The march Colonel Bogey is written and published by a Royal Marine bandleader under the pseudonym Kenneth Alford

D.H. Lawrence publishes a semi-autobiographical novel about the Morel family, Sons and Lovers

A suffragette slashes the Rokeby Venus by Velázquez in London's National Gallery

British officers stationed at the Curragh in Dublin say they would resign if ordered to quell Protestant resistance in Ulster

Wyndham Lewis and others launch Vorticism with a new magazine, Blast

Vaughan Williams writes a romance for violin and orchestra, The Lark Ascending, inspired by George Meredith's poem of the same name

James Joyce's novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man begins serial publication in a London journal, The Egoist

After years of delay James Joyce's Dubliners, a collection of short stories, is published

British golfer Harry Vardon wins his sixth Open, a record still unbroken

American-born poet Thomas Stearns Eliot crosses the Atlantic to England, making it his home for the rest of his life

The Times Literary Supplement is published in London as an independent paper, separate from The Times

Vaughan Williams' London Symphony, including picturesque sounds of the city's street life, is first performed

A Home Rule Act is finally passed for Ireland, with its implementation postponed until after the war

Jacob Epstein completes his sculpture The Rock Drill, the outstanding work of the Vorticist movement

Stanley Spencer joins the Royal Army Medical Corps, with whom he finds a wealth of subject matter

Robert Tressell's Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is published posthumously in an abbreviated version

Ivor Novello has a great success with his topical song Keep the Home Fires Burning (with lyrics by Lena Ford)

Erskine Childers sails his own yacht from Germany to Ireland with 900 rifles and 14,000 rounds of ammunition for the Irish Volunteers

Bound by treaty to defend Belgium, Britain declares war on Germany

A small British Expeditionary Force is rushed across the Channel to Boulogne

Britain declares war on the empire of Austria-Hungary

The British Expeditionary Force fights a rearguard action to escape encirclement by the Germans at Mons

British planes, taking off from Dunkirk, bomb Cologne railway station and destroy Germany's latest Zeppelin in its great shed at Düsseldorf

British troops are driven to the western front in London Transport double-deckers

H.G. Wells publishes The War that will end War, offering an optimistic prediction of the present conflict leading to a future world state