1902

Poor condition set of four. Even though its poorly bound it is in a complete set of matching cloth and board covers and are quite attractive. I?ll get a photo at some point. Events 1902 January - GPO becomes the world?s first postal administration to accept divided-back postcards (i.e. those with an address and message on one side and a full-size picture on the other), initiating a craze for sending and collecting them. 5 January - First performance, privately, of George Bernard Shaw?s controversial 1893 play Mrs. Warren?s Profession in London. 17 January - The Times Literary Supplement first published. 30 January - The Anglo-Japanese Alliance is signed in London ending the policy of "splendid isolation". 13 February - The 1902 World Figure Skating Championships held in London. 7 March - Second Boer War: South African Boers win their last battle over British forces, with the capture of a British general and 200 of his men. 2 April - First performance of William Butler Yeats?s play Cathleen Ní Houlihan in Dublin. 5 April - The first Ibrox disaster: a stand at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow collapses during an England versus Scotland football match. 25 people die and 517 are injured. 26 April - Hibernian F.C. win the Scottish F.A. Cup, a feat they will not subsequently repeat. 28 April - Manchester United Football Club are formed by John Henry Davies in a name change from Newton Heath, the former name of the Football League Second Division club that he recently saved from going out of business. April - Vladimir Lenin begins a year?s stay in London where he edits the newspaper Iskra. 31 May - Treaty of Vereeniging signed by the United Kingdom, the South African Republic and the Republic of the Orange Free State bringing the Second Boer War to an end. 2 June - Land of Hope and Glory (with music by Edward Elgar and lyrics by A. C. Benson) receives its London premiere, sung by Clara Butt. 26 June - Edward VII institutes The Order of Merit. 30 June?11 August - A conference held in London supports the principle of Imperial Preference, a system of reciprocally-levelled tariffs or Free trade agreements between different Dominions and colonies within the British Empire. 11 July - Retirement of Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister due to ill health. He is succeeded by his nephew Arthur Balfour and will be the last person to have sat in the House of Lords as Prime Minister. 9 August - Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at Westminster Abbey. 13 September - Harry Jackson becomes the first British person to be convicted on the basis of fingerprint evidence. 1 October - Launch of the Royal Navy?s first submarine, the Holland 1. 1 October - Royal Navy establishes Home Fleet. 16 October - The first Borstal youth detention centre is opened at Borstal, Kent. 4 November - First performance of J. M. Barrie?s play The Admirable Crichton in London. December - The Balfour Education Act establishes the system of Local Education Authorities in England and Wales and permits them to build and maintain secondary schools. 9 December - British and German forces seize the navy of Venezuela in a dispute over compensation claims. 10 December - Ronald Ross wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his work on malaria, by which he has shown how it enters the organism and thereby has laid the foundation for successful research on this disease and methods of combating it". 30 December - Discovery Expedition: Scott, Shackleton and Wilson reach the furthest southern point reached thus far by man, south of 82°S.…