1900

The timelines on this site are an attempt to highlight the major political and cultural events of the years 1895-1914. They are by no means definitive or canonical; aiming instead at a representative selection, gleaned from various texts.  Additions to the timeline are especially welcome: please leave suggestions in the comments box below.

Key Events

February – Labour Party formed (originally named the Labour Representation Committee).
May – British garrison under siege from Mafeking is relieved.
July – First Zeppelin Flight in Germany.
December – Conservative government re-elected (two Labour party members gain seats). Lord Salisbury becomes Prime Minister.
Scottish Workers’ Parliamentary Committee formed.
Maud Gonne MacBride founds Inghinidhe na Eireann, revolutionary Irish women’s movement.

Boxer Rebellion.
Opening of the Central London Railway.
Max Planck proposes quantum theory.

Deaths

Oscar Wilde.
John Ruskin.
Ernest Dowson.
R.D.Blackmore.
Arthur Sullivan.
Henry Sidgwick.

Literature

Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad.
Love and Mr. Lewisham – H G Wells.
Three Men on the Bummel – Jerome K Jerome.
The Master Christian – Marie Corelli.
The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and Nay – Maurice Hewlett
The Half-Hearted – John Buchan
The Cardinal’s Snuff-Box – Henry Harland
The Fourth Generation – Walter Besant
The Visits of Elizabeth – Elinor Glyn

Oxford Book of English Verse (ed Quiller-Couch).
Home and Garden – Gertrude Jekyll
The Interpretation of Dreams – Sigmund Freud (translated into English in 1913)
A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz  – Betrand Russell
The South African War: Its Causes and Effects – J.A.Hobson.
The Daily Express (founded in April)

Art & Architecture

Opening of the Wallace Collection (22nd June)
Rodin drawings and small bronzes exhibited at the Carfax Gallery, London.
Exposition Universalle in Paris.

Works:
Rudyard Kipling – John Collier.
Mrs Graham Robertson – Arthur Melville.
Brighton – Charles Conder.
The Browning Readers – William Rothenstein.
The Bathers – Charles Shannon.

Sculpture:
The Spirit of Contemplation – Albert Toft.
Eve –Thomas Brock.

Architecture:
The White House, Helensburgh –M H Baillie Scott.

Theatre

Music

The Dream of Gerontius – Edward Elgar (premieres in Birmingham in October).
The Song of Hiawatha, Op.30  – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor