1901 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Victoria, Edward VII
• Prime Minister – Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
• Parliament – 27th

  Events

• 1 January
• * The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia. Edmund Barton becomes the first Australian Prime Minister.
• * Nigeria becomes a British protectorate.
• 19 January – Queen Victoria is reported to be seriously ill.
• 22 January – Queen Victoria dies at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. She is 81 years old and has served as monarch for nearly 64 years – longer than any other British monarch in history up to this date. Her eldest son, The Prince Albert Edward, Prince of Wales becomes King, reigning as Edward VII. His son, The Prince George becomes Duke of Cornwall and York.
• 2 February – The funeral of Queen Victoria takes place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
• 18 February – Winston Churchill makes his maiden speech in the House of Commons, concerning the Boer War.
• 21 February – The Apollo Theatre opens in Shaftesbury Avenue, London.
• 5 March – Police eject jeering Irish nationalist demonstrators from the House of Commons.
• 12 March – The Whitechapel Art Gallery opens in London.
• 16 March-1 November - the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York make a tour of the British Empire in sailing as a royal yacht.
• 31 March – The 1901 UK Census is held. The number of people employed in manufacturing is at its highest-ever recorded level.
• 26 April – First meeting of the Engineering Standards Committee, predecessor of the BSI Group.
• 2 May-4 November - Glasgow International Exhibition.
• 16 May – TS King Edward is launched at William Denny and Brothers' shipyard in Dumbarton. The first commercial merchant vessel propelled by steam turbines, she enters excursion service on the Firth of Clyde on 1 July.
• 18 May – Alexandra Palace opens to the public in London.
• 1 July – The first UK Fingerprint Bureau is established at Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police headquarters in London, by Edward Henry.
• 12 July – Maidenhead enters the UK Weather Records with the highest sixty-minute total rainfall at 92mm. As of July 2012 this record remains.
• 22 July – The House of Lords rules in the Taff Vale case that trade unions can be held liable for damages caused by members.
• 22 July – British congress on tuberculosis opens.
• 5 August – Britain's first permanent cinema opens in Islington, London.
• 6 August – Discovery Expedition: Robert Falcon Scott sets sail on the barque-rigged auxiliary steamship Discovery to explore the Ross Sea in Antarctica; the ship, launched on 21 March in Dundee, is the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in the UK.
• 17 August – The Factory and Workshop Act raises the minimum working age to twelve years and extends legislation regarding the education of working of children, employee's meal times, and provision of fire escapes.
• 30 August – Engineer Hubert Cecil Booth patents the electrically powered vacuum cleaner.
• 7 September – The United Kingdom is amongst the signatories of the Boxer Protocol ending the Boxer Rebellion in China.
• October – First performance of Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, in Liverpool.
• 2 October – Royal Navy's first submarine, Holland 1, launched at Barrow-in-Furness.
• 29 October – The Aero Club of the United Kingdom is established.
• 9 November – The Prince George, Duke of Cornwall and York becomes Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.
• 13 November – Caister lifeboat disaster: Lifeboat Beauchamp capsizes on service off Caister-on-Sea, Norfolk, during a major storm: nine of the twelve crew on board are killed.
• 18 November – The United Kingdom and the United States sign the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty allowing the US to build a canal through Panama.
• 30 November – Frank Hornby of Liverpool is granted a patent for the construction toy that will become Meccano.
• 12 December – Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from Poldhu in Cornwall to Newfoundland, the letter "S" in Morse.

  Undated

• Imperial Tobacco founded by W. H. Wills.
• Electric trams introduced in London, Glasgow and Portsmouth.

  Ongoing events

• Second Boer War

  Publications

• Dictionary of National Biography concludes publication.
• Patrick S. Dinneen's novel Cormac Ó Conaill, the first in Irish to be published complete in book form.
• Thomas Hardy's collection Poems of the Past and the Present.
• Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim.
• Seebohm Rowntree's survey of York Poverty, A Study of Town Life.
• H. G. Wells' novel The First Men in the Moon and his collected articles on futurology Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought.

  Births

• 13 February – Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Scottish writer
• 15 February – Kenneth Callow, biochemist
• 19 February – Florence Green, Royal Air Force member, last surviving World War I veteran
• 20 February – Robert Stopford, Bishop of London
• 3 March – Claude Choules, last surviving World War I combat veteran from any nation
• 7 April – Christopher Wood, painter
• 12 April – Thomas Sharp, urban planner
• 15 April – Joe Davis, snooker and billiards player
• 19 April – Edith Summerskill, physician, feminist, Labour politician and campaigner
• 1 June – John Van Druten, dramatist
• 9 June – John Skeaping, sculptor and equine painter
• 10 June – Eric Maschwitz, lyricist and broadcast executive
• 12 June – Norman Hartnell, fashion designer
• 17 June – F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, World War II hero
• 23 June – Richard Ripley, 400 m runner
• 9 July – Barbara Cartland, novelist
• 13 July – Eric Portman, film actor
• 20 July – Dilys Powell, film critic
• 29 August – Anna Zinkeisen, Scottish-born artist
• 15 September
• * Donald Bailey, engineer
• * Sylvia Crowe, landscape architect
• 4 September – William Lyons, automobile engineer and designer, founder of Jaguar Cars
• 9 September – James Blades, orchestral percussionist
• 17 September – Francis Chichester, aviator and sailor
• 4 October – Adrian Bell, rural writer and crossword compiler
• 1 November – Cecil Jackson-Cole, humanitarian
• 6 November – Kathleen Mary Drew-Baker, phycologist
• 17 November – Joyce Wethered, golfer
• 28 November – Roy Urquhart, major-general
• 1 December – Charles Tunnicliffe, wildlife painter
• 8 December – Arthur Leslie, television actor
• 25 December – Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester
• 26 December – Victor Hely-Hutchinson, composer
• 27 December – Stanley Hayter, printmaker

  Deaths

• 14 January – Mandell Creighton, Bishop of London
• 22 January – Queen Victoria
• 11 February – Henry Willis, organ builder
• 21 February – Henry Peach Robinson, photographer
• 6 March – John Jabez Edwin Mayall, photographer
• 3 April – Richard D'Oyly Carte, theatrical impresario
• 13 April – Sir Edward Watkin, politician and railway entrepreneur
• 15 April – Francis Baker, cricketer
• 21 May – Sir John Commerell, admiral of the fleet
• 24 May – Charlotte M. Yonge, novelist
• 9 June – Sir Walter Besant, novelist and historian
• 5 August
• * Alfred Heaver, property developer
• * Victoria, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria
• 6 November – Kate Greenaway, children's book illustrator and writer
• 13 November – Sir William Houston Stewart, admiral
• 30 November – Edward John Eyre, explorer
• 1 December – George Lohmann, English cricketer
• 23 December – Edward Onslow Ford, sculptor