18 September – Fashoda Incident: A powerful flotilla of British gunboats arrives at the French-occupied fort of Fashoda on the White Nile, leading to a diplomatic stalemate until French troops are ordered to withdraw on 3 November. 14 October – Atlantic Transport Line's sinks on The Manacles off Cornwall with the loss of 106 of the 197 on board. 16 November – Harrods department store in Knightsbridge install the first (stepless) escalator in the UK. Undated Edward William Barton-Wright introduces Japanese martial arts to Europe, a form of jujitsu which he calls Bartitsu. The North Petherton Rosco Acetylene Company in Somerset may have provided gas lighting for a church. Publications J. Meade Falkner's children's adventure Moonfleet. Thomas Hardy's collection Wessex Poems and Other Verses. Maurice Hewlett's historical novel Forest Lovers. Ebenezer Howard's tract To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, influencing the Garden city movement. Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw. Fred T. Jane's reference work Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships. Theodore Watts-Dunton's romantic novel Aylwin. H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds. Oscar Wilde's poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary begins publication. Births 9 January – Gracie Fields, singer and comedian (died 1979) 23 February – Lucy Morton, Olympic swimmer (died 1980) 28 February – Hugh O'Flaherty, Irish Catholic priest (died 1963) 10 March – Mary Adams, television producer and social researcher (died 1984) 8 April – Maurice Bowra, classical scholar, academic and wit (died 1971) 26 April – John Grierson, documentary filmmaker (died 1972) 2 May – Henry Hall, bandleader (died 1989) 15 May – Tom Wintringham, soldier and politician (died 1949) 24 May – Kathleen Hale, children's author (died 2000) 6 June – Ninette de Valois, born Edris Stannus, Irish dancer and founder of The Royal Ballet, London (died 2001) 18 June – Carleton Hobbs, actor (died 1978) 3 July – Donald Healey, motor engineer and race car driver (died 1988) 4 July – Gertrude Lawrence, actress (died 1952) 28 July – Alice Baker, World War I pilot (died 2006) 30 July – Henry Moore, sculptor (died 1986) 1 August – Mildred Creak, child psychologist (died 1993) 1 September – Violet Carson, actress and entertainer (died 1983) 9 September – Beverley Nichols, author (died 1983) 17 November – Harold Bennett, actor (died 1981) 29 November – C. S. Lewis, author (died 1963) 27 December – W. C.