1918 in the United Kingdom

	1918 in the United Kingdom
	Other years
	1916 \| 1917 \| 1918 \| 1919 \| 1920
	Constituent countries of the United Kingdom
	England \| Ireland \| Scotland \| Wales
	Sport
	1918 English cricket season; Football: England \| Scotland;

Events from the year 1918 in the United Kingdom. This year sees the end of the First World War after four years, which Britain and its allies won (beginning the Interwar period), and a major advance in women's suffrage.

Incumbents

Monarch – George V
Prime Minister – David Lloyd George (Coalition)
Parliament – 30th (until 25 November)

Events

12 January
- Minnie Pit disaster, a mining accident at Halmer End in the North Staffordshire Coalfield, kills 155 as the result of an explosion caused by firedamp.
- Admiralty M-class destroyers HMS Narborough (1916) and HMS Opal (1915) run aground and are wrecked off Orkney in a severe storm with only one survivor.
15 January – the keel of HMS Hermes (95) is laid on Tyneside, the first purpose-designed aircraft carrier to be laid down.
28 January – night of unusually heavy bombing in London and south-east England.[1]
31 January – "Battle of May Island": in a confused series of collisions as a large Royal Navy fleet steams down the Firth of Forth this evening, submarines HMS K4 and HMS K17 are sunk, three other submarines and a light cruiser are damaged and 104 men are killed.[2]
6 February – Representation of the People Act gives women the vote provided they are over 30 and are (or are married to) a local government elector. It also removes most property qualifications, giving all adult (over-21) male resident householders the vote, and requires elections to be restricted to a single day.[3] Many conscientious objectors are barred from voting until 5 years after the end of the war.
1 March – armed merchant cruiser HMS Calgarian (1913) is torpedoed and sunk off Rathlin Island, Ireland, by Imperial German Navy U-boat SM U-19 with the loss of 49 lives.
23 March – in London at the Wood Green Empire, Chung Ling Soo (William E Robinson, US-born magician) dies during his trick where he was supposed to "catch" two separate bullets – one of them perforates his lung. He dies the following morning in hospital.

2nd Lt Wilfred Owen, killed a week before the Armistice

1 April – the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service are merged to form the Royal Air Force; the Royal Air Force; the Women's Royal Air Force is also founded to provide mechanics.[3]
23 April
- Conscription Crisis of 1918 in Ireland: a general strike is held here against conscription.
- Zeebrugge Raid, an attempt by the Royal Navy to seal off the German U-Boat base here.[1]
June – standard clothing introduced.
3 June – GPO raises postage rates: the ordinary letter rate is now 1½d., bringing an end to the Uniform Penny Post which has existed since 1840; and the rate for postcards doubles from ½d. to 1d.[4]
1 July – explosion of 8 tons of TNT at the National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell (Nottinghamshire) kills 134; only 32 bodies can be positively identified.[5]
15 July – ration books introduced for butter, margarine, lard, meat and sugar.[1]
17 July – RMS Carpathia is torpedoed and sunk off the east coast of Ireland by Imperial German Navy U-boat SM U-55; 218 of the 223 on board are rescued.[6]
August – Education Act raises the school leaving age in England and Wales to fourteen.[1][7]
1 August – British anti-Bolshevik forces occupy Archangel, Russia. On 10 August their commander is told to help White Russians.
30 August – strike of 20,000 London policemen with demands of increased pay and union recognition.
29 September – first performance of Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets, before an invited audience at the Queen's Hall in London, conducted by Adrian Boult.
26 October – Cecil Chubb donates Stonehenge to the nation.
27 October–2 November – 2,200 deaths in London over this period due to Spanish flu.[1] Barnsley is the town with the highest mortality rate from the pandemic.
3 November – armistice with Austria-Hungary signed in Padua.[1]
5 November – former Cunarder HMS Campania sinks in an accident in the Firth of Forth with no loss of life.
9 November – British battleship HMS Britannia is sunk by a German submarine off Trafalgar with the loss of around fifty lives, the last major naval engagement of World War I.
11 November – World War I ends: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in the "Compiègne Wagon" in France with Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss as British representative.[3] George Edwin Ellison becomes the last British soldier to be killed in the War, near Mons in Belgium.
14 November – Labour Party leaves the wartime coalition government.[1]
15 November – first released British prisoners of war reach Calais.
20 November – U-boats start to rendezvous off Harwich to begin the surrender of the High Seas Fleet to the Royal Navy; in the following week the German warships are escorted to internment in Scapa Flow.[8]
21 November – the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 receives Royal Assent, giving women over 21 the right to stand as a Member of Parliament.[3]
23 November – British military government of Palestine begins.[9]
5 December – light cruiser HMS Cassandra sunk by mine in the Gulf of Finland while assisting Estonia against the Bolsheviks, with eleven crew lost.[10]
14 December – general election polling held. It is the first national election in the United Kingdom at which women are entitled to vote or stand, and the male franchise is extended. This is known as the "Coupon election" from the letter of endorsement given to candidates of the official (and victorious) Coalition by Bonar Law and Lloyd George.[3]
24 December – first Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge, held.[11]
28 December – Countess Constance Markievicz, while detained in Holloway Prison, becomes the first woman MP elected to (but not to take her seat in) the British House of Commons.[12] Sinn Féin has won 73 out of 105 Irish seats in the British Parliament. In accordance with their manifesto, Sinn Féin members refuse to take their seats in the Palace of Westminster and instead form the First Dáil in Ireland in 1919.
29 December – the Sunday Express newspaper published for the first time.[3]

Undated

United Newspapers Ltd. founded in London.
The Scottish county of Elginshire is officially renamed as the County of Moray (Morayshire).
Gainsborough wins the English Triple Crown by finishing first in the Derby, 2,000 Guineas and St Leger.

Publications

Gerard Manley Hopkins' Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins (posthumous).
Daniel Jones's textbook An Outline of English Phonetics (containing the first comprehensive description of British Received Pronunciation).
Wyndham Lewis's novel Tarr (in book form).
André Maurois' novel Les Silences du Colonel Bramble.
Siegfried Sassoon's Counter-Attack and Other Poems
Dr Marie Stopes' books Married Love and Wise Parenthood.
Lytton Strachey's historical biography Eminent Victorians.
Rebecca West's novel The Return of the Soldier.

Births

1 January – Patrick Anthony Porteous, Scottish soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (born in the British Raj; died 2000)
15 January
- Diana Barnato Walker, aviator (died 2008)
- David George Kendall, mathematician (died 2007)
28 January
- Harry Corbett, English puppeteer, actor and screenwriter (died 1989)
- Trevor Skeet, lawyer and politician (born in New Zealand; died 2004)
1 February – Muriel Spark, Scottish author (died 2006)
2 February – Stuart Blanch, Anglican prelate and Archbishop of York (died 1994)
1 March – Roger Delgado, actor (died 1973)
15 March – George Haig, 2nd Earl Haig, soldier, artist and peer (died 2009)
18 March – Terry Spencer, World War II RAF fighter pilot and war photographer (died 2009)
10 April – Betty Tebbs, campaigner for women's rights and peace (died 2017)
16 April – Spike Milligan, comedian, writer, musician, poet and playwright (born in the British Raj; died 2002)
18 April – Avril Angers, actress (died 2005)
23 April – James Kirkup, poet, translator and travel writer (died 2009)
2 May – John Barraclough, air marshal (died 2008)
21 May – Ralph Russell, scholar (died 2008)
24 May – Jack Edwards, World War II soldier (died 2006)
15 May – James Baddiley, microbiologist (died 2008)
16 May – Wilf Mannion, footballer (died 2000)
31 May – Sadie Corré, actress and tap dancer (died 2009)
6 June
- Kenneth Connor, actor (died 1993)
- Susan Williams-Ellis, pottery designer (died 2007)
22 June – Cicely Saunders, nurse, physician and writer (died 2005)
23 June – Paul Ashbee, archaeologist (died 2009)
25 June – P. H. Newby, novelist (died 1997)
27 June – Douglas John Foskett, librarian (died 2004)
8 July – Julia Pirie, spy (died 2008)
9 July – John Heath-Stubbs, poet and translator (died 2006)
11 July – Venetia Burney, teacher who named the planet Pluto (died 2009)
15 July – Arthur Dimmock, author and historian (died 2007)
16 July – Samuel Victor Perry, biochemist (died 2009)
17 July
- Geoffrey Lane, judge (died 2005)
- Edgar O'Ballance, military journalist (died 2009)
20 July – Eric Longworth, actor (died 2008)
21 July – David Piper, curator and novelist (died 1990)
25 July – Alexander McKee, journalist, military historian and diver, discoverer of the Mary Rose (died 1992)
8 August – Brian Stonehouse, painter and World War II spy (died 1998)
13 August – Frederick Sanger, biochemist, double Nobel Prize laureate (died 2013)
15 August – Derrick Bailey, cricketer (died 2009)
19 August – Patrick Dowling, television producer (died 2009)
8 September – Derek Barton, organic chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1998)
16 September
- Mervyn Pike, politician (died 2004)
- Carole Lynne, actress (died 2008)
17 September – Chaim Herzog, sixth president of the State of Israel (born in Belfast; died 1997)
27 September – Martin Ryle, radio astronomer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics (died 1984)
16 October – Tony Rolt, racing driver and soldier (died 2008)
18 November – Tasker Watkins, major-general, jurist and businessman (died 2007)
27 November – Peter Tuddenham, voice actor (died 2007)
19 December – John Adams, naval officer (died 2008)
21 December – Frank Hampson, illustrator (died 1985)

Deaths

5 February – Leonard Monteagle Barlow, fighter pilot (accident) (born 1898)
14 February – Sir Cecil Spring Rice, diplomat (born 1859)
23 February – Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey, politician and colonial administrator (born 1836)
24 February – Sir Eric Barrington, civil servant (born 1847)
23 March – T. P. Cameron Wilson, poet and novelist (born 1888)
25 March – Walter Tull, footballer and first Black infantry officer to serve in the British Army (killed in action) (born 1888)
1 April – Isaac Rosenberg, painter and poet (killed in action) (born 1890)
9 July – James McCudden, fighter pilot (air crash) (born 1895)
26 July
- Henry Macintosh, Scottish Olympic sprinter (killed in action) (born 1892)
- Mick Mannock, fighter pilot (killed in action) (born 1887)
31 July – George McElroy, fighter pilot (killed in action) (born 1893)
1 October – Evelyn Boscawen, 7th Viscount Falmouth, artistocrat and army officer (born 1847)
5 October – Robbie Ross, writer (born 1869)
7 October – Sir Hubert Parry, composer (born 1848)
24 October – Daniel Burley Woolfall, football administrator, 2nd President of FIFA (born 1852)
4 November – Wilfred Owen, poet (killed in action) (born 1893)
5 or 20 November – Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, occultist (born 1854)
9 November – Sir Peter Lumsden, Scottish Indian Army general (born 1829)
15 November – Sir Robert Anderson, police official (born 1841)
29 November – Thomas Allinson, physician and dietetic reformer (born 1858)
27 December – Birt Acres, American-born pioneer of cinematography (born 1854)

References

Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 355–356. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
""Battle of May Island" remembered". UK Defence Today. Ministry of Defence. 30 January 2002. Archived from the original on 2 February 2002. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
Blake, Richard. The Book of Postal Dates, 1635–1985. Caterham: Marden. p. 24.
Brown, Jonathan (3 July 2014). "A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: When corpses fell from the Nottinghamshire sky". The Independent. London. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
"Carpathia Sunk; 5 of Crew Killed" (PDF). The New York Times. 20 July 1918. p. 4.
Berry, George (1970). Discovering Schools. Tring: Shire Publications. ISBN 0-85263-091-3.
Massie, Robert K. (2004). Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-40878-0.
Biger, Gideon (2004). The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840–1947. London: Routledge. pp. 55, 164. ISBN 978-0-7146-5654-0. Retrieved 2 May 2009.
Wainwright, Martin (23 August 2010). "British warships sunk 90 years ago found off Estonian coast". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 August 2010.
Nine lessons and carols: History of the service, King's College Chapel, archived from the original on 15 March 2008, retrieved 9 March 2008.
Ward, Margaret (1983). Unmanageable Revolutionaries: Women and Irish nationalism. London: Pluto Press. p. 137. ISBN 0-86104-700-1.