Events from the year 1921 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents Monarch – George V Prime Minister – David Lloyd George (Coalition)
Events
January to June 1 January – Car tax discs introduced. 8 January – Chequers becomes the official country residence of the Prime Minister. 14 January – Unemployment stands at 927,000. 17 January – The first recorded public performance of the illusion of "sawing a woman in half" is given by stage magician P. T. Selbit at the Finsbury Park Empire variety theatre in London. 20 January – Royal Navy K-class submarine HMS K5 sinks in the English Channel with the loss of all 57 crew on board. 26 January – Abermule train collision: seventeen people are killed when two passenger trains collide head-on in Montgomeryshire. January – Lord Rothermere's Sunday Pictorial announces formation of the Anti-Waste League as a political party opposing excessive government expenditure. 12 February – Winston Churchill is appointed as Colonial Secretary. 16 February – Unemployment now stands at over 1,000,000. The Government announces an increase in unemployment benefit. 21 February – Conference of London of 1921–1922 convenes in an attempt to resolve problems arising from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. 1 March – The Australia national cricket team, led by Warwick Armstrong, becomes the first to complete a whitewash of the touring England team in The Ashes, something that will not be repeated for 86 years. This summer, the Australian cricket team in England will go on to win their first three Test matches. 5 March – Irish War of Independence: Clonbanin Ambush – Irish Republican Army kills Brigadier General Cumming. 11 March – Queen Mary becomes the first woman to be awarded an honorary degree by the University of Oxford. 16 March – The United Kingdom signs a trade agreement with the Russian SFSR. 17 March Bonar Law, the Conservative Party leader, resigns due to ill health. Dr Marie Stopes opens the United Kingdom's first birth control clinic in Holloway, London. 19 March – Irish War of Independence: Crossbarry Ambush – British troops fail to encircle an outnumbered column of Irish Republican Army volunteers in County Cork, with at least ten British and three IRA deaths. 21 March Austen Chamberlain replaces Bonar Law as Conservative leader. Irish War of Independence: Headford Ambush – The IRA kills at least nine British troops. 26 March – Shaun Spadah wins the Grand National, ridden by Dick Rees. 31 March – The government formally returns the coal mines from wartime control to their private owners, who demand wage cuts; in response, the Miners' Federation of Great Britain calls on its partner trade unions in the Triple Alliance to join it in strike action, leading in turn to the government declaring a state of emergency for the first time under the Emergency Powers Act 1920. 1 April Lockout of striking coal miners begins. Airship R36, the first to carry a British civilian registration (G-FAAF), makes her maiden flight from William Beardmore and Company's works at Inchinnan, Scotland. (Work on R37 at Cardington Airfield was suspended in February.) 3 April – Coal rationing begins. 13 April – Lloyds Bank takes over Fox, Fowler and Company of Wellington, Somerset, the last provincial English bank to issue its own banknotes. 15 April "Black Friday": Transport union members of the 'Triple Alliance' refuse to support national strike action by coal miners. National Unemployed Workers' Committee Movement set up by members of the Communist Party. 23 April – Tottenham Hotspur F.C. beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 1–0 in the FA Cup Final. 26 April – Police patrol London on motorcycles for the first time. 3 May – The province of Northern Ireland is created within the United Kingdom under terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920.Statutory Rules & Orders published by authority, 1921, No. 533. 4 May – The IRA kill a former Royal Irish Constabulary inspector in Glasgow. 5 May London Schedule of Payments sets out the World War I reparations payable by the German Weimar Republic and other countries considered successors to the Central Powers. Only thirteen paying spectators attend the football match between Leicester City and Stockport County played at Old Trafford, the lowest attendance in The Football League's history.It is estimated that between 1,000 and 2,000 people actually attended the match; Manchester United and Derby County had played immediately beforehand, and some of the spectators for that match had stayed on to watch the Stockport match for free. However, only thirteen people paid at the gate to watch the Stockport match by itself, staged here because bottom-of the-League Stockport's home ground had been closed due to earlier crowd trouble. 7 May – Crown Prince Hirohito of Japan arrives on an official visit. 15 May – The British Legion is founded as a voice for ex-servicemen by merger of the Comrades of the Great War, the National Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers, the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers and the Officers' Association, under the Presidency of Earl Haig. 22 May – The United States beats the United Kingdom 9 rounds to 3 in the first golf international between the two countries. 24 May – Irish elections, under terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920: In the Northern Ireland general election for the new Parliament of Northern Ireland (held by single transferable vote), Ulster Unionists win 40 out of 52 seats. The dominant-party system in Northern Ireland will last for fifty years. 25 May – Irish War of Independence: the Irish Republican Army occupies and burns The Custom House in Dublin, the centre of local government in Ireland. Five IRA men are killed, and over eighty are captured by the British Army which surrounds the building. 1 June – Humorist wins The Derby. For the first time the result is broadcast live by Wireless. 6 June – King George V opens Southwark Bridge in London. 7 June The new Parliament of Northern Ireland assembles in Belfast City Hall; James Craig is elected as first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. J. M. M. Erskine, standing as an "Independent Anti-Waste" candidate, wins the Westminster St George's parliamentary seat in a by-election. 10 June – Unemployment reaches 2,200,000. 12 June – Sunday postal collection and delivery is suspended. 14 June – First performance of the orchestral version of Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending conducted by Adrian Boult with Marie Hall as violin soloist in a concert at the Queen's Hall in London. 15 June – 2,000,000 workers are currently involved in pay disputes. 19 June – 1921 United Kingdom census (excluding Ireland), the first to ask about work. A surplus of 1.7M women over men is recorded, largely a result of World War I casualties. 22 June – New Parliament of Northern Ireland, assembled at Belfast City Hall, is formally opened by King George V, making a speech (drafted by Jan Smuts) calling for reconciliation in Ireland. 24 June – The world's largest airship, the R.38, makes its maiden flight at Bedford. 25 June – Rainfall ends a drought which has lasted for one hundred days. 28 June – The coal strike ends with the Miners' Federation of Great Britain obliged to accept pay cuts and no national bargaining.
July to December 2 July – Bill Tilden and Suzanne Lenglen retain their Wimbledon Championships titles. 7 July – General Jan Smuts meets King George V to discuss the Irish situation. 9 July – The Irish War of Independence comes officially to an end when a truce, coming into effect at noon on 11 July, is agreed between British and Irish forces. 10/11 July – Heatwave with temperatures in the 90s in some parts of South-East England. 10 July – Bloody Sunday: clashes between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast result in sixteen deaths (23 over the surrounding four-day period) and the destruction of over two hundred (mostly Catholic) homes. 12 July – Sinn Féin representatives arrive in London for talks. 18 July – Ulster Unionist negotiators walk out of the truce talks in London. 28 July – First registration of practitioners of dentistry under the Dentists Act, making it a fully regulated profession. 3 August – "Geddes Axe": announcement that the Prime Minister is appointing an advisory Committee on National Expenditure, made up of businessmen chaired by Sir Eric Geddes, to recommend reductions in government spending. 19 August – Unemployment falls to 1,640,600. 24 August – Airship R.38 explodes on her fourth test flight near Kingston upon Hull, killing 44 of the 49 Anglo-American crew on board. 27 August – The first games in the new Football League Third Division North are played, a year after the southern section was formed. Among the new division's members are Stockport County, Walsall, Rochdale, Chesterfield and Tranmere Rovers. 30 August – England defeat Australia, for the first time this year, in the final Test match. 1 September – Poplar Rates Rebellion: led by George Lansbury, the Borough council in Poplar, London withholds collection of part of its rates, leading to six weeks' imprisonment for thirty councillors (including six women) and hasty passage of The London Authorities (Financial Provision) Act through Parliament to equalise tax burdens between rich and poor boroughs. 7 September – David Lloyd George summons a meeting of the Cabinet at Inverness to discuss an independent Ireland's relationship with the British Empire. 9 September – Charlie Chaplin visits London and is met by thousands. 17 September – Shackleton–Rowett Expedition: Ernest Shackleton sets sail on his last expedition to Antarctica. 23 September – The second female MP enters Parliament (Margaret Wintringham, in succession to her late husband at the Louth by-election). October – The first women are admitted to study for full academic degrees at the University of Cambridge, but have no associated privileges. 8 October – The steamer SS Rowan sinks off the coast of Scotland. Twenty-two people lose their lives. 11 October – The Irish Treaty Conference opens in London. 11 November – The British Legion holds the first official Poppy Day. 21 November – Troops are sent to restore order after rioting breaks out in East Belfast. 22 November – At least ten people are killed in widespread shootings in Belfast. 30 November – Sir Basil Thomson retires after forty years as the head of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch. 6 December – British and Irish negotiators sign the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London giving independence to the Irish Free State. 9 December – John William Gott becomes the last person in England imprisoned for blasphemous libel. 10 December – Frederick Soddy wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes". 13 December – In the Four-Power Treaty on Insular Possessions, the Empire of Japan, United Kingdom, United States and French Third Republic agree to recognize the status quo in the Pacific. 16 December – Parliament ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
Undated The Scottish county of Haddingtonshire is renamed East Lothian. Wicksteed Park in Kettering opens as the first inland amusement park in England. An exceptionally dry year over England and Wales with only making it the driest year on record since 1788, and not approached subsequently.The nearest have been 1854 with , 1864 with , 1887 with and 1933 with , 1964 with and 1973 with . In South East England the average is only with some stations recording less than . It reaches 34C (94F) in Southern and Eastern England on 10 and 11 July.
Publications Dorita Fairlie Bruce's children's novel The Senior Prefect, first of The Dimsie books. Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introducing Hercule Poirot (21 January; issued in the United States October 1920).