1914 In The United Kingdom

Events from the year 1914 in the United Kingdom. This year saw the start of the First World War, ending the Edwardian era.

Incumbents

* Monarch – George V
* Prime Minister – H. H. Asquith ( Liberal)
* Parliament – 30th

Events

* January–February – Leeds rent strike.
* 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.
* 10 March – suffragette Mary Richardson damages the Velázquez painting the '' Rokeby Venus'' in the National Gallery, London, with a meat cleaver.
* 15 March – cover price of '' The Times'' halved to one penny.
* 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'' at His Majesty's Theatre in London.
* 17 April – suffragette arson attack on Britannia Pier, Great Yarmouth.
*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.
* 28 April – suffragette arson attack on the Bath Hotel, Felixstowe.
* 4 May – suffragette Mary Wood attacks John Singer Sargent's portrait of Henry James at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London with a meat cleaver. At the same exhibition on 12 May, Gertrude Mary Ansell attacks the recently deceased Hubert von Herkomer's portrait of the Duke of Wellington, and on 26 May 'Mary Spencer' (Maude Kate Smith) attacks George Clausen's painting ''Primavera''.
* 9 May – J. T. (Jack) Hearne becomes the first bowler to take 3000 first-class wickets.
* 21 May – a women's suffrage march on Buckingham Palace with a petition is thwarted by police.
* 25 May – the House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Irish Home Rule Bill.
* 30 May
** makes her maiden voyage.
** An explosion at Wharncliffe Silkstone Colliery in the South Yorkshire Coalfield kills 11.
* 5 June – All Saints' Church, Breadsall, Derbyshire, gutted by fire, blamed on a suffragette arson attack.
* 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 .
* 29 June – international exhibition opens at the "White City", Ashton Gate, Bristol. It closes on 15 August and the site is used as a military depot.
* 14 July – the Government of Ireland Bill completes its passage through the House of Lords. It allows Ulster counties to vote on whether or not they wish to participate in Home Rule from Dublin.
* 18–20 July – fleet review by the King at Spithead.
* 21–24 July – a conference at Buckingham Palace (called by the King on 19 July) 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. Troops returning to Dublin, having been called out to assist police in attempting to prevent the Volunteers from moving the arms to the city, fire on a crowd of protestors, killing three; a fourth man dies later from bayonet wounds.
* 31 July – London Stock Exchange closes until 4 January 1915.

* 3 August
** Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, makes a speech which encourages the House of Commons to support going to war with Germany. This evening, looking from the Foreign Office windows, he observes, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
** Banks remain closed until 7 August.
** English language teacher Henry Hadley is shot in an altercation with a Prussian officer on a train at Gelsenkirchen in Germany, dying two days later, just 3 hours after the UK declares war on Germany.
* 4 August
** World War I: The German Army invades neutral Belgium. Declaration of war by the United Kingdom on the German Empire at 23:00 GMT.
** Admiral Sir John Jellicoe is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the newly designated Grand Fleet, based at Scapa Flow.
* 5 August – Imperial German Navy minelayer , laying a minefield about off the Thames Estuary (Lowestoft), is intercepted by the Royal Navy's 3rd Destroyer Flotilla. Destroyer fires the first British shot of the war (using her 4" Vickers gun) at her and light cruiser sinks her, the first German naval loss of the war.
* 6 August
** strikes mines laid by the '' Königin Luise'' and is sunk with some loss of life, the first British casualties of the war.
** , stationed in the West Indies, becomes the first Royal Navy ship to engage with the enemy when she pursues the (which escapes).
** Currency and Bank Notes Act gives wartime powers of banknote issue to HM Treasury; the first notes, with the signature of John Bradbury, are issued on 7 August. The sovereign rapidly vanishes from circulation.
* 8 August
** First Defence of the Realm Act passed.
** Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition sets sail on the '' Endurance'' from Plymouth in an attempt to cross Antarctica.
* 9 August – World War I: rams and sinks German Navy submarine '' U-15'' off Fair Isle, the first U-boat claimed by the Royal Navy.
* 10 August – all suffragette prisoners released unconditionally.
* 12 August – World War I: formal declaration of war by the United Kingdom on Austria-Hungary.
* 13 August – World War I: twelve Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 observation aircraft from No. 2 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, flying from Swingate, Kent, become the first British aircraft to arrive in France to join the British Expeditionary Force.
* 21 August – World War I: reconnaissance cyclist Private John Parr (aged 17) becomes the first British soldier to be killed on the Western Front, at Obourg in Belgium.
* 22 August – World War I: the British Expeditionary Force reaches Mons. Just after 06:30 British cavalryman Captain Hornby is reputed to have become the first British soldier to kill a German soldier using his sword, and 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