1897 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1897 in the United Kingdom. This year was the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria
• Prime Minister – Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (Coalition)

Events

• 4 January – a British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the Oba of Benin, leading to a punitive expedition against Benin.
• 8 January – Frederick Temple enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.^[1]
• February – Barrow's Cliff near
  National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
  , its first coastal property.
• 18 February – Benin is put to the torch by the British Army's Benin Expedition. The Benin Bronzes are carried back to London.
• 29 March – Church of England encyclical replies to the Papal Apostolicae Curiae (1896) defending the validity of Anglican orders.^[2][3]
• 8 April – Voluntary Schools Act provides voluntary elementary schools with annual Exchequer grants of up to five shillings per child and exempts the schools from paying rates.^[4]
• 10 April –
  Football League title, they have completed the double.^[5]
• 17 April – double winners Aston Villa move into their new stadium, Villa Park in Birmingham.^[6]
• 30 April – J. J. Thomson first announces his discovery of the electron.
• 10 May – the Blue Cross animal welfare charity is founded as Our Dumb Friends League in London, a "society for the encouragement of kindness to animals".^[7]
• 13 May –
  Lavernock Point in South Wales to Flat Holm Island, a distance of 3.7 miles (6.0 km).^[8]
• 19 May – the Anglo-Irish writer Oscar Wilde is released from prison and goes into exile on the Continent.
• 22 May – the Blackwall Tunnel, at this time the longest underwater road tunnel in the world, is opened for traffic beneath the River Thames in the East End of London by the Prince of Wales.^[9]
• 22 June – Queen Victoria celebrates her accession to the throne in 1837 with her Diamond Jubilee celebrations, centred on London but with beacons lit across the country.
• 26 June – at the
  Fleet Review at Spithead, Charles Parsons gives an audacious unscheduled display before the world's navies of the unprecedented speed attainable by his steam turbine-powered Turbinia.^[10]
• July
  • The recently formed
    Engineering Employers' Federation stages a lockout
    of its employees across the north of England and Scotland; continues to January 1898.
  • Sir Benjamin Stone establishes the National Photographic Record Association.^[11]
• 1 July –
  workman's compensation in dangerous trades.^[12]
• 2 July –
  Yorkshire Dialect Society
  founded, the oldest such society in England.
• 21 July – the
  Tate Gallery opens in London.^[2]
• 26 July–2 August –
  Pashtun tribesmen in Malakand
  .
• 10 August – the Automobile Club of Great Britain (later known as the Royal Automobile Club) founded in London.^[9]
• 19 August –
  taxicabs, begin operating in London.^[9]
• 20 August
  • physician
    parasites.^[9]
  • first post-Reformation Roman Catholic pilgrimage to Walsingham.
• 10 September – first conviction for drink-driving given, to London taxi driver George Smith.^[9]
• 12 September – Battle of Saragarhi: 21 Sikhs from the 36th Sikhs regiment of the British Indian Army battle 10,000 Afghans to the death.^[9]
• 13 October – HMS Canopus, a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy, is launched at Portsmouth; she will be deployed widely in World War I.
• 16 November – Salomon v A Salomon & Co Ltd, a landmark case in United Kingdom company law, is decided in the House of Lords: creditors of an insolvent company cannot not sue the company's shareholders individually to pay up outstanding debts.

Undated

• General Post Office 'Jubilee concession': free postal delivery granted to every household.^[13]
• The Weaver building, a mill at Swansea, becomes the first building in the UK to be constructed from reinforced concrete, by L. G. Mouchel to Hennebique patents.^[14]
• Ludo.^[15]
• St Leger
  .

• The magazine Country Life is first published (8 January).
• Hall Caine's novel The Christian, first in Britain to sell over a million.^[16]
• The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'
  .
• Henry James' novels The Spoils of Poynton and What Maisie Knew.
• Rudyard Kipling's novel Captains Courageous and poem "Recessional".
• W. Somerset Maugham's novel Liza of Lambeth.
• Henry Newbolt's ballads Admirals All, including "Vitaï Lampada" and "Drake's Drum".
• Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
• H. G. Wells' novel The Invisible Man and short story "The Crystal Egg".

Births

• 8 January – Dennis Wheatley, writer (died 1977)
• 25 February – Peter Llewelyn Davies, soldier and publisher (died 1960)
• 15 March – Albert "Smiler" Marshall, World War I cavalryman (died 2005)
• 25 March – John Laurie, actor (died 1980)
• 26 March –
  David McCallum, Sr.
  , violinist (died 1972)
• 14 April – Barbara Wootton, sociologist (died 1988)
• 16 April – John Bagot Glubb, soldier and author (died 1986)
• 27 May – John Cockcroft, physicist (died 1967)
• 12 June
  • Anthony Eden, Prime Minister (died 1977)
  • Léon Goossens, oboist (died 1988)
• 15 July – R. J. Yeatman, humorist (died 1968)
• 28 July – Kingsley Martin, political editor (died 1969)
• 29 July – Neil Ritchie, general (died 1983)
• 11 August – Enid Blyton, children's writer (died 1968)
• 1 September –
  Andy Kennedy
  , footballer (died 1963)
• 3 September – Cecil Parker (Schwabe), film actor (died 1971)
• 9 November – Ronald Norrish, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1978)
• 15 November
  • Aneurin Bevan, politician (died 1960)
  • Sacheverell Sitwell
    , writer (died 1988)
• 18 November – Derek McCulloch ("Uncle Mac"), presenter for BBC children's programmes (died 1967)
• 9 December – Hermione Gingold, actress (died 1987 in the United States)

Deaths

• 22 January –
  Pitman Shorthand
  (born 1813)
• 15 March – James Joseph Sylvester, mathematician (born 1814)
• 19 June – Charles Boycott, land agent, origin of the word "boycott" (born 1832)
• 21 July – A. J. Mundella, hosiery manufacturer and reforming Liberal politician (born 1825)
• 19 August – George Palmer, biscuit manufacturer (born 1818)
• 28 August – John Braxton Hicks, obstetrician (born 1823)
• 15 October – Charles Vaughan, scholar and churchman (born 1816)
• 27 October – Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge (Duchess of Teck), member of the royal family (born 1833)
• 16 December – William Terriss, actor (born 1847)

See also

• List of British films before 1920

References