1931 in the United Kingdom

1931 in the United Kingdom

Other years

1929 | 1930 | 1931 (1931) | 1932 | 1933

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport, television and music

1931 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland 1931 in British television 1931 in British music

Events from the year 1931 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George V
• Prime Minister – Ramsay MacDonald (Labour until 24 August, Coalition starting 24 August)
• Parliament – 35th (until 8 October), 36th (starting 3 November)

Events

• 6 January – Sadler's Wells Theatre opens in London.^[1]
• 26 January – Winston Churchill resigns from Stanley Baldwin's shadow cabinet after disagreeing with the policy of conciliation with Indian nationalism.
• 29 January – for the fourth time in nine years, there is a fatal underground explosion at Haig Pit, Whitehaven, in the Cumberland Coalfield, killing 27 people.^[2]
• 14 April – the Highway Code first issued.^[1]
• 26 April – census in England, Wales and Scotland.^[3]
• 1 March – Oswald Mosley forms the New Party, having resigned from the Labour Party a day earlier.
• 19 March – Westminster St George's by-election results in the victory of the Conservative candidate Duff Cooper. The by-election has been treated virtually as a referendum on the leadership of the Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin, and Duff Cooper's victory ends the campaign by the press barons Lord Beaverbrook and Viscount Rothermere to oust Baldwin.
• 1 May – National Trust for Scotland established and acquires its first property, Crookston Castle.
• 5 May – the Vic-Wells Ballet, later to become The Royal Ballet, debuts in London.^[4]
• 15 May – shoppers in London escape with their lives when a chemical factory in Bayswater explodes.
• 23 May – Whipsnade Zoo opens in Bedfordshire.^[1]
• June – publication of Report of the Committee on Finance and Industry (the 'Macmillan Committee') on the relationship between the banking and financial system and British trade and industry, largely written by John Maynard Keynes.^[5][6][7]
• 7 June – the Dogger Bank earthquake is felt across Britain.^[8]
• 9 June – submarine HMS Poseidon sinks after collision with a Chinese freighter off Weihai, China. Twenty lives are lost but a few submariners become the first to surface using the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus.
• 12 June
  • The Christian Marxist Hewlett Johnson is installed as Dean of Canterbury, being transferred from Manchester.
  • Charlie Parker equals J. T. Hearne's record for the earliest date to reach 100 wickets.
• 31 July – the May Report of the Committee on National Expenditure recommends extensive cuts in government spending. This produces a political crisis as many members of the Labour Party government object to the proposals.
• 24 August – Labour Government of Ramsay MacDonald resigns and is replaced by a National Government of people drawn from all parties also under MacDonald, as suggested by King George V earlier in the year.^[9]
• 5 September – John Thomson, goalkeeper of Celtic, dies in hospital after fracturing his skull in a collision with Rangers forward Sam English in the 'Old Firm' League derby at Ibrox Park.^[10]
• 6 September – Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden announces salary cuts for all government employees and reductions to unemployment benefit.^[11]
• 7 September – second Round Table Conference on the constitutional future of India opens in London. Mahatma Gandhi represents the Indian National Congress.
• 13 September – Schneider Trophy seaplane race flown at Calshot Spit. For the third successive time the British team (sponsored by Lady Houston) wins with Flt. Lt. John Boothman flying the course in Supermarine S.6B serial S1595 designed by R. J. Mitchell with Rolls-Royce R engines at a world record speed of 340.09 mph (547.31 km/h). On 29 September Flt Lt. George Stainforth in S.6B serial S1596 breaks the 400 mph air speed record barrier at 407.5 mph (655.67 km/h).^[12]
• 15 September – the Invergordon Mutiny: Strikes in the Royal Navy due to pay cuts.
• 20 September – pound sterling comes off the gold standard.^[1]
• Autumn – means test introduced for those in receipt of unemployment insurance for more than six months.^[13]
• 27 October – general election results in victory for the National Government in the country's greatest ever electoral landslide. Ramsay MacDonald remains Prime Minister.^[11] This election was held on a Tuesday: all subsequent ones will be held on Thursdays.^[14]
• 12 November – the Abbey Road Studios in London are opened by Sir Edward Elgar.^[1]
• 21 November – the infamous Red-and-White Party, given by Arthur Jeffress in Maud Allan’s Regent’s Park town house in London, marks the end of the "Bright young things" subculture in Britain.^[15]
• 11 December – Parliament enacts the Statute of Westminster, which establishes a status of legislative equality between the self-governing dominions of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, the Dominion of New Zealand and the Union of South Africa.
• 12 December – Great Depression: work on construction of "Hull Number 534", the future ocean liner RMS Queen Mary, at John Brown & Company's shipyard on Clydebank is suspended for more than two years.
• Undated
  • New Royal Corinthian Yacht Club clubhouse at Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex, a pioneering British example of International Style designed by Joseph Emberton, is opened.^[16]
  • Ulster Canal abandoned.^[17]

Publications

• Arthur Bryant's biography King Charles the Second.
• Herbert Butterfield's study The Whig Interpretation of History.
• Agatha Christie's novel The Sittaford Mystery.
• A. J. Cronin's first novel Hatter's Castle.
• Frances Iles’ novel Malice Aforethought.^[18]
• Anthony Powell's novel Afternoon Men.
• Vita Sackville-West's novel All Passion Spent.
• Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves.
• Second edition of the hymnal Songs of Praise, including Eleanor Farjeon's Morning Has Broken.

Births

• 10 January – Peter Barnes, playwright and screenwriter (died 2004)
• 27 January – Nigel Vinson, Baron Vinson, businessman
• 2 February – Les Dawson, comedian (died 1993)
• 14 February – Jonathan Adams, actor (died 2005)
• 17 February – Fay Godwin, photographer (died 2005)
• 18 February – Ned Sherrin, broadcaster and entertainer (died 2007)
• 24 February – Brian Close, cricket player
• 26 February – Ally McLeod, football manager (died 2004)
• 6 March – Jimmy Stewart, racing driver (died 2008)
• 13 March – Michael Podro, art historian (died 2008)
• 14 March – Frank Sando, long-distance runner (died 2012)
• 19 March – Alan Newton, track cyclist
• 22 March – Leslie Thomas, Welsh novelist (died 2014)
• 25 March – Humphrey Burton, television music and arts presenter
• 7 April – Jeff Elliott, decathlete and pole vaulter
• 9 April – Ken Wilmshurst, triple jumper (died 1992)
• 25 April – David Shepherd, artist and conservationist (died 2017)
• 29 April – Lonnie Donegan, musician (died 2002)
• 10 May – Michael Mustill, Baron Mustill, English lawyer and judge (died 2015)
• 7 June
  • Virginia McKenna, actress
  • Malcolm Morley, painter
• 6 July – Gordon Barker, cricketer and footballer (died 2006)
• 17 July – Edward Cullinan, architect
• 28 August – John Shirley-Quirk, bass-baritone (died 2014)
• 29 August – Evelyn Robert de Rothschild, English banker and businessman
• 1 September – Cecil Parkinson, Conservative politician (died 2016)
• 8 September – Jack Rosenthal, playwright (died 2004)
• 22 September – Fay Weldon, author
• 22 September – George Younger, 4th Viscount Younger of Leckie, politician (died 2003)
• 4 October – Terence Conran, designer and businessman
• 9 October – Tony Booth, actor (died 2017)
• 19 October – John le Carré, novelist
• 23 October – Diana Dors, actress (died 1984)
• 9 November – Roy Sandstrom, track and field sprinter
• 27 November – Geoffrey Jones, film director (died 2005)
• 18 December – Alison Plowden, historian (born in India; died 2007)

Deaths

• 22 January – Alfred Maudslay, colonial diplomat, explorer and archaeologist (born 1850)
• 11 February – Charles Algernon Parsons, inventor (born 1854)
• 5 March – Arthur Tooth, Anglican clergyman prosecuted for Ritualist practices in the 1870s (born 1839)
• 17 March – James Stewart, Scottish Labour Party politician, MP for Glasgow St. Rollox 1922–1931 (born 1863)
• 27 March – Arnold Bennett, novelist (born 1867)
• 30 April – Sammy Woods, cricketer (born 1867)
• 26 May – Kate Marsden, medical missionary (born 1859)
• 27 May – Agnata Butler, classical scholar (born 1867)
• 13 June – Jesse Boot, 1st Baron Trent, businessman (born 1850)
• 18 August John Sherwood-Kelly, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (born 1880 in South Africa)
• 22 August – Joseph Tabrar, songwriter (born 1857)
• 5 September – John Thomson, footballer (born 1909)
• 2 October – Thomas Lipton, retailer and yachtsman (born 1850)

See also

• List of British films of 1931

References

External links