
• 29 May – observations made by Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse test part of Einstein's general theory of relativity.
• June – riots break out in west midlands towns.
• 14–15 June – a Vickers Vimy piloted by John Alcock DSC with navigator Arthur Whitten Brown makes the first nonstop transatlantic flight, from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, Ireland.
• 17 June – Epsom Riot by Canadian troops: English police sergeant Thomas Green is killed.
• 21 June – Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow: Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the interned German fleet in Scapa Flow, Scotland. Nine German sailors are killed.
• 23 June – Women's Engineering Society founded.
• 28 June – Treaty of Versailles signed, formally ending World War I.

• 2–6 July – the British airship R34 makes the first transatlantic flight by dirigible, and the first westbound flight, from RAF East Fortune, Scotland, to Mineola, New York.
• 15 July – naval sloops HMS Gentian and HMS Myrtle sunk by mines in the Gulf of Finland while assisting Estonia against the Bolsheviks, with nine crew lost.
• 18 July – the Cenotaph in London, as designed by Edwin Lutyens, is unveiled to commemorate the dead of World War I.
• 19 July – Peace Day: victory parades across Britain celebrate the end of World War I. Rioting ex-servicemen burn down Luton Town Hall.
• 31 July
• * Police strike in London and Liverpool for recognition of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers. Rioting breaks out in Liverpool on 1 August. Over 2,000 strikers are dismissed.
• * Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 provides government subsidy for the provision of council houses, with the target of completing 500,000 houses by 1922.
• 8 August – the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919, signed in Rawalpindi, ends the Third Anglo-Afghan War, with the UK recognising the right of the Emirate of Afghanistan to manage its own foreign affairs and Afghanistan recognising the Durand Line as the border with British India.
• 15 August – the Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act provides for returning servicemen to get their old jobs back.
• 18 August – Russian Civil War: North Russia intervention – the Bolshevik fleet at Kronstadt, protecting Petrograd on the Baltic Sea, is substantially damaged by seven British Royal Navy Coastal Motor Boats and military aircraft in a combined operation.
• 30 August – the Football League is resumed, four years after it was abandoned due to the war.
• 1 September – Forestry Commission set up.
• 27 September – Russian Civil War: North Russia intervention – last British troops leave Archangel, leaving fighting to the Russians.
• 27 September–6 October – railway workers stage a strike, called by the National Union of Railwaymen.
• 29 September – Rupert D'Oyly Carte returns the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company to London's West End for the first time in a decade with an initial 18-week season of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas opening at the Prince's Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue.
• 30 September – compositors and pressmen working at the Daily Sketch newspaper in London refuse to print the paper until an editorial criticising the railway strike is deleted.
• October – creation of the "Mobile Patrol Experiment", the forerunner of the Metropolitan Police Service's Flying Squad.
• 1 October – Women's Royal Naval Service disbanded.
• 13 October – Leeds City F.C., of the Football League Second Division, are expelled from the Football League amid financial irregularities.
• 17 October – with the collapse of Leeds City, a new football club is formed for the city – Leeds United. With Port Vale set to take the old club's place in the Football League, the new Leeds club will have to wait until at least the next football season for a chance of Football League membership.
• 20 October – collapse of the man engine at Levant Mine in Cornwall kills 31.
• 21 October – Atlas Copco Ltd is incorporated in the UK as a subsidiary of the Swedish mechanical engineering company.
• 4 November – the Cabinet's Irish Committee settles on a policy of creating two Home Rule parliaments in Ireland – one in Dublin and one in Belfast – with a Council of Ireland to provide a framework for possible unity.
• 11 November – first Remembrance Day observed with two minutes silence at 11:00 hrs.
• December – Cunliffe Committee on Currency and Foreign Exchange Rates recommends an early return to an effective Gold standard.
• 1 December – Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor becomes the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons, and the second to be elected, having stood at the Plymouth Sutton by-election on 28 November to succeed her husband as a Unionist member.
• 15 December – meat rationing ends.
• 22 December – a bill "to provide for the better government of Ireland" is introduced into the House of Commons, proposing two parliaments: one for the six counties of north-east Ulster and one for the other twenty-six.
• 23 December – Sex Disqualification Act removes legal disabilities on women entering the secular professions.
• 25 December – opening of Cliftonhill stadium in Coatbridge, the home of Albion Rovers F.C. The opening match sees them lose 2–0 to St Mirren.
• 30 December – Lincoln's Inn, in London, admits its first female bar student.
• Undated
• * Panacea Society founded by Mabel Barltrop in Bedford as the Community of the Holy Ghost.
• * by bribing corrupt Iranians liberally, the UK negotiates a treaty allowing the installation of British advisers in every department of the government. The Majlis refuses to ratify the treaty.
• Ongoing – 1918 flu pandemic.

  Publications

• February – Richmal Crompton's anarchic schoolboy William Brown is introduced in the first published Just William story, "Rice-Mould" in Home magazine.
• 22 March – The Children's Newspaper begins publication.
• Daisy Ashford's novel The Young Visiters.
• Gilbert Frankau's novel Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant: a romance of married life.
• Dean William Inge's first series of Outspoken Essays.
• John Maynard Keynes' book The Economic Consequences of the Peace.
• W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Moon and Sixpence.
• Siegfried Sassoon's The War Poems of Sigfried Sassoon.
• Arthur Graeme West's posthumous The Diary of a Dead Officer.
• P. G. Wodehouse's short story collection My Man Jeeves.

  Births

• 1 January – Sheila Mercier, actress
• 21 January
• * Eric "Winkle" Brown, World War II naval & test pilot
• * Jim Wallwork, World War II glider pilot
• 23 January – Bob Paisley, football player and manager
• 4 February
• * Peter Butterworth, actor and comedian
• * John Miller, World War II lieutenant-colonel and equerry
• 16 February – Irene Brown, author and codebreaker
• 20 February – James O'Meara, Battle of Britain Spitfire flying ace
• 23 February – Derek Ezra, chairman of the National Coal Board
• 24 February – Betty Marsden, comedy actress
• 28 February – Brian Urquhart, war veteran and diplomat
• 3 March – Mary Cosh, journalist, historian and author
• 12 March – Donald Zec, journalist
• 29 March – William S. Anderson, Chinese-born businessman, president and chairman of NCR Corporation
• 30 March – Henry Danton, dance teacher
• 5 April
• * Nigel Malim, World War II rear admiral
• * Charles Parker, radio documentary producer
• 9 April – Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, Officer of Arms and genealogist
• 15 April – Emyr Humphreys, Welsh novelist, poet and author
• 20 April – Richard Hillary, pilot and author
• 4 May – Basil Yamey, South African-born economist and academic
• 7 May
• * Emanuel Hurwitz, violinist
• * Joe Mitty, entrepreneur and co-founder of Oxfam
• 9 May – Arthur English, actor
• 14 May – Denis Cannan, dramatist, playwright and scriptwriter
• 16 May – Richard Mason, novelist
• 18 May – Margot Fonteyn, born Margaret Hookham, ballet dancer
• 6 June – Peter Carington, politician
• 11 June – Richard Todd, actor
• 14 June – June Spencer, actress
• 15 June – Eleanor Warren, cellist
• 17 June – Beryl Reid, actress
• 26 June – Donald M. Ashton, art director
• 27 June – John Macquarrie, theologian and priest
• 29 June – Walter Babington Thomas, Commander of British Far East Land Forces
• 4 July – Douglas Birks, English cricketer
• 7 July
• *Jon Pertwee, actor
• *Bill Stroud, English football player and coach
• 10 July – Ian Wallace, bass-baritone opera singer
• 14 July – John Pott, British Army officer
• 15 July – Iris Murdoch, Irish-born novelist and philosopher
• 19 July – Patricia Medina, actress
• 20 July – Jacquemine Charrott Lodwidge, writer
• 21 July
• * Pentland Hick, entrepreneur, author and publisher
• * Lady Rose McLaren, aristocrat
• 26 July – James Lovelock, scientist and proponent of the Gaia hypothesis
• 1 August – Stanley Middleton, novelist
• 15 August – Bernard Barrell, composer
• 28 August – Godfrey Hounsfield, electrical engineer and inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 4 September – Teddy Johnson, popular singer
• 11 September – Bernard Feilden, conservation architect
• 13 September – Mary Midgley, moral philosopher
• 27 September
• * Peter Coe, athletics coach
• * James H. Wilkinson, mathematician
• 2 October
• * John W. Duarte, composer and guitarist
• * Walter Luttrell, colonel and public servant
• 4 October – John Sawyer, romance novelist in collaboration with his wife Nancy Buckingham
• 5 October – Donald Pleasence, actor
• 6 October – Tommy Lawton, footballer
• 19 October – David Pritchard, chess player
• 20 October – Maurice Michael Stephens, World War II fighter pilot
• 22 October – Doris Lessing, Persian-born novelist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature
• 23 October – John Hunt, civil servant
• 31 October
• *George Boscawen, 9th Viscount Falmouth, politician
• *Daphne Oxenford, broadcast actress
• 3 November – Ludovic Kennedy, journalist, broadcaster and writer
• 15 November – Nova Pilbeam, actress
• 19 November – Alan Young, English-born character actor
• 20 November – Lucilla Andrews, Egyptian-born romantic novelist
• 23 November – P. F. Strawson, philosopher
• 24 November – David Kossoff, actor
• 5 December – Alun Gwynne Jones, Baron Chalfont, politician and historian
• 6 December
• * Eric Newby, travel writer
• * Leonard E. H. Williams, pilot and businessman
• 7 December – Lyndon Wainwright, metrologist, ballroom dancer and author
• 11 December – Cliff Michelmore, broadcast presenter

  Deaths

• 2 January – Arthur Gould, Wales international rugby captain
• 3 January – James Hills-Johnes, Indian-born Welsh Victoria Cross recipient
• 12 January – Sir Charles Wyndham, actor-manager
• 18 January – Prince John of the United Kingdom
• 24 February – Edward Bishop, Wales international rugby player
• 27 February – Robert Harris, Welsh-born painter
• 20 March – Pauline Markham, English-born vaudeville actress
• 4 April – William Crookes, chemist and physicist
• 12 June – Thomas Jeremiah Williams, Coalition Liberal Member of Parliament for Swansea East
• 14 June – Weedon Grossmith, humorous writer, actor and artist
• 30 June – John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1 July – Sir John Brunner, British industrialist and politician
• 13 July – Theo Harding, Wales international rugby player
• 26 July
• *Sir Edward Poynter, painter
• *Richard Hughes Williams, Welsh-language writer
• 31 July – Dick Barlow, cricketer
• 11 August – Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American philanthropist
• 21 August – Laurence Doherty, tennis champion
• 15 October
• * Howard Colvin, architectural historian
• * Arthur Owen Vaughan, English-born Welsh writer
• 17 October – James Wolfe Murray, British Army general
• 18 October – William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, American-born financier and statesman
• 23 October – Charles Judd, missionary to China
• 25 October – Ernest Albert Waterlow, painter
• 18 December – Sir John Alcock, aviator, pilot of first nonstop transatlantic flight by aeroplane, June 1919, in aviation accident
• 22 December – Boy Capel, industrialist, polo player, writer, and lover/muse of Coco Chanel