1905 in the United Kingdom

• Monarch – Edward VII • Prime Minister - Arthur Balfour (Coalition) (until 5 December), Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Liberal) (starting 5 December) ==Events==

• 1 January – East Coast gales: Great Yarmouth flooded and pier at Scarborough washed away. • 5 January – The play The Scarlet Pimpernel opens at the New Theatre in London and begins a run of 122 performances and numerous revivals. • 16 February – At Haulbowline Base in Ireland, two explosions on board submarine , due to petrol fumes after refuelling, kill six of the eleven crew. • 23 February – Beginning of Eliza Sheffield's unsuccessful breach of promise case against Lord Townshend. • February – Alf Common becomes the first £1,000 footballer in his transfer from Sheffield United to Middlesbrough. • 10 March • An underground explosion at Cambrian Colliery in Clydach Vale kills 33. • Chelsea Football Club founded. • 14 March – 23 of the 26 crew of the barque Kyber die when the ship is wrecked at Gwennap Head in Cornwall. • 20 March – The title Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is officially recognised by Edward VII by a royal warrant. • 29 March – Carmaker Vauxhall opens a factory at Luton, Bedfordshire, as its main manufacturing base following expansion from London. • 6 May – The Naval, Shipping and Fisheries Exhibition opens in Earl's Court to mark 100 years since the Battle of Trafalgar • 12 May • First public protest by suffragettes, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, at Westminster. • The Natural History Museum, London, unveils its popular exhibit of "Dippy", an exact replica of the skeleton of the Diplodocus carnegii dinosaur. • 23 May – First performance of George Bernard Shaw's 1903 play Man and Superman, at the Royal Court Theatre, London. • 29 May – The recently formed Chelsea F.C. are elected to the Football League for the 1905–06 football season; on 2 September they play their first match, at the new Stamford Bridge stadium (which the existing Fulham F.C. have declined to become tenants of). • July – British Red Cross Society formally inaugurated. • 3 July – Release of Cecil Hepworth's short silent drama film Rescued by Rover presenting a significant advance in film techniques. • 11 July – National Colliery disaster at Wattstown in the Rhondda: an underground explosion kills 120, with just one survivor. • 2 August – The Ancient Order of Druids initiates neo-Druidic rituals at Stonehenge in England. • 11 August – Aliens Act 1905, the first modern legislation to control immigration into the U.K. • 12 August – First running of the Shelsley Walsh Speed Hill Climb, the world's oldest motorsport event to have been staged continuously on its original course • 25 August – 'Ancient Order of Druids' initiate neo-druidic rituals at Stonehenge. • 26 September – Newbury Racecourse first used. • 3 October – HMS Dreadnought is laid down at Portsmouth, revolutionising battleship design and triggering an international naval arms race. • 13 October – Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst interrupt a Liberal Party rally at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester and choose imprisonment when convicted, the first militant action of the suffragette campaign. • 18 October – London County Council's new street at Kingsway and redevelopment of Aldwych are opened. • 21 October – Henry Wood first conducts a performance of his Fantasia on British Sea Songs at a centenary Trafalgar Day concert in London. • 26 October – Aspirin sold in the UK for the first time. • 28 November – Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin in Dublin as a political party whose goal is independence for all of Ireland. • 4 December – Internal splits within the Conservative Party over tariff reform lead to the resignation of Balfour as Prime Minister. Campbell-Bannerman takes over for the Liberal Party, pending a general election in the new year. • 1905 • Suicide rate of 303 per million, all-time UK peak year. • Local authority expenditure reaches an all-time peak as a proportion of all government expenditure of 51%. ==Publications==

• E. Clerihew Bentley's first published collection of clerihews Biography for Beginners, illustrated by G. K. Chesterton. • Angela Brazil's first novel A Terrible Tomboy. • Arthur Conan Doyle's anthology The Return of Sherlock Holmes. • E. M. Forster's novel Where Angels Fear to Tread. • Robert Hichens' novel The Garden of Allah. • W. J. Locke's novel The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne. • H. E. Marshall's ''Our Island Story: A Child's History of England''. • E. Nesbit's children's novel The Railway Children (serialisation). • Baroness Orczy's historical novel The Scarlet Pimpernel. • H. A. Vachell's school story The Hill. • H. G. Wells' novel Kipps. ==Births==

• 2 January – Michael Tippett, composer (died 1998) • 6 January – Idris Davies, Anglo-Welsh poet (died 1953) • 14 January – Jane Welsh, actress (died 2001) • 15 January – Torin Thatcher, actor (died 1981) • 1 February – Joan Morgan, actress (died 2004) • 4 February – Hylda Baker, comic actress (died 1986) • 7 February – Cyril Demarne, firefighter and author (died 2007) • 10 February – Rachel Thomas, actress (died 1995) • 16 February – Oliver Franks, public figure (died 1992) • 18 February – Queenie Leonard, actress (died 2002) • 21 February – Henry Mollison, actor (died 1985) • 26 February • Arthur Brough, actor (died 1978) • Robert Byron, travel writer (died 1941) • Kathleen Guthrie, graphic artist (died 1981) • 2 March – Geoffrey Grigson, poet and literary critic (died 1985) • 10 March – Richard Haydn, comic actor (died 1985) • 18 March – Robert Donat, actor (died 1958) • 26 March – Geoffrey Gorer, anthropologist and author (died 1985) • 28 March – Audrey Withers, magazine editor (died 2001) • 30 March – Albert Pierrepoint, hangman (died 1992) • 3 May – Sebastian Shaw, actor (died 1994) • 16 May – H. E. Bates, fiction writer (died 1974) • 22 May – Tom Driberg, journalist ("William Hickey") and politician (died 1976) • 27 June – Lady Rachel Pepys, Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent (died 1992) • 4 July – Robert Hankey, 2nd Baron Hankey, diplomat (died 1996) • 8 July – Kathleen Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn, courtier (died 1990) • 12 July – Prince John (died 1919) • 17 July – Marjorie Reeves, historian and educationalist (died 2003) • 25 July – Denys Watkins-Pitchford, writer (died 1990) • 15 August – Lady Jean Rankin, courtier (died 2001) • 23 August – Constant Lambert, composer (died 1951) • 4 September – Mary Renault, novelist (died 1983) • 22 September – Muriel Box, film director and screenwriter (died 1991) • 29 September – Marie Hartley, writer (died 2006) • 30 September – Michael Powell, filmmaker (died 1990) • 4 October – Leslie Mitchell, announcer (died 1985) • 15 October – C. P. Snow, novelist and physicist (died 1980) • 29 October • Reg Bunn, comic book artist (died 1971) • Henry Green, novelist (died 1973) • Berthold Wolpe, calligrapher, typographer and illustrator (died 1989) • 31 October – Elizabeth Jenkins, novelist (died 2010) • 4 November – Frank Owen, journalist and politician (died 1979) • 21 November – Georgina Battiscombe, biographer (died 2006) • 25 November – Patrick Devlin, judge (died 1992) • 26 November – Emlyn Williams, dramatist and actor (died 1987) • 4 December – Guy Mountfort, advertising executive and ornithologist (died 2003) • 5 December – Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, peer, politician and reformer (died 2001) • 21 December – Anthony Powell, novelist (died 2000) • 22 December – Hugh Edward Richardson, diplomat and Tibetologist (died 2000) • 25 December – Lewis Allen, film and television director (died 2000) • 31 December – Jule Styne, songwriter (died 1994 in the United States) ==Deaths==

• 9 April – Frederic Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford, British general (born 1827) • 5 May – Edwin Bibby, wrestler (born 1848) • 3 June – Hudson Taylor, British missionary (born 1832) • 25 July – Thomas Spencer, joint founder of retailer Marks & Spencer (born 1851) • 14 August – Simeon Solomon, artist (born 1840) • 18 September – George MacDonald, Scottish author and poet, Christian minister (born 1824) • 19 September – Thomas John Barnardo, philanthropist (born 1845) • 13 October – Sir Henry Irving, stage actor (born 1838) • 14 October – John Thomas, Welsh photographer (born 1838) • 6 November – George Williams, founder of the YMCA (born 1821) • 10 November – Rowland Williams (Hwfa Môn), poet and archdruid (born 1823) • 14 November – Robert Whitehead, marine engineer (born 1823) • 5 December – Henry Eckford, British horticulturist (born 1823) • 9 December – Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb, British scholar and politician (born 1841) • 17 December – Robert Jones Derfel, poet and dramatist (born 1824) ==See also==