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1920 in the United Kingdom:

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1918 | 1919 | 1920 | 1921 | 1922

British and Irish current events

Sport and Music

1920 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1920 in British music

Events from the year 1920 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - George V of the United Kingdom
• Prime Minister - David Lloyd George, coalition

Events

• 10 January - The steamer Treveal is wrecked in the English Channel. 35 people lose their lives.
• 11 February - The Council of the League of Nations meets for the first time in London.
• 17 February - The Metropolitan Police are told that their horses will be replaced by cars.
• 23 February - War Secretary Winston Churchill announces that conscripts will be replaced by a volunteer army of 220,000 men.
• 10 March - The Ulster Unionist Council accepts the Government's plan for a Northern Ireland Parliament.
• 17 March - Queen Alexandra unveils a monument to Nurse Edith Cavell in London.
• 27 March - Troytown wins the Grand National.
• 31 March - Parliament passes the Government of Ireland Act, but Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson opposes the division of Ireland, seeing it as a betrayal of southern and western unionists.
• 20 April–12 September - Great Britain and Ireland compete at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp and win 15 gold, 15 silver and 13 bronze medals.
• 24 April - Aston Villa beat Huddersfield Town 1-0 in the first FA Cup Final since 1915.
• 10 May - Forty Irish republican prisoners on hunger strike at Wormwood Scrubs are released.
• 17 May - Sinn Féin supporters and Unionists engage in pitched street battles in Derry.
• 18 May - Women lecturers are given equal status to their male colleagues at Oxford University.
• 21 May - The Government proposes a car tax of £1 per horsepower (13 p/kW).
• 30 May - At least twenty people drown in serious floods in Lincolnshire.
• 9 June - King George V opens the Imperial War Museum at the Crystal Palace.
• 20 June - Five die in severe rioting in Ulster.
• 24 June - Troops are sent to reinforce the Derry garrison.
• 5 July - A new airmail service starts from London to Amsterdam.
• 13 July - London County Council bans foreigners from almost all council jobs.
• 16 July - The Great War is officially declared over with Austria.
• 23 July - Fourteen die and one hundred are injured in fierce rioting in Belfast.
• 24 July - Mr F Courtney wins an air race at an average speed of 153.5 mph (247.0 km/h).
• 31 July - The Communist Party of Great Britain is founded in London.
• 1 August - The first Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain opens.
• 2 August - The Government introduces a new bill to "restore order" in Ireland which allows for suspension of jury trials.
• 3 August - There are Catholic riots in Belfast in protest at the continuing British military presence.
• 9 August - The Labour Party says it will call for a general strike if the United Kingdom declares war on Russia.
• 18 August - The first night bus services are introduced in London.
• 29 August - Eleven die and forty are injured in street battles in Belfast.
• 22 September - The Metropolitan Police forms the Flying Squad.
• 7 October - The first one hundred women are admitted to study for full degrees at Oxford University.
• 10 October - It is announced that compulsory hand signals are to be introduced for all drivers.
• 16 October - Miners go on strike.
• 20 October - Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst is charged with sedition after calling upon workers to loot the London Docks.
• 25 October
  • The Emergency Powers Bill to counter the miners' strike has its second reading in the House of Commons.
  • Terence MacSwiney, jailed Lord Mayor of Cork, dies in Brixton Prison after a 78-day hunger strike.
• 28 October - Sylvia Pankhurst is jailed for six months.
• 3 November - The miners' strike ends after only a small majority vote to continue.
• 8 November - Rupert Bear first appears in a cartoon strip in the Daily Express.^[1]
• 10 November - The body of The Unknown Warrior arrives from France for burial in Westminster Abbey.
• 11 November - King George V unveils the Cenotaph; The Unknown Warrior is buried.^[1]
• 21 November - Bloody Sunday: Irish Republicans kill 14 British agents in Dublin; later that day 13 spectators and one player at a gaelic football match at Croke Park in Dublin are shot by the paramilitary Auxiliary Division.^[2]
• 5 December - The Scots vote against prohibition.
• 23 December
  • Parliament passes the Government of Ireland Act 1920 partitioning Ireland into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.^[2]
  • Jewish leaders in London launch a £25 million appeal for Palestine.

Undated

• Arthur Eddington's observation of a total eclipse of the Sun seems to confirm the "bending of light" in Einstein's theory of Special Relativity.

Publications

• John Galsworthy's novels In Chancery and Awakening, part of The Forsyte Saga.

Births

• 3 January - Hugh McCartney, former Labour Party MP (died 2006)
• 9 January - Clive Dunn, actor
• 25 March - Paul Scott, novelist, playwright and poet (died 1978)
• 9 May - Richard Adams, author
• 25 March - Patrick Troughton, actor (died 1987)
• 3 August - P. D. James, writer of crime fiction
• 21 August - Christopher Robin Milne, author and bookseller (died 1996)
• 11 November - Roy Jenkins, politician (died 2003)

Deaths

• 5 June - Rhoda Broughton, novelist (born 1840)
• 10 July - Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher, admiral (born 1841)

References

See also