UK-related events during the year of 1905
Events from the year 1905 in the United Kingdom.
Events
- 1 January – East Coast gales: Great Yarmouth flooded and pier at Scarborough washed away.[1]
- 5 January – The play The Scarlet Pimpernel opens at the New Theatre in London and begins a run of 122 performances and numerous revivals.
- 16 February – At Haulbowline Base in Ireland, two explosions on board submarine HMS A5, due to petrol fumes after refuelling, kill six of the eleven crew.
- 23 February – Beginning of Eliza Sheffield's unsuccessful breach of promise case against Lord Townshend.
- February – Alf Common becomes the first £1,000 footballer in his transfer from Sheffield United to Middlesbrough.[2]
- 10 March
- 14 March – 23 of the 26 crew of the barque Kyber die when the ship is wrecked at Gwennap Head in Cornwall.[5]
- 20 March – The title Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is officially recognised by Edward VII by a royal warrant.[6]
- 29 March – Carmaker Vauxhall opens a factory at Luton, Bedfordshire, as its main manufacturing base following expansion from London.[7][8]
- 6 May – The Naval, Shipping and Fisheries Exhibition opens in Earl's Court to mark 100 years since the Battle of Trafalgar
- 12 May – First public protest by suffragettes, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, at Westminster.[9]
- 23 May – First performance of George Bernard Shaw's 1903 play Man and Superman at the Royal Court Theatre, London.
- 29 May – The recently formed Chelsea F.C. are elected to the Football League for the 1905–06 football season; on 2 September they play their first match, at the new Stamford Bridge stadium (which the existing Fulham F.C. have declined to become tenants of).[4]
- June – Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar first produced, in Bournville.
- 1 June – General Post Office London to Brighton horse-drawn parcel post coach makes its last run, being replaced by a motor lorry the following day.[1]
- 9 June – Charlton Athletic F.C. is founded.
- 15 June – Princess Margaret of Connaught marries Gustaf, Crown Prince of Sweden.
- 29 June – The Automobile Association inaugurated.[10]
- July – British Red Cross Society formally inaugurated.
- 3 July – Release of Cecil Hepworth's short silent drama film Rescued by Rover presenting a significant advance in film techniques.[11][12]
- 11 July – National Colliery disaster at Wattstown in the Rhondda: an underground explosion kills 120, with just one survivor.[13]
- 11 August – Aliens Act 1905, the first modern legislation to control immigration into the U.K.[14]
- 12 August – First running of the Shelsley Walsh Speed Hill Climb, the world's oldest motorsport event to have been staged continuously on its original course
- 25 August – 'Ancient Order of Druids' initiate neo-druidic rituals at Stonehenge.
- 26 September – Newbury Racecourse first used.
- 3 October – HMS Dreadnought is laid down at Portsmouth, revolutionising battleship design and triggering an international naval arms race.
- 13 October – Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst interrupt a Liberal Party rally at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester and choose imprisonment when convicted, the first militant action of the suffragette campaign.
- 18 October – London County Council's new street at Kingsway and redevelopment of Aldwych are opened.
- 21 October – Henry Wood first conducts a performance of his Fantasia on British Sea Songs at a Trafalgar Day concert in London.
- 26 October – Aspirin sold in the UK for the first time.[10]
- 5 November – Edward VII declares his eldest daughter The Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife, the Princess Royal. He also orders that the daughters of Princess Louise, Lady Alexandra Duff and Lady Maud Duff are to be styled as Princesses of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the style Highness.
- 19 November – 39 men die in a fire at a model lodging house in Watson Street, Glasgow.[15]
- 28 November – Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin in Dublin as a political party whose goal is independence for all of Ireland.
- 4 December – Internal splits within the Conservative Party over tariff reform lead to the resignation of Balfour as Prime Minister. Campbell-Bannerman takes over for the Liberal Party, pending a general election in the new year.[9]
- 6 December – ”Jacky" Fisher promoted to Admiral of the Fleet.[16]
- 1905
- Suicide rate of 303 per million, all-time UK peak year.[17]
- Local authority expenditure reaches an all-time peak as a proportion of all government expenditure of 51%.[18]
E.Nesbit wrote the well-known book, 'The Railway Children'.