What date goes on your hardbound PhD thesis?
This is the kind of question which is best answered with actual evidence. Many American universities have their thesis formatting rules online, and you can find them with relatively little effort. British Universities (Oxford and Cambridge, in particular) often seem not to give as detailed rules. From these examples, it is clear that the rules for which date is used depends on the university.
Harvard University: "[Month and year of the submission of the completed dissertation to the department, division, or committee and Dissertation Acceptance Certificate was signed]",
MIT: "the date the degree(s) will be conferred (June, September, or February only)",
Stanford University: "(Date should reflect month and year of submission to the Office of the University Registrar.)"
University of Michigan: "year of degree conferral not year that dissertation was finished" (they don't want a month).
University College London: no date seems to be required on the thesis (none is mentioned in the guidelines, and there are theses without dates in their archive).
University of Edinburgh: "Year of presentation. In the case of a thesis which is resubmitted, the year in which the thesis is resubmitted should be shown as the year of presentation." What do they mean by "year of presentation"? From their website: "At some point between submission of your thesis and the viva, you are encouraged to give a final presentation of your work to the School, often via a research group seminar series."
University of Leeds: "the year of submission for examination (Or resubmission where the thesis is submitted following re-examination after referral)."
While I agree that you should check your institution's regulations, I will give some pointers based on experience at UK institutions. Everything I write should have the proviso "This may vary between institutions" attached.
The thesis you submit will have the date of submission on the title page. After the viva, the examiners at a UK institution can make one of several decisions. The following is a rough guide:
Accept the thesis without requiring corrections. In this case, the hardbound thesis will be the same as the submitted version except possibly for fixing typos etc. In this case, the date on the hardbound version should be the same as the date on the submitted version.
Accept the thesis subject to minor corrections. In this case, you will have a certain period (often three months) to make the corrections, which the internal examiner will check before formally accepting the thesis. (There is usually no second viva on the corrected thesis.) In this case, the date on the hardbound thesis should be the date that the corrected version is completed and given to the internal examiner to check.
Reject the thesis but offer the candidate the option of making major corrections and re-submitting within a certain period (often a year). In this case, the submission process starts over and the dates will all reflect the new submission process.
Reject the thesis for a Ph.D. but accept it for an M.Phil. In this case, there are no changes (except possibly for changing "Ph.D." to "M.Phil." on the title page) and so the initial submission date remains on the hardbound thesis.
Reject the thesis entirely. In this case, the question is moot.
My intuition would be that it would depend on the university’s regulations, but I’d guess 2014, since your examiners could have asked you to make changes, which would mean that the version you submit wouldn’t be the same as what you submitted to them. I assume you’re actually being admitted to the degree this year, too.
The quickest authoritative answer would presumably be obtained by emailing the relevant library (note that only some universities’ theses go to the British Library).