1926 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – George V
• Prime Minister – Stanley Baldwin
• Parliament – 34th

  Events

• 2 January – contributory old age pensions payable to those between 65 and 70 years of age under the provisions of the Widows', Orphans', and Old-Age Contributory Pensions Act of 1925.
• 16 January – a British Broadcasting Company radio play by Ronald Knox about workers' revolution in London causes a panic among those who have not heard the preliminary announcement that it is a satire on broadcasting.
• 26 January – Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrates his pioneering mechanical television system at his London laboratory for members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times.
• 31 January – British and Belgian troops leave Cologne.
• 9 February – flooding of London suburbs.
• 6 March – the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon is destroyed by fire.
• 17 March – University of Reading chartered, the only institution to be newly granted full university status in the U.K. in the interwar period.
• 1 May – coal miners' strike begins in Britain over planned pay reductions.
• 3 May – general strike begins in support of the coal strike.
• 4 May – the BBC broadcasts five news bulletins a day as no newspapers are published due to the general strike.
• 9 May – martial law in Britain because of the general strike.
• 10 May – talks between government and strikers begin.
• 12 May – the general strike ends.
• 24 July – first greyhound racing track in Britain opens in Manchester.
• 6 August – American swimmer Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel from France to England.
• 7 August – the first British Grand Prix held at the Brooklands circuit near Weybridge.
• 18 August – the Miners' Federation of Great Britain begins negotiations with the government.
• 30 August – cricketer Jack Hobbs scores 316 runs at match at Lord's, the highest individual total scored at that ground.
• 29 November – coal miners agree to end the national dispute and return to work. A majority of the Miners Federation have voted to continue the strike but with less than the required two-thirds majority.
• December – Imperial Chemical Industries formed by merger of Brunner Mond, Nobel Explosives, the United Alkali Company, and the British Dyestuffs Corporation.
• 2 December – the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin ends the martial law that had been declared due to the general strike.
• 3 December – Agatha Christie disappears from her home in Surrey; on 14 December she is found in a Harrogate hotel by journalist Ritchie Calder.
• 7 December – the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, later the Campaign to Protect Rural England, is founded by Patrick Abercrombie to limit urban sprawl and ribbon development.
• 15 December – Legitimacy Act 1926 permits the legitimisation of a child born to unmarried parents by their subsequent marriage to each other.

  Undated

• Electricity Act creates the Central Electricity Board to set up the National Grid.
• K2 red telephone box introduced, chiefly in London area.
• New Ways, a house for Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke in Northampton, is designed by German architect Peter Behrens; it is "a pioneer of modern architecture in Britain".
• First appearance of the Gill Sans sans-serif typeface, designed by Eric Gill for Douglas Cleverdon.

  Publications

• Patrick Abercrombie's tract The Preservation of Rural England.
• Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
• Georgette Heyer's historical romance novel These Old Shades.
• D. H. Lawrence's novel The Plumed Serpent.
• Hugh MacDiarmid's Scots language poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle.
• A. A. Milne's children's book Winnie-the-Pooh.

  Births

• 3 January – George Martin, producer of The Beatles
• 4 January – Don Arden, music manager
• 5 January – Robin Leigh-Pemberton, Baron Kingsdown, peer, banker
• 13 January
• * Craigie Aitchison, painter
• * Michael Bond, author and creator of Paddington Bear
• 14 January – Warren Mitchell, actor
• 17 January – Moira Shearer, actress and dancer
• 20 January – Sarah Conlon, campaigner
• 10 February
• * Danny Blanchflower, footballer and football manager
• * Hazel Court, actress
• 11 February – Alexander Gibson, conductor and founder of Scottish Opera
• 16 February
• * David C. H. Austin, rose breeder
• * John Schlesinger, film director
• 20 February – Gillian Lynne, choreographer
• 22 February – Kenneth Williams, actor
• 24 February – Reg Freeson, politician
• 1 March – Bryan Jennett, neurosurgeon
• 2 March – George P. L. Walker, geologist
• 5 March – Norman Macfarlane, Baron Macfarlane of Bearsden, Scottish industrialist and politician
• 8 March – Edith MacArthur, actress
• 11 March
• * Derek Benfield, actor
• * Dennis Wilshaw, footballer
• 14 March – Lita Roza, singer
• 24 March – Tony Streather, army officer
• 27 March – Louis Blom-Cooper, lawyer
• 31 March – John Fowles, novelist
• 2 April – Robert Holmes, scriptwriter
• 3 April – Timothy Bateson, actor
• 6 April – Ian Paisley, politician
• 9 April – Gerry Fitt, politician
• 11 April – Gervase de Peyer, clarinetist
• 21 April – Princess Elizabeth of York, later Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and 15 other Commonwealth realms
• 22 April – James Stirling, architect
• 24 April – Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, aristocrat and courtier
• 26 April – David Coleman, television sports broadcaster
• 29 April – Leonard Fenton, actor and director
• 30 April – Edmund Cooper, author and poet
• 3 May – Eric Sams, musicologist and Shakespeare scholar
• 4 May – David Stoddart, Baron Stoddart of Swindon, politician
• 5 May – Maurice Taylor, Scottish Roman Catholic bishop
• 8 May – David Attenborough, broadcaster and naturalist
• 12 May – John Shipley Rowlinson, chemist and academic
• 14 May – Eric Morecambe, comedian
• 15 May – Anthony Shaffer and Peter Shaffer, playwrights
• 17 May
• * Cicely Berry, voice coach
• * Tenniel Evans, actor
• * David Ogilvy, 13th Earl of Airlie, Scottish soldier, politician
• 19 May – Edward Parkes, engineer and academic
• 23 May – Desmond Carrington, actor and broadcaster
• 24 May – Stanley Baxter, Scottish actor and screenwriter
• 28? May – Colin Hutton, rugby union, rugby league player
• 17 June – Alan Walters, economist
• 20 June – Ernest Arthur Bell, biochemist
• 23 June – Lawson Soulsby, parasitologist
• 25 June – Dame Margaret Anstee, diplomat
• 26 June
• *Sir Rex Hunt, diplomat
• * Reg Newton, professional football goalkeeper
• 29 June – Denys Graham, Welsh actor
• 4 July – Willoughby Goddard, actor
• 5 July – Anthony Purssell, brewing executive, businessman and former athlete
• 7 July – Bobby McIlvenny, Northern Irish footballer
• 8 July – Ian Gilmour, Conservative politician
• 12 July – Cec Thompson, rugby league footballer
• 18 July – Robert Sloman, actor and journalist
• 21 July – Bill Pertwee, actor
• 22 July – Bryan Forbes, film director
• 27 July – Nina Lawson, wig-maker
• 30 July – Thomas Patrick Russell, High Court judge
• 1 August – Hannah Hauxwell, farmer and TV personality
• 3 August – Anthony Sampson, journalist and biographer
• 9 August – Willie Finlay, Scottish professional football player and coach
• 11 August – Bernard Ashley, businessman
• 13 August – Dennis Eagan, field hockey player
• 16 August – Christopher Polge, biologist
• 17 August – George Melly, jazz singer
• 19 August
• * George Daniels, horologist
• * Martin Halliday, physician
• 4 September – George William Gray, Scottish-born chemist, pioneer of liquid crystal technology
• 6 September – Maurice Cowling, historian
• 7 September – Patrick Jenkin, Conservative politician
• 12 September – Dave Valentine, Scottish representative rugby union and rugby league footballer
• 18 September – Thomas Hetherington, barrister
• 24 September – Aubrey Burl, archaeologist
• 9 October – Ruth Ellis, nightclub hostess, last woman hanged in the UK
• 21 October – Leonard Rossiter, actor
• 31 October – Jimmy Savile, television and radio personality
• 5 November – John Berger, art critic, novelist and painter
• 6 November – Frank Carson, comedian
• 8 November – John Louis Mansi, actor
• 11 November – Harold Perkin, social historian
• 12 November – Robert Goff, Baron Goff of Chieveley, lawyer and judge
• 20 November – John Gardner, writer
• 25 November
• *Terry Hall, ventriloquist
• *Terry Kilburn, actor
• *Peter Wright, ballet director and choreographer
• 28 November – David Alexander, Royal Marines general
• 17 December – John Poole, sculptor
• 19 December – Edmund Purdom, actor
• 20 December – Geoffrey Howe, politician
• 22 December – Roberta Leigh, writer, artist and television producer
• 25 December – Barry Driscoll, painter and sculptor

  Deaths

• 6 January – John Bowers, Anglican suffragan Bishop of Thetford
• 1 February – William Heap Bailey, Scottish footballer
• 7 February – William Evans Hoyle, director of the National Museum of Wales
• 8 February – William Bateson, geneticist
• 13 February – Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, Anglo-Irish political economist
• 3 March – Sir Sidney Lee, biographer
• 29 March – Charles Crook, teacher, trade unionist and politician
• 9 May – J. M. Dent, publisher
• 21 May – Ronald Firbank, novelist
• 24 May – Sir Thomas Erskine Holland, academic lawyer
• 8 June – Emily Hobhouse, welfare campaigner
• 2 July – Laurence George Bomford, artist
• 12 July – Gertrude Bell, archaeologist, writer, spy, and administrator known as the "Uncrowned Queen of Iraq"
• 1 August – Israel Zangwill, novelist, poet and playwright
• 25 September – Herbert Booth, Salvationist, third son of William and Catherine Booth
• 28 September – Helen Allingham, watercolour painter and illustrator
• 5 October – Dorothy Tennant, artist
• 12 October – Edwin Abbott Abbott, schoolmaster and theologian
• 13 October – Eliseus Williams, poet
• 4 November – John Owen, Bishop of St David's
• 4 December – Ferdinand Begg, Scottish stockbroker and politician
• 8 December – Sarah Doudney, novelist, children's writer and hymnist