Timeline Great Britain 1860-1910
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1860 Apr 17,
English boxer Tom Sayers (1826-1865) fought John Heenan (1833-1873) of
the US for 37 rounds in an international bare-knuckle match at
Farnborough, Hampshire, that was called a draw. Heenan was later
acclaimed as the "World Boxing Champion."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sayers)
1860 Apr, John Speke and James
Grant left England on an expedition to confirm Lake Victoria as the
source of the Nile.
(ON, 10/01, p.9)
1860 May 2, William Maddock
Bayliss, British physiologist, co-discoverer of hormones, was born.
(HN, 5/2/02)
1860 Jun 6, William R. Inge,
English theologian, Deacon St. Paul's Cathedral, was born.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1860 Jun 29, Thomas Addison (67),
English physician (A-Biermer Disease), died.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1860 Aug 30, The first British
tramway was inaugurated at Birkenhead by an American, George Francis
Train.
(HN, 8/30/98)
1860 Oct 7, During the 2nd Opium
War British troops on the outskirts of Beijing began to plunder the
gardens of Yuanmingyuan (the garden of perfection and light), the
imperial summer palace built by the Qing emperor Qianlong in 1709. Lord
Elgin’s cavalry soon set fire and let the gardens burn for 3 days and
nights.
(WSJ, 1/13/04,
p.A8)(www.china.org.cn/english/features/beijng/31186.htm)
1860 Oct 12, British and French
troops captured Beijing.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1860 Walter Richard Sickert
(d.1942), English Impressionist painter, was born. In 2002 Patricia
Cornwell, crime writer, reported that he was Jack the Ripper.
(WSJ, 9/27/01, p.A16)(SSFC, 2/24/02, Par p.2)
1860 Henry Creswicke Rawlinson
(1810-1895), English diplomat and Assyriologist, authored “Cuneiform
Inscriptions of Western Asia,” the 1st book on deciphering Assyrian
script.
(ON, 11/07, p.4)(http://tinyurl.com/34fg4f)
1860 Queen Victoria decreed that
men who chose to remain unmarried would not be welcome in Her Majesty’s
Rifle Corp. She held that "normal married life improves a man’s
marksmanship."
(SFEC, 12/15/96, Z1 p.5)
1860 Britain forswore most import
duties. Britain and France signed a free-trade treaty, which
drastically reduced the duty on French wines.
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.74)(Econ, 12/19/09, p.132)
1860 English inventor Frederick
Walton made "linoleum" out of linseed oil.
(SFC, 2/15/97, p.D4)
1860s In Britain palace garden
parties were begun to extend royal hospitality to Brits from all walks
of life.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A8)
1861 Feb 6, English Adm. Robert
Ritzroy issued the 1st storm warnings for ships.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1861 Feb 15, Alfred North
Whitehead (d.1947), English philosopher (Advocate of Ideas) and
mathematician: "We think in generalities, but we live in detail." "I
have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of
a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren’t." "It is more important
that a proposition be interesting than that it be true."
(AP, 4/11/97)(AP, 10/5/97)(AP, 9/8/98)(MC, 2/15/02)
1861 Feb 20, Steeple of Chichester
Cathedral was blown down during a storm.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1861 Mar 23, London's 1st
tramcars, designed by Mr. Train of New York, began operating.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1861 May 9, The Banshee, a British
ship designed to run the American blockade on Confederate ports,
departed Nassau for Wilmington, NC. This was the first of its many
successful runs under the direction of Thomas E. Taylor, a shipping
clerk for the Anglo-Confederate Trading Company.
(ON, 8/09, p.11)
1861 May 13, Britain declared its
neutrality in the American Civil War.
(HN, 5/13/98)
1861 Nov 8, Union Captain Charles
Wilkes of the sloop San Jacinto seized Confederate commissioners John
Slidell and James M. Mason from the British mail ship Trent. Lincoln's
response to uproar: "One war at a time." The Confederates were
released. In 1977 Norman F. Ferris authored "The Trent Affair: A
Diplomatic Crisis."
(HN, 11/6/98)(ON, 1/01, p.7)(MC, 11/8/01)
1861 Nov 30, The British
Parliament sent to Queen Elizabeth an ultimatum for the United States,
demanding the release of two Confederate diplomats who were seized on
the British ship Trent.
(HN, 11/30/98)
1861 Dec 14, Prince Albert of
England, husband of Queen Victoria and one of the Union’s strongest
advocates, died in London. The book "Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince
Albert" was later written by Stanely Weintraub.
(WUD, 1994, p.34)(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A16)(AP,
12/14/98)(HN, 12/14/98)
1861 Dec 20, Transports were
loaded with 8,000 troops in England. They were setting sail for Canada
so that troops would be available if the "Trent Affair" was not settled
without war.
(HN, 12/20/98)
1861 Dec 23, Lord Lyons, The
British minister to America presented a formal complaint to secretary
of state, William Seward, regarding the Trent affair.
(HN, 12/23/98)
1861 Sam Beeton and his wife
Isabella Mayson (1840-1868) published “Beeton’s Book of Household
Management.” Mayson was a columnist for the Englishwoman’s Domestic
Magazine.” Beeton had made his fortune publishing the British edition
of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” In 2005 Kathryn Hughes authored “The Short Life
and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton.”
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.93)
1861 The book "Great Expectations"
by Charles Dickens was published.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, DB p.43)
1861 Sir Francis Turner Palgrave
(1824-1897) edited “The Golden Treasury,” a 4-volume anthology of the
best songs and lyrical poems in the English language.
(WSJ, 1/20/07, p.P11)(WSJ, 11/15/08, p.W10)
1861 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882),
British novelist, authored his novel “Orley Farm," which told the story
of an unjust will.
(WSJ, 2/24/07, p.P10)
1861 Britain passed a law against
soliciting for murder.
(Econ, 2/18/06, p.53)
1861 Britain introduced the Single
Bottle Act allowing grocers to sell wine by the bottle.
(Econ, 12/19/09, p.132)
1861 The British firm Butterfield
& Swire began trading in Hong Kong and China.
(Econ, 6/30/07, SR p.13)
1861 Henry Gray (b.1827), English
anatomist and surgeon, died of smallpox. He had authored the textbook
“Gray’s Anatomy” (1858).
(Econ, 11/15/08,
p.100)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Gray)
1862 May 15, The Confederate
cruiser Alabama ran aground near London.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1862 May 24, Westminster Bridge
opened across the Thames.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1862 Jun 24, U.S. intervention
saved the British and French at the Dagu forts in China.
(HN, 6/24/98)
1862 Jul 4, Charles Dodgson, an
Oxford mathematician whose penname of Lewis Carroll would make him
world famous, told little Alice Liddell on a boat trip the fairy tale
he had dreamed up for her called "Alice's Adventures Underground." He
later wrote it out for her and it became the classic children's tale,
"Alice in Wonderland."
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1862 Jul 17, James Glaisher (52),
British meteorologist, rose to some 22,000 over Wolverhampton with
balloonist Henry Tracy Coxwell in an attempt to set an altitude record.
They reached 24,000 feet in a 2nd attempt on Aug 18. On Sep 5 Glaisher
passed out as they reached 29,000 feet. At a record 7 miles Coxwell
managed to begin their descent.
(ON, 4/03, p.11)
1862 Aug 24, The C.S.S. Alabama
was commissioned at sea off Portugal's Azore Islands, beginning a
career that would see over 60 Union merchant vessels sunk or destroyed
by the Confederate raider. The ship was built in secret in the in
Liverpool shipyards, and a diplomatic crisis between the US government
and Britain ensued when the Union uncovered the ship’s birth place.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1862 The Naval and Military Club,
later known as the "In and Out" Club was founded by a party of
officers. In 1865 it moved to 94 Piccadilly. The club moved to No. 4
St. James Square after the Piccadilly address was sold to a group of
Kuwaitis following the Gulf War.
(WSJ, 8/23/00, p.A20)
1862 William Banting, a London
undertaker, was the first dieter on record. He went from 253 pounds to
153 on lean meat, fish and fruit.
(SFEC, 2/14/99, Z1 p.8)
1862 Britain legislated a
Companies Act that defined the limited-liability joint stock company,
and removed the restriction that they be established by an act of
Parliament.
(WSJ, 5/7/03, p.D10)
1863 Jan 10, London's
Metropolitan, the world's first underground passenger railway, opened
to the public. It was nationalized in 1948. In 2004 Christian Wolmar
authored “The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground was
Built and How it Changed the City Forever.”
(AP, 1/10/98)(HN, 1/10/99)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.81)
1863 Jan 17, David Lloyd George
(d.1945), British Prime Minister, was born. First Earl Lloyd-George of
Dwyfor, English statesman: "It is always too late, or too little, or
both. And that is the road to disaster."
(AP, 8/13/97)(HN, 1/17/99)
1863 Mar 27, Sir Henry Royce,
Rolls Royce founder, was born.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1863 The sailing ship Star of
India was built as Euterpe, a full-rigged iron ship in Ramsey, Isle of
Man. In 1926, Star of India was sold to the Zoological Society of San
Diego, to be the centerpiece of a planned museum and aquarium. The
Great Depression and World War II caused that plan to be canceled; it
wasn't until 1957 that her restoration began.
(SFC, 11/13/06,
p.B1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_India_(ship))
1863 William Makepeace Thackeray
(b.1811), English novelist and satirist, died. His books, which
included "Vanity Fair," were published as monthly serials. In 2001 D.J.
Taylor authored the biography "Thackeray: The Life of a Literary Man."
Thackeray was a chronicler of upward mobility.
(HN, 7/18/98)(WSJ, 11/12/01, p.A20)
1863 The Cayman Islands became a
British Caribbean territory.
(AP, 5/10/03)
1864 Jan 11, H. George Selfridge,
founder of the British store Selfridge and Co., Ltd., was born. He was
the first to say "the customer is always right."
(HN, 1/11/99)
1864 Jan 11, Charing Cross Station
opened in London.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1864 Mar 14, Samuel and Florence
Baker arrived at Lake Luta N’Zige and named it Lake Albert. They soon
found that the Nile entered the lake at a 130-foot waterfall that they
named Murchison Falls (Uganda) after the president of the British Royal
Geographical Society. In 2004 Pat shipman authored “To the Heart of the
Nile: Lady Florence Baker and the Exploration of Central Africa.”
(ON, 10/01, p.12)(Econ, 4/24/04, p.87)
1864 Mar 18, The Dale Dike on
Humber River, England, crumbled drowning some 240.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1864 Sep 5, British, French &
Dutch fleets attacked Japan in Shimonoseki Straits.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1864 Sep 15, British explorer John
Speke (b.1827) died in England by his gun own during in an alleged
hunting accident. In 2006 W.B. Carnochan authored “The Sad Story of
Burton, Speke, and the Nile; or Was John Hanning Speke a Cad.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanning_Speke)(WSJ, 5/20/06, p.P9)
1864 Oct 17, Elinor Glyn, British
novelist (3 Weeks), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1864 Scottish servant John Brown
began to attend to Queen Victoria and drew the widowed queen out of a
severe depression. He remained with her until his death in 1883. The
1997 film "Mrs. Brown" suggested an affair between the two.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, Par p.2)
1864 The T.G. Green & Co.
pottery opened in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, England.
(SFC, 9/30/98, Z1 p.3)
1865 Feb 9, Mrs. [Beatrice]
Patrick Campbell, actress (Pygmalion), was born in England.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1865 Mar 2, British newspaper
"Morning Chronicle" began publishing.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1865 Jun 3, George V,
Saksen-Coburg [Windsor], King of Great Britain, was born.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1865 Jul 4, 1st edition of "Alice
in Wonderland" was published. English mathematician Charles Lutwidge
Dodgson is best known for writing the children’s book Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland under the pen name Lewis Carroll. Born in
1832, also a skilled portrait photographer, Dodgson pioneered in the
art of photographing children.
(SFEM, 11/24/96, p.59)(HNQ, 6/12/98)(Maggio,
98)
1865 Jul 5, William Booth founded
the Salvation Army in London. [see Jul 23]
(AP, 7/5/97)
1865 Jul 5, Great Britain imposed
world’s 1st maximum speed laws.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1865 Jul 23, William Booth founded
the Salvation Army. [see Jul 5]
(HN, 7/23/98)
1865 Jul 25, Dr. James Barry
(b.1795), British military medical officer and senior inspector
general, died. It was soon revealed that Dr. Barry was likely a female.
In 2003 Rachel Holmes authored “Scanty Particulars: the Scandalous Life
and Astonishing Secret of Queen Victoria’s Most Eminent Military
Doctor.”
(NYTBR, 2/2/03,
p.21)(www.geocities.com/hotsprings/2615/medhist/barry.html)
1865 Sep 23, Emmuska Orczy
(d.1947), baroness and writer, was born in Tarnaors, Hungary. Her
family moved to London in 1880. Her books included "The Scarlet
Pimpernel" (1905)
(HN,
9/23/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroness_Orczy)
1865 Oct, Samuel and Florence
Baker arrived back in England following a 4 year exploratory trip in
Africa where they found and named Lake Albert and Murchison Falls.
(ON, 10/01, p.12)
1865 Nov 8, Thomas Sayers
(b.1826), English bare-knuckle fighter, died. He was the first boxer to
be declared the World Heavyweight Champion.
(AP,
9/29/09)(www.flickr.com/photos/belowred/2407857092/)
1865 Dec 30, Rudyard Kipling
(d.1936), British author and poet, best known for "Jungle Book" and
"Soldiers Three," was born in Bombay, India. "There are only two
classes of mankind in the world -- doctors and patients."
(AP, 12/30/97)(HN, 12/30/98)(AP, 2/7/00)
1865 The Goathland RR Station
opened in Goathland, North Yorkshire.
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.C10)
1865 The East London Railway
Company bought the Thames Tunnel. It later became part of the London
Underground subway system.
(ON, 4/06, p.9)
1865 A commercial treaty was
established between Britain and the German zollverein.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A2)
1865 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
started practicing as Britain’s first female doctor. She qualified via
the Society of Apothecaries when medical schools refused to admit her.
She and 5 other women began studying for a degree course from Cambridge
in 1869. Cambridge did not let women graduate with degrees until 1948,
and was the last English university to do so. In 2009 Jane Robinson
authored “Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to
Fight for an Education.”
(Econ, 8/8/09, p.73)
1865 During the Orissa famine in
India the British political secretariat of the Bengal government
refused to import rice to the stricken areas because it was “a breach
of the laws of political economy.”
(WSJ, 2/23/06, p.D8)
1865 Robert Fitzroy (b.1805),
British sea captain, died. He commanded the H.M.S. Beagle and
co-authored a 4-volume account of the ship’s 1831-1836
circumnavigation. In 2004 John and Mary Gribbin authored the biography
“Fitzroy.”
(WSJ, 10/8/04, p.W8)
1865 Viscount Palmerston (80),
Britain's prime minister, died.
(PC, 1992, p.273)
1865-1866 Lord John Russel served as Prime Minister
of England for a 2nd time.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1866 Jan 11, Steamship London sank
in storm off Land's End England and 220 people died.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1866 Mar 19, The immigrant ship
Monarch of the Seas sank in Liverpool; 738 died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1866 May 11, The Overend Gurney,
known as the 'bankers bank,' suspended payments and went into
liquidation owing £11 million to shareholders and the public.
Overend Gurney began collapsing in the early months of 1866. The bank
run on Overend Gurney was the last in the UK until 2007.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overend,_Gurney_and_Company)(Econ,
9/22/07, p.16)
1866 Jun 20, Lord George ESMH
Carnarvon, Egyptologist (Tutankhamen), was born in England.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1866 Jul 21, A cholera-epidemic
killed hundreds in London.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1866 Jul 28, Beatrix Potter
(d.1943), English author of children's stories (The Tale of Peter
Rabbit), was born.
(HN, 7/28/98)
1866 Sep 8, Siegfried Sassoon,
British author and poet famous for his anti-war writing about World War
I, was born. His work included "Counterattack."
(HN, 9/8/98)(MC, 9/8/01)
1866 Sep 21, H.G. Wells (d.1946),
English novelist and historian was born as Herbert George Wells in
Bromley, Kent, England. His work included the novel "Marriage" and "The
Time Machine" (1895). The science fiction writer is best known for "The
Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" and "The War of the Worlds."
(WSJ, 11/21/96,
p.A20)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jwells.htm)
1866 Samuel Baker authored "The
Albert N’yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and Explorations of the Nile
Sources."
(ON, 10/01, p.12)
1866 The West Pier at Brighton,
England, was built by Eugenius Birch. It was closed in 1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Pier)
1866 In England Hyde Park was
trashed by citizens who were outraged that it could no longer be used
for public demonstrations or speech. The government relaxed
restrictions against free speech and orators began preaching at
Speakers Corner near the Marble Arch in Hyde Park. [see 1872]
(BS, 5/3/98, p.1R)(SFEM, 3/21/99, p.24)
1866 Henry Wickham (1846-1928)
ventured from Britain to South America hoping to shoot exotic birds and
ship home feathers for lady’s hats. This venture failed as the birds
exploded from the rifle shots. He returned to the Amazon region and in
1876 gathered seeds of the Hevea brasiliensis tree, which produced
latex. Less than 4% of some 70,000 seeds germinated, but this was
enough to ship seedlings to Ceylon, India, Malaya and Singapore and
begin a global rubber plantation boom.
(WSJ, 2/27/08, p.D10)
1866-1947 Richard Le Gallienne, English poet and
essayist: "It is only on paper that one moralizes -- just where one
shouldn't."
(AP, 6/21/98)
1867 Mar 5, An abortive Fenian
uprising against English rule took place in Ireland.
(AP, 3/5/98)
1867 Mar 29, The British
Parliament passed the North America Act (later known as the
Constitution Act) to create the Dominion of Canada.
(HN, 3/29/98)(AP, 3/29/07)
1867
Apr 1, Singapore, Penang & Malacca became
British crown colonies.
(OTD)
1867 May 20, British parliament
rejected John Stuart Mill’s law on women suffrage.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1867 May 26, Mary, queen of Great
Britain-North Ireland, was born.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1867 May 27, Arnold Bennett
(d.1931), English novelist, playwright and critic, was born. His books
included “Riceyman Steps” (1923) in which he probes the unsettling and
symbolic depths of a marriage that becomes too close.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Bennett)
1867 Jul 1, Canada became a
self-governing dominion of Great Britain as the British North America
Act took effect. The Dominion of Canada included New Brunswick, Nova
Scotia, Ontario and Quebec.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A2)(AP, 7/1/97)(HN, 7/1/98)(MC,
7/1/02)
1867 Aug 3, Stanley Earl Baldwin,
(C) British Prime Minister (1923-24, 1924-29, 1935-37), was born.
(HN, 8/3/98)(SC, 8/3/02)
1867 Aug 14, John Galsworthy
(d.1933), English novelist and dramatist (Forsyth Saga, Nobel 1932),
was born in England. He was reported to have thrown a brick through a
glass window in order to be arrested so that he could have time to
write. His play "Justice" was the result of this experience.
(WUD, 1994, p.581)(SFC, 12/5/98, p.E4)(MC, 8/14/02)
1867 Aug 25, Michael Faraday
(b.1791), discoverer of electromagnetic induction (1831), died. In 2004
James Hamilton authored “A Life of Discovery: Michael Faraday, Giant of
the Scientific Revolution.”
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/faraday_michael.shtml)(WSJ,
12/14/04, p.D10)
1867 Aug, The first recorded race
of two self powered road vehicles over a prescribed route was between
Ashton-under-Lyne and Old Trafford, a distance of eight miles. It was
won by Isaac Watt Boulton against Daniel Adamson, each in steam cars of
their own manufacture.
(http://tinyurl.com/ycbvsah)(http://tinyurl.com/y98cs3h)
1867 Walter Bagehot (1826-1877),
British economist, authored “The English Constitution.”
(Econ, 4/1/06,
p.13)(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Bagehot)
1867 The 2nd Earl of Pomfret died.
The family property, the Easton Neston estate, built around 1700 by
Nicholas Hawksmoor, in Northamptonshire, England, passed to Sir Thomas
George Fermor-Hesketh.
(SFC, 5/11/05, p.G6)
1867 Anthony Trollope authored
“Phineas Finn,” the 2nd of his 6 Palliser novels, which chronicled
political life in Victorian England.
(WSJ, 8/18/07, p.P14)
1867-1875 The Suez Canal Co. issued bonds for some
hundred million francs to keep afloat. The Khedive went bankrupt and
the British under Disraeli snapped up the Khedive's shares for £4
million.
(WSJ, 7/10/03, p.D8)
1867-1931 Arnold Bennett, English poet, author and
critic: "Good taste is better than bad taste, but bad taste is better
than no taste at all."
(AP, 11/5/97)
1868 Feb 29, British Prime
Minister Benjamin Disraeli formed his first cabinet.
(HN, 2/29/00)
1868 Mar 5, A stapler was patented
in England by C.H. Gould.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1868 Apr 13, Tewodros II
(1818-1868), also known as Theodore II, committed suicide at Magdala
while under British siege. He was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1855-1868.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tewodros_II)
1868 May 26, Michael Barrett,
Irish nationalist, was executed in the last British public execution.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1868 Jun 6, Robert F. Scott
(d.1912), British explorer, was born.
(HN, 6/6/01)
1868 The St Pancras station opened
in London. It was known as the “Cathedral of the Railways” and for a
time was the largest enclosed space in the world.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.71)
1868 The Anglican church began to
hold conferences for bishops. The conferences were then convened every
ten years.
(SFEC, 8/2/98, p.A23)
1868 A collection of photos by
Gustave Le Gray was donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
(WSJ, 3/24/98, p.A20)
1868 Britain’s first fully
diversified managed fund (mutual fund), appeared.
(WSJ, 1/3/07, p.R6)
1868 Matthew Boulton obtained a
British patent on a design for ailerons as control surfaces.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1868 Judah P. Benjamin
(1811-1884), born a British subject in the Virgin Islands in 1811, went
on to become the first professed Jew elected to U.S. Senate, from the
state of Louisiana in 1852. He served the American Confederacy as
attorney general (1861) and then as secretary of war (1861--2) and
escaped to Britain. He wrote the Treatise on the Law of Sale of
Personal Property (1868), which at once became the standard in the
field. In 1872, he became a counsel to the queen. Benjamin died in
Paris.
(HNQ, 12/8/98)
1868 Ethiopia’s Prince Alemayehu
(7), son of Tewodros II, was placed on a ship to Britain and enrolled
in boarding school. He died aged 18 of suspected pleurisy in the
northern city of Leeds, after years of loneliness. In 2007 Ethiopia
called for the return of his remains.
(Reuters, 6/3/07)
1868-1926 Gertrude Bell, British adventuress, advisor
to kings, ally of Lawrence of Arabia. She wrote "The Desert and the
Sown" and spent much of her life in the Arab world whilst spying for
Britain in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Her 1996 biography by Janet Wallach
is: "Desert Queen, The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell."
(SFEC, 9/15/96, BR p.5)(Hem., 5/97, p.99)
1868-1952 Norman Douglas, Scottish [British] author:
Justice is too good for some people and not good enough for the rest.
"You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements."
(AP, 11/3/97)(AP, 5/22/99)
1869 Mar 18, Neville Chamberlin,
British Prime Minister (1937-40), was born. He tried to make peace "in
our time" with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, but instead made it
easier for Hitler to take over continental Europe.
(HN, 3/18/99)
1869 Aug 17, Oxford beat Harvard
on the Thames River in the 1st international boat race.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1869 Sep 12 Peter M. Roget,
English physician and lexographer, died. In 2008 Joshua Kendall
authored “The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the
Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus” (1852).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Roget)(WSJ,
3/22/08, p.W10)
1869 Francis Galton, British
psychologist, authored “Hereditary Genius,” in which he argued that
natural abilities are derived by inheritance.
(Econ, 9/17/05,
p.32)(www.thoemmes.com/psych/galton.htm)
1869 Thomas Henry Huxley, English
biologist, naturalist and writer, coined the term "agnostic" after he
got tired of being called an atheist.
(SFEC, 2/15/98, Z1 p.8)
1869 The grandparents of Alan
Sainsbury (1902-1998) founded a family grocery in London that grew to
become a supermarket empire.
(SFC, 10/27/98, p.B6)
1869-1876 The Midland Railway Company built the
70-mile Settle-Carlisle railway.
(Hem., 1/97, p.114)
1870 Feb 16, The clipper ship
Cutty Sark left London on its first voyage, proceeding around Cape Hope
to Shanghai 3 1/2 months later. The ship made only eight voyages to
China in the tea trade, as steam ships replaced sail on the high seas.
(AP, 5/21/07)
1870 Jun 9, Charles Dickens (58),
writer, died in Gad’s Hill, England. His work included the "Pictures
from Italy" and “Oliver Twist.” In 2009 Michael Slater authored
“Charles Dickens.”
(www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/CD-Chro.html)(AP,
6/9/07)(Econ, 9/12/09, p.92)
1870 Sep 6, The last British
troops to serve in Austria were withdrawn.
(HN, 9/6/98)
1870 Oct 19, The British SS
Cambria left for the North Sea coast. 196 were killed.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1870 Oct 20, The Summer Palace in
Beijing, China, was burnt to the ground by a Franco-British
expeditionary force.
(HN, 10/20/98)
1870 Nov 29, Compulsory education
was proclaimed in England.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1870 Cecil Charles Windsor Aldin,
popular artist, was born in London. His "Fallowfield Hunt" scenes were
published in 1900 for home decoration. The Buffalo Pottery Co. of NY
used the prints on dishes from 1908-1909.
(SFC, 1/8/97, z-1 p.6)
1870 Britain’s Forfeiture Act
abolished the forfeiture of goods and land as a punishment for treason
and felony. It did not apply to Scotland. Section 2 has remained in
force, and states that anyone convicted of treason shall be
disqualified from holding public office and shall lose his right to
vote in elections (except in elections to local authorities).
(Econ, 10/31/09,
p.16)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4316148.stm)
1870 By this time the British
government had begun attempts to regulate firearms.
(WSJ, 8/6/02, p.D6)
1870-1963 Herbert Samuel, English political leader:
"The world is like a mirror; frown at it, and it frowns at you. Smile,
and it smiles, too."
(AP, 1/5/00)
1871 Jan 1, Sir Henry Durand
(b.1812), British lord of the frontier between India and Afghanistan,
died after an elephant he was riding reared and brained him on a stone
archway in Tonk (later Tank, Pakistan).
(Econ, 1/2/10,
p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Marion_Durand)
1871 Mar 29, Queen Victoria opened
Albert Hall in London.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1871 Sep 7, Cowper Phipps Coles,
English inventor (Steel warships), drowned.
(MC, 9/7/01)
1871 Oct 18, Charles Babbage
(b.1792), English mathematician and inventor of a calculating machine,
died. In 2001 Doron Swade authored “The Difference Engine: Charles
Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer.”
(www.thocp.net/biographies/babbage_charles.html)(WSJ, 3/7/09, p.W8)
1871 Dec 27, World's 1st cat show
took place at the Crystal Palace, London.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1871 Thomas Moran of England was
the artist on a US government expedition to Yellowstone and painted
"Nearing Camp, Evening on the Upper Colorado River." The painting sold
for $2.2 million in 1999 to the municipal art gallery in Bolton,
Lancashire.
(SFC, 1/18/99, p.B2)
1871 Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
published his "Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descent_of_Man,_and_Selection_in_Relation_to_Sex)
1871 Belize was declared a Crown
Colony.
(SFC, 11/2/00, p.A12)
1871-1872 George Eliot (1819-1880), English writer
born as Mary Ann Evans, published her novel "Middlemarch" in 8 parts.
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P8)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gelliot.htm)
1871-1914 Robert Hugh Benson, English author and
clergyman: "You can love a person deeply and sincerely whom you do not
like. You can like a person passionately whom you do not love."
(AP, 9/16/98)
1872 Feb 6, Sir Thomas Phillips
(b.1792), English book collector, died. He had declared that he wanted
a copy of every book in the world.
(www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/ngcoba/ph.htm)(Econ,
12/24/05, p.110)
1872 May 18, Bertrand Russell
(d.1970), English mathematician, philosopher and social reformer, was
born.
(WSJ, 9/27/96, p.A16)(AP, 1/7/99)(HN, 5/18/99)
1872 Jul 18, Britain introduced
the Ballot Act for voting by secret ballot. [see Aug. 15]
(AP, 7/18/97)(HN, 7/18/98)
1872 Aug 15, The first ballot
voting in England was conducted. [see July 18]
(HN, 8/15/98)
1872 Aug 21, Aubrey Beardsley
(d.1898), English artist (Salome), was born in Brighton.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1872 Aug 24, Max Beerbohm
(d.1956), critic, caricaturist, writer, wit (Saturday Review), was born
in England. His work included "Nobody ever died of laughter."
(AP, 4/9/97)(MC, 8/24/02)
1872 Sep 14, Britain paid US $15
million for damages during Civil War. The British government paid
£3 million in damages to the United States in compensation for
building the Confederate commerce-raider Alabama. The confederate
navy‘s Alabama was built at the Birkenhead shipyards. Despite its
official neutrality during the American Civil War, Britain allowed the
warship to leave port, and it subsequently played havoc with Federal
shipping. The U.S. claimed compensation, and a Court of Arbitration at
Geneva agreed, setting the amount at £3 million.
(HNQ, 9/2/00)(ON, 9/01, p.12)
1872 Oct 12, Ralph Vaughan
Williams, composer (Hugh the Drover), was born in Down Amp, England.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1872 Dec 3, George Smith,
Assyriologist at the British Museum, presented a lecture before the
Biblical Archeology Society in London, on Assyrian tablets that
described an ancient flood as part of an epic whose hero was named
Gilgamesh.
(ON, 11/07, p.4)
1872 C.P. Scott began editing the
Guardian in England and continued for almost 60 years. Scott was a
friend of Zionist Chaim Weizmann. In 2004 Daphna Baram authored
“Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel.”
(Econ, 7/31/04, p.71)
1872 The right of assembly was
established and the first lawful public meetings were held at the
Reformer's Tree in Hyde Park.
(SFEM, 3/21/99, p.24)
1873
Apr 1, The British White Star steamship
Atlantic sank off Nova Scotia killing 547.
(OTD)
1873 May 1, David Livingstone
(60), British physician, explorer (Africa), died in Chitambo, Zambia.
His body passed through Zanzibar for a funeral in London in Apr 18,
1874.
(MC, 5/1/02)(SSFC, 7/13/03, p.C9)
1883 Jun 2, Four gentlemen
departed London on velocipedes and spent the next 2 weeks bicycling 800
miles to John O’Grouts in Scotland.
(ON, 1/00, p.5)
1873 Sep 20, A financial panic hit
the US when the high-flying bond dealer, Jay Cooke, granted too many
loans to the railroads. Panic spread to Europe as London and Paris
markets crashed and the New York Stock Exchange closed for the first
time for 10 days.
(WSJ, 2/27/95, p.A-10)(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.C1)(WSJ,
10/7/98, p.A22)
1873 Walter Bagehot (1826-1877),
British economist, authored “Lombard Street: A Description of the Money
Market.” The 1st edition was dated Dec 31, 1872.
(Econ, 8/18/07,
p.68)(www.econlib.org/Library/Bagehot/bagLom.html)
1873 British army officers brought
back from India the game of poona. They played it on the country estate
of the Duke of Beaufort. The estate was named Badminton and thus poona
became known as badminton.
(WSJ, 7/23/96, p.A6)
1873 Britain sent an agent, Henry
Wickham, to Brazil to get rubber seeds. The Seedlings were cultivated
in Kew Gardens and transplanted to Malaysia.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)
1873 The British based Rio Tinto
Company was formed by investors to mine ancient copper workings at Rio
Tinto near Huelva in southern Spain. By 2003 the company had mining
interests in 40 countries and revenues of $11.8 billion.
(www.riotinto.com/whoweare/timeline.asp)(WSJ,
11/17/04, p.A12)
1873 Hancock & Whittingham
made earthenware in Stoke, Staffordshire, England, and continued to
1879.
(SFC, 1/23/08, p.G5)
1873 The four Martin brothers
began making stoneware in London and continued to 1923. In 1885 they
introduced jugs modeled with human faces on each side.
(SFC, 12/19/06, p.G3)
1874 Feb 21, Benjamin Disraeli
replaced William Gladstone as English premier. Disraeli's 2nd ministry
continued to 1880.
(MC, 2/21/02)(PC, 1992, p.530)
1874 Apr 16, Dr. David
Livingstone's corpse arrived in Southampton.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1874 Apr 18, David Livingstone was
buried in Westminster Abbey.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1874 May 29, G.K. Chesterton
(d.1936), English poet-essayist, was born. "Every man is dangerous who
only cares for one thing."
(AP, 8/4/99)(HN, 5/29/01)
1874 Jul 12, Start of Sherlock
Holmes Adventure, "Gloria Scott."
(MC, 7/12/02)
1874 Nov 30, Sir Winston
Churchill, British statesman, was born at Blenheim Palace in
Oxfordshire, England. After attending the Royal Military College, he
served as a reporter and writer, and then in different positions in
Parliament as his political power grew. His most influential role was
as British prime minister during World War II from 1940 to 1945.
Churchill had been part of the Cabinet during World War I, but his
judgment was questioned and his political career ebbed. Up against the
threat of Adolf Hitler, however, Churchill committed himself to
defeating the Nazis and succeeded. Working together with President
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin, he managed to turn the tide of
the war in favor of the Allies. Churchill served again as prime
minister from 1951 to 1955. He died at his home in London in 1965.
(AP, 11/30/97)(HNPD, 11/30/98)(HN, 11/30/98)
1874 Edward Burne-Jones painted
"The Beguiling of Merlin."
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.W10)
1874 David Stanley, British
journalist, crossed Africa from the east to the west across the Congo
River basin on a 999-day journey sponsored by London’s Daily Telegraph.
In 2004 Tim Butcher, also a journalist for the Daily Telegraph,
followed Stanley’s path on a trip that took 44 days. In 2008 Butcher
authored “Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart.”
(WSJ, 10/31/08, p.A15)
1874-1948 Holbrook Jackson, British critic and
historian: "A mother never realizes that her children are no longer
children."
(AP, 5/14/00)
1874-1965 W. Somerset Maugham English
author-dramatist: "The tragedy of love is indifference."
(AP, 11/29/97)
1875 Apr 1, Edgar Wallace,
novelist, playwright, journalist (Terror), was born in England.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1875 Apr 17, The game of "snooker"
was invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain.
(HN, 4/17/98)
1875 Aug 2, The world’s 1st roller
skating rink opened in London.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1875 Aug 9, Albert William
Ketelbey, composer (In a Monastery Garden), was born in Aston, England.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1875 Aug 25, Captain Matthew Webb
(1848-1883) became the first person to swim across the English Channel,
traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in 21 hours and 45
min. Swimming the Channel entails about 35 miles of swimming due to
currents in waters that are 55 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
(AP, 8/25/97)(HN, 8/25/98)(ON, 2/05, p.12)
1875 Oct 12, Aleister [Edward S]
Crowley (d.1947), (75 pseudonyms), British occultist-American mystic,
was born.
(SSFC, 1/14/01, BR p.12)(MC, 10/12/01)
1875 William Ernest Henley,
English poet, wrote his poem "Invictus" at the end of his stay in an
infirmary for tuberculosis. The last 2 lines read "I am the master of
my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
(SFC, 6/12/01, p.A12)
1875 Anthony Trollope authored
“The Way We Live Now,” a scathing satirical novel published in London.
It was regarded by many of Trollope's contemporaries as his finest
work. The story includes the description of a great railroad stock
swindle by Augustus Melmotte, a foreign-born financier with a
mysterious past.
(Econ, 4/25/09,
p.88)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_We_Live_Now)
1876 Feb 16, George Macauley
Trevelyan (d.1962), English historian (Giuseppi Garibaldi), was born:
"’History repeats itself’ and ‘History never repeats itself’ are about
equally true ... We never know enough about the infinitely complex
circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy."
(AP, 4/14/01)(MC, 2/16/02)
1876 Feb 18, A direct telegraph
link was established between Britain & New Zealand.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1876 Jun 21, The first gorilla
arrived in Britain.
(Camelot, 6/21/99)
1876 Aug 19, George Smith
(b.1840), British Assyriologist, died of dysentery in Syria. He was on
his way home from a 3rd trip to Mesopotamia. Smith had completed the
translation of the complete Epic of Gilgamesh in 1874.
(ON, 11/07,
p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Smith_(assyriologist))
1876 George Eliot (1819-1880),
Englishwoman writer, authored “Daniel Deronda,” the story of man who
discovers his Jewish origins.
(WSJ, 9/22/07, p.W6)
1876 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)
authored “The Prime Minister,” the 5th of a sextet of novels known as
“The Pallisers.” It offered sharp insights on power, sex, love and
money.
(WSJ, 8/26/06, p.P8 )
1876 Queen Victoria added the
title of Empress of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1876 British Parliament passed the
Unseaworthy Ships Bill (Merchant Shipping Act). It was advocated by
Samuel Plimsoll (1824-1898), author of “Our Seaman.” The Act required a
series of lines to be painted on the ship to show the maximum loading
point. A salesman for the Liverpool Rubber Company attached the
Plimsoll name to a line of canvas shoes.
(www.victorianweb.org/history/plimsoll.html)(Econ,
7/8/06, p.79)
1876 James Murray agreed to take
over as editor of a new dictionary being compiled by England’s
Philological Society. In 1878 Oxford Univ. Press agreed to publish the
dictionary and Murray agreed to produce the work in 10 years.
(ON, 11/05, p.5)
1876 Charles Roberts reported the
statures of some 100,000 children drawn from the registers of London
military hospitals. It was one of the first statistical inquiries into
the economics of height.
(Econ, 4/5/08, p.82)
1877 Mar 24, Walter Bagehot
(b.1826), British economist and author of “The English Constitution”
(1867), died. He edited the Economist Magazine from 1861 until his
death.
(WSJ, 11/7/02,
p.D8)(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Bagehot)
1877 Apr 10, The 1st human
cannonball act was performed in London.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1877 Jun 3, Frank Pocock, British
explorer, drowned in the Congo.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1877 Aug 27, Charles Stewart
Rolls, British auto manufacturer (Rolls-Royce Ltd.), was born.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1877 Sep 11, James Jeans (d.1946),
English physicist, mathematician and astronomer, was born. He was the
first to propose that matter is continuously created throughout the
universe.
(HN, 9/11/00)(www.britannica.com)
1877 Sep 17, William Henry Fox
Talbot (b.1800), British inventor, died. He pioneered instantaneous
photography and invented paper photography with the negative-positive
system now in use. Talbot produced the first book with photographic
illustrations, serialized as "The Pencil of Nature," from 1844-1846. In
1980 Gail Buckland authored "Fox Talbot and the Invention of
Photography."
(AHD, 1971, p. 1312)(WSJ, 3/24/98, p.A20)(ON, 4/00,
p.11)(SFC, 12/26/02, p.E9)
1877 Nov 17, Gilbert &
Sullivan's operetta "The Sorcerer," premiered (London).
(MC, 11/17/01)
1877 James McNeil Whistler
completed his interior room “Harmony in Blue and Gold” better known as
the Peacock Room. The 2-year project was his transformation of the
London dining room of shipping magnate Frederick Leyland. The room was
later transported to the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery. In 1998 Linda
Merrill authored “The Peacock Room: A Cultural Biography.”
(WSJ, 9/15/07, p.W16)
1877 The Grosvenor Gallery opened
in London as an alternative showplace for painters ignored by the Royal
Academy.
(SFC, 2/4/03, p.D2)
1877 A Hawaiian princess gave a
patch of land, smaller than a tennis court, on Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii,
to Britain as a memorial to Capt. James Cook.
(SSFC, 12/22/02, p.C4)
1877 In England the oldest known
calendar plate with a business advertisement was made by J.W. Harrison
of Liverpool.
(SFC, 12/15/98, Z1 p.6)
1877 Arthur Downes and Thomas P.
Blunt of Shrewsbury proved the bactericidal action of light. Blunt was
offered a British knighthood for his achievements in research, but
humbly declined. His partner in research, Arthur Downes, accepted the
title.
(http://members.shaw.ca/TPBLUNT/)
1878 May 25, Gilbert &
Sullivan’s opera "HMS Pinafore" premiered in London.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1878 Jun 1, John Masefield
(d.1967), England’s 15th poet laureate, was born. "To most of us the
future seems unsure. But then it always has been; and we who have seen
great changes must have great hopes."
(AP, 1/1/00)(HN, 6/1/01)(MC, 6/1/02)
1878 Jun 4, The Ottoman Empire
turned over control of Cyprus to the British.
(AP, 6/4/08)
1878 Jun 23, Adm. George Back
(b.1796), English Arctic explorer, died in London.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9011650)
1878 Sep 12, The Cleopatra Needle
was installed in London.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1878 Nov 25, In London a trial
opened to hear the suit of James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) against
critic John Ruskin for libel. After a 2-day hearing the jury found
Ruskin guilty and awarded Whistler one farthing, a quarter of a penny.
Whistler later authored “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies” (1890).
(www.abcgallery.com/W/whistler/whistlerbio.html)(ON,
4/03, p.9)
1878 In Afghanistan the new Amir,
Dost Mohammad’s son, signed a treaty of friendship with Russia. British
Gen’l. Frederick "Little Bobs" Roberts was sent with an army to force
Afghanistan into a treaty ceding foreign policy to the British. The
treaty was concluded but the British envoy was murdered.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1878 The New Wharf Pottery Co.
began operating in Burslem in the Staffordshire district of England. It
later became part of Wood & Son and from 1890-1894 used a rope
identification mark.
(SFC, 2/5/97, z-1 p.7)
1878 Henry and James Doulton
purchased a major interest in Pinder, Bourne & Co., a pottery in
Burslem, Staffordshire, England. In 1882 they changed the name to
Doulton & Co.
(SFC, 10/18/06, p.G3)
1878 The 1st electric street
lights were deployed alongside Holburn Viaduct in London, England.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.79)
1879 Jan 1, E.M. [Edward Morgan]
Forster, English novelist famous for "A Passage to India" and "A Room
With a View," was born in London. His novels exemplified his ideas
about the conflict between the imaginative and the earthy
component of the human soul and character.
(V.D.-H.K.p.366)(HN, 1/1/99)
1879 Jan 11, The Zulu war against
British colonial rule in South Africa began. [see Jan 12]
(MC, 1/11/02)
1879 Jan 12, British-Zulu War
began as British troops under Lieutenant General Frederic Augustus
invaded Zululand from the southern African republic of Natal. [see Jan
11]
(MC, 1/12/02)
1879 Mar 12, The British Zulu War
began. [see Jan 11]
(HN, 3/12/98)
1879 Mar 28, British mounted
troops under Colonel Henry Evelyn Wood went up Hlobane Mountain to
battle the Zulus—only to be surrounded by a 22,000-man impi (army).
Lieutenant Colonel Redvers Buller, received the Victoria Cross for his
gallantry during the difficult withdrawal of his troopers from the
mountain. Hlobane was the worst rout of British cavalry—and the last
Zulu victory—of the Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa.
(HN, 3/12/98)(HN, 3/28/99)
1879 Mar 29, Some 2,000 British
and Colonial troops of the 90th Light Infantry Regiment under the
command of Colonel Henry Evelyn Wood repulsed a major attack by 20,000
Zulu tribesmen at Khambula, Zululand. Jubilant over their victory at
Hlobane the day before, the Zulus prepared to finish off the British at
Khambula. This time, however, the outcome was different as the Zulus
vainly assaulted British foes who were dug in and ready for them. The
assault, depicted in "The Battle of Khambula" by Angus McBride, ended
in failure for the Zulus, leaving them doubting for the first time
their ability to win the Anglo-Zulu War.
(HN, 3/29/99)(MC, 3/29/02)
1879 Apr 29, Sir Thomas Beecham,
founder of London Philharmonic, was born.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1879 May 19, Lord Waldorf Astor,
British publisher, was born.
(HN, 5/19/98)
1879 May 19, Lady Nancy Astor
(Nancy Witcher Langhorne) was born. She was the first woman to sit in
the British House of Commons.
(HN, 5/19/99)
1879 May 25, W. Maxwell Aitken,
Lord Beaverbrook, Canada-English banker, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1879 Aug 13, John N. Ireland,
English composer, pianist (Mai-Dun), was born.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1879 Oct 12, British troops
occupied Kabul, Afghanistan.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1879 Dec 30, Gilbert &
Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance," premiered in London.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1879 Gen’l. Roberts returned to
Kabul to hang some Afghans in punishment for the murder of a British
envoy. Roberts was besieged and another British force in southern
Afghanistan was almost annihilated. Roberts retreated in a march from
Kabul to Kandahar.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1879-1949 Robert Lynd, British essayist: "Were I a
philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys, showing that nothing
else in life need to be taken seriously, and that Christmas Day in the
company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become
entirely alive."
(AP, 12/25/98)
1879-1963 Lord Beveridge, British economist: "Scratch
a pessimist, and you find often a defender of privilege."
(AP, 3/25/99)
1880 Mar 1, Lytton Strachey
(d.1932), English biographer, critic (Benson Medal 1923), was born.
"Uninterpreted truth is as useless as buried gold."
(AP, 3/25/00)(SC, 3/1/02)
1880 Apr 15, William Gladstone
became Prime Minister of England.
(HN, 4/15/98)
1880 Aug 1, Sir Frederick Roberts
freed the British Afghanistan garrison of Kandahar from Afghan rebels.
(HN, 8/1/98)
1880 Nov 25, Leonard Sidney Woolf
(d.1969), English publisher, writer, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Woolf)
1880 Britain assigned all North
American Arctic islands to Canada, right up to Ellesmere Island. From
this vast swath of territory were created three provinces (Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, Alberta) and two territories (Yukon and Nunavut), and two
extensions each to Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Confederation)
1880 A British effort to tunnel
under the Channel stopped after 1½ miles. The Chunnel was
completed in 1994.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1880 William Harry Grindley
started W.H. Grindley & Co. of Tunstall, Staffordshire, England,
for the manufacture of English china. The business continued until 1991.
(SFC, 12/19/07, p.G5)
1880 Britain’s exports of
manufactured goods accounted for 40% of the global total.
(Econ, 2/3/07, SR p.3)
1880s The Doulton factory in
Burslem produced traditional-style earthenware pieces.
(SFC, 2/4/98, Z1 p.6)
1880-1958 Dame Christabel Pankhurst, English
suffragist: "Never lose your temper with the press or the public is a
major rule of political life."
(AP, 3/21/99)
1881 Feb 5, Thomas Carlyle
(b.1795), Scottish essayist and historian, died in London.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/carlyle.htm)
1881 Feb 26, SS Ceylon began its
1st round-the-world cruise from Liverpool.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1881 Mar 4, Fiction’s Sherlock
Holmes and Watson began "A Study in Scarlet", their 1st case together.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1881 Mar 4, South African
President Kruger accepted a cease-fire with the British in the First
Boer War (1880-1881 – aka Transvaal Revolt). [see Mar 23]
(SC, 3/4/02)
1881 Mar 23, Boers and Britain
signed a peace accord. This ended the 1st Boer war.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1881 May 24, Samuel Palmer
(b.1805), English landscape painter and printmaker, died.
(SFC, 9/12/09,
p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Palmer)
1881 Apr 19, Benjamin Disraeli,
1st Earl of Beaconsfield, British PM (1868, 1874-1880), novelist, died.
(WUD, 1994
p.415)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Disraeli)
1881 Apr 23, Gilbert &
Sullivan's opera "Patience" was produced in London.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1881 Aug 6, Alexander Fleming
(d.1955), British (Scottish) bacteriologist who co-discovered
penicillin in [1928] 1929, was born. He won the Nobel Prize in 1954.
(AHD, 1971, p.501)(WUD, 1994, p.542)(HN, 8/6/98)(MC,
8/6/02)
1881 Oct 15, Pelham Grenville
Wodehouse (d.1975), British writer and humorist, was born in Guildford,
Surrey, England. He produced 93 books and countless articles and short
stories. He was the creator of the two great comic characters: Bertie
Wooster and his valet, Jeeves.
(Hem., 10/’95, p.109)(HN, 10/15/00)
1881 Dec 10, Viscount Alexander of
Tunis, British soldier, was born. He took his title from his part in
the Allied victories in North Africa.
(HN, 12/10/99)
1881 In London a court and police
station on Bow Street opened opposite the Royal Opera House in Covent
Garden. The Bow Street court closed in 2006.
(SFC, 7/14/06, p.A2)
1881-1958 Rose Macaulay, English poet and essayist:
"Work is a dull thing; you cannot get away from that. The only
agreeable existence is one of idleness, and that is not, unfortunately,
always compatible with continuing to exist at all."
(AP, 12/30/97)
1882 Jan 25, Virginia Woolf
(d.1941), English author, critic, was born. She was a member of the
intellectual circle known as the Bloomsbury Group and wrote "Mrs.
Dalloway" and "Orlando." "On the outskirts of every agony sits some
observant fellow who points." "I read the Book of Job last night, I
don’t think God comes out of it well." "The compensation of growing old
was simply this: that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one
has gained—at last! -- the power which adds the supreme flavor to
existence, the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round,
slowly, in the light." In 1997 Panthea Reid published: "Art and
Affection: A Life of Virginia Woolf." In 1998 Mitchell Leaska
published: "Granite and Rainbow: The Life of Virginia Woolf."
(AP, 7/6/97)(IW 12/29/97)(AP, 1/18/98)(SFC, 5/25/98,
p.E6)(HN, 1/25/99)
1882 Apr 18, Leopold Stokowski,
conductor (Philadelphia Orchestra), was born in London England.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1882 Apr 19, Charles R. Darwin
(b.1809), English naturalist (Origin of Species), died at Downe,
England, at age 73. In 1995 Janet Browne authored "Voyaging" the 1st of
her 3-part biography. In 2002 her 2nd volume "The Power of Place" was
published.
(MC, 4/19/02)(WBO, 2002)(FT, 12/14/02, p.IV)
1882 Aug 13, William Jevons
(b.1835), English economist, drowned while bathing near Hastings. His
book “The Theory of Political Economy” (1871) declared that value
depends entirely upon utility.
(Econ, 7/26/08,
p.84)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stanley_Jevons)
1882 Aug 29, Australia defeated
England in cricket for the first time. The following day a obituary
appeared in the Sporting Times addressed to the British team.
(HN, 8/29/98)
1882 Sep 13, British troops
defeated Egyptian forces in the Battle at Tel-el-Kebir.
(http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/battles/egypt/egypt3.htm)
1882 Sep 14, British General
Wolseley (d.1913) reached Cairo.
(http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/battles/egypt/egypt4.htm)
1882 Dec 6, Anthony Trollope
(b.1815), English writer, died. His autobiography "An Autobiography,"
was published in 1883. He wrote harshly about his mother and made her
out to be a second-rate writer.
(WUD, 1994 p.1517)(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)(WSJ,
6/9/00, p.W17)(MC, 12/6/01)
1882 Dec 28, Sir Arthur Stanley
Eddington, English astronomer who confirmed Einstein’s theory of
relativity, was born.
(HN, 12/28/98)
1882 The opera "Iolanthe" by
Gilbert and Sullivan opened in New York and London.
(SFC, 6/21/00, p.E4)
1882 In Egypt a military coup
against the Khedive furnished a pretext for a British invasion.
(WSJ, 7/10/03, p.D8)
1882 Parliament passed the
Electric Lights Act to regulate electric utilities.
(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.B1)
1882 In London euphoric investors
pushed up the stock prices of the first companies to issue shares for
companies with new patents for equipment to power electric lights.
(WSJ, 1/7/98, p.B1)
1882 The Royal Worcester pottery
company in England began making the "Asthetic" or "Oscar Wilde"
teapots. They depicted a man on one side and a woman on the other and
were inspired by the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta "Patience."
(SFC, 12/30/96, z-1 p.2)
1882 James Atkinson, British
engineer, invented the Atkinson cycle engine, an ultra-lean internal
combustion engine.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.77)(www.jyrojak.com/steamtime.htm)
1883 Jan 3, Clement Attlee
Britain’s prime minister [1945-1951; head of Labour Party, was born.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1883 Feb 17, A. Ashwell patented a
free toilet in London.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1883 Mar 14, Karl Marx (64),
German political philosopher (Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital), died
in London.
(AP, 3/14/97)(MC, 3/14/02)
1883 Jun 5, Economist John Maynard
Keynes (d.1946), economist, was born in Cambridge, England. He
developed theories on the causes of prolonged unemployment and advised
wide government expenditures as a counter measure to deflation and
depression. "I do not know which makes a man more conservative -- to
know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past."
(V.D.-H.K.p.253)(AP, 6/5/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R20)(HN, 6/5/99)(AP, 7/29/99)
1883 Jul 4, Alan Brooke, English
general, was born.
(MC, 7/4/02)
1883 Jul 23, Lord Allanbrooke
(d.1963), English soldier, was born.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1883 Aug 29, Seismic sea waves,
created by Krakatoa eruption, created a rise in the English Channel 32
hrs after explosion.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1883 Sep 6, Lord Birkett, England,
judge (Nuremberg Trials), was born.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1883 Oct 17, A.S. Neill, British
headmaster (Summerhill), was born.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1883 Oct 18, The weather station
at the top of Ben Nevis, Scotland, the highest mountain in Britain, was
declared open.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1883 Nov 8, Arnold Edward Trevor
Bax, composer (Farewell My Youth), was born in London, England.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1883 Lord Frederick Leighton
painted "Kittens."
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.W10)
1883 In England production of
Bretby Art Pottery was begun by Tooth & Co. in South Derbyshire.
(SFC,10/22/97, Z1 p.7)
1883 In Britain Francis Galton
developed the questionnaire.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1883-1884 In Sudan British officered Egyptian armies
were defeated by the forces of El Mahdi, called Dervishes by the
British.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1884 Jan 18, General Charles
("Chinese") Gordon departed London for Khartoum.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1884 In England part 1 of the
Oxford English Dictionary, compiled under the direction of James
Murray, was published.
(ON, 11/05, p.6)
1884 Jan, Lord Garnet Wolseley,
adjutant-general of the British Army, asked Charles Gordon to come out
of retirement and lead an evacuation of 15,000 European and Egyptian
civilians from Khartoum, Sudan. Gordon agreed.
(ON, 4/02, p.9)
1884 Feb 26, Leopold II of Belgium
signed in Congo a British and Portuguese treaty.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1884 Mar 13, Siege of Khartoum,
Sudan, began. Gen. Gordon ordered a counter-attack at Halfaya and
troops rescued some 500 from a Mahdist assault.
(ON, 4/02, p.10)(MC, 3/13/02)
1884 Apr 2, The London prison for
debtors closed.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1884 May 29, 1st steam cable trams
started in Highgate.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1884 Jun 5, Dame Ivy
Compton-Burnett, British author, was born.
(HN, 6/5/01)
1884 Jun 21, Field Marshal Sir
Claude Auchinleck, British general, was born. He revived the flagging
Eighth Army to go back on the offensive against the German army under
Rommel in the Middle East, but was later replaced.
(Camelot, 6/21/99)
1884 Aug 12, Frank Swinnerton,
novelist (Summer Storm, Sanctuary), was born in England.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1884 Oct 13, Greenwich was
established as universal time meridian of longitude.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1884 Oct 22, General Charles
Gordon received a letter from Mahdi near Khartoum. British Gen’l.
Charles "Chinese" Gordon was sent to Khartoum to evacuate the Egyptian
garrison. Gordon decided to hold the city against El Mahdi.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(MC, 10/22/01)
1884 Dec, The steamship Tongariro,
equipped with one of the first refrigeration units, left London with
282 bumblebee queens for Wellington. 48 survived the journey and their
offspring flourished on New Zealand’s South Island. By 2009 one of the
deported honeybee species had died out in Britain and plans were
underway to reintroduce the species.
(Econ, 9/19/09, p.67)
1884 Horatio Phillips of England
designed a wing with a curved airfoil shape.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1884 The colony of Rugby,
Tennessee, had 350 residents. Thomas Hughes (1822-96), English
novelist, reformer, jurist, and author of "John Brown’s School Days,"
had purchased 75,000 acres in rural Tennessee and founded the colony of
Rugby. It was a school for the younger children of England’s wealthy
families who were not eligible to inherit family estates. It was meant
to teach farming and other useful skills.
(WUD, 1994, p.691)
1884-1963 Phyllis Bottome, English author: "There is
nothing final about a mistake, except its being taken as final."
"Nothing ever really sets human nature free, but self-control."
(AP, 5/25/98)(AP, 3/299)
1885 Jan 2, Gen. Wolseley received
the last distress signal of Gen. Gordon in Khartoum.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1885 Jan 26, In Sudan General
"Chinese" Gordon (Charles George Gordon, 51), British gov-gen of Sudan,
was killed on the palace steps in the garrison at Khartoum by the
forces of Muhammad Ahmed, El Mahdi.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(HN, 1/26/99)(MC, 1/26/02)
1885 Jan 28, Gen’l. Garnet
Wolseley arrived at Khartoum to relieve Gen’l. Gordon, but arrived 2
days late. El Mahdi died soon thereafter but was succeeded by the
Khalifa.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1885 Feb 23, John Lee survived
three attempts to hang him in Exeter Prison, as the trap failed to
open.
(HN, 2/23/99)
1885 Feb 26, The Congress of
Berlin gave Congo to Belgium and Nigeria to England.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1885 Mar 14, Gilbert &
Sullivan's opera "Mikado," premiered in London.
(WSJ, 11/22/00, p.A20)(MC, 3/14/02)
1885 Apr 3, Harry St. John Philby,
[sheik Abdullah], British explorer, was born.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1885 May 29, Erwin F.
Finlay-Freundlich, British astronomer, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1885 Aug 15, Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor (d.1912), composer (Hiawatha's Wedding Feast), was
born in London, England.
(www.classical-composers.org)
1885 Sep 11, D.H. Laurence (David
Herbert Lawrence d.1930), English novelist, author of "Lady
Chatterley's Lover" and "Sons and Lovers," was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.812)(HN, 9/11/98)
1885 Princess Alice (d.1969) was
born at Windsor Castle.
(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.M4)
1885 Frederic Leighton created his
sculpture "The Sluggard."
(WSJ, 12/6/01, p.A19)
1885 William Hesketh Lever opened
his 1st factory to make Sunlight Soap in Britain. In 2004 Adam Macqueen
authored “The King of Sunlight: How William Lever Cleaned Up the World.”
(Econ, 7/24/04, p.75)
1886 Feb 15, Sax Rohmer, author
(Dr. Fu Manchu), was born in England.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1886 Feb 23, London Times
published the world's 1st classified ad.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1886 Mar 26, The 1st cremation in
England took place.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1886 Jul 23, Arthur Whitten Brown,
British aviator, was born.
(HN, 7//2302)
1886 Jul 26, William Gladstone was
replaced by Lord Salisbury as prime minister of England.
(HN, 7/26/98)
1886 Aug 27, Eric Coates, viola
player, composer, was born in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, England.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1886 Nov 21, Harold G. Nicolson,
English diplomat and author (Good Behavior), was born.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1886 Dec 12, Edward Richard
Woodham (b.1831), English survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade
(1854), died.
(AP,
9/29/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Richard_Woodham)
1886 Thomas Hardy, English writer,
authored "The Mayor of Casterbridge."
(SFC, 8/16/03, p.D1)
1886 London’s Soho district of
this year was the setting for Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novel "The Secret
Agent."
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.C12)
1886 The Clunies-Ross family was
granted the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean, about 2,700 kilometers
(1,680 miles) northwest of Perth, by Queen Victoria. Captain John
Clunies-Ross, a Scottish trader, had landed there in 1825.
(AFP, 1/21/08)
1886-1967 Siegfried Sassoon, English poet and
novelist. He met Wilfred Owen in a sanatorium and published his poetry
after Owen died at the front.
(WUD, 1994, p.1270)
1887 Apr 5, British historian Lord
Acton wrote, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
(AP, 5/5/08)
1887 Apr 14, Start of Sherlock
Holmes adventure "Reigate Squires."
(MC, 4/14/02)
1887 Jun 21, Britain celebrated
the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1887 Aug 3, Rupert Brooke
(d.1915), English poet who mainly wrote about World War I, was born:
"Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night."
(AP, 2/20/98)(HN, 8/3/98)
1887 Sep 5, A gas lamp at Theater
Royal in Exeter started a fire killing about 200.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1887 Sep 26, Barnes Wallis,
British aeronautical engineer, was born. He invented the "Bouncing
Bombs" used to destroy German dams during World War II.
(HN, 9/26/99)
1887 Nov 17, Bernard Law
Montgomery, British Field Marshall who defeated Rommel in North Africa
and lead allied troops from D-day to the end of World War II, was born.
(HN, 11/17/98)
1887 Nov 23, Boris Karloff
(d.1969), English actor most famous for his role as the monster in the
movie Frankenstein, was born in Dulwich, England.
(HN, 11/23/98)(MC, 11/23/01)
1887 Dec 1, Sherlock Holmes 1st
appeared in print: "Study in Scarlet." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first
story about the detective he named Sherlock Holmes was published in
Beeton’s Christmas Annual. It wasn’t until a London magazine called the
Strand began publishing Doyle’s shorter Holmes adventures in 1891
that the detective became a phenomenon. Today hundreds of books,
articles and movies have been devoted to the great detective and his
biographer, Dr. John Watson, at 221b Baker Street, London.
(HNQ, 4/7/01)(ON, 3/06, p.11)
1887 Spitalfields opened as a
fruit and vegetable market in London. It was built over the site of a
medieval hospital and construction c2000 revealed some 6,000 bodies
buried 30 feet deep.
(SSFC, 10/21/01, p.T7)
1887-1964 Hesketh Pearson, British biographer:
"Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted."
(AP, 1/29/00)
1888 Mar 21, Arthur Pinero's
"Sweet Lavender," premiered in London.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1888 Apr 7, Start of Sherlock
Holmes adventure "Yellow Face."
(MC, 4/7/02)
1888 Apr 15, Matthew Arnold (65),
English poet, died.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1888 Jun 29, Professor Frederick
Treves performed the first appendectomy in England.
(HN, 6/29/98)
1888 Aug 6, Martha Turner was
murdered by an unknown assailant, believed to be Jack the Ripper, in
London, England. Between August and November 506 women were murdered in
London’s Whitechapel district. In 1994 Philip Sugden authored “The
Complete History of Jack the Ripper.”
(HN, 8/6/98)(WSJ, 1/31/09, p.W8)
1888 Aug 15, The British soldier
T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia for his military
exploits against the Turks in World War I, was born in Tremadoc, Wales.
(AP, 8/15/97)(HN, 8/15/98)
1888 Aug 31, Mary Ann Nicholls, a
42-year-old prostitute, was found murdered in London's East End. She is
generally regarded as the first of at least five murder victims of
"Jack the Ripper." [see Aug 6]
(AP, 8/31/99)(YN, 8/31/99)
1888 Sep 18, Start of Sherlock
Holmes adventure "Sign of Four."
(MC, 9/18/01)
1888 Sep 25, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Hound of Baskervilles."
(MC, 9/25/01)
1888 Sep 25, The Royal Court
Theatre, London, opened.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1888 Sep 30, "Jack the Ripper"
butchered 2 more women, Elizabeth Stride (45), aka Long Liz, on Berner
St. and Kate Eddowes (45). Donald Rumbelow later authored "The Complete
Jack the Ripper."
(MC, 9/30/01)(SSFC, 10/21/01, p.T7)
1888 Oct 29, Lord Salisbury
granted Cecil Rhodes a charter for the BSA Company.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1888 Oct 30, In London Jack the
Ripper murdered his last victim. [see Nov 3]
(MC, 10/30/01)
1888 Nov 3, In London Jack the
Ripper murdered his last victim. In 2002 Patricia Cornwell, crime
writer, reported that Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942), English
Impressionist painter, was Jack the Ripper. [see Oct 30]
(WSJ, 9/27/01, p.A16)(MC, 11/3/01)(SSFC, 2/24/02,
Par p.2)
1888-1957 Joyce Cary, English author: "It is the
tragedy of the world that no one knows what he doesn't know -- and the
less a man knows, the more sure he is that he knows everything."
(AP, 1/30/99)
1889 Apr 8, Adrian Boult,
conductor, composer (BBC Sym Orch), was born in Chester, England.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1889 Apr 14, Arnold Toynbee
(d.1975), English historian, was born. He wrote the 12-volume "A Study
of History." "The history of almost every civilization furnishes
examples of geographical expansion coinciding with deterioration in
quality." "Of the 20 or so civilizations known to modern Western
historians, all except our own appear to be dead or moribund, and, when
we diagnose each case ... we invariably find that the cause of death
has been either War or Class or some combination of the two."
(AP, 3/24/98)(AP, 8/24/98)(HN, 4/14/99)
1889 Apr 16, Charlie Chaplin
(d.1977), actor, was born. He was a British motion-picture actor,
producer, writer, director and composer and worked in America from
1913-1952. In 1997 his biography "Charlie Chaplin and His Times" by
Kenneth S. Lynn was published.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(AHD, p.225)(WUB, 1994, p.247)(WSJ,
3/7/97, p.A12)
1889 Jul, Queen Victoria granted
the royal charter to the British South Africa Company (BSAC) in
Zimbabwe.
(www.bulawayo1872.com/history/rhodescj.htm)
1889 Sep 23, William Wilkie
Collins, English writer (Moonstone), died.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1889 Dec 7, Gilbert and Sullivan’s
"Gondoliers," premiered in London.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1889 Dec 12, Robert Browning (77),
English poet (Ring & Book), died.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1889 The British Royal Society for
the Protection of Birds was founded.
(www.infomat.net/infomat/rd741/rd1/database/rspb/index.asp)
1889 J.J. Thomas (1840-1889)
authored “Froudacity,” an attack on the writings about the West Indies
of English historian J. Anthony Froude. The Trinidad-born,
self-educated black intellectual, wrote the work during a visit to
London where he died of TB.
{Trinidad&Tobago, Britain, Historian, West
Indies}
(WSJ, 10/4/05,
p.D8)(www.wwnorton.com/nael/victorian/topic_4/thomas.htm)
1889 In the English League First
Division match, the 1st professional league soccer championship,
Preston North End won against the Aston Villa Football Club. Preston
went through its 22-game season without losing a match.
(Econ, 7/14/07,
p.15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889_in_football_(soccer))
1889-1944 Philip Guedalla, British writer: "History
repeats itself; historians repeat each other."
(AP, 7/24/99)
1890 Jun 16, Stan Laurel (d.1965),
British-born entertainer, was born. He teamed up with Oliver Hardy
(Laurel & Hardy) to make over 100 comedy films.
(WUD, 1994 p.811)(HN, 6/16/01)
1890 Sep 15, Agatha Christie,
English writer of mystery novels, was born. Her books included "Death
on the Nile" and "And Then There Were None."
(HN, 9/15/99)
1890 Oct 19, Richard Francis
Burton (b.1821), explorer, British consul, translator, died. In 1893
Lady Burton published a biography of her late husband.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6445)
1890 Daisy Ashford (9) wrote a
novel for her ailing mother titled “The Young Visiters.” Discovered 29
years later, it was turned into a real book and became a British
classic.
(SFC, 11/1/04, p.E1)
1890 Arthur Conan Doyle’s 2nd
Sherlock Holmes novel, “The Sign of Four,” was published.
(ON, 3/06, p.11)
1890 Alfred Marshall published his
"Principles of Economics," considered the bible of British economics.
He stressed that the output and price of a good are determined by
supply as well as demand.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)
1890 In England Jenny Pipes,
convicted of being a scold, was sentenced to public humiliation and
underwent ducking in the Kenwater river by order of the Magistrates.
This was the last recorded use of the ducking stool, in which the
victim was strapped to a stool and plunged into water.
(WSJ, 1/18/08,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbrel)
1890 James F. Wiltshaw and
brothers J.A. Robinson and W.H. Robinson founded their Wiltshaw &
Robinson pottery in Staffordshire, England. Their pieces were marked
“Carlton Ware,” which became the company’s name in 1958. In 1973 it
began producing “Walking Ware.” In 1989 the company went into
receivership.
(SFC, 3/21/07, p.G2)
1890s Gen’l. Herbert Kitchener led
the British conquest of the Sudan. The "kit bag," another name for a
knapsack, was named after him.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, Z1 p.8)
1891 Feb 9, Ronald Colman, 1947
Academy Award actor (Tale of 2 Cities), was born in England.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1891 Mar 17, The British steamer
Utopia sank off the coast of Gibraltar.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1891
Apr 1, The London-Paris telephone connection opened.
(OTD)
1891 Apr 24, Start of Sherlock
Holmes adventure "Final Problem."
(MC, 4/24/02)
1891 Jul 31, Great Britain
declared territories in Southern Africa up to the Congo to be within
their sphere of influence.
(HN, 7/31/98)
1891 Aug 2, Arthur Edward Drummond
Bliss, composer (Olympians), was born in London.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1891 Arthur Conan Doyle’s
historical novel, “The White Company,” was published. It was about the
wartime adventures of a medieval band of English archers.
(ON, 3/06, p.11)
1891 William Morris (1834-1896),
English poet, designer, painter, decorator and author, portrayed a
vision of utopia in his novel entitled "News from Nowhere." The book
describes a utopian fantasy in which people return to handicrafts. The
ideas in the novel reflected the emphatic socialist views Morris would
further explore in "How I Became a Socialist," published in 1896. A
pioneer of the British socialist movement, Morris was apprenticed to an
architect and later founded a manufacturing and decorating firm. He was
of the Pre-Raphaelite school with a taste for simplicity and beauty in
art and literature.
(HNQ, 5/2/00)
1891 The magazine "The Strand" was
established and devoted itself to popular fiction and celebrity
interviews. Arthur Conan Doyle became an early contributor.
(WSJ, 4/12/99, p.A21)
1891 The Brownfields Guild Pottery
Society began business in Staffordshire, England, and continued
operations to 1900.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.G3)
1891-1959 Stanley Spencer, English painter. He lived
and worked in the village of Cookham and experienced visions of
sexual and religious feelings that he translated into paintings.
(SFC, 10/14/97, p.B1,5)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.C1)
1892 Jan 3, J.R.R. Tolkien
writer (d.1973): Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, was born. "All that is
gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost."
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)(AP, 1/5/99)
1892 Feb 22, "Lady Windermere's
Fan," a melodrama by Oscar Wilde, was first performed, at London's St.
James's Theater. It was about suspected infidelity.
(WSJ, 7/29/98, p.A13)(AP, 2/22/99)
1892 Mar 9, David Garnett,
novelist, editor (Lady into Fox), was born in England.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1892 Mar 10, Eva Turner, British
soprano, was born.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1892 Apr 13, Arthur ("Bomber")
Harris, Marshal of the RAF, was born in Cheltenham.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1892 Jul 4, James Keir Hardie was
1st socialist chosen in British Lower house.
(Maggio, 98)
1892 Jul 18, Thomas Cook (83),
English tour director (Thomas Cook & Son), died.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1892 Oct 6, Alfred Tennyson
(b.1809), writer and poet laureate, died at 83.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1892 Dec 9, "Widowers' Houses,"
George Bernard Shaw's first play, opened at the Royalty Theater in
London.
(AP, 12/9/06)
1892-1937 The Gilbert Islands (Kiribati Islands)
were amalgamated as British possessions.
(WSJ, 1/22/96, p.A-1)
1892-1962 Vita Sackville-West, English poet and
author: "Summer makes a silence after spring."
(AP, 6/21/97)
1892-1969 Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, English author:
"There are different kinds of wrong. The people sinned against are not
always the best."
(AP, 10/21/98)
1893 Jan 13, Britain's Independent
Labor Party, a precursor to the current Labor Party, had its 1st
meeting.
(AP, 1/13/00)
1893 Jan 15, Fanny Kemble
(b.1809), actress and writer, died in London. Her work included
"Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation.” In 2000 Catherine
Clinton authored "Fanny Kimble’s Civil Wars" and edited "Fanny Kemble’s
Journals." In 2007 Deirdre David authored “Fanny Kemble: A Performed
Life.”
(WSJ, 9/21/00, p.A24)(Econ, 6/23/07,
p.95)(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1569.html)
1893 Mar 18, Wilfred Owen
(d.1918), World War I English poet, was born. He was killed one week
before Armistice Day of WW I. His fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon
published Owen’s single slim volume of poetry.
(NH, 10/98, p.18)(HN, 3/18/01)
1893 Apr 3, Leslie Howard,
[Stainer], actor (Gone With the Wind), was born in London.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1893 Apr 19, The Oscar Wilde play
"A Woman of No Importance" opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London.
(WSJ, 9/16/98, p.A20)(AP, 4/19/03)
1893 Jun 13, Dorothy Leigh Sayers
(d.1957), English detective writer, creator of Lord Peter Wimsey, was
born. "The worst sin -- perhaps the only sin -- passion can commit, is
to be joyless."
(AP, 5/17/97)(HN, 6/13/01)
1893 Sep 4, Beatrix Potter,
English author, first told the story of Peter Rabbit in the form of a
"picture letter" to Noel Moore, the son of Potter's former governess. A
2nd illustrated letter the same month later became “The Tale of Jeremy
Fisher.” The “Tale of Peter Rabbit” was published in 1901.
(HN, 9/4/00)(AP, 9/4/04)(Econ, 1/6/07, p.67)
1893 Dec, Arthur Conan Doyle’s
Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventures of the Final Problem,” appeared
in The Strand Magazine. In it Holmes and his archenemy, Prof. Moriarty,
plunged to their death at the Reichenbach Falls.
(ON, 3/06, p.12)
1893 The Durand line, drawn by
British diplomat Sir Mortimer Durand, fixed the borders of Afghanistan
with British India, splitting Pushtun tribal areas, leaving half of
these Afghans in what is now Pakistan. By 2007 no Afghan government had
yet accepted the border.
(www.afghan-web.com/history/)(Econ, 7/22/06,
p.44)(Econ, 8/18/07, p.34)
1893 The first electric bread
toasters were made in England about this time.
(SFC, 1/23/08, p.G4)
1893-1970 Vera Brittain, British author: "Politics
are usually the executive expression of human immaturity."
(AP, 10/8/00)
1894 Feb 10, Harold MacMillan,
British prime minister from 1957 to 1963, was born.
(HN, 2/10/97)(HN, 2/10/99)
1894 Mar 3, British PM William
Gladstone submitted his resignation to Queen Victoria, ending his
fourth and final premiership. Gladstone was later quoted as saying this
year: “Do not let me be told that one nation has no authority over
another. Every nation, and if need be every human being, has authority
on behalf of humanity and justice.”
(AP, 3/3/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.98)
1894 Apr 21, George Bernard Shaw's
"Arms & the Man," premiered in London.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1894 Apr 30, Giuseppe Farnara and
Francis Polti were convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for
attempted terrorism in London.
(Econ, 5/3/08, p.65)
1894 Jun 23, Edward VIII [Duke of
Windsor], King of England, was born. He abdicated his throne for
American Wallis Simpson.
(HN, 6/23/99)
1894 Jul 25, Japanese forces sank
the British steamer Kowshing which was bringing Chinese reinforcements
to Korea.
(HN, 7/25/98)
1894 Jul 26, Aldous L. Huxley
(d.1963), author (Brave New World), was born in Surrey, England. "Most
human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for
granted." "Parodies and caricatures are the most penetrating of
criticisms."
(AP, 7/13/97)(AP, 7/26/98)(MC, 7/26/02)
1894 Sep 10, London taxi driver
George ("Mac") Smith was 1st to be fined for drunk driving (no horse to
take him home).
(MC, 9/10/01)
1894 Sep 13, J.B. Priestley
(d.1984), British novelist and playwright, was born. "The weakness of
American civilization, and perhaps the chief reason why it creates so
much discontent, is that it is so curiously abstract. It is a bloodless
extrapolation of a satisfying life. ... You dine off the advertiser's
'sizzling' and not the meat of the steak."
(AP, 9/13/98)(HN, 9/13/00)
1894 Oct 24, J. Anthony Froude
(b.1818), English historian, died. In 2005 Julia Markus authored “J.
Anthony Froude: The Last Undiscovered Great Victorian.”
(WSJ, 10/4/05,
p.D8)(http://en.thinkexist.com/birthday/October_24/)
1894 George Curzon authored
"Problems of the Far East."
(WSJ, 6/11/03, p.D10)
1894 The Tower Bridge over the
Thames was completed.
(SFEC, 6/11/00, p.A17)
1894 In Britain William Harcourt
introduced the estate duty to replace 5 death duties.
(Econ, 10/27/07,
p.90)(www.tax.org.uk/showarticle.pl?id=1566)
1894 The British introduced the
Land Acquisition Act in India in order to build railroads and canals.
It obliged private owners to part with land required for a public
purpose.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.63)
1895 Jan 13, J.R. Seeley (b.1834),
English essayist and historian, died. His essay Ecce Homo, published
anonymously in 1866, and afterwards acknowledged by him, was widely
read, and prompted many replies, being deemed an attack on Christianity.
(WSJ, 12/8/08,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Robert_Seeley)
1895 Feb 14, Oscar Wilde's final
play, "The Importance of Being Earnest," opened at the St. James'
Theatre in London.
(AP, 2/14/98)
1895 Mar 5, Henry Creswicke
Rawlinson (85), soldier and scholar, died in England. In 1835 he had
begun examining the ancient inscriptions on the rock of Behistun in the
Kurdish foothills of the Zagros mountain range and found that they had
been made to honor Darius the Great, Persian ruler in the 5th century
BCE. He deciphered text from Old Akkadian cuneiform. In 2004 Lesley
Adkins authored “Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost
Languages of Babylon.”
(http://tinyurl.com/34fg4f)(ON, 4/04, p.9)(WSJ,
12/21/04, p.D8)
1895 Mar 28, Major James McCudden,
the first RAF pilot to receive the Victoria Cross, was born.
(HN, 3/28/99)
1895 Apr 5, Playwright Oscar Wilde
lost his criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, who'd
accused the writer of homosexual practices.
(AP, 4/5/97)
1895 Apr 13, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of Solitary Cyclist."
(MC, 4/13/02)
1895 Apr 29, Malcolm Sargent,
English conductor (Promenade Concerts), was born.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1895 May 25, Playwright Oscar
Wilde was convicted of a morals charge in London; he was sentenced to
two years in prison.
(AP, 5/25/08)
1895 Jul 14, William Leefe
Robinson, the first man to win the Victoria Cross for shooting down a
German Zeppelin, was born.
(HN, 7/14/98)
1895 Aug 5, Friedrich Engels
(b.1820), English socialist who collaborated with Karl Marx on “The
Communist Manifesto” (1848) and “Das Kapital” (1867), died. Engels had
edited the second and third volumes of Das Kapital after Marx's death
(1883). In 2009 Tristram Hunt authored “Marx’s General: The
Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Engels)
1895 Aug 10, The 1st Queen's Hall
Promenade Concert featured Wagner's "Rienzi."
(MC, 8/10/02)
1895 Aug 20, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of Norwood Builder."
(MC, 8/20/02)
1895 Oct 31, Basil H. Liddell
Hart, English military historian and publicist, was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1895 Dec 14, Britain’s King George
VI (d.1952), was born. He rule from 1936-1952.
(HN, 12/14/98)(MC, 12/14/01)
1895 Oscar Wilde wrote his play
"An Ideal Husband."
(WSJ, 5/9/96, p.A-16)(WSJ, 9/16/98, p.A20)
1895 Winston Churchill was
garrisoned in Havana, Cuba, and began smoking cigars at age 22. On
leave for several months from his unit, the 4th Hussars, he reported on
the events for the Daily Graphic.
(SFEM, 12/15/96, p.15)(HNQ, 1/25/01)
1895 An musical event called "The
Last Night of the Proms," a musical tribute to British history, was
first held. It became an annual affair.
(WSJ, 7/19/01, p.A20)
1895 The British began shipping
thousands of Indians to east Africa to build a railway. Many settled
there to become station masters, artisans, clerks and shopkeepers.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.67)
1895-1956 Michael Arlen, English novelist: "Any man
should be happy who is allowed the patience of his wife, the tolerance
of his children and the affection of waiters."
(AP, 9/27/98)
1895-1985 Robert Graves, English poet: "There's no
money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money either."
(AP, 4/8/99)
1896 Mar 7, Gilbert and Sullivan's
last operetta "Grand Duke," premiered in London.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1896 May 9, The 1st horseless
carriage show in London featured 10 models.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1896 Aug 13, John Everett Millais
(67), English painter, died.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1896 Oct 3, William Morris
(b.1834), English artist and writer, died. In 1995 Fiona MacCarthy
authored the biography: “William Morris.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morris)(WSJ,
1/21/07, p.P9)
1896 Oct 11, Chinese agents
tricked Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), Chinese revolutionary, into entering
the Chinese Legation in London. They planned to ship him secretly back
to China where a reward for his arrest amounted to half a million
dollars. The story was made public by the London press and the Legation
was forced to release him. In 1911 Sun Yat-sen played an important role
in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and came to be revered as the
“Father of Modern China.”
(ON, 10/08, p.7)
1896 Nov 16, Oswald Mosley, baron
and British Nazi, was born.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1896 George Bernard Shaw wrote his
comedy play "You Can Never Tell."
(WSJ, 6/24/98, p.A16)
1896 Arthur Conan Doyle published
2 historical novels, “The Exploits of the Brigadier Gerard” and “Rodney
Stone.”
(ON, 3/06, p.12)
1896 The British decided to
conquer Sudan and sent Gen’l. Horatio Kitchener to lead the expedition.
Gen’l. Herbert Kitchener led the British conquest of the Sudan. The
"kit bag," another name for a knapsack, was named after him.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, Z1 p.8)(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1896 Winston Churchill and his
unit, the 4th Hussars, was sent to the Indian frontier where his
writings were later collected into "The Story of the Malakand Field
Force." His twin function as soldier and correspondent was repeated in
the service of Lord Kitchener’s Nile expeditionary force. He resigned
his commission to enter politics shortly thereafter, meeting defeat at
the polls, but finding employment reporting on the war in South Africa.
(SFEM, 12/15/96, p.15)(HNQ, 1/25/01)
1896 Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord
Northcliffe, launched the Daily Mail newspaper.
(SFC, 9/3/98, p.C6)
1896 Harrods Department Store of
London installed its 1st conveyer belt for foot traffic. Some riders
feinted and were revived with cognac.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, Z1 p.2)
1896 The Mountain Copper Co. of
Great Britain bought the Iron Mountain Mine in Northern California and
developed it into the only big copper producer on the Pacific Coast.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.A13)
1896-1951 Peter Cheyney, English author: "The line of
least resistance was always the most difficult line in the long run."
(AP, 11/4/98)
1897 Feb 6, Ebenezer C. Brewer,
British writer (Dictionary of Phrase & Fable), died.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1897 Apr 30, Physicist Joseph John
Thompson described the electron as a particle of negative charge whose
motion constitutes electricity at a meeting of the Royal Institution in
London.
(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A7)
1897 May 18, A public reading of
Bram Stoker's new novel, "Dracula, or, The Un-dead," was staged at the
Royal Lyceum Theatre in London, an event that roughly coincided with
the book's publication.
(AP, 5/18/97)
1897 Jun 12, Anthony Eden, British
prime minister from 1955 to 1957, was born. He helped establish the
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
(HN, 6/12/99)
1897 Jun 19, Charles Cunningham
Boycott (b.Mar 12, 1832) English land agent in Ireland, died in
England. He was a faulty estate manager whose tenants "boycotted" him
into poverty; when the crops failed and the farmers went broke, he
unsympathetically gave them the choice of paying immediately or being
evicted. The farmers retaliated and his staff quit. His family was
isolated. This tactic gave us the word whose last name became part of
the English language.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Charles-Cunningham-Boycott)
1897 Jul 21, The Tate Gallery
opened in England.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1897 Jul 31, The commercial treaty
between Britain and the German zollverein (established in 1865) was
denounced by Britain and pronounced to end in one year.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A2)
1897 Aug 31, General Kitchener
occupied Berber, North of Khartoum.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1897 Oct 22, The world's 1st car
dealer began business in London.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1897 Nov 15, Sacheverell Sitwell,
English poet and author (People's Palace), was born.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1897 Nov 19, The Great "City Fire"
in London.
(HN, 11/19/98)
1897 Britain celebrated a Diamond
Jubilee for Queen Victoria.
(SSFC, 5/18/03, p.M6)
1897 The suffragette movement
started in England as a peaceful protest. The movement turned militant
in 1903. Women in England won the right to vote in 1918.
(SFC, 8/23/06, p.G7)
1897 Benin City, capital of Edo
state, Nigeria, was burned and ransacked by the British after the Bini
killed a British diplomatic mission. 16th century brass plaques were
looted from the royal palace and sold to the British Museum.
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.D8)
1897 The Royal Pigeon Racing
Association formed in England. In 2004 it began drug testing among its
members for the use of steroids in their pigeons.
(WSJ, 11/11/04, p.A1)
1897 Isaac Pitman (b.1813),
inventor of Pitman shorthand, died in Britain.
(WSJ, 8/20/04, p.A1)
1898 Jan 14, Author Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson -- better known as "Alice in Wonderland" creator
Lewis Carroll -- died in Guildford, England. In 2008 Robin Wilson
authored “Lewis Carroll in Numberland: His Fantastical Mathematical
Logical Life.”
(AP, 1/14/98)(Econ, 7/5/08, p.93)
1898 Mar 14, Henry Bessemer
(b.1813), English inventor and mechanical engineer, died. Bessemer
developed the first process for mass-producing steel inexpensively.
(ON, 9/06,
p.6)(www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jan/bessemer.html)
1898 Apr 8, British General
Horatio Kitchener defeated the Khalifa, leader of the dervishes in
Sudan, at the Battle of Atbara. Anglo-Egyptian forces crushed 6,000
Sudanese.
(HN, 4/8/99)(MC, 4/8/02)
1898 Jul 4, Gertrude Lawrence,
English actress, was born.
(HN, 7/4/01)
1898 Jul 8, Alec Waugh (d.1981),
novelist (Island in the Sun); brother of Evelyn, was born in London.
"If we knew where opinion ended and fact began, we should have
discovered, I suppose, the absolute."
(AP, 2/9/00)(MC, 7/8/02)
1898 Jul 28, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of the Retired Colourman."
(SC, 7/28/02)
1898 Sep 1, Lord Kitchener's army
bombed Omdurman, Sudan. Lt. Winston Churchill approached Omdurman, the
rebel capital, as a scout in the cavalry along with the rest of Gen.
Kitchener's army of 25,000 men. [see Sep 2]
(ON, 10/99, p.2)(MC, 9/1/02)
1898 Sep 2, Anglo-Egyptian lines
under Gen’l. Kitchener were charged by 50,000 fanatical Dervishes and
were mowed down by howitzers, machine guns and rifles. Lt. Winston
Churchill led one of the last (and most useless) cavalry charges in
history.
(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)
1898 H.G. Wells (1866-1946)
published the classic "War of the Worlds." It was about an invasion of
Earth by Martians.
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A16)
1898 British army officers began
using the new portable Roorkhee chair. It was named in honor of the
headquarters of the Indian Army corps of Engineers at Roorkhee.
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.46)
c1898 Edmund Dene Morel, a London
employee of the shipping line Elder Dempster, came to realize that a
wealth of rubber and ivory cargo was arriving from Congo in exchange
for military officers, firearms and ammunition. He deduced that forced
labor was being used by King Leopold II of Belgium to extract native
wealth.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.4)
1898 Charles Booth, shipping
magnate, led a project to color-code every street in London according
to its social make-up.
(Econ, 5/6/06, p.57)
1898 In England chemists William
Ramsay and Morris Travers discovered a new gas that they named neon. It
had a natural orange-red glow.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A20)
1898 William Gladstone (b.1809),
former English prime minister, died. His biography, "Gladstone," by Roy
Jenkins was published in 1995.
(WSJ, 2/21/97, p.A12)
1898 Joseph Silver (d.1918), a
Polish-born Jew, arrived in Johannesburg fresh from a stint in Sing
Sing for burglary and a stay in London a decade earlier. Shortly after
arriving in Johannesburg, Silver set up a string of cafes, cigar shops
and police-protected brothels. Silver was executed as a spy in Poland
in 1918. In 2007 Charles van Onselen authored "The Fox and The Flies:
The World of Joseph Silver,” in which he suggested that Silver was
London’s “Jack the Ripper.”
(AP, 5/2/07)
1898-1963 C.S. Lewis, British author. His work
included "The Chronicles of Narnia." He chose a theistic view of
reality over a materialistic one and affirmed the mutual existence of
soul, god and nature. His autobiography was titled "Surprised by Joy."
His work included "The Abolition of Man," "Miracles" and "The Problem
of Pain." "Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. ... It
has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value
to survival."
(AP, 12/20/97)(WSJ, 10/8/98, p.W13)(SFEC, 11/15/98,
p.T3)
1899 Feb 18, Sir Arthur Bryant,
English historian, was born.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1899 Mar 27, The first
international radio transmission between England and France was
achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.
(HN, 3/27/99)
1899 Jul 1, Charles Laughton,
actor (Mutiny on Bounty, Spartacus), was born in England.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1899 Jul 30, Gerald Moore, English
pianist (Am I Too Loud), was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1899 Aug 13, Movie director Alfred
Hitchcock was born in London.
(AP, 8/13/97)(HN, 8/13/98)
1899 Aug 27, C.S. Forester (Cecil
Scott Forester), novelist, was born in England. He authored the
"Horatio Hornblower" series.
(HN, 8/27/00)(MC, 8/27/02)
1899 Sep 8, The British government
sent an additional 10,000 troops to Natal South Africa.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1899 Sep 17, The 1st British
troops left Bombay for South Africa.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1899 Oct 11, South African Boars,
settlers from the Netherlands, declared war on Great Britain. In the
Boer War Dutch settlers of the South African Republic (the Traansvaal)
and Orange Free State refused to accept English rule in southern Africa.
(V.D.-H.K.p.289)(HN, 10/11/98)
1899 Oct 12, The Anglo-Boer War
began. [see Oct 11]
(HN, 10/12/98)
1899 Oct 14, Morning Post reporter
Winston Churchill departed for South Africa. Shortly after his arrival
he was caught in an ambush and taken prisoner in Pretoria from whence
he escaped. In 1999 his granddaughter Celia Sandys authored "Churchill:
Wanted Dead Or Alive."
(WSJ, 12/29/99, p.A12)(MC, 10/14/01)
1899 Oct 30, British Morning Post
reporter Winston Churchill reached Capetown.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1899 Oct 30, In South Africa two
battalions of British troops were cut off, surrounded and forced to
surrender to General Petrus Joubert's Boers at Nicholson's Nek.
(HN, 10/30/98)
1899 Oct, An int'l. tribunal in
Paris ruled on a border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana
(Guyana). Britain received most of the claim for the Essequibo region,
close to 111,000 square miles. Venezuela was represented by 2 US judges
and the chairman of the panel was Russian jurist Frederic de Martens.
Venezuela rejected this decision in the 1960s.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.A12)(Econ, 9/29/07, p.44)
1899 Nov 11,
Stuart-Rubens-Boyd-Jones' "Floradora," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1899 Nov 15, Winston Churchill
(24), war correspondent for London’s Morning Post, was captured by
Boers in Natal, South Africa. He escaped prison in Pretoria on Dec 12
and after some days reached the English colony in Durban, Natal.
(ON, 12/08, p1)
1899 Nov 28, The British were
victorious over the Boers at Modder River.
(HN, 11/28/98)
1899 Dec 2, John Barbirolli,
English conductor (NY Philharmonic Orchestra), was born.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1899 Dec 15, In South Africa the
Boars defeated the British at the Battle of Colenso.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1899 Dec 16, Sir Noel Coward
(d.1973), the English actor, playwright and composer, was born in
London. "I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise."
(AP, 12/16/99)
1899 Harry Graham, English
versifier, authored "Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes."
(SFEC, 5/14/00, Z1 p.2)
1899 Musicologist Cecil Sharp
stumbled on a performance of Morris dancers at the Oxford Corn
Exchange. He wrote down the songs, annotated the dances and begat a
revival. Morris dancing had been banned as pagan by Oliver Cromwell in
the 17th century.
(WSJ, 5/17/04, p.A13)
1899 A treaty between American,
Germany and Britain gave Western Samoa to the Germans and Eastern Samoa
to the Americans. In an Anglo-German treaty the UK renounced its rights
to the Samoan Islands
(HN, 1/16/99)(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.45)
1899 Army officer W.J. Myers
(b.1858) died in the Boer War. His collection of Egyptian antiquities
was left to Eton College.
(WSJ, 10/3/00, p.A24)
1899-1902 The Anglo-Boer War. Winston Churchill took
part as a war correspondent for the Morning Post.
(WSJ, 12/29/99, p.A12)
1899-1905 Lord George Nathaniel Curzon served as
Viceroy of India.
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.43)
1900 Feb 5, The United States and
Great Britain signed the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, giving the United
States the right to build a canal in Nicaragua but not to fortify it.
(HN, 2/5/99)
1900 Feb 6, Battle at Vaalkrans,
South Africa (Boers vs. British army).
(MC, 2/6/02)
1900 Feb 8, General Buller was
beaten at Ladysmith; the British fled over the Tugela River. [need
details]
(HN, 2/8/98)
1900 Feb 14, General Roberts
invaded South Africa’s Orange Free State with 20,000 British troops.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1900 Feb 15, The British
threatened to use natives in the Boer War fight.
(HN, 2/15/98)
1900 Feb 18, Battle at Paardeberg
(Boer War), 1,270 British killed or injured.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1900 Feb 28, After a 119-day siege
by the Boers, the English defenders of Ladysmith, under General Sir
George White were relieved.
(HN, 2/28/98)
1900 Mar 11, British Prime
Minister Lord Salisbury (1830-1903) rejected the peace overtures
offered from Boer leader Paul Kruger.
(HN, 3/11/98)(WUD, 1994, p.1262)
1900 Mar 27, The London Parliament
passed the War Loan Act which gave 35 million pounds to the Boer War
cause.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1900 Apr 4, There was an
assassination attempt on Prince of Wales, King Edward VII.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1900 Apr 9, British forces routed
the Boers at Kroonstadt, South Africa.
(HN, 4/9/98)
1900 Apr 19, Richard Hughes,
English novelist and playwright (A High Wind in Jamaica), was born.
(HN, 4/1901)
1900 Apr 24, Elizabeth Goudge,
English author, was born.
(HN, 4/24/01)
1900 May 18, Britain proclaimed a
protectorate over kingdom of Tonga.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1900 May 28, Britain annexed the
Orange Free State in South Africa.
(HN, 5/28/98)
1900 Jun 25, Lord Louis
Mountbatten of Burma, the last British viceroy of India, was born. He
survived World War II only to be killed by an IRA bomb.
(HN, 6/25/99)
1900 Jul 9, Queen Victoria signed
The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, uniting 6 separate
colonies under a federal government, effective Jan 1, 1901.
(HN, 7/9/98)(www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/as__indx.html)
1900 Aug 4, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
(d.2002), later known as the Queen Mum (mother of Queen Elizabeth II),
was born in Scotland as the daughter of Lord Glamis, who became the
14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. She later became the wife of
King George VI.
(SFC, 8/4/00, p.A18)(SFC, 8/5/00, p.A12)(WSJ,
8/10/00, p.A16)(MC, 8/4/02)
1900 Sep 9, James Hilton, British
novelist who authored "Lost Horizon" and "Goodbye Mr. Chips," was born.
In Lost Horizon he created the imaginary world of "Shangri-La."
(HN, 9/9/98)
1900 Oct 1, Oldham, England,
announced that Winston Churchill had won the election as the town's
second MP, beginning Churchill's long career in the House of Commons.
(www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=304)
1900 Oct 3, Edward Elgar, Cardinal
John Henry Newman's oratorium, premiered in Birmingham.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1900 Oct 10, Fred Holland Day
exhibited his work at the London Exhibition under the auspices of the
Royal Photographic Society.
(Civilization, July-Aug. 1995, p.40-47)
1900 Nov 22, Sir Arthur Sullivan
(b.1842), English composer, died. His operas included "H.M.S.
Pinafore," "Iolanthe," "Patience," "The Pirates of Penzance," "Princess
Ida," "The Mikado," "Trial by Jury," and "The Yeoman of the Guard."
(WSJ, 11/22/00, p.A20)
1900 Nov 30, The French government
denounced the British government and declared sympathy for the Boers.
(HN, 11/30/98)
1900 Dec 16, V.S. Pritchett
(d.1997), English writer, was born in Ipswich. The first volume of his
autobiography was called "A Cab at the Door."
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A21)
1900 Dec 19, The British
Parliament voted amnesty for all involved in the army treason trial
known as the Dreyfus Affair.
(HN, 12/19/98)
c1900 Charles Spearman, an English
psychologist, hypothesized the g factor as a measure of smartness based
on correlations on how people performed on tests of different mental
abilities. He invented a mathematical technique called factor analysis
to measure the factor dubbed g, for general. In 1998 Arthur R. Jenson
published "The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability."
(WSJ, 6/2/98, p.A20)
c1900 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote
numerous articles and pamphlets in defense of British concentration
camps during the Boer War, for which he was knighted.
(SFC, 9/5/98, p.E3)
1900 John Ruskin (b.1819),
Victorian art critic and social commentator, died. He was considered in
his time a colossus of esthetic, moral and social wisdom. In 1985 Tim
Hilton authored "John Ruskin: The Early Years." In 2000 Tim Hilton
authored "John Ruskin: The Later Years."
(WSJ, 5/12/00, p.A24)
1900-1902 Lord Herbert Horatio Kitchener created
concentration camps in South Africa where hundreds of thousands of Boer
women, children and old men were herded. An estimated 16,000 died in
the camps.
(WSJ, 2/27/00, p.A24)
1901 Jan 1, The Commonwealth of
Australia became official as established in the July 9, 1900,
Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act. 6 colonies became an
independent federation with Edmund Barton as the 1st prime minister.
Although independent it still recognized Britain’s royalty as
Australia’s head of state. The governor-general, a representative of
the queen nominated by the prime minister, was appointed by the British
monarch.
(AP, 1/1/98)(SFC, 2/3/98, p.A7)(SFC, 12/31/00, p.A18)
1901 Jan 22, Queen Victoria died
at age 82. She was the monarch of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress
of India, and died after presiding over her vast empire for nearly 64
years--the longest reign in British history. Born in 1819, the only
child of George III's fourth son, Victoria became queen in 1837. In
1840, she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Although the
match was a political one, the two were devoted to each other, having
nine children before Albert's death in 1861. Through dynastic
marriages, Victoria's descendants are connected to almost all
20th-century Europe's royal houses. During Victoria's long reign the
monarchy lost much of its political power to Parliament, but she was
the beloved symbol of the Victorian Era--a golden age of British
history. In 2000 Christopher Hibbert authored "Queen Victoria: A
Personal History."
(AP, 1/22/98)(HNPD, 1/22/99)(WSJ, 12/29/00, p.W6)
1901 Jan 22, After 63 years
England stopped the sale of Queen Victoria postage stamps series &
began the King Edward VII series.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1901 Feb 23, Britain and Germany
agreed on a boundary between German East Africa [later Tanganyika,
Rwanda and Burundi] and Nyasaland [later Malawi].
(HN, 2/23/98)(WUD, 1994, p.593,990)
1901 Mar 23, The world learned
that Boers were starving to death in British concentration camps.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1901 Apr 15, The 1st British
motorized burial took place.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1901 Jun 1, John van Druten,
English playwright (I am a Camera), was born.
(HN, 6/1/01)
1901 Aug, Arthur Conan Doyle
published the 1st installment of his book "Hound of the Baskervilles"
in The Strand Magazine. It was later reported that he had stolen the
idea for the novel from his friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson. A 1st
edition copy with dust jacket sold at auction for $131,541 in 1998.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W14)(WSJ, 9/20/00, p.A24)(ON,
3/06, p.12)
1901 Sep 15, Sir Howard Bailey,
British engineer, was born. He gave his name to a prefabricated bridge
used extensively during World War II.
(HN, 9/15/99)
1901 Sep 17, At the Battle at
Elands River Port, Boer Gen. Smuts destroyed the 17th Lancers unit .
(MC, 9/17/01)
1901 Oct 2, The 1st Royal Naval
submarine launched at Barrow.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1901 Oct 19, Edward Elgar's "Pomp
and Circumstance" March premiered in Liverpool.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1901 Nov 6, Kate Greenaway
(b.1846), English children’s book illustrator, died of breast cancer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Greenaway)
1901 Nov 18, The 2nd
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was signed. The U.S. was given extensive rights
by Britain for building and operating a canal through Central America.
(HN, 11/18/98)
1901 Dec 11, Marconi sent his 1st
transatlantic radio signal from Cornwall, England to Newfoundland,
Canada. The first transmission failed, but another the next day
succeeded.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/1701461.stm)
1901 Winston Churchill
prophetically warned: "The wars of peoples will be more terrible than
those of kings."
(SFEC, 1/4/98, Par. p.6)
1901 A fingerprint system,
developed by Inspector Edward R. Henry of the London Police, was
introduced.
(ON, 4/04, p.11)
1901 Edmund Dene Morel (28) quit
his London shipping line job and began a full time campaign to expose
the barbarities in the Congo under Leopold II. He started his own
publication, "The West African Mail," an illustrated weekly journal in
1903 as a forum on West and Central African Questions.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.4)(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.7)
1901 English millionaire William
Knox D’Arcy arranged to pay £40,000 in cash and company stock to
the Shah of Tehran, Muzaffar al-Din, for the right to drill for oil in
western Persia. The deal included a pledge, should commercial
production begin, to pay the Persian government 16% of annual profits
until 1961.
(ON, 8/08, p.1)
1901 India’s population of about
300 million was secured and governed by a British contingent of some
154,000 including dependents. In 2005 David Gilmour authored “The
Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj.”
(Econ, 11/12/05, p.89)
1901-1910 The Edwardian period named after Edward VII
(1902-1910).
(SSFM, 4/1/01, p.44)
1901-1953 Jan Struther, nee Joyce Anstruther, English
poet: "Private opinion creates public opinion... . That is why private
opinion, and private behavior, and private conversation are so
terrifyingly important."
(AP, 11/12/99)
1902 Mar 10, The Boers scored
their last victory over the British, capturing British General Methuen
and 200 men.
(HN, 3/10/98)
1902 cMar 19, Japan formed an
alliance with England.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)
1902 Mar 20, France and Russia
acknowledged the Anglo-Japanese alliance, but asserted their right to
protect their interests in China and Korea.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1902 Mar 22, Great Britain and
Persia agreed to link Europe and India by telegraph.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1902 Mar 29, William Walton,
composer (Troilus and Cressida, Wise Virgins), was born in England.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1902 Apr 10, South African Boers
accepted British terms of surrender.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1902 May 1, John Glover (85),
English chemist (production sulfuric acid), died.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1902 May 5, Bret Harte, American
writer (b.1836), died in England. In 2000 Axel Nissen authored "Bret
Harte: Prince and Pauper."
(WUD, 1994, p.648)(SFEC, 9/3/00, BR p.6)(MC, 5/5/02)
1902 May 6, British SS Camorta
sank off Rangoon and 739 died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1902 May 31, The Boer War ended
between the Boars of South Africa and Great Britain with the Treaty of
Vereeniging. This effectively ended a 3-year uprising by the Boers, led
by Commander Louis Botha. The combination of superior fire power and a
brutal war of attrition launched by Lord Kitchener forced the Boers to
give in. Kitchener burned the farms of Africans and Boers alike and
collected as many as a 100,000 women and children in carelessly run and
unhygienic concentration camps on the open veldt. Britain annexed
Transvaal.
(V.D.-H.K.p.289)(HN, 5/31/99)(SFC, 9/25/99,
p.A21)(MC, 5/31/02)
1902 Jun 19, John E E Dalberg,
baron van Acton (69), English historian, died.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1902 Jan 31, A French soccer team
played in England for the first time: Paris lost, 4-0, to Marlow FC.
(HC, 2003, p.64)
1902 Mar 26, Cecil John Rhodes
(b.1853), British imperialist, died at age 48. He was buried in a tomb
in the Matopos Hills, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). He had co-founded De Beers
Consolidated Mines Ltd., built great railways through southern Africa.
Rhodes (founder of Rhodesia) left $10 million in his will to provide
scholarships to Oxford University in England. The first scholars were
selected in 1903. In 2008 Philip Ziegler authored “Legacy: Cecil
Rhodes, the Rhodes Trust and Rhodes Scholarships.”
(WSJ, 12/9/98, p.A1)(AP, 4/4/97)(SFC, 12/9/98,
p.A25)(Econ, 5/10/08, p.95)
1902 Jul 1, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax."
(MC, 7/1/02)
1902 Aug 9, Edward VII was crowned
king of England following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.
(SFEM, 1/26/97, p.40)(AP, 8/9/98)
1902 Dec 13, The Committee of
Imperial Defense held its first meeting in London.
(HN, 12/13/98)
1902 The novel "The Four Feathers"
by A.E.W. Mason, was published. It was set mainly in England and
Ireland over the years 1882-1888 during England’s war in the Sudan and
went on to inspire 7 films.
(SFC, 9/20/02,
p.D1)(http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/books/4feather.htm)
1902 Arthur Conan Doyle was
knighted by King Edward VII for his work in South Africa as a physician
in a field hospital and his scholarly book about the Boer War.
(ON, 3/06, p.12)
1902 The Greenwich Foot Tunnel, a
passageway under the Thames that to the Royal Naval College, was
constructed.
(SFEC, 10/17/98, p.T9)
1902 Ronald Ross (1857-1932), an
English physician, won the Nobel Prize for his work on malaria. His
story is part of the 1997 novel "The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of
Fevers, Delirium and Discovery" by Amitav Ghosh. In 2003 Fiammetta
Rocco authored "The Miraculous Fever Tree: Malaria and the Quest for a
Cure That Changed the World."
(WUD, 1994, p.1245)(SFEC,10/26/97, BR p.8)(WSJ,
8/26/03, p.D5)
1902 The British enacted a law
that froze the number of Irish pubs at the existing level to help
reduce drinking.
(WSJ, 3/17/99, p.A1)
1902 Britain passed a law against
outdoor cremation.
(AP, 7/12/06)
1902-1932 Doulton pottery in Burslem produced Doulton
Burslem wares. They used a lion and crown as an insignia. They made
bone china from 1928-1957. China was stamped with a number indicating
year of manufacture with "1" representing the year 1928.
(SFC,12/17/97, Z1 p.16)
1903 Jan 7, Alan Napier, actor
(Alfred-Batman), was born in Birmingham, England.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1903 Jan 18, Berthold Goldschmidt,
German-British (opera) composer (Beatrice Cenci), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1903 Jan 19, Guglielmo Marconi
broadcast the first transatlantic radio message from his station
(Marconi Beach) on Cape Cod. It was beamed to King Edward of England
from President Theodore Roosevelt. [see 1901]
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.44)
1903 Jan 24, U.S. Secretary of
State John Hay and British Ambassador Herbert created a joint
commission to establish the Alaskan border.
(HN, 1/24/99)
1903 Mar 15, The British complete
the conquest of Nigeria, 500,000 square miles are now controlled by the
United Kingdom.
(HN, 3/15/99)
1903 Mar 29, A regular news
service began between New York and London on Marconi's wireless.
(HN, 3/29/98)
1903 Apr 15, John Williams, actor
(Niles-Family Affair, Dial M for Murder), was born in England.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1903 May 12, Lennox R.F. Berkeley,
British composer (Castaway), was born.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1903 May 26, Start of Sherlock
Holmes "Adventure of 3 Gables."
(MC, 5/26/02)
1903 May 29, Bob Hope (d.2003), US
comedian, was born as Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, England.
(SFC, 5/28/97, p.D5)(AP, 5/29/05)
1903 May, In Britain the House of
Commons passed a resolution urging that Congo natives be governed with
humanity. Also the British consul in the Congo, Roger Casement, was
asked to travel to the interior and report on conditions there.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.8)
1903 Jun 25, George Orwell
(d.1950), English novelist, essayist and critic, was born in India as
Eric Arthur Blair. He took his pen name in 1932. His books included
"Animal Farm" (1945) and "1984" (1949), which attacked totalitarianism.
"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one
that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
(HN, 6/25/99)(AP,
9/23/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell)
1903 Jun 29, The British
government officially protested Belgian atrocities in the Congo.
Missionaries, such as William Sheppard of Virginia, had provided
information that soldiers of Leopold’s private army turned over the
right hand of villagers they had killed in order to account for their
used bullets. Leopold’s 19,000 man private army held hostage the wives
of workers to force men to work.
(HN, 6/29/98)(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.7,8)
1903 Jul 1, Amy Johnson, English
aviator, was born.
(HN, 7/1/01)
1903 Jul 2, Lord Alex
Douglas-Home, British PM (1963-64), was born.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1903 Jul 2, Olav V, King of Norway
(1957), was born in England.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1903 Aug 31, Bernard Lovell, radio
astronomer, founded Jodrell Bank, was born in England.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1903 Oct 28, Evelyn Waugh
(d.1966), English novelist, was born in London. Waugh served in WWII as
a SAS Commando. He wrote "Decline and Fall" and "Brideshead Revisited."
"News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to
read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead."
(AP, 3/29/99)(HN, 10/28/99)(MC, 10/28/01)
1903 Nov 2, The Daily Mirror of
London began operating as the first tabloid newspaper.
(WSJ, 12/29/07,
p.A8)(http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/lofiversion/index.php/t6351.html)
1903 Dec 4, Alfred Leslie Rowse
(d. 10/3/97), Shakespeare scholar and authority on Tudor England, was
born in St. Austell, England. He authored 90 volumes of history, poetry
and biography. His best seller was "A Cornish Childhood." He asserted
that the "Dark Lady" in Shakespeare’s sonnets was the Italian poet
Emilis Bassano Lanier.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D10)(MC, 12/4/01)
1903 Dec 8, Herbert Spencer
(b.1820), English philosopher, died. He was later considered to be the
father of Social Darwinism. He is best known for coining the phrase
"survival of the fittest," which he did in “Principles of Biology”
(1864).
(WSJ, 1/9/09,
p.A11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer)
1903 Dec 10, Mary Norton, English
children's author, was born. Her work included "Bedknobs and
Broomsticks."
(HN, 12/10/00)
1903 Dec 15, The British
Parliament placed a 15-year ban on whale fishing in Norway.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1903 Robert Erskine Childers
(1870-1922), British author, wrote his spy novel “The Riddle of the
Sands.” The Irish nationalist was executed by the authorities of the
nascent Irish Free State during the Irish Civil War.
(Econ, 6/6/09,
p.81)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riddle_of_the_Sands)
1903 The Burlington Magazine, a
journal of art history, was founded in Britain. In 2003 Michael Levy
edited "The Burlington Magazine: A Centenary Anthology," with articles
by a roster of legendary art historians.
(WSJ, 5/29/03, p.D8)
1903 Princess Alice (18) married
the son of a Greek king
(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.M3)
1903 A skeleton of a man, 9,000
years old, was discovered in the underground caves at Cheddar, 130
miles west of London.
(SFC, 3/8/96, p.A8)
1903 English Col. Francis
Younghusband (1863-1942) marched off from Darjeeling, India, with 1,000
British and Indian soldiers, 7,000 mules and 4,000 yaks to invade Tibet.
(SSFC, 7/15/07,
p.G5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Younghusband)
1903-1974 Cyril Connolly, British critic: "We fear
something before we hate it. A child who fears noises becomes a man who
hates noise."
(AP, 6/16/00)
1903-1990 Malcolm Muggeridge, British author and
commentator: "It is only believers in the Fall of Man who can really
appreciate how funny men are."
(AP, 6/11/99)
1903-1997 Dec 4, A.L. Rowse (d. 10/3/97), Shakespeare
scholar and authority on Tudor England, was born in St. Austell,
England. He authored 90 volumes of history, poetry and biography. His
best seller was "A Cornish Childhood." He asserted that the "Dark Lady"
in Shakespeare’s sonnets was the Italian poet Emilis Bassano Lanier.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.D10)
1904 Jan 7, The Marconi
International Marine Communication Company, Limited, of London
announced that the telegraphed letters “C-Q-D” would serve as a
maritime distress call. It was later replaced by “S-O-S”.
(AP, 1/7/07)
1904 Jan 11, British troops
massacred 1,000 dervishes in Somaliland.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1904 Jan 18, Cary Grant (d.1986),
U.S. actor, was born in England. He was famous for his roles in "Gunga
Din," "Bringing Up Baby," "The Philadelphia Story" and "North by
Northwest."
(HN, 1/18/99)(MC, 1/18/02)
1904 Mar 22, The first color
photograph was published in the London Daily Illustrated Mirror.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1904 Apr 14, George Bernard Shaw's
"Candide," premiered in London.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1904 May 10, Henry M. Stanley,
[John Rowlands], British explorer, died.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1904 Oct 22, Russian fleet fired
on a British fishing ship.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1904 Nov 1, George Bernard Shaw's
"John Bull's Other Island," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1904 Nov 28, Nancy Mitford,
English author (Love in a Cold Climate), was born. The eldest of 7
Mitford children was born to Lord and Lady Redesdale. In 2001 Mary S.
Lovell authored "The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family." Jessica
Mitford, author of "The American Way of Death" (1963) died in 1996.
(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.M1)(MC, 11/28/01)
1904 Dec 27, Duke of York Theatre
opened in London with the 1st performance “Peter Pan: The Boy Who
Wouldn't Grow Up,” a dream-play written by J.M. Barrie.
(SFC, 1/10/04,
p.D1)(www.amrep.org/past/peter/peter1.html)
1904 Dec 28, The 1st daily
wireless weather forecasts were published in London.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1904 Oct 2, Graham Greene
(d.1991), British author, was born. His work included "The Power and
the Glory," "The Heart of the Matter" and "Ministry of Fear," which was
made into a 1940s movie by Fritz Lang. "I didn't invent the world I
write about- it's all true." In 2004 Norman sherry concluded his
3-volume biography: “The Life of Graham Greene.”
(SFEC,10/26/97, DB p.44)(AP, 4/3/00)(HN,
10/2/00)(SFC, 10/2/04, p.E1)
1904 The London Symphony Orchestra
was formed.
(Econ, 2/28/04, p.82)
1904 William and Gilbert Foyle
founded Foyle's bookstore. They began by selling their textbooks after
failing the entrance exam for the civil service.
(SFC, 6/11/99, p.D6)
1904 In England the Grand Pier
opened at Weston-super-Mare on the northern Somerset coast and
stretched a quarter of a mile (400 meters) into the Bristol Channel.
The theatre pavilion on the Grand Pier was destroyed by fire in 1930
and rebuilt, opening three years later. In 2008 another fire destroyed
the pier.
(AFP, 7/28/08)
1904 The Congo Reform Association
was born following the return of Roger Casement from the Congo and his
meeting with Edmund Morel.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.9)
1904 The British Rover Motor Car
Company was founded.
(SSFC, 11/22/09, p.H1)
1904 Christopher Dresser (b.1834),
English designer, died. In 1876 he became the 1st European designer to
visit Japan.
(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.D4)
1905 Jan 2, Sir Michael Tippett,
British composer, was born in London. His childhood was divided among
England, France and Italy. His work included the oratorio "Vision of
St. Augustine."
(SFC, 1/10/98, p.A19)
1905 Jan 18, Edward Henry Corbould
(b.1815), English artist, died.
(WSJ, 11/22/08,
p.W11)(www.corbould.com/artists/ehc/ehc.html)
1905 Mar 9, Rex Warner, English
poet, writer (Wild Goose Chase), was born.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1905 Apr 19, Tom Hopkinson,
British writer, was born.
(HN, 4/1901)
1905 May 25, Binnie Barnes,
actress (Adventures of Marco Polo, Diamond Jim), was born in London.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1905 Jul 19, Boyd Neel, conductor
(Story of an Orch), was born in Blackheath, Kent England.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1905 Sep 30, British director
Michael Powell ("The Red Shoes") was born in Bekesbourne, Kent, England.
(AP, 9/30/05)
1905 Oct 13, Henry Irving
(b.1838), British actor, died in England. In 2008 Michael Holroyd
authored “A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen
Terry, Henry Irving and Their Remarkable Families.” Irving was the
first actor to be awarded a British knighthood (1895).
(WSJ, 3/6/09,
p.W6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Terry)
1905 Oct 15, Charles P. Snow
(d.1980), English novelist (Death Under Sail), was born. He pointed out
that the university’s separate worlds have ceased to talk to one
another. The "uni" in the university has become meaningless as the
institution, possessing more and more power as government funds were
pumped into it for research, turned into a loose confederation of
disconnected mini-states, instead of an organization devoted to the
joint search for knowledge and truth.
(V.D.-H.K.p.142)(HN, 10/15/00)(MC, 10/15/01)
1905 Nov 18, George Bernard Shaw's
"Major Barbara," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1905 Nov 19, 100 people drowned in
the English Channel as the steamer Hilda sank.
(HN, 11/19/98)
1905 Nov 22, British, Italian,
Russian, French and Austrian-Hungarian fleet attacked the Grecian Isle
of Lesbos.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1905 H.E. Marshall authored “Our
Island Story,” a history of Britain for children.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.44)
1905 Gustav Holst, composer,
became music master at St. Paul’s Girls’ School. He added a posting as
director of music at Morley College in 1907.
(WSJ, 9/1/00, p.W2)
1905 Herbert Austin began making
cars at Longbridge near Birmingham, England. The site later became the
main factory of MG Rover.
(Econ, 3/11/06, p.53)
1906 Feb 10, Britain's 1st modern
and largest battleship, the "HMS Dreadnought," was launched.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1906 Feb 15, British Labour Party
organized.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1906 Mar 10, London Underground
opened Bakerloo line from Baker Street to Waterloo Line.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1906 Mar 20, George B. Shaw's
"Captain Brassbound's Conversion," premiered in London.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1906 Mar 24, "Census of the
British Empire" showed England ruled 1/5 of the world.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1906 Mar 25, Alan John Percivale
Taylor, English historian, was born. He pioneered the presentation of
the history lecture on British television.
(HN, 3/25/99)
1906 Mar 29, E. Power Biggs,
organist, composer (CBS), was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, England.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1906 Apr 24, William Joyce was
born. He was the British traitor, who during World War II gave
anti-British broadcasts known as 'Lord Haw-Haw.'
(HN, 4/24/99)
1906 May 29, T.H. White, British
writer (The Sword in the Stone), was born.
(HN, 5/29/01)
1906 Aug 28, John Betjeman
(d.1984), poet laureate of England (1972-1984), was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Betjeman)
1906 Oct 8, Karl Ludwig Nessler
first demonstrated a machine in London that put permanent waves in
hair. The client wore a dozen brass curlers, each weighing two pounds,
for the six-hour process.
(HN, 10/8/00)
1906 Nov 20, George Bernard Shaw's
"Doctor's Dilemma," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1906 Dec 30, Sir Carol Reed
(d.1976) British movie director ("The Third Man," "Our Man in Havana,"
"Oliver!") was born in London.
(AP, 12/30/06)
1906 William Empson, English
critic and poet, was born. He wrote the book "Seven Types of
Ambiguity," in which he attempted to translate the new ideas of physics
into literary criticism.
(WUD, 1994, p.468)(SFEC, 8/17/97, Z1 p.3)
1906 H. Elves and A. Henry
published their classic work on dendrology: "The Trees and Shrubs of
Great Britain and Ireland."
(NH, 6/96, p.46)
1906 Edmund Morel wrote "Red
Rubber: the Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Flourishing on the Congo in
the year of Grace 1906."
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.9)
1906 Joseph Malaby Dent
(1849-1926), British bookbinder turned publisher, began Everyman’s
Library, a collection of low cost classic books.
(WSJ, 1/9/06,
p.D4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Dent)
1906 The Manchester engineer Henry
Royce and millionaire’s son Charles Rolls built the first Rolls-Royce
car.
(WSJ, 10/28/97, p.B1)
1907 Jan 4, George Bernard Shaw's
"Don Juan in Hell" scene from "Man and Superman" premiered in London.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1907 Feb 13, English suffragettes
stormed the British Parliament and 60 women were arrested.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1907 Feb 21, Wystan Hugh Auden
(d.1973), English born American poet, critic and playwright, was born.
He wrote the libretto for Benjamin Britten’s first music drama, "Paul
Bunyan." He died in Austria after suffering from Touraine-Solente-Gole
in which the skin of the forehead, face, scalp, hands, and feet becomes
thick and furrowed. "Political history is far too criminal and
pathological to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children
should acquire their heroes and villains from fiction."
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AHD, 86)(WSJ, 2/12/96, p.A-13)(WSJ,
1/8/98, p.A7)(AP, 4/15/98)
1907 Feb 22, The 1st cabs with
taxi meters began operating in London.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1907 Feb 26, Royal Oil and Shell
merged to form British Petroleum (BP).
(SC, 2/26/02)
1907 Mar 16 The British cruiser
Invincible, the world's largest, was completed at Glasgow shipyards.
(HN, 3/16/98)
1907 May 12, Leslie Charteris,
English-US detective writer (The Saint), was born.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1907 May 13, Daphne du Maurier
(d.1989), author (Rebecca), was born in England.
(HN, 5/13/01)(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.W4)
1907 May 22, Lord Laurence
Olivier, English actor, was born in Dorking, Surrey. He made
Shakespeare movies and was knighted in 1947.
(HN, 5/22/99)(AP, 5/22/07)
1907 May 28, Patrick Browne,
British Lord justice of appeal, was born.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1907 Jun 1, Frank A. Whittle,
England inventor (jet engine), was born. (MC, 6/1/02)
1907 Jul 15, The London Electrobus
Company began picking up passengers in the world’s biggest trials of
battery-powered buses. The service collapsed in 1909. It suffered from
an investment scam led by Baron de Martigny, a Canadian music-hall
artist, the front man for Edward Lehwess, a German lawyer and
con-artist. In 1906 Lehwess had sold the company a worthless patent
that caused investors to demand the return of some 80,000 pounds.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ p.10)
1907 Jun 27, Valerie Cossart
(d.1994), actress (The Hartmans), was born in London.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0181961/)
1907 Aug 31, England, Russia and
France formed their Triple Entente.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1907 Sep 7, The British liner RMS
Lusitania set out on its maiden voyage, from Liverpool, England, to New
York, arriving six days later. The Lusitania was sunk by a German
submarine in 1915.
(AP, 9/7/07)
1907 Dec 10, Rumor Godden, English
novelist (Black Narcissus), was born.
(HN, 12/10/00)
1907 Dec 18, Christopher Fry,
playwright (Ring Around the Moon), was born in Bristol, England.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1907 Dec 22, Actress Dame Peggy
Ashcroft was born in Croydon, England.
(AP, 12/22/07)
1907 The current Old Bailey
building was built. It stands on the site of the old Newgate Jail.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.T11)
1907 Britain urged the adoption of
Daylight Savings Time (DST) to conserve fuel and provide more hours to
train soldiers. British architect and golfer William Willet authored a
pamphlet deploring the waste of daylight.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(WSJ, 3/31/05, p.D8)
1907 Britain and Russia carved
Iran into spheres of influence.
(WSJ, 4/2/07, p.A6)
1907 The British forced the
abolition of slavery on the new Sultan of Zanzibar and Lamu Island went
into an economic decline.
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.T7)
1907-1934 HJ was a mark used by A.G. Harley Jones,
operator of the Royal Vienna Art Pottery in the Staffordshire district
of England at this time.
(SFC, 7/9/97, Z1 p.3)
1907-1989 Laurence Olivier, British actor: "I take a
simple view of living. It is keep your eyes open and get on with it."
(AP, 3/18/98)
1908 Jan 18, Jacob Bronowsky,
British mathematician, cultural historian, was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1908 Jan 24, This is considered
the starting date of the Boy Scouts movement in England. Lt. General
Robert S.S. Baden-Powell, had achieved fame as a hero in the Boer War
and applied his methods of training British soldiers in South Africa in
woodcraft and survival methods to young English boys in the early
1900s. The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated in 1910 and united
with two previously existing organizations, the Sons of Daniel Boone,
founded by Daniel Beard in 1905 and Ideals of the Woodcraft Indians,
founded by Ernest Seton in 1902.
(AP, 1/24/08)(HNQ, 11/12/01)
1908 Feb 14, Russia and Britain
threatened action in Macedonia if peace was not reached soon.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1908 Mar 2, An international
conference on arms reduction opened in London.
(HN, 3/2/99)
1908 Mar 5, Rex Harrison, actor
(My Fair Lady), was born in Lancashire, England.
(AP, 3/5/08)
1908 Mar 8, The House of Commons,
London, turned down the women's suffrage bill.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1908 Mar 20, Michael Redgrave
(d.1985), actor (Browning Version, Lady Vanishes), was born in Bristol,
England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Redgrave)
1908 Mar 25, Bridget D'Oyly Carte,
British theater and hotel director, was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1908 Mar 25, David Lean (d.1991),
British film director (Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia),
was born in Croydon, England.
(HN, 3/25/01)(AP, 3/25/08)
1908 May 12, George Bernard Shaw's
"Getting Married," premiered in London.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1908 May 26, Robert Morley,
British character actor, was born in Semley, England.
(AP, 5/26/08)
1908 May 26, The first major oil
strike in the Middle East took place as engineers working for British
entrepreneur William Knox D'Arcy and led by George B. Reynolds hit a
gusher more than 1,100 feet below ground in Masjid-i-Suleiman, Persia
(Iran). The Concessions Syndicate Limited, later the Anglo-Persian Oil
Co., included the Burmah Oil Company of Glasgow, Scotland, and the
Persian oil project of William Knox D'Arcy.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)(WSJ, 4/2/07, p.A6)(AP,
5/26/08)(ON, 8/08, p.3)
1908 May 28, Ian Fleming (d.1964),
author of James Bond novels, was born in Mayfair, London. He also wrote
the children’s book "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1964).
(HN,
5/28/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitty_Chitty_Bang_Bang)(AP,
5/28/08)
1908 Jun 8, King Edward VII of
England visited Czar Nicholas II of Russia in an effort to improve
relations between the two countries.
(HN, 6/8/98)
1908 Aug 5, Miriam Rothschild,
English scientist and writer, was born.
(HN, 8/5/00)
1908 Aug 11, Britain's King Edward
VII met with Kaiser Wilhelm II to protest the growth of the German navy.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1908 Sep 3, James Barries "What
Every Woman Knows," premiered in London.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1908 Sep 12, Winston Churchill
married Clementine Hozier.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1908 Oct 16, The first airplane
flight in England was made at Farnsborough, by Samuel Cody, a U.S.
citizen.
(HN, 10/16/98)
1908 Nov 20, Alistair Cooke
(d.2004), English journalist, who hosted "Masterpiece Theater," was
born in Salford, England.
(SFC, 3/31/04, p.A2)(AP, 11/20/08)
1908 Arnold Bennet, English
writer, published “the Old Wives’ Tale,“ later regarded as his finest
novel.
(WSJ, 8/22/08, p.W8)
1908 Kenneth Grahame wrote the
classic British children’s book "Wind in the Willows." It was made into
a movie in 1997.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.D3)
1908 Helena Rubinstein, following
her success in Australia, moved to London and opened a beauty.
(SFEM, 8/23/98, p.29)
1908 The marathon of the Olympic
Games was changed from 24 to 26 miles so that the finish line would
fall in front of the Royal Box in England.
(SFEC, 1/9/00, Z1 p.2)
1908 Oil was discovered in Persia.
The Anglo-Persian Oil Co. Struck oil in Iran.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)(WSJ, 4/2/07, p.A6)
1909 Feb 28, Stephen Spender
(d.1995), English poet, critic, was born.
(HN, 2/28/01)(Econ, 6/19/04, p.81)
1909 Mar 2, Great Britain, France,
Germany and Italy asked Serbia to set no territorial demands.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1909 Mar 12, British Parliament
increased naval appropriations for Britain.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1909 Mar 23, British Lt.
Shackleton found the magnetic South Pole.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1909 Apr 10, Algernon Charles
Swinburne (b.1837), English poet, died.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1909 May 15, James Mason, actor
(The Desert Fox, Lolita, Bloodline, Boys From Brazil), was born in
England.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1909 May 18, George Meredith (81),
English poet, writer (Diana of Crossways), died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1909 Jun 7, Jessica Tandy, actress
(Birds, Cocoon, Batteries Not Included), was born in London.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1909 Jul 25, French aviator Louis
Bleriot (1872-1936) made the first crossing of the English Channel from
Calais to the grounds of Dover Castle in a powered aircraft, winning a
£1,000 prize offered by the London Daily Mail. Piloting his Type
XI monoplane at an average of 39 miles per hour, Blériot made
the trip of 23.2 miles in just under 36 minutes.
(AP, 7/25/97)(HNPD, 7/25/98)(ON, 6/07, p.9)
1909 Jul, Imprisoned English
suffragette Marion Dunlop refused to eat. Prison officials, afraid that
she might die and become a martyr to her cause, released her. Soon
after, so many suffragettes had adopted the same tactics that prison
authorities began force-feeding the women. Mary Leigh told her own
story of being force-fed in the September 1909 edition of The
Suffragette. The hunger strike was one of the most formidable weapons
in the arsenal of suffragettes in Britain and America.
(HNPD, 10/23/98)
1909 Oct 4, The Cunard liner
"Lusitania" crossed the Atlantic in four days, 15 hours and 52
minutes.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1909 Oct, Britain’s Secret Service
Bureau, the first incarnation of the Security Service, was established
in to combat Imperial Germany's espionage operations in the United
Kingdom. Captain Vernon G.W. Kell of the South Staffordshire Regiment
and Captain Mansfield Cumming of the Royal Navy were nominated to head
the new Bureau. In 1914 it came under the branch known as MO5, which
was subdivided into eight sub-sections. Its chief, Major Vernon Kell,
was given responsibility for MO5(g). It was renamed as MI5 in January
1916 and was incorporated into a new Directorate of Military
Intelligence.
(www.mi5.gov.uk/output/origins.html)
1909 Nov 11, J.M. Synge's
"Tinker's Wedding," premiered in London.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1909 Norman Angell (1872-1967),
English journalist, authored “Europe's Optical Illusion,” in which he
argued that war was going out of fashion due to the growing integration
of the global economy. In 1910 it was expanded and retitled as “The
Great Illusion.”
(www.flipkart.com/great-illusion-sir-norman-angell/1602069387-gtx3f30mib)
1909 Selfridges, one of London’s
great department stores, was completed with a façade of 22
pillars.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.106)
1909 Woolworths was founded in
Liverpool. In 2008 it began a closing-down sale just before Christmas
after accountants Deloitte were appointed as administrators.
(AFP, 12/11/08)
1909-1914 Alfred Colley Ltd. was a pottery
manufacturer in Staffordshire. They made a China pattern named
Lusitania after an ancient Roman province on the Iberian peninsula.
(SFC, 6/3/98, Z1 p.6)
1909-1917 T.S. Eliot wrote a number of bawdy poems
that were compiled and with extensive remarks in 1996 by Christopher
Ricks in "Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917."
(WSJ, 9/12/96, p.A14)
1910 Jan 3, British miners struck
for an 8 hour working day.
(MC, 1/3/02)
1910 Jan 20, Joy Adamson, British
author and naturalist, was born. He lived in Kenya and wrote "Born
Free."
(HN, 1/20/99)
1910 Jan 21, A British-Russian
military intervention took place in Persia.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1910 Jan, Admiral John Arbuthnot
Fisher (69), First Sea Lord, retired.
(ON, 3/02, p.10)
1910 Feb 19, English premiere of
Richard Strauss' "Elektra."
(MC, 2/19/02)
1910 Feb 20, Julian Trevelyan,
English Surrealist painter, collage maker, was born.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1910 Feb 21, John Galsworthy's
"Justice," premiered in London.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1910 Feb 23, George Bernard Shaw's
"Misalliance," premiered in London.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1910 Apr 2, Boyd Alexander (37),
English explorer (Niger to the Nile), was murdered.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1910 May 10, The 1st aircraft air
display was held at Hendon, England.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1910 Apr 28, The first night air
flight was performed by Claude Grahame-White in England.
(HN, 4/28/98)
1910 May 6, Edward VII (68),
Britain's King (1901-1910), died and George V ascended to the British
throne.
(AP, 5/6/97)(MC, 5/6/02)
1910 Jun 2, Charles Stewart Rolls,
one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, becomes the first man to fly an
airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways. Tragically, he
became Britain's first aircraft fatality the following month when his
biplane broke up in midair.
(HN, 6/2/00)
1910 Aug 13, Florence Nightingale
(90), British nurse famous for her care of British soldiers during the
Crimean War, died. In 2004 Gillian Gill authored “Nightingales: The
Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence
Nightingale.” In 2008 Mark Bostridge authored Florence Nightingale: The
Making of an Icon.”
(HN, 8/13/98)(SSFC, 9/5/04, p.M3)(AP, 8/13/07)(WSJ,
10/21/08, p.A17)
1910 Sep 1, Jack Hawkins, actor
(Ben-Four Just Men) was born in London, England.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1910 Oct 18, M. Baudry was the
first to fly a dirigible across the English Channel--from La
Motte-Breil to Wormwood Scrubbs.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1910 Oct 28, Francis Bacon
(d.1992), English artist who painted expressionist portraits, was born
in Dublin to English parents. He had no formal training as an artist.
After earning a modest reputation in the 1920s as a modernist interior
designer, he began oil painting in 1929. He first established himself
as a major in 1944, when his now-famous triptych Three Studies for
Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion was exhibited at London’s Tate
Gallery. Birth year also given as 1909.
(HN, 10/28/98)(MIA, www,1999)(SFEC, 5/30/99, DB p.29)
1910 Dec 21, Explosion in coal
mine in Hulton, England, killed 344 mine workers.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1910 Dec, The 1996 book "On or
About December 1910: Early Bloomsbury and its Intimate World" by Peter
Stansky tells the story of the British Bloomsbury group of writers and
artists: Clive Bell, Thoby Stephen, Lytton Strachey, Saxon
Sydney-Turner, Leonard Woolf, Vanessa and Virginia Stephen.
(SFEC, 9/22/96, BR p.3)
1910 E.M. Forster (1879-1970)
wrote "Howard’s End," his next to last novel and good description of
the English class system.
(SFEC, 9/22/96, BR p.3)(WSJ, 9/20/08,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.M._Forster)
1910 Virginia Stephen (later
Woolf), Adrian Stephen, Duncan Grant, Horace Cole and others of the
Bloomsbury group dressed as the Abyssinian Emperor and his entourage
and infiltrated the British warship the Dreadnought making a mockery of
national defense.
(SFEC, 9/22/96, BR p.3)(SFEC, 6/22/97, BR p.8)
1910 Zeppelin scare stories began
to appear in the press in England.
(AH, 1/97)
1910 The Hearst Corp. established
The National Magazine Company Ltd. In the United Kingdom.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A9)
1910-1939 In 2007 Katie Roiphe authored “Uncommon
Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary
Circles 1910-1939.”
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.P9)
1910-1997 Dame C.V. Wedgwood, English historian: "An
educated man should know everything about something, and something
about everything."
(AP, 12/1/97)
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1911