1914 in The United Kingdom - Events

Events

• 10 March - Suffragette Mary Richardson damages the Velázquez painting Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery, London, with a meat cleaver.
• 15 March - Cover price of The Times halved to one penny.
• 20 February - The Fethard-on-Sea life-boat capsizes on service off the County Wexford coast: nine crew are lost.
• 9 March - The Prime Minister proposes to allow the Ulster counties to hold a vote on whether or not to join a Home Rule parliament in Dublin.
• 20 March - Curragh incident: British Army officers stationed at the Curragh Camp in Ireland resign their commissions rather than be ordered to resist action by Unionist Ulster Volunteers if the Irish Home Rule Bill is passed. The government backs down and they are reinstated.
• 29 March - Katherine Routledge and her husband arrive in Easter Island to make the first true study of it (departing August 1915).
• 9 April - Showing of the first colour feature film in Britain — The World, the Flesh and the Devil.
• 11 April - First British performance of George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion in London.
• 24–25 April - Larne Gun Running: 35,000 rifles and over 3 million rounds of ammunition from Germany are landed at Larne, Bangor and Donaghadee for the Ulster Volunteers.
• 9 May - J. T. (Jack) Hearne becomes the first bowler to take 3000 first-class wickets.
• 25 May - The House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Irish Home Rule Bill.
• 30 May - RMS Aquitania makes her maiden voyage.
• 23 June
  • The Royal Naval Air Service is established.
  • Kiel Canal is reopened (following deepening) by the Kaiser: visit of the British Fleet under Sir George Warrender; the Kaiser inspects the Dreadnought HMS King George V (1911).
• 14 July - Government of Ireland Amending Bill passed by House of Lords.
• 21–24 July - A conference at Buckingham Palace fails to resolve differences between Irish unionists and nationalists over Home Rule.
• 26 July - Howth gun-running: Erskine Childers and his wife Molly sail into Howth in his yacht Asgard and land 2,500 guns for the Irish Volunteers.
• 4 August - World War I: German troops invade neutral Belgium. Britain declares war on Germany after the latter fails to respect Belgian neutrality.
• 5 August - The German minelayer Königin Luise, laying a minefield about 40 miles (64 km) off the Thames Estuary (Lowestoft), is intercepted and sunk by the British light-cruiser HMS Amphion, the first German naval loss of the war.
• 6 August
  • HMS Amphion strikes mines laid by the Königin Luise and is sunk with some loss of life, the first British casualties of the war.
  • Currency and Bank Notes Act gives wartime powers of banknote issue to HM Treasury.
• 8 August - Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition sets sail on the Endurance from Plymouth in an attempt to cross Antarctica.
• 9 August - HMS Birmingham (1913) sinks the German submarine Unterseeboot 15, the first by the Royal Navy.
• 10 August - All suffragette prisoners released unconditionally.
• 22 August - World War I: The British Expeditionary Force reaches Mons. Just after 06:30 British cavalryman Drummer Edward Thomas of the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards is reputed to have fired the British Army's first shot of the War near the Belgian village of Casteau, the first British shot fired in anger in combat on mainland Europe since the Battle of Waterloo 99 years earlier.
• 23 August - World War I: In the first major action for the British Expeditionary Force, they defeat the German forces at the Battle of Mons.
• 26 August - The German West African colony of Togoland surrenders to Britain and France.
• 28 August - The Battle of Heligoland - British cruisers under Admiral Beatty sink three German cruisers.
• 5 September
  • London Agreement: no member of Triple Entente (Britain, France, or Russia) may seek a separate peace with Central Powers.
  • Cover of magazine London Opinion first carries the iconic drawing by Alfred Leete of Lord Kitchener with the recruiting slogan Your Country Needs You.
• 5 September–12 September - First Battle of the Marne begins: Northeast of Paris, the British Expeditionary Force and the French 6th Army under General Maunoury attack German forces nearing Paris. Over 2 million fight (500,000 killed/wounded) in the Allied victory.
• 13 September–28 September - World War I: The First Battle of the Aisne involving British, French forces against German Empire.
• 18 September - The Government of Ireland Act, granting Home Rule to the whole of Ireland, and the Welsh Church Act, disestablishing the Church in Wales, receive Royal Assent but implementation of both is postponed for the duration of World War I by the simultaneous Suspensory Act. The Government of Ireland Act in practice never comes into effect in its original form, and Welsh disestablishment is deferred until 1920.
• 15 October - World War I: HMS Hawke (1891) is torpedoed by German submarine U-9 in the North Sea and sinks in less than 10 minutes with the loss of 524 lives.
• 19 October–22 November - World War I: The First Battle of Ypres fought between British, French and German forces in Ypres in Belgium.
• 20 September - In a speech at Woodenbridge, County Wicklow, John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, calls on members of the Irish Volunteers to enlist in the National Volunteers as part of the British New Army. The majority do so, fighting in the 10th and 16th (Irish) Division alongside their Ulster Volunteer counterparts from the 36th (Ulster) Division (formed this month); the rump Irish Volunteers split off on 24 September.
• 1 November - World War I: Battle of Coronel fought - A Royal Navy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock is met and defeated by the superior German forces led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee. This is the first British naval defeat of the war.
• 3 November - World War I: German naval raid on Yarmouth.
• 5 November - World War I: Britain annexes Cyprus and declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
• 11–24 November - World War I: Battle of Basra results in British Empire forces taking Basra from the Ottoman Empire.
• 26 November - HMS Bulwark (1899) is blown apart by an internal explosion at her moorings on the Medway off Kingsnorth, Kent, killing all but nine of her 805 crew.
• 8 December - World War I: The Battle of the Falkland Islands results in a decisive British victory over the German fleet.
• 9 December - Britain's first aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal (1914), commissioned.
• 16 December - World War I: German naval bombardment of Hartlepool, Scarborough and Whitby.
• 18 December - Egypt becomes a British protectorate.
• 24 December - World War I:
  • British and German soldiers begin an unofficial Christmas truce.
  • Britain is bombed for the first time when a German aircraft drops a bomb over Dover.