Download British History Timeline, 1900-1946

British History Timeline, 1900-1946
Date
October 1900
Event
Conservatives are re-elected
Comment
Benefit from British success in the Boer War. Imperialism
becomes a corner stone of British Conservatism.
31 May 1902
End of Boer War
British foreign policy concerned with its empire. Consolidation
of empire in Africa to shut out Germany.
8 April 1904
'Entente Cordiale' is signed
between Britain and France
The containment of Germany essential to give Britain a free
hand in the world.
4 December 1905
Liberals form a government under
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Main domestic rivalry between Conservatives and Liberals
31 August 1907
Britain and Russia agree an entente
on 'spheres of influence' in Asia
This produces the Triple Entente of Britain, Russia and France
to contain Germany and the Central Powers. Ends the concerns
of Lord Curzon about the Russian threat to India.
6 May 1910
Edward VII dies and is succeeded
by George V
19 December
1910
Liberals retain power in the second
general election of 1910
10 August 1911
House of Lords loses its power of
veto over legislation
11 April 1912
Liberals propose Irish 'Home Rule'
for the third time
Reflecting their dependence on Irish Nationalist votes in the
House of Commons, the Liberals proposed 'Home Rule' for
Ireland. In response, Ulster Protestants and unionists formed
the Ulster Volunteer Force, a paramilitary force which
threatened the government with civil war if the measure was
carried out.
20 March 1914
Officers in the army mutiny over
Irish 'Home Rule'.
This is known as the Curragh Mutiny where the British army
overturned the will of parliament. It showed contempt for
democracy and led to the formation of Loyalist paramilitary
forces in Ulster.
4 August 1914
Britain declares war on Germany
25 May 1915
Herbert Asquith forms a coalition
government
27 January 1916
Conscription is introduced in
Britain
Civilians had ceased to join up voluntarily. Important because it
raised the question ‘What are we fighting for?’ to millions of
Britons.
24 April 1916
Irish rebels of the 'Easter Rising'
seize the post office in Dublin
The question of Irish Home Rule should be seen as a parallel to
Indian Home Rule. Anti-Irish racism was a factor in determining
the attitude of the British Conservative party and it led to a
much harder line being taken against Indian independence.
6 December 1916
David Lloyd George becomes prime
The period 1910-14 is known as the ‘Great Unrest’. Workers
went on strike across the country over pay, housing and the
cause of Irish independence. The sympathy or many Britons for
the Irish cause fed into sympathy for the INC later on.
minister
6 February 1918
Limited numbers of women are
given the vote for the first time
The Representation of the People Act enfranchised all men
over the age of 21, and propertied women over 30. The
electorate increased to 21 million, of which 8 million were
women, but it excluded working class women who mostly
failed the property qualification.
May 1918
Massive flu epidemic reaches
Britain
Killed more than 200,000 people in Britain and up to 50 million
worldwide.
14 December
1918
David Lloyd George's coalition wins
the post-war election
13 January 1919
Sir Satyenda Prassano Sinha
becomes the first Indian peer
The government consisted of Conservative and Coalition
Liberals. Labour won 72 seats. The Liberal party was split with
Asquith’s Liberals getting 36 seats. The election marks the
decline of the Liberal party and the emergence of Labour as the
party of the working class.
In 1919, he advised on the Government of India Act. He
became Baron Sinha of Raipur.
31 January 1919
Massive rally in Glasgow sparks
fears of a Russian-style revolution
The rally was broken up by police, and troops and tanks were
deployed on Clydeside.
18 March 1919
Rowlatt Act extends the suspension
of civil liberties in India
The Rowlatt Act extended wartime 'emergency measures', such
as detention without trial. The 1918 Montagu-Chelmsford
Report offered reform, but not self-rule - despite the sacrifices
India had made in the war and US President Woodrow Wilson's
declaration regarding national self-determination.
10 April 1919
British soldiers kill hundreds of
unarmed Indian civilians at
Amritsar, India
July 1921
Unemployment reaches a post-war
high of 2.5 million
Prime Minister David Lloyd George had promised 'a land fit for
heroes' following World War One, but after a short post-war
boom, demobilised soldiers found it increasingly difficult to get
work. Deprivation was widespread and industrial relations
deteriorated. War debts to the United States and non-payment
of European allies' war debts meant the government could not
pay for many planned reforms. The 1922 Geddes Report
recommended heavy cuts in education, public health and
workers' benefits.
28 June 1922
Irish Civil War breaks out
Note that as the civil disobedience ends in India Ireland erupts.
19 October 1922
Prime Minister David Lloyd George
resigns as his wartime The coalition
breaks up
British Conservatives hated the Anglo-Irish Treaty and become
more openly imperialistic. This tendency reflects British decline
as a world power.
23 October 1922
Conservative Andrew Bonar Law
becomes prime minister
22 May 1923
Conservative Stanley Baldwin
becomes prime minister
23 January 1924
Ramsay Macdonald becomes the
first Labour prime minister
A minority government reliant on Liberal support. Labour in
office was disappointing for voters who wanted change.
29 October 1924
Conservatives win a landslide
election following the 'Zinoviev
Letter'
Labour votes increased but Liberals lost hugely.
28 April 1925
Chancellor Winston Churchill
returns Britain to the 'Gold
Standard'
This made British manufacturing industries uncompetitive,
which in turn exacerbated the massive economic problems
Britain was to face in the 1930s. India was needed to balance
disastrous policies in Britain.
3 May 1926
General strike is declared after
miners reject the Samuel Report
Well-organised government emergency measures and the lack
of widespread public support for the strikers meant it was
called off after nine days.
19 October 1926
Australia, New Zealand, Canada
and South Africa are recognised as
autonomous
The Imperial Conference in London went further towards
legally defining a dominion by recognising that the dominions
(Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) were
autonomous and equal in status, a decision that was later
affirmed by the 1931 Statute of Westminster. Note that India
was left out.
1 January 1927
British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC) is created
7 May 1928
All women over the age of 21 get
the vote
30 May 1929
Labour wins the general election
with Ramsay Macdonald as prime
minister
Ramsay Macdonald headed the first Labour government with a
clear majority. It lasted for two years. Labour won 287 seats,
the Conservatives 262 and the Liberals 59. Macdonald's
administration coincided with the Great Depression, a global
economic slump triggered by the Wall Street Crash.
Unemployment jumped by one million in 1930, and in some
industrial towns reached 75%.
21 January 1930
London Conference on Naval
Disarmament starts
A powerful disarmament movement reached the peak of its
activities in the 1930s. Ramsay Macdonald, a committed
internationalist and pacifist, was an enthusiastic believer that
the League of Nations could make the world disarm through
dialogue. But in 1931, Japan seized Manchuria and pulled out
of the League. The rise of militarist regimes across Europe
meant that by 1933 the idea of 'collective security' was looking
increasingly unworkable.
12 November
1930
'Round Table' conference on India
opens in London
Three of these conferences took place from 1930-1933, the last
of which failed to include any Indian members. The collapse of
the Round Table talks led to further mass non-cooperation in
India. A new Government of India Act was passed in 1935,
granting Indians an elected assembly and extending the powers
of the eleven provincial assemblies.
22 - 23 August
1931
Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald
resigns in a row over the budget
He offered his resignation to the king, George V, but was
instead persuaded to lead a 'national government' coalition,
which included Conservatives and Liberals, but only three
Labour ministers.
1 October 1932
Oswald Mosley founds the British
Union of Fascists
19 July 1934
New air defence programme adds
41 squadrons to the RAF
11 April 1935
Italy, France and Britain meet to
discuss German rearmament
7 June 1935
Conservative Stanley Baldwin
becomes prime minister for the
third time
20 January 1936
George V dies and is succeeded by
Edward VIII
26 August 1936
Anglo-Egyptian Treaty ends the
British protectorate of Egypt
Britain was reluctant to end its occupation of Egypt because
the Suez Canal provided a vital sea route to India. The treaty
allowed the British to retain control of the Suez Canal for the
next 20 years, and for Britain to reoccupy the country in the
event of any threat to British interests.
5 October 1936
Jarrow men march to London to
highlight local poverty and
unemployment
Poverty and mass unemployment (as high as 70%) in the north
east of England drove 200 men from Jarrow, Tyne and Wear, to
march 300 miles to London to deliver a petition to parliament
asking for a steel works to replace the local shipyard that had
recently closed down. The marchers attracted considerable
public sympathy, but the crusade ultimately made little real
impact. In heavy industry areas like the north east the
Depression continued until the rearmament boom of World
War Two.
10 December
1936
Edward VIII abdicates in order to
marry Wallace Simpson
12 March 1938
Germany occupies and then
annexes Austria in the 'Anschluss'
28 - 30
September 1938
Britain isolated over later signing the Anglo-German Naval
Agreement that allowed Hitler to extend Germany’s navy.
India more necessary to British military interests.
'Munich Agreement' cedes the Sudetenland to Germany
31 March 1939
Britain guarantees territorial
integrity of Poland
This guarantee formally ended the policy of appeasement, and
the British government reluctantly began to prepare for war.
3 September
1939
Britain declares war on Germany in
response to the invasion of Poland
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain still hoped to avoid
declaring war on Germany, but a threatened revolt in the
cabinet and strong public feeling that Hitler should be
confronted forced him to honour the Anglo-Polish Treaty.
10 May 1940
Winston Churchill becomes prime
minister of the coalition
government
Churchill was a hard-line imperialist.
2 September
1940
'Destroyers for bases' agreement
gives Britain 50 US destroyers
In September 1940, US President Franklin Roosevelt signed an
agreement to give Britain 50 obsolete American destroyers in
exchange for the use of naval and air bases in eight British
possessions.
12 August 1941
Anglo-American alliance is sealed
with the Atlantic Charter
15 February 1942
British colony of Singapore
surrenders to Japanese forces
This catastrophic defeat was a fatal blow to British prestige and
signalled the fall of the empire in the Far East.
11 March 1942
Sir Stafford Cripps goes to India to
offer post-war self-government
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps was sent to India in March 1942 to
win the co-operation of Indian political groups. The Japanese
had occupied Burma, and were at the border of India. Stafford
Cripps effectively offered post-war independence, which
Mohandas Gandhi described as a 'post-dated cheque on a
crashing bank'. The Indian National Congress insisted on
immediate independence, which Stafford Cripps refused.
Gandhi launched a last civil disobedience campaign, for which
he was imprisoned.
November 1942
'Beveridge Report' lays the
foundations for the Welfare State
Sir William Beveridge's report gave a summary of principles
aimed at banishing poverty from Britain, including a system of
social security that would be operated by the government, and
would come into effect when war ended. It can be seen as a
sign of fear of social unrest and a spur to fight on to victory.
22 June 1944
Allies defeat the Japanese at the
battles of Imphal and Kohima
General Slim used Kohima and Imphal to break the Japanese in
Burma and by June 1945, 14th Army had retaken Rangoon.
4 February 1945
Allied leaders shape the post-war
world at the Yalta Conference
The war leaders agreed that Germany should be forced to
surrender unconditionally and would be divided into four zones
between Britain, the Soviet Union, France and the United
States.
8 May 1945
Britain celebrates the end of war
on Victory in Europe Day
26 July 1945
Labour wins the general election by
a landslide
Churchill was accepted as a war leader but working class
Britons wanted no return to the squalor of the 1930s. The
current government seems keen on 1930 levels of poverty.
15 August 1945
Victory over Japan Day marks the
end of World War Two
Even though the USA were now guaranteed victory as Russia
and Britain were also committed to the defeat of Japan, the
USA used the atom bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It marked
America’s military dominance and set the scene for the Cold
War and nuclear arms race.
24 October 1945
United Nations comes into
existence with Britain as a founder
member
The End!