Events from the year 1938 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Monarch – George VI
Prime Minister – Neville Chamberlain (Coalition) Parliament – 37th
Events
1 January – Sir Alexander Cadogan succeeds Sir Robert Vansittart as permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office. 17 January – Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., is appointed United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. 14 February – the British naval base at Singapore begins operations. 20 February – Anthony Eden resigns as Foreign Secretary, over Chamberlain's policy towards Italy. Lord Halifax takes over. 14 March – Chamberlain makes a speech in the House of Commons saying the government "emphatically" disapproves of the Nazi German Anschluss in Austria two days previously but that "nothing could have prevented this action by Germany unless we and others with us had been prepared to use force to prevent it." 16 April – Anglo-Italian Treaty: Britain recognises Italian government over Ethiopia, in return for Italian troops withdrawing from Spain. 23 April – York Castle Museum opened. 25 April – Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement with the Republic of Ireland settles the Anglo-Irish Trade War and agrees to the Royal Navy abandoning the British sovereign bases at the Treaty ports in Ireland. 3 May – Empire Exhibition opens in Glasgow. 10 May – an underground explosion at Markham Colliery, near Staveley, Derbyshire, kills 79. 1 June – The Bren light machine gun comes into service with the British Army. 2 June – The children's zoo at London Zoo is opened by Robert and Ted Kennedy, two of the sons of United States ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. 18 June – Women's Voluntary Service founded to assist the Civil Defence Service. 24 June – Test cricket is televised for the first time. 3 July – The London and North Eastern Railway's streamlined Class A4 4468 Mallard reaches a speed of 126 mph (203 km/h), the highest certified speed for a steam locomotive. 9 July – Gas masks are issued to the civilian population. 11 July–3 October – military installations at the Treaty Ports in the Republic of Ireland (Berehaven, Spike Island at Queenstown, and Lough Swilly) are handed over from British control to the Government of Ireland, under terms of the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement ratified by the Eire (Confirmation of Agreements) Act earlier in the year. 22 July – Britain rejects a proposal from its ambassador in Berlin, Nevile Henderson, for a four power summit on Czechoslovakia consisting of Britain, France, Germany and the U.S.S.R. as London will under no circumstances accept the Soviet Union as a diplomatic partner. 29 July – Holidays with Pay Act provides for paid annual leave in wage-regulated industries and for similar voluntary schemes in other employment. 30 July – The Beano comic first goes on sale, featuring the character Lord Snooty. August – Muslims protest in London about passages they consider disrespectful of their religion in H. G. Wells' A Short History of the World (1922). 3 August – Lord Runciman, sent by Neville Chamberlain, arrives in Prague on his mission of mediation, in the Sudetenland dispute. 4 August – Major thunderstorm over Devon. 13–20 August – Great Britain and the United States contest the inaugural Amateur World Series in baseball, played in the north of England. Britain wins every match. 18 August – Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin arrives in London, looking for British support for an anti-Nazi putsch, using the looming crisis over the Sudetenland as a pretext. His private mission is dismissed by Neville Chamberlain as unimportant (Chamberlain refers to von Kleist as a "Jacobite"), but he finds a sympathetic if powerless audience in Winston Churchill. 23 August – English cricketer Len Hutton scores a record Test score of 364 runs in a match against Australia. 28 August – Lord Runciman's mission to mitigate the Sudetenland crisis begins to break down. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain recalls Ambassador Nevile Henderson from Berlin, to instruct Henderson to set up a personal meeting between Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler. 31 August – Winston Churchill, still believing France and Britain mean to honour their promises to defend Czechoslovakia against Nazi aggression, suggests in a personal note to Neville Chamberlain that His Majesty's Government may want to set up a broad international alliance, including the United States (specifically mentioning U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as possibly receptive to the idea) and the Soviet Union. 7 September – The Times publishes a lead article which calls on Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Germany. 9 September – Auxiliary Territorial Service, as a women's voluntary service, established.