1923 in the United Kingdom

1923 in the United Kingdom

Other years

1921 | 1922 | 1923 (1923) | 1924 | 1925

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport

1923 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland

Events from the year 1923 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George V
• Prime Minister – Bonar Law (Conservative) (until 22 May), Stanley Baldwin (Conservative) (starting 23 May)
• Parliament – 32nd

Events

• 1 January – grouping of virtually all British railway companies into four larger companies.
• 8 January – first outside broadcast by the British Broadcasting Company, a British National Opera Company production of The Magic Flute from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
• 18 January – the Postmaster General grants the BBC a licence to broadcast.
• 13 February – first BBC broadcast from Cardiff (station 5WA).
• 16 February – archaeologist Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Tutankhamun, a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.
• 6 March – first BBC broadcast from Glasgow (station 5SC).
• 21 April – the first of a series of innovative modern dress productions of Shakespeare plays, Cymbeline, directed by H. K. Ayliff, opens at Barry Jackson's Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
• 26 April – wedding of The Prince Albert, Duke of York (later George VI) and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother) in Westminster Abbey.
• 28 April – the Empire Stadium, Wembley, is opened to the public for the first time and holds the FA Cup Final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United football clubs. Crowds are cleared from the pitch by mounted police, including one on a white horse.
• 22 May – Bonar Law resigns as Prime Minister due to ill health.
• 23 May – Stanley Baldwin succeeds Bonar Law as Prime Minister.
• 18 July – Matrimonial Causes Act establishes equal rights in divorce for men and women, making it possible for wives to divorce husbands for adultery.
• 31 July – Liquor Act makes it illegal to sell alcoholic beverages to under-eighteens.
• 18 August – 1923 WAAA Championships, the first British national championships for women in track and field, are held in London.
• 25 August – Maine Road football stadium, one of the largest sports stadiums in Britain, opens in Moss Side, Manchester, as the new home of Manchester City F.C. who win 2–1 against Sheffield United in their first game there, on the opening day of the 1923–24 Football League First Division campaign.
• 28 September – first publication of the Radio Times listings magazine.
• 10 October – first BBC broadcast from Aberdeen (station 2BD).
• 17 October – first BBC broadcast from Bournemouth (station 6BM).
• 12 November – Her Highness Princess Maud of Fife marries Captain Charles Alexander Carnegie in Wellington Barracks, London.
• 16 November – first BBC broadcast from Sheffield (station 2FL).
• 6 December – the United Kingdom general election, 1923, is won by the Conservative Party led by Stanley Baldwin but without enough seats to form a majority. Among the new members of parliament is 26-year-old Anthony Eden, the Conservative MP for Warwick and Leamington.
• 10 December – John James Richard Macleod wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Frederick Banting "for the discovery of insulin".
• 31 December – the BBC broadcasts the chimes of Big Ben for the first time.

Undated

• Littlewoods Pools is formed by 27-year-old Liverpool businessman John Moores.
• State registration of nurses under the Nurses Registration Act 1919 begins; campaigner Ethel Gordon Fenwick is first on the register.

Publications

• Barbara Cartland's first novel Jigsaw.
• Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel The Murder on the Links.
• Philip Gibbs' novel The Middle of the Road.
• Aldous Huxley's novel Antic Hay.
• H. J. Massingham's book Untrodden Ways: Adventures of English Coasts, Heaths and Marshes and also Among the Works of Hudson, Crabbe and Other Country Writers.
• Dorothy L. Sayers' first Lord Peter Wimsey novel Whose Body?
• P. G. Wodehouse's short story collection The Inimitable Jeeves.

Births

• 3 January – Graham Chadwick, bishop (died 2007)
• 8 January – Johnny Wardle, cricketer (died 1985)
• 15 January – Ivor Cutler, poet, songwriter and humorist (died 2006)
• 16 January – Michael John Seaton, astronomer (died 2007)
• 22 February
  • Norman Smith, record producer (died 2008)
  • Bleddyn Williams, rugby player and sportscaster (died 2009)
• 23 February – David Wood, Army officer (died 2009)
• 4 March – Patrick Moore, astronomer and broadcaster (died 2012)
• 11 March – Terence Alexander, actor (died 2009)
• 2 April – G. Spencer-Brown, mathematician (died 2016)
• 3 April – John Smith, banker and politician (died 2007)
• 4 April
  • John D. Lawson, scientist (died 2008)
  • Peter Vaughan, character actor (died 2016)
• 21 April
  • Ronald Cass, screenwriter and composer (died 2006)
  • John Mortimer, lawyer and author (died 2009)
• 22 April – Geoffrey Hattersley-Smith, geologist and glaciologist (died 2012)
• 26 April – Oliver Millar, art historian (died 2007)
• 4 May – Eric Sykes, comedic writer and actor (died 2012)
• 5 May – Richard Wollheim, philosopher (died 2003)
• 8 May – T. G. H. James, Egyptologist (died 2009)
• 9 May – Barbara New, English actress (died 2010)
• 14 May – Trevor Wilkinson, sports car manufacturer (died 2008)
• 15 May
  • Peter Avery, scholar (died 2008)
  • John Lanchbery, composer (died 2003)
• 2 June – Ralph Henstock, mathematician (died 2007)
• 5 June – Marjorie Thomas, opera singer (died 2008)
• 6 June – Alice Coleman, geographer and academic
• 14 June – Judith Kerr, German-born writer and illustrator (died 2019)
• 15 June – David Morley, paediatrician (died 2009)
• 25 June – Nicholas Mosley, novelist and biographer (died 2017)
• 27 June – Beth Chatto, born Betty Little, plantswoman (died 2018)
• 13 July – Derek Brewer, mediaevalist (died 2008)
• 14 July – Raymond Harold Sawkins, novelist (died 2006)
• 20 July – James Bree, actor (died 2008)
• 23 July – Hugh Kelly, footballer (Blackpool) (died 2009)
• 29 July – Stella Moray, actress (died 2006)
• 2 August – Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet, writer and politician (died 2009)
• 21 August – Larry Grayson, comedian and game show host (died 1995)
• 29 August
  • Richard Attenborough, actor and director (died 2014)
  • Marmaduke Hussey, Chairman of the BBC (died 2006)
• 3 September – Alan Bristow, businessman (died 2009)
• 7 September – Madeleine Dring, composer and actress (died 1977)
• 22 September – Dannie Abse, poet (died 2014)
• 28 September – John Scott, 9th Duke of Buccleuch, peer and politician (died 2007)
• 30 September – Donald Swann, composer (died 1994)
• 5 October – Glynis Johns, actress
• 9 October – Donald Sinden, actor (died 2014)
• 23 October – Sir Robin Day, political broadcaster (died 2000)
• 24 October – Denise Levertov, English-born American poet (died 1997)
• 25 October – Belita Jepson-Turner, Olympic skater and film actress (died 2005)
• 27 October
  • Peter Bryant, actor and television producer (died 2006)
  • Peter Graham Scott, film producer (died 2007)
• 2 November – Pearl Carr, popular singer
• 3 November – Tomás Ó Fiaich, cardinal (died 1990)
• 6 November – Donald Houston, actor (died 1991)
• 9 November – Jack Scott, weather forecaster (died 2008)
• 12 November – Ian Graham, archaeologist and explorer (died 2017)
• 20 November – Ernest Ambler, physicist (died 2017)
• 26 November – Pat Phoenix, actress (died 1986)
• 7 December – Abraham Goldberg, doctor (died 2007)
• 10 December – Michael Gill, television producer (died 2005)
• 15 December – Freeman Dyson, physicist
• 18 December – Edwin Bramall, field marshal
• 19 December – Gordon Jackson, actor (died 1990)
• 20 December – James Leasor, author (died 2007)

Deaths

• 9 January – Katherine Mansfield, British novelist (born 1888)
• 14 January – Frederic Harrison, English historian (born 1831)
• 27 March – Sir James Dewar, chemist (born 1842)
• 4 April – John Venn, mathematician (born 1834)
• 5 April – George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, English financier of Egyptian excavations (born 1866)
• 9 June – Princess Helena of the United Kingdom (born 1846)
• 30 October – Bonar Law, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1858)
• 10 December – Thomas George Bonney, geologist (born 1833)

See also

• List of British films of 1923