Chronography of Great Britain
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modified� 4/4//2022
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See also Royal Family from 1760
SCOTLAND � Click here for events up to Act of
Union 1707 relating solely to Scottish history.
�As for Britain, it is set in the Sea of Darkness.
It is a considerable island, whose shape is that of the head of an ostrich, and
where there are flourishing towns, high mountains, great rivers and plains.
This country is most fertile; its inhabitants are brave, active and
enterprising, but all is in the grip of perpetual winter." Muhammad Al Idrisi,
12th century Arab
geographer
For MSOA-based maps of England and Wales, click
here.
To order scans of Ordnance Survey 1940-60 maps
annotated with historical changes and dates, e.g. new roads, railway and canal
opening/closure dates, urban growth, coastal erosion, click
here to access map index and order sheets and go to �Images of UK Historical
changes maps
Nomis datasets, https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/query/construct/submit.asp?forward=yes&menuopt=201&subcomp=
Joseph Rowntree Foundation, https://www.jrf.org.uk/
Happisburgh village website,
coastal erosion, history and more, http://happisburgh.org.uk/
Box
index:-
23.0.
UK 2016 Brexit Vote
22.0.
Scotland Independence
Referendum 2014
21.0.
Great Train Robbers, 1963-2013
20.5.
Iraq weapons report
aftermath, 2003-04
20.0.
Scottish and Welsh
Devolution, 1997-99
19.0.
New Labour gain power under
Tony Blair 1993-97
18.0.
Dunblane Massacre, ban on
handguns 1996-97
17.8,
James Bulger murder 1993
17.6,
Mrs Thatcher ousted as Tory
Leader; replaced by John Major, 1990
17.4,
The Poll Tax 1987-91
17.2
Formation and end of the Social
Democratic Party, 1987-90
17.0� Miner�s
Strike, 1984-85
16.0
Greenham Common
anti-nuclear protests 1951-91
15.0
Falklands War 1982
14.0
Urban Riots 1980-81
12.0
SDP Party (Gang of Four) 1981
11.0
Jeremy Thorpe trial, 1977-79
10.0
Mrs Thatcher elected 1979
9.0 Devolution for Scotland and Wales,
1976-79
8.0 Winter of Discontent 1978-79
7.5, Iceland-UK Cod War, 1974-76
7.3, John Stonehouse disappearance,
1974-76
7.2, Heath loses General Election, 11/1974;
replaced as Party ;leader by Mrs Thatcher
7.1, Edward Heath Conservative
Government, toppled by industrial unrest and energy crisis, 1973-74
5.0 UK accession to the European
Economic Community 1971-73
3.0 De Gaulle refuses to admit UK to the
EEC due to links with USA, 1961-63
2.0 End of rationing in Britain 1948 � 1954
0.0 Intensification of UK rationing
post - War, 1946 - 51
-1.0, Britain and the end of World War Two in
Europe, 1944-45
-2.0, Britain and World War Two, 1941-44
-3.0, UK rationing 1940-44
-4.0, UK civil measures 1940-43
-5.0, Britain and World War Two, 1940-41
-6.0, Battle of Britain 1940; German bid to
defeat the RAF failed
-7.0, Britain declares war on Germany.
Early stages of World War Two in the UK, 1939-40
-8.0, Preparations for War, 1937-39
-9.0, Britain re-armament and Fascist
conflicts, 1933-37
-10.0, Jarrow March 1936
-11.0, Postal and telephone developments
1934-37
-12.0, Leisure and Tourism developments
1927-38
16/12/2021, The Conservatives were
heavily defeated in the North Shropshire by-election by the Liberals, in what
had been a safe Tory seat since 1832. The election had been triggered by the
dismissal of its incumbent Tory MP for financial impropriety, but the election
was also a protest vote against the Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself.
24/11/2021, As informal migrant
crossings across the English Channel from northern France to Kent� increased markedly over 2020, this day an
underinflated dinghy capsized, drowning 27.
11/11/2021, The number of migrants
crossing the English Channel informally today was 1,185, a new daily record.
24/9/2021, The UK began to experience petrol shortages due to
a lack of HGV drivers to deliver the fuel to petrol stations.
6/5/2021, Elections were held across the UK. In the
Hartlepool by-election, the Conservatives won the historically-Labour seat.
Scotland elected its Parliament and Wales elected a new Senedd. London elected
a new Assembly, and there were English local council elections., also 12 new
Mayors were elected. The Tories did well in English local council elections,
and made a good showing in mayoral city elections, although they failed to
unseat Siddiq
Khan in London. Conservatives and Labour made inroads in Wales at
the expense of the Nationalists, In Scotland the SNP made small gains against
Labour, but fell just short of an absolute majority there..
31/12/2020, The UK formally left the European Union, at
11.00pm UK time.
6/4/2020, The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was admitted to
intensive care with Covid-19.
4/4/2020, Kier Starmer was elected leader of the British
Labour Party, succeeding Jeremy Corbyn (who had lost hugely to the
Tories in December 2019, and was accused of anti-Semitic sympathies).
31/1/2020, The UK began to leave the European Union. A period
of transition, scheduled to end 31/12/2020, began during which trade relations
would be sorted out. Many people suspected this was too little time to complete
these negotiations.
20/12/2019, Boris Johnson, British PM, won a huge majority
of 358 to 234 against for his Bill to complete Brexit on 31/1/2020; larger than
his overall Commons majority of 78. From end January, a transition period is
due to begin, for 11 months until 31/12/2020; however many believed this was
too short and might have to be extended.
12/12/2020, General Election in the UK. Boris Johnson,
incumbent Conservative Prime Minister, won a major victory, gaining 365 seats,
a majority of 78. Boris Johnson now promised to deliver Brexit
by 31 January 2020, with the transition period extending no longer than 31
December 2020. There was speculation of a possible trade deal with the USA.
Meanwhile Labour did badly, losing many previously safe seats in the Midlands
and North of England, which was attributed to disaffection amongst blue collar
workers in old-industrial areas; Labour secured 203 seats. However Labour�s
vote held up better in London. The Liberal Democrats did badly, holding just 11
seats, losing seats despite a rise in their % vote share; their leader, Joe Swinson,
lost her seat to the SNP in Scotland. The SNP did well as the Nationalist vote
rose, taking 48 seats. In Northern Ireland the DUP took 8 seats as Sinn Fein
gained ground.
24/9/2019, Britain�s Supreme Court ruled that PM Boris
Johnson had acted unlawfully when he prorogued (suspended)
Parliament, ostensibly because of upcoming Party Conferences, but in reality to
avert further debate on Brexit. Parliament returned to sitting the next day.
3/9/2019, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson lost significant
Parliamentary votes. MPs voted to force him to ask Brussels for an extension on
the Brexit process from 31/10/2019, and not to hold a General election before
this date. 21 Tory MPs rebelled and were expelled from the Conservative Party
by Mr
Johnson, who now led a Government with a minority of 47. Mr Johnson
said if he were compelled by law to ask for an extension (something he earlier
said he would never do), he would also threaten to be so disruptive to the EU
that in fact they would not grant one. Calling an early General Election in
October would, under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, have required two thirds
of MPs to vote for, which Boris Johnson did not get; it would also have
ensured that Parliament was not operating in full at the end of October so even
if Labour won they could not have voted to extend the Brexit deadline or avert
No Deal. However it was possible that the EU, despairing of the never-ending
Brexit process, would decline to offer an extension anyway, with President
Macron of France taking this position.
28/8/2019, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson took the highly
controversial move of announcing that the UK Parliament would be prorogued from
10 September for a crucial 5-week period until 14 October just before the
planned Brexit of 31/10/2019. Opponents of Brexit claimed that this was a move
to suppress any debate in parliament of the Brexit process, and prevent the
passing of a Bill to block a Brexit without a deal being made with the European
Union.
23/7/2019, Boris Johnson was elected new leader of the UK
Conservative Party and Prime Minister, with 66.3% of votes cast. He stood
against Jeremy
Hunt.
24/5/2019, Mrs Theresa May, UK Prime Minister, announced
her resignation, having failed to secure a Brexit deal that could get through
the UK Parliament.
21/3/2019, After lengthy talks between Mrs May, UK Prime Minister, and
the EU, the EU set new dates for Brexit. If Mrs May managed to get her deal
with the EU accepted at a third vote in Parliament, Brexit would take place on
22 May 2019. This would give the UK Parliament time to pass the necessary
legislation. However it was possible that the Speaker, Mr Bercow, would debar a 3rd
vote unless the proposal was �significantly different from the proposal that
was heavily defeated two times already; possibly the new schedule would
constitute a �difference�. If, however, Mrs May could not get her Deal passed, the UK
was to have until 12 April to �say what it wanted� � which could be anything
from No Deal to postponing or even cancelling Brexit, revoking Article 50.
16/1/2019, The Motion of No Confidence in the UK Government
was defeated by 325 votes to 306.
15/1/2019, The UK House of Commons voted decisively to reject
Conservative PM Theresa
May�s EU Withdrawal Deal, by 423 votes to 202. The Deal was disliked
by those MPs who wanted a harder Brexit and feared that it tied the UK in too
closely to Europe; it was also rejected by those who wanted to delay or eve
cancel Brexit. Immediately after this vote the Labour Opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn,
put down a Motion of No Confidence in the Government.
12/12/2018, Following Theresa May�s failed last minute attempt at
renegotiation with the European Union on 11/12/2018, a leadership challenge
emerged today, with over 48 Conservative MPs voting for a leadership election
within the Party. She won the vote by 200 votes to 117, meaning no further
leadership challenge was possible for at least 12 months.
11/12/2018, UK Prime Minister Theresa May postponed a
Parliamentary vote on her Brexit Deal, which many had derided as giving up too
much to Europe, and quickly met European leaders to try and renegotiate terms.
She failed.
4/3/2018, Soviet double agent Sergei Skripal and his
daughter Yulia were poisoned in the UK city of Salisbury by a nerve gas agent,
likely Novichok, which is Russian in origin.
27/8/2017, A mystery gas cloud drifted in over Beachy Head
from the sea; 233 people were taken to Eastbourne Hospital with eye irritation
and breathing difficulties. The cloud was possibly chlorine from a ship
cleaning out its container tanks.
8/6/2017, UK General Election. Theresa May, Conservative Prime
Minister, had hoped to make large gains, as two years after the 2015 election
which gave the Conservatives a majority of just 6, she was well ahead of Labour
in the opinion polls in April 2017. However during the election campaign she
proposed financial limits on payment for dementia care which would have meant
many older people having to sell their home rather than pass it to their
families. By the time the election was held her opinion poll lead had shrunk to
just 1% to 7%.� The results were,
Conservatives 318, loss 18; Labour 261, gain 31; Liberal Democrats 12, gain 3;
SNP 35, loss 19; DUP 10, gain 2; Sinn Feinn 7, gain 3; UKIP 0 (no change) Green
1 (no change), Others 12.� Prime Minister
Theresa May
was forced into a coalition with the DUP to maintain majority government; this
could limit her hand on Brexit, since the DUP does not want a hard border with
the Republic of Ireland.
22/5/2017, An Islamist terrorist set off a bomb at a music
concert in Manchester. 22 were killed and 59 injured..
18/4/2017, UK Prime Minister Theresa May called a surprise
snap General Election for 8/6/2017. With opinion polls showing the
Conservatives ahead at 44% against Labour�s 23%, under their unpopular leader Jeremy Corbyn,
the Conservatives stood a hood chance of enhancing their current majority of 17
to perhaps over 100. However Corbyn said he would not stand at this
election, so Labour might have a more electable leader by then.
23.0 UK 2016 Brexit Vote
28/3/2017, Late this
evening, UK Prime Minister Theresa May signed Article 50, triggering the
exit process of the UK from the EU. The letter was
delivered to Donald Tusk (Poland), President of the European Council, on 29/3/2017.
The two-year negotiation process was started; however after the inconclusive UK
General Election of 8/6/2017 this timetable was looking tight.
13/3/2017, Nicola
Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish
Nationalist Party, announced she would campaign for a second referendum on
independence from the UK. This was in response to the imminent triggering of
Article 50 by UK Prime Minister Theresa May, starting the exit process from
the EU.
3/11/2016, Britain�s High
Court ruled that the Prime Minister, Theresa May, could not trigger Article 50 to
leave the EU without Parliamentary approval. This ruling was later upheld by
the Supreme Court. This opened up the possibility of Parliament severely
delaying or even thwarting the Brexit process.
13/7/2016, Theresa May
became Conservative Prime Minister as Cameron resigned. She won with the backing of
some 60% of Tory MPs. Other contenders, including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove
and Andrea
Leadsom, had backed out of the leadership contest. The UK had still
not yet invoked Chapter 50.
26/6/2016 The fallout
from the Brexit vote continued. David Cameron delayed invoking Chapter 50,
which would kickstart a 2-year procedure to negotiate the UK�s withdrawal from
the EU. Cameron expressed a preference for his successor as Tory leader to
undertake these negotiations. Meanwhile EU leaders were pressuring the UK to
invoke Chapter 50 soon. The EU leaders feared further �Exit� referenda in
countries like France, The Netherlands, Denmark, possibly Sweden, in Spain,
Greece, and even Germany and the Czech republic. The Labour leader, Jeremy
Corbyn�s, position seemed precarious as ten of his Cabinet resigned, over his
lacklustre support for the Remain campaign. There was debate within the UK as
to whether the Referendum result was actually binding, especially if a UK
General Election ensued within a few months, which itself would require
legislation to amend the five year rule for such elections. Also by this
afternoon, nearly 3.4 million people had signed a petition asking for a second
Brexit Referendum; some signatures were suspected of coming from outside the
UK.
23/6/2016 The UK voted
51.9% to leave the European Union in the so-called Brexit referendum. David Cameron
resigned as Conservative Prime Minister. The actual figures were, OUT,
17,410,742, IN, 16,141,241, Turnout = 72.2%.
19/2/2016, Prime Minister
David
Cameron concluded negotiations for a deal redefining the
relationship between the UK and the EU. This was a preliminary move before a UK
referendum to be held on whether the UK should leave the EU. On 20/2/2016 the
date for this referendum was set for 23/6/2016.
16/6/2016, Jo Cox, 41, MP for Batley and Spen, a
Yorkshire constituency, was killed, shot and stabbed, by Mr Tommy Mair. Mr Mair
supported the far-Right and was against immigration, and perceived Ms Cox
as favouring immigration.
21/8/2015, Britain and Iran re-opened their embassies in each
other�s capitals. This followed a nuclear agreement between Iran and the USA
organised by US
President Obama (but not yet ratified by US Congress).
7/5/2015, General election in the UK. David Cameron won a narrow
majority for the Conservatives with 331 seats. The Scottish Nationalist Party
(SNP) swept the board in Scotland, winning 59 of the 59 seats there; Labour
lost a large number of MPs there, also losing seats to the Conservatives in
England; Labour finished with 232 seats. The Liberal Democrats crashed to just
8 seats, from 56. The UK Independence Party (UKIP) won 12.6% of the vote but
obtained just one MP, in Clacton; their leader, Nigel Farage, lost his Thanet
South seat to the Conservatives. The UKIP leader Nigel Farage, the Liberal
Democrat leader Nick
Clegg and the Labour leader Ed Miliband all resigned. The Conservatives
picked up voted from Liberal Democrats and from UKIP supporters afraid of a
Labour-SNP coalition; UKIP came second in over 100 constituencies. Voters may
also have feared a Leftist government creating an economic crisis similar to
that recently suffered by Greece.
4/12/2014, Former leader of the UK Liberal Party, Jeremy Thorpe,
died aged 85. He became Party Leader in 1967, having been MP for North Devon
since 1959.
29/11/2014, Across Britain, mystery explosions or sonic booms
were heard. There were also reports of an explosion in Manchester, and near
Catterick barracks, where a six-mile stretch of the A1 was closed, but no
damage was to be found. Theories ranged from falling satellite debris to
meteorites to secret MoD experiments.
20/11/2014, In Britain�s Rochester and Strood by-election,
UKIP won its second MP.
9/10/2014, UKIP got its first MP elected in the Clacton
by-election, taking the seat from the Conservatives, as voters concerns about
immigration rose. UKIP also came close to winning another by-election this day
in Heywood & Middleton, Manchester; Labour held the seat by just 617 votes.
22.0 Scotland Independence Referendum 2014
18/9/2014, Referendum in
Scotland on independence from the UK; the vote was 55.4% against independence
(�No�), .44.6% �Yes�, for independence. Had the been vote for independence,
Scotland would have become independent on 24/3/2016.
13/2/2014, George
Osborne, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, warned that an independent Scotland
(see 18/9/2014) would not be able to keep the Pound as a currency.
.26/8/2014, A long
history of child abuse in Rotherham emerged, mostly by Pakistani men
against White girls. As many as 1,400 children may have been abused between 1997
and 2003, some whilst they were in childrens� homes. Local authorities were
accused of covering up the abuse, for fear of provoking racial discord.
5/8/2014, Baroness Warsi resigned from Cameron�s� UK Conservative Government. She had criticised the UK Government�s
refusal to condemn Israel over the assault on Gaza.
14/3/2014, Anthony Wedgewood Benn, Labour politician,
died aged 88. Against UK membership of the European Union, he was on the left
of the Labour Party, and fought to renounce his hereditary peerage so he could
sit in the Commons as an MP.
21.0 Great
Train Robbers, 1963-2013
18/12/2013,
Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs died aged 84. The robbery was in
1963.
7/5/2001,
Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs returned to the UK.� He served just 15 months of a 30-year
sentence before fleeing to Brazil; escaping extradition by fathering the baby
of a 19-year old stripper.� Partially
paralysed by two strokes, Biggs intended to have a last visit to a British pub
before he died; instead he was arrested at Heathrow and sent to Belmarsh Prison
to complete the remainder of his sentence.
30/3/1975. The Great Train Robbers Ronald �Buster�
Edwards and James White were released on bail after
serving 9 years in gaol.
1/2/1974. Ronald Biggs, who had escaped from London�s
Wandsworth Prison
n 1965, was arrested in Rio De Janeiro, but extradition was refused. Biggs
had been serving 30 years for his part in the Great Train Robbery.
8/7/1965, Ronald Biggs, who played a part in the Great Train Robbery in 1963, escaped
from Wandsworth Prison. Whilst 2 prisoners distracted the guards in the
exercise yard, accomplices parked a removals van outside the wall and threw a
rope ladder over. Biggs climbed over and they excaped in a getaway car that had
been hoidden inside the van; the van was abandoned.
12/8/1964, Great Train Robber Charlie Wilson escaped from
Winson Green prison, Birmingham. He was recaptured four years later in Canada.
16/4/1964. Twelve
members of the Great Train Robbers
were sentenced to a total of 307 years in jail.
20/1/1964.
In the UK, the trial of the Great Train
Robbers began.
8/8/1963. The Great Train Robbery took place at
Sear�s Crossing, Mentmore, near Cheddington, Bletchley, Buckinghamshire. A gang
of 15 men stole over �2.5million. Their haul was �2.5 million in banknotes
scheduled for destruction.� The robbery
was well planned. They used batteries and a light to simulate a red stop signal
for the Glasgow to London mail train. When the train stopped they coshed the
driver, Jack
Mills, decoupled the engine and some of the carriages, and drove
them to Bridego bridge further up the line. Here the loot was loaded onto a
lorry and taken to a farm nearby, which the police quickly found. Charlie Wilson,
the first of the robbers, was arrested and charged later the same month. The
train driver was coshed on the head and died six years later, never fully
regaining his health.
8/4/2013, Mrs Thatcher the former Conservative PM died,
aged 87.
23/1/2013, In the UK, David Cameron, Conservative Party Leader,
promised to hold a Referendum on Britain�s continued membership of the European
Union if he won the next General Election.
23/9/2010, The world�s biggest windfarm was inaugurated off
the UK coast at Thanet, Kent.
7/5/2010, UK General
Election; Conservative leader David Cameron formed a coalition with the Liberals.
3/3/2010, Former British Labour Party leader and writer Michael Foot
died, aged 96.
4/12/2009, The UK�s
Ministry of Defence closed its special unit for monitoring UFO sightings,
which had operated for over 50 years.
25/7/2009, The last British veteran of the Western Front in
World War One, Harry
Patch, died aged 111. A week earlier the oldest veteran, Henry Allingham,
had died aged 113.
1/10/2008, The French power company EdF acquired British
Energy plc, which operated 8 of Britain�s 10 nuclear power stations.
27/6/2007, In the UK, Gordon
Brown became Labour Prime Minister as Tony
Blair resigned from the Commons.
25/8/2006, The
Office for National Statistics announced that in June 2005 the population of
the UK had reached 60 million.
25/5/2006, The UK Government announced that the pension age would rise, from 65 to 66 in 2024, and to 68 in 2044.
7/2/2006, In Britain, Abu Hamza, radical Muslim cleric, 47, was
jailed for 7 years after being found guilty of inciting murder and terrorism.
7/1/2006, In the UK, Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal
Democratic Party, resigned after admitting he was being treated for alcoholism.
Sir Menzies
Campbell, deputy leader, now became acting leader.
11/12/2005, An oil
storage depot at Buncefield, near Hemel Hempstead, caught fire, at 6.am on
a Sunday morning. Fortunately at this time hardly anyone was around, and there
were only 42 injuries and no fatalities. However there was considerable damage;
the blast was heard 100 miles away, the depot burned for 3 days, sending a
plume of thick black smoke over large areas of southern England.
4/7/2005, Violent demonstrations in Gleneagles, Scotland,
against the G8 Summit Meeting there.
5/5/2005, In the UK General Election, New Labour was re-elected but with a
substantially reduced majority.
5/3/2005, The Right Reverend Lord David Sheppard of
Liverpool died (born 6/3/1929).
6/1/2005, Sir Nicholas Scott, Conservative
MP for Paddington (1966-74) and for Chelsea (1974-94), born 5/8/1933, died.
9/10/2004, Queen Elizabeth II opened the new Scottish Parliament Building in
Edinburgh.
20.5 Iraq weapons report aftermath, 2003-04
28/1/2004,
The report by former Appeal Court Judge Lord Hutton into the circumstances of the
apparent suicide of MoD weapons expert David Kelly, on 17/6/2003, was published. Hutton
cleared the UK Government of any wrongdoing and criticised the BBC�s handling
of the claim� that the Government
falsified intelligence on Iraqi weapons.
12/8/2003, BBC
journalist Andrew
Gilligan went before the Hutton Enquiry to defend his claim that the
UK Government had �sexed up� an intelligence dossier on Iraq.
18/7/2003. David Kelly, defence expert, was found dead,
reported as �suicide�. The issue was over whether Iraq really could have
launched �weapons of mass destruction�, assuming it had any, within 45 minutes
or whether New Labour had exaggerated the threat to swing public opinion behind
Tony Blair�s
decision to fully back US President George W Bush in his attack on Iraq.
Kelly
had been named by a government source, potentially ruining his future career.
See 22/5/2003 and 1/8/2003.
18/11/2003, US President Bush visited Prime Minister Tony Blair of the
UK; there were ongoing protests against the US war on Iraq.
6/11/2003, Michael Howard became the new Conservative
Party Chairman.
4/9/2003, The Bullring
in Birmingham, Europe�s largest shopping centre, was opened by Sir Albert Bore.
27/7/2003, The results of a
comprehensive sonar survey of Loch Ness were announced. No large animal was
found.
26/6/2003. Denis Thatcher died, leaving his wife, Margaret,
former PM, a widow.
5/1/2003, Roy Jenkins, former Labour Chancellor and leader of the
SDP (Social Democratic Party) in the UK, died.
5/12/2002. Asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Iraq entered
Britain legally from the Sangatte
refugee camp in France. Britain had agreed to accept 1,200 asylum seekers
as part of a deal with France to close the camp near the Channel Tunnel
entrance.
15/11/2002, Myra Hindley, murderer, died (born 1942).
9/8/2002, Peter Neville, British peace
activist, died.
3/5/2002. Barbara Castle,
Labour politician, died aged 92.
30/10/2001. Farmer Tony Martin,
who shot dead a teenage burglar, was cleared of murder.
17/9/2001. John Hume stepped down as leader of the
nationalist SDP (Social Democratic Party).
13/9/2001, Iain Duncan Smith leader of the UK Tory Party.
He was a little-known Eurosceptic from the Right Wing of his Party. He defeated
Kenneth Clarke.
19/7/2001, Lord Archer, Conservative Deputy Chairman and
novelist, was sentenced to four years prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice. See 24/7/1987.
7/7/2001, During race
riots in Bradford,
Yorkshire, the Manningham Labour Club was burnt down.
7/6/2001. In the UK, New Labour won a second term at the elections. Tony Blair won another landslide
victory, with Labour taking 413 seats against 166 for the Tories and 52 for the
Liberal Democrats. Turnout was down to 59%, the lowest since 1918, down on the
71% in 1997.
16/5/2001, John Prescott, Labour Deputy Prime Minister,
tussled with Craig
Evans at an election rally in Rhyll, north Wales.
31/1/2001, The Scottish Court in The Netherlands convicted
one Libya and acquitted another on charges related to the bombing of a Pan Am
airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland,
in 1988.
27/8/2000. The notorious criminal, Reggie Kray, who was suffering
from bladder cancer, was to be released from prison so that he could spend his
last few weeks at home.
23/8/2000. Sir Richard Branson appeared to have won the
bid to run the National Lottery
after being given a month to satisfy the Lottery Commission�s questions. Both
Sir Richard�s and Camelot�s bids were rejected.
11/7/2000, Robert Runcie, Archbishop of
Canterbury, died.
18/6/2000, At Diver, 58 Chinese
migrants were found suffocated in the back of a lorry, having tried to enter
Britain illegally.
30/5/2000, In Birmingham,
England, demolition of the old Bullring
Centre began.
15/5/2000. The
Eden Project was launched in
Cornwall, at a cost of �79 million, housing thousands of plants from around the
world.
3/5/2000. The trial
of the Lockerbie bomb suspects began.
31/1/2000, Dr Harold Shipman
was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of at least 15 of his
patients, of a total of 365 suspected victims.
1/1/2000,� In the UK it became illegal for
retailers to sell in anything but metric units.
11/11/1999, 752 hereditary peers lost their voting
rights in the House of Lords. They had formed a majority of the 1330 House.
However 92 of the hereditaries had a stay of execution, until reforms of the
House of lords were completed.
11/8/1999, A total
eclipse of the Sun was visible in south west England. However the weather was
cloudy.
9/8/1999, Charles Kennedy,
39, was elected as new leader of the Liberal Democrats, succeeding Paddy Ashdown.
26/6/1999. There were
problems at the UK�s Passport Office,
with queues for passports reaching a record 530,000.
16/6/1999, Screaming Lord Sutch
(born 1940), committed suicide.
8/6/1999, Jonathan Aitken,
former British Government Minister, was jailed for perjury.
20.0 Scottish and Welsh Devolution, 1997-99
1/7/1999,
Queen Elizabeth II opened the Scottish Assembly.
26/5/1999,
The
first Welsh Assembly for 600 years opened in Cardiff.
6/5/1999,
Elections to the new Welsh and Scottish Assemblies were
held. A large vote for the Nationalists in both countries prevented Labour from
gaining a majority, and coalition Governments were formed.
18/12/1997, Donald
Dewar, Secretary of State for Scotland,
unveiled a Bill to give Scotland its own Parliament.
18/9/1997, Wales voted in
favour of devolution and a National Assembly. The �yes� vote was much narrower than in Scotland, with a majority
of just 6,721 votes in favour.
11/9/1997, Scotland voted
in favour of a devolved Assembly. In
Scotland, 73.4% of those voting favoured a National Assembly, and 63.5%
favoured the Assembly having tax-raising powers.
16/3/1999, The
240-acre Bluewater Shopping centre opened near Dartford, Kent; it was then
Europe�s largest retail and leisure centre. It stood on the site of the former
Blue Circle chalk quarry.
14/10/1998, Labour
announced its intention to remove the 700 year old voting rights of the
hereditary peers in the House of Lords. Of the 1,165 members of the House
of Lords, 476 were committed Tories against 175 for Labour, Amongst the
hereditary peers, there were 304 for the Tories against 18 regular Labour
supporters. In 1999 Labour announced a compromise whereby 91 hereditary peers
could remain in a �transition� House of Lords, whilst a Royal Commission decided
its eventual form.
13/8/1998, UK
authorities warned of a rat invasion,
saying there were 750,000 rat-infested homes in Britain.
31/3/1998, The RAF
withdrew its nuclear bombs from service, leaving submarine-based Trident
missiles as the UK�s only nuclear deterrent.
18/5/1998, In Britain, the New Labour Government announced that the new Minimum
Wage would be �3.60 per hour, coming into force in April 1999.
4/3/1998, The Countryside March was held, as 250,000 people marched through
central London to protest at issues facing the UK countryside. Points of
protest included the ban on hunting with dogs and Government policies on
farming.
3/7/1987, Sir Gordon Downey�s
report into the �cash for questions�
scandal in the found that two former Conservative ministers, Neil Hamilton
and Tim Smith,
received payment from Mohammed
el Fayed in return for asking questions in the House of
Commons.
20/5/1997, The British intelligence agency MI5 first advertised to recruit
trainee spies, in The Times and The Guardian.
19.0 New
Labour gain power under Tony Blair 1993-97
2/7/1997.
Gordon Brown,
Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave Labour�s
first Budget speech for 18 years.
19/6/1997, Following the resignation of John
Major as Conservative leader, William
Hague, 36, became its youngest
leader since 1783.
3/5/1997.
(1)
Tony Blair was officially sworn in as Prime
Minister. Tony�s
father was the son of music hall artists Charles Parsons and Gussie Bridson.
He was illegitimate however, so was adopted by a Glasgow shipyard worker, James Blair.
(2) The former
Deputy Prime Minister, Michael
Heseltine, was admitted to hospital with chest pains days after
the General Election. It was announced that he would not be contesting the
Conservative leadership.
1/5/1997.
New
Labour won the UK general election,
defeating John Major�s
Conservative Party. Tony Blair, 43, became the
youngest Prime Minister since 1812, with a majority of 179. Labour won 410
seats against the Conservative�s 169. Labour won 44.4% of the vote; the
Conservatives got 31.4%. The Conservative administration had, at 18 years, been
the longest serving government of the 20th century.
27/2/1997, In Britain a discredited and divided Tory party lost its Parliamentary majority with a by-election defeat in
Wirral. This was a prelude to their defeat by New Labour in general elections
on 1/5/1997.
12/12/1996,
After Labour won the Barnsley East by election, the Conservatives no longer had a majority in the House of Commons.
2/5/1996, In the UK, the
Conservative�s loss of popularity continued as they won just 28% of the vote at
local government elections.
Conservative
leadership vote
4/7/1995, John Major won the
battle to lead the Conservative Party, beating John Redwood by 218
votes to 89.
22/6/1995, John Major, UK
Conservative Prime Minister, resigned I order to trigger a leadership contest,
in a� bid to bolster his authority over
his divided Party. He went on to defeat right-wing Eurosceptic John Redwood, but his Party remained divided.
5/5/1995, The Conservative Party did
badly in local council elections, losing control in 62 councils in England and
Wales, retaining control in just 8, whilst Labour gained 42 to control a total
of 155, and the Liberal Democrats gained 14 to control a total of 44. The
Conservatives had also done badly in the Scottish local council elections of
6/4/1995, failing to gain a single one of 29 unitary authorities there. Prime Minister John Major faced a challenge to his leadership.
12/6/1994, In European Parliamentary
elections, the Tories won only 18 seats to Labour�s 62.
3/6/1993. Prime Minister John Major�s ratings were also falling fast. His popularity rating fell to 21%, the
lowest for ant PM since polling began in the UK in the 1930s.
6/5/1993, In Britain, the
Conservatives did badly in elections. In a by-election, they lost Newbury on a
29% swing to the Liberals. They also did badly in county council elections the
same day.
17/3/1993, In Britain, protests over
Budget plans to impose VAT on domestic fuel, initially at 8%, and at 17.5% from
1995.
18.0 Dunblane
Massacre, ban on handguns 1996-97
11/6/1997,
The UK Parliament voted for a total ban on handguns.
16/10/1996.
Proposals to ban most handguns in the UK, in the aftermath of the Dunblane massacre.
13/3/1996.
The Dunblane Massacre in Scotland; 16 children and a teacher
died. The unstable misfit Thomas
Hamilton, 43, entered Dunblane Primary School and shot a
teacher and 16 children in the gym, injured another teacher and 5 children,
then shot and killed himself. This began a debate in the UK and other countries
on banning handguns.
1995,
The Departrment for Education became part of the Department for Education and
Employment.
25/11/1995, Rosemary West,
aged 41, was sentenced to life for killing 10 women and girls, including her
daughter and stepdaughter. Lodgers at their house at 25 Cromwell Street Gloucester had also been murdered. Rosemary�s
husband Fred West,
53, had hanged himself whilst in custody at Winson Green prison, Birmingham, on
1/1/1995.
9/10/1995, Sir Alec Douglas Home,
British Conservative Prime Minister 1963-4, died (born 2/7/1903).
6/8/1995, British licensing laws were relaxed to allow pubs
to open from 12 noon on Sundays onwards.
24/5/1995, Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister 1964-70
and 1974-76, born 11/3/1916, died.
29/4/1995, Tony Blair got the Labour Party to drop Clause 4, which had called for common
ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. In a
modernising move, away from Socialism, the change to a commitment to work for a
just society, dynamic economy, and healthy environment was backed by 65.23% of
votes.
17/3/1995, Ronnie Kray died.
1/1/1995, Fred West, accused of mass murder, hanged
himself inside Winson Green prison, Birmingham.
19/11/1994. First National
Lottery draw in
the UK. Seven people shared the UK� 15.8 million
jackpot prize. 25 million people bought tickets, over half the adult
population, raising UK� 45 million, half of which went on �good causes�.
1/11/1994, Sydney Dernley, Britain�s last surviving executioner, died aged 73.
21/7/1994, Tony Blair was elected leader of the UK Labour
Party. At 41 he was the youngest leader ever. John Prescott
was elected Deputy Leader.
12/5/1994. In the UK, Labour Party leader John Smith died suddenly of a
heart attack, aged 55. On 17/7/1994 Tony Blair
was elected leader of the Party.
24/2/1994, Police in Gloucester began excavating the property
of Frederick
West at 25 Cromwell Street.�
He and his wife were arrested on 28/2/1994.
13/1/1994, In London, Westminster Council faced criticism for
gerrymandering election boundaries 1987-89. The Conservative Government was
tarnished by association.
10/1/1994, UK Prime Minister John Major started his �Back to Basics� campaign, calling for a
return to old-fashioned family values.
15/12/1993. The Downing
Street Declaration; the UK committed itself to finding a solution to the
problem of Northern Ireland. Prime Ministers John Major of the UK and John Reynolds
of Ireland discussed the possibility of a future united Ireland.
17.8, James Bulger
murder 1993
24/11/1993. Two 11 year old boys, John Venables
and Robert
Thompson, were found guilty of the murder of 2-year-old James Bulger
in Liverpool. Judge
Michael Moreland suggested watching violent video films had
contributed to the boy�s actions.� They
were sentenced to �indefinite detention�.
1/3/1993, Funeral of two-year-old James Bulger,
abducted from Bootle shopping centre on 12/2/1993 and later murdered by two
youths on a Liverpool railway line; his body was found by the tracks on
16/2/1993. Two boys aged ten from Walton, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, were charged with
the murder on 20/2/1993. The case provoked a moral panic about social breakdown
in society and �loss of values�.
12/2/1993, James Bulger,
two year old toddler, was abducted and murdered by two youths in Liverpool, see
1/3/1993.
12/11/1993, Britain refused to join a worldwide ban on dumping
nuclear waste at sea.
24/10/1993, Jo Grimond,
UK Liberal Party leader, died.
18/10/1993, As part
of UK defence cuts, the privatisation of Devonport and Rosyth naval dockyards
was announced.
2/8/1993. The UK ratified the Maastricht Treaty.
5/7/1993, Following
the breakup of the Soviet Union, major cuts were announced to Britain�s Royal
Navy.
See Russia for
breakup of Soviet Union
21/6/1993. In Britain, government
Minister Michael
Heseltine
suffered a heart attack.
9/6/1993, In Britain, Norman Lamont
made a bitter attack on John Major in the Commons.
3/6/1993. Holbeck Hall, Scarborough�s
only 4-star hotel, began to collapse into the sea, with its extensive gardens. The collapse
took several days.
27/5/1993. Norman Lamont resigned as UK Chancellor; Kenneth Clarke
replaced him.
5/5/1993, Asil Nadir, Chairman of Polly Peck, jumped
bail and fled to Cyprus.
4/3/1993, In
Britain, a reform of the Honours System was announced, to give greater reward
for merit.
3/3/1993. Tony Bland, in a vegetative state since
becoming a victim of the Hillsborough
soccer disaster on 15/4/1989, was allowed to die by doctors.
21/2/1993. A poll revealed that nearly 50% of Britons would emigrate if they could, the highest
since 1948.
19/2/1993, UK Prime
Minister John
Major rejected the idea of a posthumous pardon for First World War
soldiers executed for cowardice or desertion on the grounds that it would be
�rewriting history�.
9/12/1992. The UK Prime Minister announced� to the House of Commons that Prince Charles
and Lady Diana Spencer were to separate.
26/11/1992, In
Britain, the Queen announced she would pay income tax on her private income.
20/11/1992, A fire broke out in the private chapel at Windsor
Castle. The fire burned for 15 hours, causing major damage.� The cause was a spotlight left in contact
with a curtain.
10/11/1992, In the UK, an inquiry into the Matrix-Churchill affair was
announced.
24/9/1992. The National Heritage Minister David Mellor
resigned after a sex scandal.
23/7/1992. The UK saw riots in Bristol, Carlisle, Blackburn, Burnley,
and Huddersfield.
62 youths were arrested.
18/7/1992. John Smith elected leader of the
British Labour Party.
15/7/1992. British MPs gave themselves a 40% rise on their
expenses.
13/7/1992, Britain�s former executioner, Albert Pierrepoint, died.
13/4/1992, Neil Kinnock resigned as leader of the UK
Labour Party, following the Conservative victory of 9/4/1992.
9/4/1992. The Conservatives under John Major won the UK General
Election.
3/9/1991. Riots hit the British cities of Cardiff, Oxford, and Birmingham this week. All occurred on estates
with high unemployment and deprivation. The Cardiff riot was
sparked by a trading dispute between two shops, see 29/8/1991. The Handsworth, Birmingham,
riot occurred after a power failure and black-out. The one in Oxford was after
police cracked down on �hotting� � the racing of stolen cars, on the Blackbird
Leys estate. Later in the month there were more riots in Tyneside, in the
West End of Newcastle.
29/8/1991. A trading
dispute between two shops in Cardiff led to riots.
Mr Abdul
Waheed, owner of a grocery shop on the poor Ely estate, won
an injunction against Mr
Carl Agius, the newsagent next door, preventing him selling
bread and groceries. Mr
Agius put a notice in his shop telling people of this, and
a crowd of mainly white youths petrol-bombed Mr Waheed�s shop. The police claimed the
violence was not racially motivated but had been opportunistic, a hundred of
the rioters had joined in after the pubs closed.
13/8/1991. Britain�s
new Dangerous Dogs Act came into
force.
29/7/1991, Margaret Thatcher
announced that she was to resign as� MP
for Finchley after the next General Election, but still intended to play a role
in UK politics.
18/6/1991, Margaret Thatcher,
in a speech in Chicago, warned against a
European Super-State, saying it would be �nothing less than a disaster�.
24/4/1991, Gerald Ratner, Managing Director of Ratners,
Britain�s biggest chain of jewellers, announced his goods are �crap� and that his earrings are likely
to last for less time than a Marks and Spencer sandwich. He later said he was
joking.
25/3/1991. Michael Heseltine, Department of the
Environment, announced the creation of the East
Thames Corridor.
17.6, Mrs
Thatcher ousted as Tory Leader; replaced by John Major, 1990
27/11/1990. John Major, at the age of 47, became the
youngest Prime Minister of the 20th century. The other contenders
for Tory leader were Michael Heseltine, aged 57, and Douglas Hurd.
In 1894 Lord
Roseberry was Prime Minister aged 46. Mrs
Thatcher had resigned on 22/11/1990, having failed to win a first
leadership ballot on the Conservative Party on 20/11/1990.
22/11/1990, Mrs Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister, see
27/11/1990.
20/11/1990, Mrs Thatcher lost a leadership ballot within
the Conservative Party.
14/11/1990, Michael Heseltine announced he would challenge Mrs Thatcher for office of Prime Minister.
13/11/1990,� Sir Geoffrey
Howe made a Commons speech explaining his resignation as Deputy
Prime Minister. This speech helped to oust
Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister.
1/11/1990, Geoffrey Howe resigned from Mrs Thatcher�s
Cabinet in a dispute over European Monetary Union.
2/10/1990. Mrs Thatcher announced Britain�s entry into
the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM).
The Labour opposition leader Mr Neil Kinnock criticised this move.
22/9/1990. The Natural History Museum solved the Piltdown Man hoax. The anthropologist behind the hoax
was Sir
Arthur Keith. See 21/11/1953.
1/7/1990, Tom King, UK Defence Secretary, announced an
18% cut in British forces on the Rhine over the next five years, as East-West
relations in Europe improved.
17.4, The Poll Tax
1987-91
26/3/1991, Norman Lamont, Chancellor, raised VAT to 17.5%
to finance a �140 per head cut in the Poll Tax.
21/3/1991. The Poll
Tax was ditched as Michael
Heseltine, the Environment Secretary, unveiled a property tax to
replace it.
8/3/1991. The Tories suffered a shock by-election
defeat in Ribble Valley, their tenth safest seat. The Liberals turned a 19,500
Conservative majority into a Liberal majority of 4,601; Labour came a poor
third. The defeat was blamed on the
unpopularity of the Poll Tax,
flagship of the third Tory administration under Mrs
Thatcher.
6/1/1991. John Major said the Poll Tax will not be abolished.
14/8/1990. In the UK, the Audit Commission warned that
1 in 5 were avoiding paying the Poll
Tax.
9/3/1990. Poll
tax riots in Brixton, London. There were also riots in Lewisham, Hackney, Haringey, Maidenhead, Reading, Bristol,
Plymouth, Gillingham, Norwich, Birmingham, Stockport, Leeds, Bradford,
and many other places. Both Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister, and the
Labour leader, Neil
Kinnock, condemned the riots.
1/3/1990. Poll
Tax riots degenerated into
violence across Britain. Concerns continued at �mad cow� disease in the UK.
17/11/1987, The UK Government announced
plans for a Community Charge (Poll Tax) to be levied in 1990.
1989, The Representation of the
People Act enfranchised expatriate voters who had left the Uk within the
previuos 20 years, to cast a proxy vote in the UK constituency they last lived
in.
26/10/1989. Mrs Thatcher�s Chancellor, Mr Nigel Lawson, resigned. Sir Alan
Walters, part-time financial advisor to Mrs Thatcher, had derided the
European Monetary System that Mr Lawson wanted the UK to join as �half
baked�, in an article in 1988. This caused a public and embarrassing� row between Mrs Thatcher and Mr Lawson.
However on 8/10/1990 Mrs Thatcher reluctantly agreed to her
Chancellor, John
Major, taking the UK into the Exchange
Rate Mechanism. However on �Black
Wednesday� in 1992 the UK was ignominiously forced out of the ERM, along
with the Italian Lira, by currency speculators.
4/10/1989. Millions of fleas were released in the Norfolk
Broads to eat algae clogging up the waterways.
21/6/1989, British police arrested 250 people for celebrating
the Summer solstice at Stonehenge.
1/5/1989, A riot at Risley
Remand Centre began, in protest at conditions there. It ended three days
later with the promise of an enquiry.
18/4/1989, An explosion at Cormorant Alpha oil platform led to
the shutdown of 25% of North Sea oil production
28/3/1989, The remains of the Piper Alpha oil rig were sent to
the bottom of the North Sea.
1988, Britain�s first Jain Temple opened, in Leicester.
1988, The Department for Health
and Social Security (DHSS) was divided.
21/12/1988. Terrorists
blew up a Pan-Am jumbo jet carrying more than 270 passengers over the Scottish
town of Lockerbie. All the
passengers and 17 in Lockerbie itself died in the crash, on the evening of the
21st. The flight was from Frankfurt to the USA via Heathrow. The
bomb had been hidden in a transistor radio in the hold. After a three year
investigation two Libyans, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi
were blamed for the bombing. However the Libyan leader, Colonel Ghadafi, refused to
extradite the two men, so the U.N. imposed sanctions on Libya, under pressure
from America. Eventually the two men were extradited to Holland to face a
year-long trial under Scottish law, under which Megrahi was found guilty and
Fhimah was acquitted.
6/9/1988, 11 year old Thomas Gregory
from London became the youngest person
to swim the Channel.
17.2 Formation and end of the Social Democratic
Party, 1987-90
1/6/1990, David Owen announced the dissolution of the
SDP, now down to just two MPs.
28/7/1988, Paddy Ashdown was elected leader of the SDP.
3/3/1988, The Liberals and the SDP
merged to form the Social and Liberal Democratic Party.
31/1/1988, The British Social Democratic Party agreed
to merge with the Liberal party, see 3/3/1988.
23/1/1988, The British Liberal Party voted to accept a
merger with the Social Democratic Party (see 3/3/1988)
17/9/1987,
In Britain, the Liberal Party Assembly voted for merger talks with the SDP.
30/8/1987,
In Britain, Dr David Owen
announced the formation of the breakaway �continuing SDP� Party.
6/8/1987,
In Britain, the SDP voted to merge with the Liberal Party. Dr David Owen
resigned as SDP leader.
24/5/1988, Liverpool�s Albert Dock, restored as a business
and leisure centre, was opened by the Prince of Wales.
20/5/1988, British licensing laws were liberalised. The
Licensing Act received Royal Assent, and 65,000
pubs in England and Wales could now open 11am to 11pm Monday to Saturday.
9/2/1988, In Britain, the House of Commons voted to allow
proceedings to be televised.
6/2/1988, A survey in the UK found that out-of-order
phone boxes and Post Office queues were the top irritants of modern
life.
2/2/1988, In London, 2,000 nurses and other health workers
held a one-day strike over pay.
11/10/1987, A sonar survey
of Loch Ness failed to find any trace of the monster.
22/9/1987, In the UK, the Home Secretary
prohibited the sale of semi-automatic rifles.
19/8/1987. Michael Ryan,
27, shot dead 16 people in Hungerford, Berkshire, and injured another 14, then shot himself dead. He
had been depressed by the death of his father. A former paratrooper, he had a
large gun collection.
24/7/1987, Author Jeffery Archer
won a record �500,000 libel damages against The Star newspaper over allegations
that he had paid a prostitute, Monica
Coghlan, �70 for sex. See 19/7/2001.
12/6/1987. Mrs Thatcher
elected Prime Minister with a majority of 101. She was the first PM to achieve a third term for 160 years. The
Conservatives won 375 seats, Labour 229, Alliance 22 and Nationalists 6.
3/4/1987, Myra Hindley
confessed to two more murders, in an attempt to prove her rehabilitation.
24/1/1987, 162
police and 33 demonstrators were injured in clashes outside Rupert Murdoch�s News International
plant in Wapping, east London.
29/12/1986, Harold Macmillan,
Lord Stockton, former Conservative Prime Minister 1957-1963, died, aged 92.
26/10/1986, Jeffery
Archer resigned as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party
after allegations that he had made a payment to a prostitute to leave the UK,
to avoid a scandal.
24/8/1986, Wallis Simpson died.
10/6/1986, Queen Elizabeth II made Bob Geldof a knight, for his
fundraising activities.
9/1/1986, Michael
Heseltine
resigned from Mrs
Thatcher�s Cabinet, claiming she was stifling debate.
1985, The Representation of the
People Act raised the deposit required from electoral candidates from �150 (set
in 1918 to deter frivolous candidates) to �500.
1985, The Crown Prosecution Service was established.
1/10/1985, Rioting
in Toxteth, Liverpool.
9/9/1985. Race riots
erupted in Handsworth, Birmingham.
28/1/1985, The case
against the civil servant Clive Ponting, charged with leaking
information about the sinking of the Belgrano,
opened.
23/1/1985. A House of Lords debate was televised live for
the first time.
17/1/1985, British Telecom announced it was to phase
out the famous red telephone boxes.
2/12/1984, The Thatcher government was accused of �gross
incompetence� in Parliament as shares in the newly privatised British Telecom commanded an opening premium of
nearly 90%.
Ban
on Trades Unions at GCHQ Cheltenham
22/11/1984, The Law Lords upheld the Government�s ban on Union
membership at GCHQ Cheltenham.
16/7/1984, The High Court
ruled that the Government�s ban on Trades Unions at GCHQ Cheltenham was legal.
The Lords voted to abolish the Greater London Council (GLC) and other Metropolitan
Authority elections.
25/1/1984, The Government announced
that Trades
Unions would be illegal at GCHQ Cheltenham.
18/8/1984, Clive
Ponting, a civil servant, was charged with an offence under the Official
Secrets Act, relating to information allegedly passed on to an MP about the
circumstances surrounding the sinking of the General Belgrano during the Falklands War.
10/7/1984, National dock strike in Britain over use of
unauthorised labour.
9/7/1984.� A bolt of lightning set fire to the roof of York Minster.
The 700 year old building suffered serious damage to the south transept.
17.0 �Miner�s
Strike, 1984-85
19/10/1985, Coal miners in Nottinghamshire and
Derbyshire set up the Union of
Democratic Mineworkers (UDM).
3/3/1985. End of the
12 month miner�s strike which began on 5/3/1984. 153 of Britain�s 174 coal mines went on strike;
some mines in Nottinghamshire and Kent stayed working.. One of the most
powerful images of this strike was the �Battle
of Orgreave� � see 29/5/1984. The result was not only a defeat for the
National Union of Miners but for the whole trades union movement under the Thatcher
government; the miners had failed to secure any agreement on pit closures. A
large number of miners deserted the NUM and set up the Democratic Union of
Mineworkers, after being refused a strike ballot by the NUM leader Arthur Scargill.
The strike was officially estimated, by the Coal Board, to have cost it �1.75
billion. However Mr Scargill put the real cost at over �5 billion, or enough
to keep every pit open and to employ every miner in work for 32 years. The
strike was triggered by a National Coal Board plan to close 20 pits and shed
20,000 miner�s jobs, under the leadership of the American,
Ian McGregor.
The NCB made a 5.2% pay offer to the miners.
25/2/1985, 49% of UK
miners have returned to work, 51% remained on strike.
20/11/1984, The North Wales branch of the NUM voted to
end the strike.
6/11/1984. In Dublin, the High Court froze striking
British coal mineworkers money after a court decision that the strike, now in
its� 35th week, was illegal
and that the Union must pay a fine within 14 days or have its assets seized.
31/10/1984
ACAS talks between the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Coal
Board broke down again.
10/10/1984, Arthur Scargill
was fined �1,000, and the NUM �200,000, for contempt of court.
21/9/1984, Violence at
Maltby Colliery, near Rotherham, as the miners
strike went on.
9/9/1984, Ian MacGregor,
Chairman of the National Coal Board, arrived in Edinburgh for talks with Arthur Scargill.
29/5/1984. The �Battle
of Orgreave� occurred during the
Miner�s Strike. 84 people were
arrested and 69 injured (41 police, 28 miners) when 4,000 police held back
7,000 pickets who were trying to prevent coking coal being moved out of Orgreave
to the British Steel works at Scunthorpe. Two convoys of 34 lorries raced
through the picket lines with supplies for the blast furnaces. Mr Arthur
Scargill, leader of the National Union of miners, was blamed for
inflaming the situation. The miner�s strike was then 12 weeks old, having begun
on 5/3/1984. It lasted until 3/3/1985.
9/4/1984, In Derbyshire, over 100 miners were
arrested in violence connected with the miners strike.
15/3/1984. Only 21 of Britain�s 174 coal mines were working as strikes against
the Coal Board�s 5.2% pay offer, and its pit closure programme became official.
The strike was to drag on for a year.
12/3/1984, 100 UK coal mines were now on strike. NUM
;leader Arthur
Scargill called for a national strike, but did not fulfil the legal
obligation of calling a strike ballot. Some mining districts such as
Nottinghamshire did not fully support the strike.
6/3/1984.
Start of the 12 month miner�s strike. See 3/3/1985, and 29/5/1984 � Orgreave. Miners from 100 pits
threatened with closure went on strike. The strike had been precipitated by the
decision by the National Coal Board, announced 1/3/1984, to close Cortonwood Colliery. The NCB planned to
close a total of 21 collieries and make 20,000 employees redundant.
28/3/1983, Ian McGregor became chairman of the British
Coal Board. He disliked Trade Unions and public ownership. He now began to
close uneconomic pits, angering the National Union of Miners (NUM).
2/5/1984, Queen Elizabeth II opened the Liverpool International Garden Festival.
27/4/1984, The UK Government expelled 30 Libyan diplomats.
12/4/1984, The Bill to privatise British Telecom was
passed by the UK parliament. A Bill to privatise BT was put before Parliament
in 1983, but was opposed by the Trades Unions, and was lost to the General
Election of 1983. It was reintroduced soon after the election and guillotined
so as to speed it up.
22/3/1984, British civil servant Sarah Tisdall was jailed for 6
months for leaking to The Guardian that Cruise Missiles were on their way to
Britain.
13/3/1984, In the UK, Mr Nigel
Lawson delivered his first Budget.
10/2/1984, Harold MacMillan was awarded an earldom, on
his 90th birthday. He chose the name of Stockton from his first
constituency in 1924.
13/1/1984, A cooling tower at Fiddlers Ferry power station,
Lancashire, collapsed in high winds. Turbulence caused by the closely grouped
towers was blamed.
16.0 Greenham Common anti-nuclear protests 1951-91
5/3/1991. The last of the Cruise Missiles were taken
from Greenham Common for dismantling in Arizona under the INF disarmament
treaty.
18/1/1985. Protests continued at Greenham Common USAF
base; a protester managed to enter the base.
12/9/1984, The British High Court granted an
injunction against the Greenham Common peace camp.
4/4/1984, Bailiffs evicted women from the Greenham
Common protest site.
3/12/1983, Women peace campaigners broke into Greenham Common US airbase.
15/11/1983, The Greenham
Common women�s group mounted their first protest against the US cruise
missiles sited there. The first cruise missiles had arrived in the UK on 13/11/1983.
13/11/1983, The first Cruise Missiles arrived at
Greenham Common.
1/4/1983, Thousands of
CND supporters formed a human chain linking Greenham Common to Burghfield, in protest at the installation of
Cruise Missiles.
12/12/1982.
30,000 women formed a human chain around the 14.5 km (9 mile) perimeter fence
of the Greenham Common US airbase in Berkshire to protest at the installation
of 96 Cruise Missiles there.
14/11/1982, In
Britain, 20,000 women surrounded the Greenham Common airbase in a peaceful
protest.
24/10/1981,
150,000 marched from London to Greenham Common in a protest against nuclear
weapons.
21/9/1980,
Anti-nuclear protests at Greenham Common.
17/6/1980,
Anti-nuclear protestors gathered at Greenham Common as the US said it would
base Cruise Missiles there, and at Molesworth in Cambridgeshire. Britain was
the first NATO country to accept Cruise Missiles, part of NATO�s response to
the USSR stationing SS-20 rockets in eastern Europe.
18/6/1951.
The US was given permission for an airbase at Greenham Common, Berkshire.
28/11/1983. The Thatcher government announced an end to the
monopoly by opticians on the sale of glasses.
16/10/1983. Cecil Parkinson (see 14/10/1983) was succeeded
by Norman
Tebbit
14/10/1983, British Trade and Industry Secretary Cecil Parkinson
resigned after revelations of adultery with his secretary Sarah Keays emerged.
2/10/1983. Neil Kinnock,
41, became leader of the
British Labour Party. Roy Hattersley was his deputy.
8/9/1983, The UK Government made it obligatory for NHS hospitals
to allow private contractors to tender for catering, cleaning and laundry
services.
21/6/1093, In Britain, David Owen became leader of the SDP.
13/6/1983. Roy Jenkins resigned as leader of the SDP, to
be replaced by David
Owen.
12/6/1983, Michael
Foot
resigned as leader of the Labour Party.
11/6/1983, British Cabinet reshuffle. Nigel Lawson became Chancellor
of the Exchequer, Sir Geoffrey Howe became Foreign Secretary, Leon Brittan
became Home Secretary, and Cecil Parkinson became Trade and Industry
Secretary.
10/6/1983. Mrs Thatcher won her second term as Prime Minister.
She gained a majority of 144 seats. The Conservatives won 397 seats, Labour won
209, Nationalists 4, and the Liberal/SDP Alliance won 23 seats. Mr Nigel Lawson became Chancellor of the
Exchequer. The vote was split 42% Conservative, and 28% Labour. Michael Foot
was Labour leader, with a divided and weakened party. The Falkland victory, as well as declining unemployment, assured her
victory.
9/5/1983, Mrs Thatcher called a General Election.
8/1/1983, During a 5-day morale-boosting trip by Mrs Thatcher
to the Falkland
Islands, she spoke to troops aboard the HMS Antrim.
6/1/1983, In a reshuffle of the British Cabinet, Michael
Heseltine became Defence Secretary.
11/10/1982. King Henry VIII�s flagship Mary Rose was raised at Southsea,
Hampshire, having sunk in 1545.� This was
the culmination of 17 years research on the wreck, involving almost 25,000
dives.
27/9/1982, On the opening day of the Labour Party Conference
in Blackpool, delegates voted to exclude the left-wing group Militant Tendency.� The
Labour Party began to move to the Right.
22/9/1982, The TUC staged a �day of action� in support of the NHS workers pay claim.� UK unemployment rose to 3,343,075 in
September.
15.0 Falklands
War 1982
18/1/1983, Britain, the Franks Report exonerated the
Thatcher Government of any blame for Argentina invading the Falkland Islands on
2/4/1982.
17/9/1982. The British aircraft carrier Invincible returned from the Falklands,
with Prince
Andrew on board, to a rapturous welcome at Portsmouth.� UK inflation dropped to 8%.
6/7/1982, In Britain, Lord Franks was appointed to
Chair of the Committee of privy Councillors to inbvestigate the background to
the Falklands Invasion.
11/6/1982, The QE2 liner returned to Southampton, from
the Falklands, carrying the survivors from three wrecked British warships.
1/6/1982. British forces continued their advance in
the Falkland Islands, (see
2/4/1982), fighting with the Argentineans 12 miles from Port Stanley. The Argentinian forces surrendered on
14/6/1982, the day Port Stanley was recaptured. Total casualties were 254
British and 750 Argentine lives.
See Falkland
Islands for Falklands War
5/4/1982, The British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington,
resigned, as a British invasion fleet left Portsmouth for the Falklands.
On 18/3/1982 an Argentine scrap-metal dealer had raised the Argentine flag on
South Georgia, a sign of intention from Argentina that was not interpreted
correctly by the British Foreign Office. See 1/5/1982.
2/4/1982. Argentina
launched an invasion of the Falkland Islands. On 4/4/1982 Argentina seized South Georgia, a Falklands dependency.
British forces set out from the UK on 5/4/1982 and landed in the Falklands on
21/5/1982. South Georgia was
recaptured on 25/4/1982 with no casualties. See 1/6/1982.
5/9/1982. Douglas Bader, the famous WW2 pilot with two artificial legs,
died. He was born on 21/2/1910.
2/7/1982, Roy Jenkins was elected leader of the SDP.
26/5/1982, Kielder
Water, a large reservoir in Northumbria, opened.
25/3/1982, In Scotland, Roy Jenkins of the SDP won Glasgow
Hillhead in a by-election from the Conservatives.
11/3/1982, Britain announced it was to purchase Trident II
submarine based missiles to replace Polaris.
8/3/1982, R A Butler, UK Conservative politician, died
aged 79.
14/1/1982, Mark Thatcher, son of UK prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, was found alive after getting lost in the Sahara during
the Paris-Dakar car rally.
1981, British Telecom informed
rural parish councils that telephone boxes taking less than �140 per annum
would be taken out.
8/12/1981, Arthur Scargill became leader of the National
Union of Mineworkers.� He succeeded Joe Gormley.
26/11/1981, Shirley
Williams became the first SDP (Social Democratic Party) MP, beating
the Tories and Labour inti 2nd and 3rd place at the
Crosby by-election. In 4th place was the Monster Raving Loony Party
candidate, Tarquin
Fin-tim-bin-whim-lin-bus-stop-F�Tang-F�tang-Ole-Biscuitbarrel.
15/10/1981, Norman Tebbit made his famous remark that his
father �got on his bike� to look for
work; the unemployed were angry.
16/9/1981, The British Labour Party, at its Llandudno
Conference, voted for an electoral alliance with the SDP.
27/7/1981, British Telecom was created.
14.0 Urban Riots 1980-81
10/7/1981. Following the riots in Toxteth, riots broke out in other British
cities. Riots in Moss Side (Manchester) and Wood Green (London). Brixton
saw riots on 15/7/1981. Hull, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Reading, Preston and
Chester also saw riots.
5/7/1981. Youth
rioted in Toxteth, Liverpool for a
second night running. There were also riots in Brixton and Southall in London.
2/4/1980. Black youths rioted in the St Paul�s area of Bristol
after a club was raided by the police. 19 police were injured.
23/5/1981. The Yorkshire Ripper Peter
Sutcliffe, 34 year old lorry driver, was found guilty at the Old
Bailey of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder 7 others, over a period
of four years. He was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years. He had been charged
with murder on 5/1/1981.
20/2/1981, Peter Sutcliffe was charged with the murder
of 13 women.
5/1/1981. The Yorkshire Ripper murderer, a lorry driver called Peter Sutcliffe,
was arrested in Sheffield.
25/11/1979. The West Yorkshire Police Committee raised
the price on the head of the Yorkshire Ripper to �20,000.
12.0 SDP Party
(Gang of Four) 1981
16/6/1981, The Liberals formed an alliance with the
SDP.
26/3/1981. The �Gang of Four� (Roy
Jenkins, David Owen, William Rodgers and Shirley
Williams) launched the UK�s Social Democratic Party (SDP).
25/1/1981. The �Gang of Four�, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams,
and Bill Rodgers, broke away from the British Labour Party to set up
the Social Democratic Party. The SDP was
launched on 26/3/1981.
18/2/1981, Mrs Thatcher promised more money for the
miners to avert a strike.
17/2/1981, In south Wales, miners threatened to strike over
pit closures.
10/2/1981, The National Coal Board announced plans to close 50
pits employing 30,000 miners. The miners called for a national strike.
3/12/1980, Sir Oswald Moseley died in exile at his home
in Paris.
27/11/1980, Four Welsh Nationalist extremists were jailed for
arson attacks on holiday homes.
24/11/1980, British Chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe announced �1.06
billion reduction in public spending and a �3 billion increase in taxation.
10/11/1980 Michael Foot, a 67-year-old left winger was
elected leader of the Labour Party. He defated Denis Healey, much to the
surprise and delight of the Tories; Healey had a populist appeal
15/10/1980,
James Callaghan announced his resignation as Labour leader.
10/10/1980, Mrs Thatcher made he famous �The Lady�s not for turning� speech at
the Conservative Party Conference. More liberal or �wet� Tories were concerned
at rising unemployment and welfare spending cuts.
1/10/1980, The British Labour Party, at its Blackpool
Conference, voted for unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the EC,
and mandatory reselection of MPs.
12/6/1980, The holiday camp owner Sir Billy
Butlin died in Jersey
1/4/1980, In Britain, the steel strike ended.
26/3/1980, The UK
government announced the creation of Enterprise Zones.
20/1/1980. In Britain, the Labour Party adopted unilateral disarmament, protectionism, and
anti-Europeanism as its policies. Roy Jenkins began plans to start a new party.
1/1/1980, National steel strike began in the UK.
20/12/1979, In the UK, the Housing
Bill was introduced to Parliament. This
would, from 3/10/1980, give more than 5 million council house tenants the right
to buy their home at a discount.
30/11/1979, In Dublin, Mrs
Thatcher demanded a �1,000 million rebate from the EEC.
20/11/1979. Anthony Blunt, Surveyor of the Queen�s
Pictures, lost his knighthood after being exposed as a spy.
14/8/1979, John Stonehouse was released from prison.
5/8/1979, The Forestry Commission reported the
spread of Dutch Elm Disease, which had already infected 3 million trees.
11.0 Jeremy Thorpe
trial, 1977-79
22/6/1979,
In Britain, Liberal politician Jeremy
Thorpe was cleared of conspiracy to murder homosexual Norman Scott.
25/11/1978. The trial of Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe,
accused along with three other men of conspiracy and incitement to murder a
former male model, continued.
4/8/1978. Jeremy Thorpe,
leader of the Liberal Party, was charged with conspiracy to murder Mr Norman Scott.
He was later cleared.
27/10/1977, Jeremy Thorpe
denied any homosexual link with unemployed male model Norman Scott.
7/7/1976. David Steele
was elected leader of the Liberal Party.
10/5/1976. Jeremy Thorpe,
born 29/4/1929, resigned as leader of the Liberal Party, which he had led since
18/1/1967. David
Steele was the new Party leader from 7/7/1976.
10.0 Mrs Thatcher elected 1979
3/5/1979. General
Election. The Conservatives defeated Labour and Mrs Margaret Hilda Thatcher, born
13/10/1925, became Britain�s first woman
Prime Minister. The Conservative election majority was 43 seats. The
Conservatives won 339 seats, Labour won 269 seats, the Liberals 11,
Nationalists 4. Jeremy
Thorpe lost his seat, conclusively ending his political career.
28/3/1979. The UK Labour government of James Callaghan
collapsed over the Home Rule vote in Parliament, losing the vote by one vote,
and Parliament was dissolved, see 1/3/1979.
22/3/1979. The leader of the Conservative Opposition, Mrs Thatcher,
put down a Motion of No Confidence in the ruling Labour administration, hoping
to force a spring election.
9.0 Devolution
for Scotland and Wales, 1976-79
1/3/1979, 32.5% of Scottish voters voted in favour of
devolution, short of the 40% required; however a majority of Scots who voted
favoured devolution. The
Welsh vote was overwhelmingly against devolution. This led to the
defeat of the Labour government in a confidence motion, necessitating a General
Election, see 28/3/1979.� In a Welsh
referendum, 11.9% of the electorate voted for independence and 46.9% voted
against it.
31/7/1978, The Devolution Acts for Scotland and Wales
received Royal Assent.
16/12/1976, The UK Government announced
that Scotland and Wales were to have referendums on a greater
measure of self-rule. From today, Scots could drink all day, pubs could stay
open from 11am to 11pm.
8.0 Winter of
Discontent 1978-79
14/2/1979, In
Britain, trades unions and the Government announced a Valentine�s day agreement
to end the winter of discontent that had started with a 25% pay claim by
the lorry drivers. The settlement of the claim by petrol tanker drivers merely
encouraged other pay claims to breach the Government 5% �pay norm�. Rubbish piled
up in the streets, the dead went unburied, hospitals turned away the sick, food
and petrol supplies were disrupted.
12/2/1979, In Britain, over 1,000 schools closed
because of shortages of heating oil.
31/1/1979, Industrial disputes led to
uncollected rubbish building up on Britain�s streets.
15/1/1979,
A series of one-day rail strikes hit
Britain.
10/1/1979,
In Britain, Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan
arrived back from a 4-day holiday in the West Indies to face the Winter of
Discontent.
5/1/1979, A lorry driver�s strike was causing chaos
in Britain.
11/11/1978, The TUC refused to endorse
the UK Government�s 5% wage limit.
7/5/1978 �Mrs Thatcher,
Conservative Opposition leader, announced that she had no intention of outlawing
the closed shop.
1/5/1978, The first May
Day bank holiday in Britain.
30/3/1978, Charles and Maurice Saatchi were recruited by Mrs Thatcher
to help publicise her policies ahead of the General Election, then expected for
autumn 1978.
12/12/1977, Lady
Churchill,
widow of Sir
Winston Churchill, died.
13/7/1977, The UK Government abandoned the Social Contract with the TUC as wages
rose.
1/4/1977, Hay on Wye declared �independence�.
23/3/1977, British Prime Minister James Callaghan and Liberal leader
David Steel
agreed the so-called �Lib-Lab pact, to avoid a defeat in a confidence motion.
19/2/1977, Anthony Crosland, British Foreign Secretary,
died in office. On 21/2/1977 he was succeeded by Dr David Owen.
14/1/1977. Sir Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon and former UK
Conservative Prime Minister 1955 � 1957, died aged 79.
19/11/1976, Sir Basil Spence, designer of the new Coventry
Cathedral,
died in Eye, Suffolk.
21/10/1976, Michael Foot became deputy leader of the
Labour Party.
9/1976, The UK was, humiatingly.,
forced to ask the IMF for a loan of US$ 3.9 billion.
24/8/1976, In the UK, Denis Howell was appointed Minister for
Drought. Rain fell three days ;later.
29/7/1976. Fire damaged the world�s longest pier, at Southend,
Essex.
25/4/1976. The Post Office in Britain stopped Sunday
collections; these were partly resumed in 1990.
5/4/1976. James Callaghan, born 27/3/1912, succeeded Harold Wilson,
who had resigned, as prime
minister. Callaghan defeated Michael Foot
in the final ballot for leadership of the labour Party by 176 votes to 137.� Callaghan remained Prime Minister until the
General Election of 1979.� See 4/4/1974.
24/3/1976, Bernard, Viscount Montgomery,
Irish-born
British Army Field Marshall in World War II, died aged 88.
16/3/1976. Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced his retirement from UK
politics. James
Callaghan became new Labour Prime Minister on 5/4/1976.� Callaghan, aged 64, had defeated Michael Foot
in the leadership contest by 176 votes to 137.
2/2/1976. The 310 acre National Exhibition Centre was opened by the Queen at
Bickenhill, Birmingham.
29/1/1976, In Britain, male model Norman Scott alleged in court
that he was the homosexual lover of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe in the 1960s.
24/1/1976. Mrs Thatcher was dubbed the Iron Lady in the Soviet newspaper Red Star after a
speech about the Communist threat.
18/1/1976, British Labour MPs Jim Sillars and John Robertson
launched the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) to campaign for greater devolution for
Scotland.
7.5 Iceland-UK Cod
War, 1974-76
1/6/1976. Britain and Iceland signed an agreement in
Oslo to end the Cod War.� Up to 24
British trawlers would be permitted to fish within the 200-mile zone claimed by
Iceland.
For
events of Cod War see also Iceland 1970s
24/2/1976, Britain sent a fourth gunboat to Iceland.
10/12/1975, The first shots were fired in the Cod war
between Britain and Iceland.
25/11/1975, The UK Government authorised the sending of
three Royal Navy frigates to protect British trawlers fishing in disputed
waters off Iceland.
25/7/1974, The International Court of Justice at The
Hague ruled that Britain was not bound to observe Iceland�s unilateral
extension of its fishing rights from 12 to 50 miles in 1972.
11/8/1975, British Leyland was taken under UK Government
control.
3/11/1975, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened a
pipeline that was to bring 400,000 barrels of North Sea Oil ashore every day at the Grangemouth refinery. North
Sea Oil had been discovered in the 1960s; the first exploited oilfield was
Ekofisk, tapped from 1969. The global oil crisis of 1974 intensified the need
to develop North Sea resources.
30/10/1975. The Forestry Commission said more than 16 million
trees had been destroyed in Britain because of Dutch Elm Disease.
29/10/1975, The Yorkshire
Ripper, Peter
Sutcliffe, committed his first murder, Wilma McCann.
1/8/1975, Britain signed the Helsinki Agreement on closer
co-operation with Europe.
19/6/1975. Lord Lucan was found guilty of
murdering his nanny, but he was still missing.
5/6/1975. A referendum in the UK showed a 67.2% majority in favour of remaining in the EEC.
17, 378,581 (67.2%) voted for Europe, and 8,470,073 (32.8%) voted no.� The only areas in the UK to have a �no�
majority were the Shetlands and the Western Isles of Scotland.
24/4/1975, The British Government decided to take a majority
shareholding in British Leyland motor
company.
7.3, John
Stonehouse disappearance, 1974-76
6/8/1976, The UK MP John Stonehouse began a
seven-year sentence for fraud.
18/7/1975. John Stonehouse, former Labour minister,
returned to Britain to face 21 charges of fraud, forgery, and conspiracy. On
6/8/1976 he was convicted of theft and conspiracy and sentenced to 7 years
imprisonment.
21/3/1975, John Stonehouse, the disappeared MP, was
arrested in Australia
for theft, fraud, and deception.
24/11/1974, The MP John Stonehouse disappeared from as Miami
beach; it was assumed he had drowned.
7/11/1974. Lord Lucan,
7th Earl of Lucan, disappeared following the murder of his
children�s nanny. The nanny had been found bludgeoned to death on the 6th
November, and his estranged wife was also brutally attacked. Police arrived at
Lucan�s flat but he was not there; his bloodstained car was found in Sussex,
and some suspected he had drowned himself. His body however was never found.
Several alleged sightings of him occurred in the following years. In 2015 his heir, George Bingham,
attempted to have him legally declared dead but the family of the murdered
nanny lodged an objection.
15/3/1975, Troops in
Glasgow cleared 70,000 tons of refuse that had built up during the dustmen�s
strike.
20/2/1975,
Britain issued new �10 notes, depicting Florence
Nightingale carrying a lamp.
13/2/1975, The UK miners accepted a pay rise of 35%.
7.2, Heath
loses General Election, 11/1974; replaced as Party ;leader by Mrs Thatcher
11/2/1975, Mrs Thatcher was confirmed as leader of the UK
Conservative Party
4/2/1975. Edward Heath resigned as leader of the
Conservative Party. Mrs Thatcher became the first woman to lead a
political party on 11/2/1975. Aged 49, she was the wife of a wealthy
businessman and the mother of twins. She had defeated 4 other male challengers
for the position of leader of the Conservatives. 146 MPs had voted for her,
against just 79 for her nearest rival, William Whitelaw. Geoffrey Howe, James Prior,
and John
Peyton were far behind.
12/10/1974, Ladbrokes gave odds of 50 to 1 against Mrs Thatcher being the successor
to Edward
Heath.
11/10/1974. Labour won the British elections with a
tiny majority of three seats. Labour won 319 seats, Conservatives won 277,
Liberals 13, Scottish Nationalists 11.
15/1/1975, Britain proposed to nationalise its aircraft
construction industry.
2/1/1975, British hospital consultants started a work-to-rule over
new contracts.
18/10/1974, A unit in Whitehall; was set up to prepare for devolution of power to Wales and Scotland.
6/9/1974. Charles Kray, elder brother of the Kray twins,
left Maidstone Prison for 5 days �acclimatisation leave�.
26/6/1974, In the UK, Labour and the TUC agreed on the �Social Contract�, to restrain pay
claims.
21/6/1974. The destroyer HMS Coventry was launched at
the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead.
1/6/1974, A major explosion at the Nypro chemical works at Flixborough, Lincolnshire, killed 29 people.� 2,000 houses were damaged and a large cloud
of toxic cyclohexane gas escaped. Cyclohexane was used to manufacture nylon. A
pipe at Nypro had sprung a leak, leading to 40 tons of cyclohexane gas escaping
in about one minute, this gas cloud then ignited.
8/5/1974, UK nurses began a strike over low pay.
5/4/1974, Richard Crossman, British Labour MP, died aged
66.
1/4/1974. Major
reorganisation of British Local Authorities. Rutland disappeared, and 4 new
counties were created. They were Avon, Cleveland, Humberside, and Cumbria.
6/3/1974. Harold Wilson formed a minority Labour
government. Mr
Denis Winston Healey
became Chancellor of the Exchequer. The UK coal miners were offered a 35% pay
increase, and returned to work. Labour had 301 seats, the Conservatives had
297, the Liberals 14, 9 were held by Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, and 12 to
Northern Ireland.
7.1, Edward Heath Conservative
Government, toppled by industrial unrest and energy crisis, 1973-74
9/3/1974, Britain�s 3-day-week ended. The
three-day week had begun in December 1973 to conserve fuel supplies. Oil
supplies from the Middle East had been disrupted due to an Arab-Israeli war.
4/3/1974, Edward Heath resigned as Prime Minister.
28/2/1974. General
Election in the UK. 4/3/1974. Harold Wilson, born 11/3/1916, succeeded Edward Heath as Prime Minister.
There was no overall majority;
Labour gained 301 seats, the Conservatives 296, and the Liberals, 14 seats.
Other parties gained 9 seats. See
13/12/1973, 4/2/1975 and 5/4/1976. Edward Heath had tried to make a
coalition with the Liberals on 7/2/1974 but they refused.� The Conservatives gained 225,789 more votes
than Labour did, but fewer seats.
17/2/1974, British Opposition leader Harold Wilson
proposed the �Social Contract� between the Labour Party and the TUC. In return
for wage restraint, Labour would promote social legislation.
10/2/1974, In Britain the National Union of Miners
began an all out strike, calling for a wage rise of 30-40%.
14/1/1974, Talks between British Prime Minister Edward Heath
and the National Union of Miners leader, Mick McGahey, broke down., On 28/1/1974 Heath
accused the NUM of trying to bring down the government.
1/1/1974, New Year�s Day was a public holiday for the
first time in the UK.
13/12/1973. A three day working week,
beginning from 1/1/1974, was ordered by Edward Heath�s government
because of the Arab
oil embargo and the coal miner�s
industrial action. See 5/12/1973 and 8/1/1974. Use of electricity for much
of industry and commerce was restricted, and TV had to close down at 10.30 pm.
The miners had rejected a 13% pay offer and staged an overtime ban, and
fighting in the Middle East had massively raised oil prices. Coal supplies to
the power stations dropped by 40%. Disruption to the coal mines, power
stations, and railways forced a General Election, on 28/2/1974, which the
Conservatives lost.
Within 1 week 320,000 workers in the Midlands
alone registered as temporary unemployed; nationwide the unemployment total
rose to 1.5 million. However many smaller Black Country companies just carried
on with a normal work week. Officially, five-day working recommenced on
9/3/1974.
12/12/1973, On British Railways, an overtime ban began to
disrupt services.
5/12/1973, The UK government announced a nation-wide speed limit of
50 mph to conserve oil stocks, see 13/12/1973.
13/11/1973, In the UK, a state of emergency was declared as miners and power workers went on
strike.
12/11/1973, British miners began an overtime ban in
protest at their pay offer.
1/11/1973. The Royal Commission on the constitution
completely rejected the case for separate sovereign parliaments for Scotland and Wales.
20/10/1973, The Dalai Lama first visited Britain.
1/10/1973, Denis Healey promised that Labour will
tax the rich �until the pips squeak�.
3/9/1973, In the UK, 20 Trade Unions were expelled from the
TUC.
2/8/1973. 46 people died and 80 were injured when fire swept
through the Summerland amusement
centre at Douglas, Isle of Man. The acrylic sheeting covering the structure
caught fire and melted onto the people below.
8/11/1973, The Cod War between Britain
and Iceland ended.
26/5/1973. An
Icelandic gunboat shelled and holed a British trawler.
21/5/1973, A British
warship and an Icelandic frigate played cat and mouse in the first Royal Navy
action of the Cod War. The British frigate Cleopatra
and the Icelandic gunboat Thor were
shadowing each other when the Thor
suddenly turned and chased after a German trawler; the Cleopatra followed. The Thor
suddenly turned and confronted the Cleopatra;
Cleopatra retreated, with Thor in chase. As darkness fell the two
ships were still dodging each other.
18/5/1973, Royal Navy
frigates were sent to protect British trawlers fishing in disputed waters near
Iceland.
1/5/1973, A TUC 1-day
strike in protest at pay restraint was supported by 1.6 million workers.
24/4/1973, An Icelandic gunboat
opened fire on two British trawlers.
6/12/1972, In Britain, four �Angry Brigade� anarchists were
jailed for conspiracy to cause explosions after a record 111-day trial.
17/9/1972, The
first Asians fleeing Idi Amin
arrived in the UK.
18/7/1972, In the
UK, Reginald Maudling resigned as Home Secretary because of connections to John
Poulson, an architect facing bankruptcy and a police corruption enquiry. He was
succeeded by Robert Carr.
6.0 UK Miner�s
Strike, 1971-72
28/2/1972. The British miners returned
to work, after 7 weeks, after agreeing to a wage increase.
25/2/1972, UK miners voted to return to
work, accepting by a vote of 27 to 1 the pay offer of 18/2/1972.
18/2/1972, British
miners were offered a �6 a week pay increase. See 25/2/1972.
16/2/1972, Power cuts lasting up to 9 hours hit
Britain as the miners strike
continued.
9/2/1972. Due to the month-long miner�s strike,
Britain declared a state of emergency. A three-day week was imposed.
9/1/1972, UK miners strike began; the first miner�s
strike since 1926. The UK Government planned coal rationing.
10/6/1971. Joe Gormley was elected President of the
National Union of Miners.
5.0 UK
accession to the European Economic Community 1971-73
8/6/1973, Enoch Powell said people should vote Labour to
protest against Britain joining the EEC.
1/1/1973. Britain, Denmark, and
Ireland joined the EEC, enlarging it from 6 to 9 countries.
22/1/1972. Britain, Denmark, Norway, and Ireland
signed the EEC Treaty � to join
January 1973. Norway later withdrew after a referendum showed a majority
of Norwegians were against membership. See 1/1/1973. As the British
Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath
signed the Treaty of Brussels, he had ink thrown over him by protestors against
the redevelopment of Covent Garden Market.
See
also European
Union for more events relating to the UK and the development of the EU
11/12/1971, Geoffrey Rippon signed terms with the EEC for the protection of
fishing limits after the UK was to join the EEC; these later turned out not to
protect UK fishing interests.
30/10/1971, An opinion poll
found most of the British electorate opposed membership of the EEC.
28/10/1971. The House of
Commons voted in favour of Britain joining the Common Market with a majority of
112. Votes were 356 for against 244 anti. 69 Labour MPs voted with the
Conservative Government� for membership.
13/10/1971, The Conservative Party
Conference voted overwhelmingly for EEC membership.
4/10/1971, The Labour Party Conference
voted overwhelmingly against EEC membership.
7/7/1971, The UK
Government published its terms for entry into the EEC.
21/5/1971. French President Pompidou said the UK could join the EEC.
15/10/1971, The UK passed legislation to curb immigration.
10/7/1971, Offa's Dyke Path was officially opened by Lord Hunt.
20/6/1971, Britain announced that Soviet space scientist Anatoli
Fedoseyev had been granted political asylum.
15/6/1971, The UK Education Secretary, Mrs Thatcher, said she planned
to end free school milk. The Conservative Government warned it would reduce
financial support for any local council that continued to illegally supply
milk, contrary to the Education (Milk)
Bill. This Bill passed its Commons vote by 281 to 248 against. The Bill was
intended to free up resources to replace older primary schools.
8/3/1971, The British postal strike ended. See 20/1/1971.
24/2/1971, The Immigration Bill was introduced in the UK; this
will end the right of Commonwealth citizens to settle in Britain.
1/2/1971. Licences for radios
abolished in the UK. See 1/11/1922).
20/1/1971, (1) UK postal workers went on strike for a 19.5%
pay claim. See 8/3/1971.
(2) The RAF Red
Arrows aerial display team collided in mid-air, killing four.
2/12/1970, The UK Parliament voted against retaining British
Summer Time over the winter.
26/11/1970. The first year of Edward Heath�s government was
marked by the most days lost to strikes since 1926, the year of the General
Strike. 8.8 million working days were lost.
31/7/1970,� The British
Royal Navy ended its long tradition of a daily rum ration for the sailors.
After the British capture of Jamaica in 1655, rum had replaced beer because it
remained sweeter for longer in hot climates. From the late 1700s it was mixed with
lemon juice, to ward off scurvy. Later, lime juice (which contained less
vitamin C) was substituted for the lemon, earning the British sailors the
nickname �limeys�.
20/7/1970, British Chancellor Iain Macleod died. On 25/7/1970 Anthony Barber
became Chancellor.
16/7/1970. The first State of emergency in Britain since 1926
was called by Prime Minister Edward
Heath as the dock workers went on
strike. The docks strike lasted until 3/8/1970.
8/7/1970. Roy
Jenkins was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
18/6/1970. General Election in the UK. Edward Heath
became Conservative Prime Minister. The Conservatives won 330 seats, against
287 for Labour, 6 for the Liberals and 1 Scottish Nationalist, an overall
Conservative majority of 31.
17/6/1970. The UK issued decimal
postage stamps.� Stamps were in
denominations of 10p, 20p, and 50p.
14/5/1970, The UK Minister of Housing and Local Government announced that potash
mining would be allowed from beneath the North York Moors National Park at Boulby, under strict environmental
conditions.
13/3/1970. English schoolgirl Susan Wallace became the first 18 - year old eligible to vote.
See 12/5/1969.
15/2/1970, Lord Dowding, British Air Chief Marshall and
head of Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain, died aged 87.
15/12/1969. Swansea
received City Status.
16/6/1969, Earl
Alexander of Tunis, British military commander
who led the invasion of Italy in WW2, died.
9/6/1969, Enoch Powell
proposed voluntary repatriation of
immigrants, causing a storm of protest.
12/5/1969. The voting age in Britain was lowered to 18
from 21.
10/5/1969, In the UK, local elections left Labour in control
of only 28 of 342 borough councils in England and Wales.
1/5/1969, Queen
Elizabeth II opened the new Ordnance Survey offices in Southampton.
5/3/1969. The gangland twins Ronald and Roger Kray, 35, were
found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey and given life sentences. The judge
said they should not be released for 30 years.
22/2/1969. President Nixon of the USA arrived in Britain for talks with Prime Minister
Harold Wilson.
1968, The Ironbridge Museum
Trust was founded to preserve the �birthplace of the Industrial Revolution�.
30/11/1968. The Trades
Descriptions Act came into force.
16/10/1968, In
Britain, the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices merged.
10/10/1968, Enoch Powell warned that immigration might
�change the character of England�
27/9/1968, The French again vetoed UK membership of
the EEC.
13/9/1968, British banks announced plans to cease Saturday opening.
3/8/1968, The Countryside Act allowed local
authorities to designate National Parks.
6/5/1968, (1) An opinion poll suggested 74% of Britons supported Enoch Powell�s views on immigration.
(2) The Kray Twins were charged with ten offences including two of
conspiracy to murder.
20/4/1968, Enoch Powell, Conservative MP for south-west Wolverhampton, made his famous �Rivers of Blood� speech about the
dangers of immigration at a hotel in Birmingham. See 6/5/1968.
9/4/1968, In Britain, the Race Relations Bill was published.
17/3/1968, Violent anti-Vietnam War demonstrations outside
the US Embassy in London. 25,000 Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) marchers
fought with police. The VSC, which wanted a victory for North Vietnam, had been
organised by the Trotskyist International Marxist Group, whose members included
Pat Jordan,
Tariq Ali
and David
Horowitz.
22/2/1968, The UK Government was concerned at the level of immigration
of Asians from East Africa.
16/1/1968, The UK government announced public expenditure
cuts of �700 million. This included postponing a rise in the school-leaving
age, and re-imposing prescription charges. There would also be a withdrawal of
the military from all bases east of Suez, except for Hong Kong.
11/1/1968. Emigration from Britain exceeded immigration by
30,000 in the second quarter on 1967.
19/12/1967. Second
French veto by De Gaulle on British membership of the E.E.C. The pound was
devalued, and Harold
Wilson made his �pound in
your pocket� television speech.
29/11/1967, Roy Jenkins succeeded James Callaghan as Chancellor.
27/11/1967, De Gaulle
vetoed Britain�s entry into the EEC.
2/11/1967, The first Scottish Nationalist Party candidate took
their seat at Westminster. In the
by-election at Hamilton, Winifred Ewing took the seat for the SNP, a
party formed in 1934.
8/10/1967. Clement Atlee,
British Prime Minister 1945-51, died aged 84.
28/7/1967, The UK steel industry was nationalised.
18/7/1967, British
forces were to withdraw from areas east of Suez by the mid-1970s,
1/4/1967. (1) The
Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserves formed.
(2) Britain�s first Ombudsman was created, Sir Edmund
Compton.
30/3/1967, The Torrey Canyon was finally destroyed by
RAF bombing.
18/3/1967. The Torrey
Canyon ran aground on the Seven Stones reef off Lands End. The 975
foot tanker spilled 117,000 tons of
Kuwaiti crude oil that was bound for Milford Haven. Within six days 30,000
tons of oil had escaped producing a 260 square mile slick. Thousands of gallons
of detergent were dumped on the slick, but two days later the tanker broke her
back during a salvage attempt, releasing a further 30,000 tons of oil. On 28
and 29 March the RAF took emergency action, and tried to burn off the oil. They
dumped aviation fuel, high explosive bombs, rockets, and napalm onto the slick.
The six hour bombardment was a success
but by then the oil had fouled 100 miles of Cornish coastline.
18/1/1967. Jeremy Thorpe, born on 29/4/1929, became
leader of the Liberal Party, replacing Joe Grimond. Thorpe
resigned on 10/5/1976.
1/12/1966, Britain�s Post Offices issued the first Christmas Stamps.
23/10/1966, BP announced the discovery of large gas fields in
the North Sea.
22/10/1966. KGB master spy
George Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs, using a home-made rope ladder to
scale the high perimeter wall,� He had been serving a 42-year sentence for
espionage meted out in 1962, one year for each of the lives his treachery
was estimated to have cost. On
20/11/1966 he arrived in East Berlin.
21/10/1966. The Aberfan disaster. A coal waste tip collapsed at 9.30am, burying a school in
the Welsh Valleys, shortly after the children had arrived for morning assembly.
It was a half day and by midday the schools would have been empty again for the
half term holiday. 2 million tons of rock and sludge engulfed both the infants
and junior schools. Also engulfed were a row of cottages and a farm; 147
people, 116 of them children, were killed. Aberfan was a close-knit community, and now had just five surviving
children. The National Coal Board was blamed for siting the colliery waste tip
on top of a natural spring; heavy rain had further destabilised the waste heap.
9/10/1966, David Cameron, UK Conservative
Prime Minister 2010 - 2016, was born in Marylebone, London.
23/8/1966, The Cotswolds were designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
21/7/1966, The first
Welsh Nationalist MP, Gwynfor Evans, took
his seat in Parliament after a by-election.
14/7/1966, The Welsh Nationalists won their first
by-election, at Carmarthen.
23/5/1966. In Britain, a State of Emergency was declared in
response to the Seamen�s strike.
6/5/1966. The Moors
murderers Ian Brady, 28, and Myra Hindley, 24, were found guilty of murder at
Chester Crown Court and jailed for life.
14/4/1966, The South Downs was designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
31/3/1966. General Election in the UK. Labour under Harold
Wilson won a landslide victory, gaining a majority of 66. Labour won
363 seats, the Conservatives won 253 seats, and the Liberals won 12.
19/2/1966. A 26 year old man was gassed as he attempted to
cook a dinner for his wife. He had failed to realise that you had to ignite the
gas. The Ministry of Public Works revealed plans to build an underground cafe,
ticket office, and sales room, beneath Stonehenge.
28/10/1965. The Moors Murderers, Ian
Brady and Myra
Hindley, were charged with murdering a 13-year old giel, Lesley Ann Downey,
whose body had been found on the moors�
on 15/10/1965.
8/10/1965, Edward Heath
said he would take Britain into the European Community.
21/9/1965, BP
(British Petroleum) became the first company to discover oil in the North Sea.
2/8/1965, A UK White Paper limited immigration from the
Commonwealth.
28/7/1965. Edward Heath, born 9/7/1916, became leader of the Conservative Party.
Sir Alec
Douglas Home had resigned as leader on 22/5/1965.� Heath was leader until 1975 when Mrs Thatcher
became Party leader (11/2/1975). Heath received 155 votes against 133 for Reginald Maudling
and 15 for Enoch
Powell. At 49 Heath was the youngest leader of the
Conservative Party for a century.
26/7/1965, The Post
Office announced that in future UK telephone numbers would not include letters.
24/5/1965, Westminster announced that Britain was to switch to metric measurements.
23/4/1965. The Pennine Way, 250 miles from Edale
in Derbyshire to Kirk Yetholm in Roxburghshire, opened. This was the first
long distance footpath in Britain.
24/3/1965. David
Steel became Britain�s youngest MP at the age of 26.
6/3/1965, Herbert Morrison,
UK Labour politician, died aged 77.
2/2/1965, In the UK, PM Harold Wilson
announced the cancellation of three expensive defence projects. Two were for
aircraft capable of vertical takeoffs and landing, the Armstrong Whitworth
AW.681 was a large military transport plane, and the Hawker Siddeley P.1154 was
supersonic fighter aircraft. The third, the British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2
was a high-speed attack and reconnaissance jet. Wilson said that the cost of the research
and development for the TSR-2 alone had already reached �750 million, more than
eight times the original forecast, and that each of the 150 planned TSR-2s
would cost �4 million each.
30/1/1965, State funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, see
24/1/1965.
24/1/1965. Sir Winston Churchill died, aged 90,
exactly 70 years after his father died. He was buried in Bladon churchyard,
within sight of Blenheim Palace, his birthplace. He was born, on 30/11/1874, a
descendant of the Duke of Marlborough, in Blenheim Palace. His
funeral was on 30/1/1965, when Big Ben was silenced.
1964, The Ministry of Defence was created, from a temporary such organisation
established after World War Two, along with the Admiralty, Air Ministry and War
Office. This copied a process of centralisation as had occurred in the USA.
1964, Britain began the creation
of a national gas distribution grid. The stimulus for this was partly
technical; a large Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal had been huilt at
Canvey island for imports of gas from Algeria; the high calorific value of
Algerian gas meant it had to be �reformed�, mixed with leaner manufactured gas,
before it could be distributed to households.
15/10/1964, Labour won
the UK General Election with a majority of 4. Labour had 317 seats
(12,205,814 votes, 44.1%), the Conservatives 304 (12,001,396 votes, 43.4%), and
the Liberals 9 (3,092,878 votes, 11.2%). Harold Wilson was the new Prime Minister,
succeeding Alec
Douglas Home. He inherited a balance of payments deficit of nearly
�700 million. James
Callaghan became Chancellor of the Exchequer.
27/7/1964. Sir Winston Churchill last appeared in the
House of Commons. He died on 24/1/1965.
19/3/1964. Harold Wilson
presented each of The Beatles with a
silver heart as joint winners of the Show Business Personality of 1963 award.
19/10/1963. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Conservative, became Prime Minister.� Harold
Macmillan resigned as Prime Minister on 18/10/1963.�
10/3/2006, John Profumo, British politician, died.
10/10/1963, Harold Macmillan announced he would resign as Prime Minister, due to
ill-health and the Profumo Affair;
see 5/6/1963 and 19/10/1963.
26/9/1963, Lord Denning�s
report on the Profumo affair was
published. He said there was no breach of security and government ministers
were not involved in promiscuous behaviour.
5/9/1963. Christine
Keeler, one of the girls at the centre of the Profumo scandal, was arrested and charged with perjury. She was
sentenced to nine months on 6/12/1963. See 5/6/1963.
21/7/1963, In
Britain, Prime Minister Harold MacMillan appointed Lord Denning
to investigate the security aspects of the Profumo affair.
5/6/1963. War
Minister John
Profumo resigned, admitting he misled the Commons about his
relationship with a call girl called Christine Keeler, who had links to a Russian
diplomat. See 5/9/1963.
22/3/1963, In the
British House of Commons, John Profumo, Secretary of State for War,
denied that he had sexual relations with Miss Christine Keeler, an attache of the Soviet Embassy
in London.
31/7/1963, In Britain, Mr A N Wedgwood Benn, who had become 2nd
Viscount Stansgate, renounced his peerage as he was now allowed to do under the
Peerage Act 1963. This made them eligible to become MPs in the House of
Commons. He changed his name to Tony Benn in 1972.
15/4/1963, In Britain, disorder broke out during the last
stages of the Aldermaston March, organised by the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament (CND).
6/4/1963, Anglo-US Polaris weapons agreement signed.
17/3/1963. The first of the Tristan da Cunha islanders
returned home from Britain.
14/2/1963 Harold Wilson became leader of the Labour
Party, see 18/1/1963. Other candidates were James Callaghan and George Brown.
See 18/1/1963.
18/1/1963. Hugh Gaitskell, former UK Labour Party leader from 1955 to 1963, died unexpectedly. See
14/2/1963.
3.0 De Gaulle refuses to admit UK to the EEC
due to links with USA, 1961-63
14/1/1963. De Gaulle
vetoed Britain�s membership of the EEC. He said the UK was too close to
the Commonwealth and the USA, and not �sufficiently European�.
21/12/1962, The US agreed to sell Polaris missiles to
the UK.
18/12/1962, PM Harold MacMillan of the UK and President
Kennedy of the USA concluded the Nassau Agreement, at Nassau,
Bahamas.� This allowed the US navy to
provide Polaris missiles for the Royal Navy, normally operating under NATO
command.� This Anglo-US collaboration was resented by General
De Gaulle of France, who saw it as proof that Britain was not
sufficiently European.� Within a month De Gaulle had vetoed UK membership of the EEC, see
14/1/1963.
8/11/1961. Negotiations with Britain began in Brussels
to join the Common Market.
17/12/1962, In the UK, a committee on the reform of the House of
Lords recommended that an heir should be allowed to disclaim his peerage.
22/1/1962. The �A6 murder� trial began. It was to be the
longest murder trial in British legal history, lasting until 17/2/1962, and
ended with the hanging of James Hanratty.
He had murdered Michael
Gregston in a lay-by on the A6.
1/11/1961, The UK,
concerned about rising immigration, planned a Commonwealth Immigration Bill to
limit their numbers. 21,000 Commonwealth citizens migrated to the UK in
1960 but 100,000 were expected for 1961. Number quotas and/or skills
requirements could be imposed. See 2/7/1962.
9/10/1961. Margaret Thatcher
got her first government job, as Parliamentary Secretary
4/10/1961, The Labour Party Conference voted against having
Polaris bases in Britain.
17/9/1961. A large �Ban
the Bomb� demonstration in London was ended by the police with 830
arrested, including Vanessa Redgrave. 15,000 had attended the
demonstration in Trafalgar Square.
12/9/1961, The philosopher Bertrand Russell, aged 89, was
arrested and imprisoned for protesting against nuclear weapons.
8/5/1961. George Blake, 38, a former British diplomat,
was jailed for 42 years for spying for Russia.
8/3/1961. The death of the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham. Born in 1876
in St Helens, Lancashire, he was the grandson of the founder of the Beecham�s pills business.
31/12/1960, National
Service ceased in the UK. The last batch of 18-year olds were called up. Of
the 2,049 who received their call-up cards, 50 would join the RAF at
Cardington, Bedfordshire, the rest went to Aldershot for 2 weeks basic training
and joined the Army.
3/11/1960, Hugh Gaitskell successfully fought off a
challenge for Labour Party leadership by Harold Wilson.
1/11/1960, It was
announced that US Polaris missile submarines were to be based in the Firth of
Clyde.
5/10/1960, The British Labour Party, at its Scarborough
Conference, voted overwhelmingly for unilateral nuclear disarmament.
27/7/1960, In Britain, Derick Heathcoat Amory retired as Chancellor
of the Exchequer. He was replaced by Selwyn Lloyd, former Foreign Secretary. The Earl of Home
became the new Foreign Secretary.
30/4/1960, Britain abandoned the Blue Streak ,missile programme.
29/3/1960, UK PM Harold MacMillan
reached agreement with US leaders on a nuclear test ban treaty to be put to the
USSR.
20/2/1960, Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, English
archaeologist, died in London.
17/2/1960, The UK Government said it would allow the US to
build a missile early warning system to be built at Fylingdales, Yorkshire.
For events of
Cod War see also Iceland 1950s, 60s
26/12/1959. The first charity walk was organised, in
aid of the World Refugee Fund, by Kenneth Johnson of Letchworth,
Hertfordshire. The intended route covered 50 miles from Letchworth to Yatesbury
in Wiltshire. 20 men and one woman paid 1 shilling to enter; ten gave up after
13 miles, 3 after 22 miles, 1 after 25 miles, 4 at Princes Risborough, and 3,
including Johnson,
carried on for 50 miles, giving up at Ewelme, Oxfordshire. About �20 was
raised.
25/11/1959, Charles Kennedy, British politician, was born.
8/10/1959. UK general
election. The Conservatives under Harold MacMillan and his slogan �You�ve never had it so good� won, and Mrs Thatcher was elected an MP. The
Conservatives won 365 seats, labour won 258, and the Liberals got 6. Macmillan remained Prime Minister.
7/5/1959, An agreement was reached enabling Britain to buy components of atomic
weapons, as opposed to actual nuclear warheads, from the USA.
7/8/1958. The Litter
Act came into force in Britain.
24/7/1958. The first
life peerages were awarded in Britain, under the Life Peerages Act.
4/4/1958, The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
held its first protest march this
Good Friday. Members marched from Hyde Park Corner to the Atomic Weapons
Research Establishment at Aldermaston,
arriving on 7/4/1958. 600 members completed the 50-mile march and 12,000
attended the final rally.
29/3/1958, Sir William Burrell,
Scottish shipping merchant and philanthropist, died aged 96.
6/3/1958, The TUC and the Labour
party called for H-Bomb tests to stop.
17/2/1958, The
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, CND, was launched by Bertrand Russell
and Canon John
Collins.
6/8/1957. Despite
the Conservative PM, Harold MacMillan,
stating that �most of us have never had
it so good�, last month, 2,000
people were emigrating from Britain every week, for the USA or Commonwealth
countries like Canada and Australia.
Many were professionals or science and medical graduates.
23/7/1957, In Britain, violence broke out on picket lines as
a national bus strike took effect.
20/7/1957, Conservative
PM Harold Macmillan said that �most of our people have never had it so
good�.
6/6/1957, In Britain the Rent Act received Royal Assent, This removed many controls on
rents. Labour MPs protested.
14/5/1957, Petrol
rationing in the UK, caused by the Suez
Crisis, ended.
4/4/1957. Britain announced that compulsory National Service, 2 years long for all reaching 18,
would end in 1960.
3/4/1957, The UK Labour
Party called for H-Bomb tests to stop.
9/1/1957. Anthony Eden, aged 59, resigned as Prime
Minister, on grounds of ill-health, in the wake of the Suez Crisis. On 10/1/1957 Harold Macmillan
became Prime Minister. Rab Butler was deputy PM but had also
supported the Suez adventure and there would have been a back-bench revolt if Butler
had become PM. A bitterly disappointed Butler received the consolation prize of
becoming Home Secretary under Macmillan,
and Peter
Thorneycroft became the new Chancellor. Macmillan
dismissed Labour calls for a general election by the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell,
and busied himself with mending relationships with the US under the recently
elected President
Eisenhower.
22/12/1956. Britain and France withdrew their forces from Egypt, under intense pressure from the USA. The
Suez Crisis had caused a run on Sterling, and the US would not halt this
without a withdrawal.
23/11/1956. As the Suez
Crisis deepened, petrol rationing
began in the UK, and driving tests were suspended.
15/11/1956. UN emergency forces arrived in Suez, and began to
clear the Canal of wrecked ships on 27/12/1956. UN forces began taking over
from the British, under strong pressure from the USA. The British PM, Anthony Eden,
was suffering from psychological strain caused by the unanticipated world hostility to his Suez adventure, and flew to
Jamaica on 23/11/1957 to rest.
1/11/1956. Ernie (Electronic Random Number Indicating
Equipment) was born as Premium Bonds
first went on sale in Britain.
31/10/1956. France and Britain bombed Egyptian airfields in the
Suez Crisis. The speed of events �
Egypt was only given 12 hours to withdraw from the Canal � suggested to US President
Eisenhower that the whole operation was staged to maintain
Anglo-French influence in Suez. See Israel
(1956)
For Suez Crisis 1956 see Egypt
16/10/1956, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden and Foreign
Secretary Selwyn
Lloyd visited Paris and met with French Minister Guy Mollet
and Foreign Minister Christian Pineau to discuss joint action
against Egypt.
25/9/1956, Transatlantic telephone cable between the UK and
the USA became operational.
1/4/1956, The first US U-2 spy planes arrived at RAF
Lakenheath.
23/3/1956, Foundation stone of Coventry Cathedral laid by Queen Elizabeth II. The Cathedral was
consecrated on 25/5/1962. The former 14th century cathedral along
with the city�s mediaeval centre had been destroyed in an 11-hour Luftwaffe
blitz on 14/11/1940 when over 1,000 died.
7/12/1955. Clement
Attlee, aged 72, resigned as leader of the UK Labour Party; Hugh Gaitskell
was elected as leader by a wide margin. Gaitskell died in 1963 and Labour did not come
to power again until 1964, with Harold Wilson as leader. Attlee entered the House of
Lords as First
Earl Attlee, until his death in 1969.
12/10/1955, The Soviet Navy made a goodwill visit to Portsmouth,
UK, and the British Royal Navy made a goodwill visit to Leningrad (St
Petersburg), Russia.
21/9/1955, The UK annexed Rockall, to prevent the USSR using it as a base to spy on British
missile tests.
3/8/1955, Duncan Sandys, UK Housing Minister, instructed local authorities to set up
Green Belts similar to London�s around other major towns and cities. The
idea was to stop food producing farmland being lost to urbanisation, and to
stop unsightly �ribbon development� along main roads.� Where possible, urban development was to be
by �infilling�.� This month, denim jeans
became fashionable in the UK.
4/7/1955. British dock strike ended after 1 month.
14/6/1955, Rail workers called off the strike which began on
29//5/1955.
31/5/1955, In Britain, troops went on stand-by as the effects
of the rail and docks strikes worsened.
29/5/1955, Rail strike began in Britain.
26/5/1955, The Conservatives
won the General Election, with a majority of 59. They won 345 seats to Labour�s
277. The Liberals won just 6 seats.
24/5/1955, Docks strike began in Britain.
5/4/1955. Sir Winston Churchill, aged 80, resigned as
Prime Minister. He suffered s stroke in 1953. Anthony Eden succeeded him. Harold Macmillan became Eden�s new Foreign Secretary.
25/2/1955, Britain�s largest aircraft carrier, the Ark Royal was completed.
2.0 End of
rationing in Britain 1948 � 1954 (See also other country timelines for rationing there)
3/7/1954. Food
rationing ended in Britain; all goods
were now off rations. Smithfield Market, London, opened at midnight instead of
6am to cope with the demand for beef.
5/2/1953, The UK Food Minister, Gwilym Lloyd-George, declared an
end to the rationing of sweets and chocolate. Domestic purchases of sugar,
however, stayed on-rations until September 1953. Toffee apples were in greatest
demand, followed by nougat and liquorice strips. Sweets had been briefly
de-rationed in 1949 but demand had outstripped supply, prompting re-rationing
after 2 months.
5/10/1952, In the UK, tea came off-ration. However
meat, bacon, sugar, butter, margarine, cooking fats, eggs, cheese, were still
rationed. All British food rationing ended on 3/7/1954.
21/2/1952. Identity
cards were abolished in Britain.
10/7/1950. Soap rationing ended in Britain.
24/4/1949. Sweets
and chocolates came off rations
in Britain. Clothes rationing, which
began on 2/6/1941, ceased on 15/3/1949. All food rationing ended on 3/7/1954. Identity cards were abolished in Britain on 21/2/1952.
15/3/1949, Clothes
rationing ended in Britain.
9/9/1948 Footwear rationing ended in the UK.
31/12/1954, Harold MacMillan, British Conservative Housing
Minister, announced that a record number of houses, 354,000, had been built
during 1954.
4/11/1954, Two by-elections in the UK, Sutton and Cheam and
Morpeth. Both seats were retained by the incumbent Party, Conservative and
Labour respectively.
2/11/1954, A dock workers' strike in the UK ended.
20/10/1954, A docks strike reduced Britain�s trade by half.
18/10/1954, In Britain, Winston Churchill reshuffled his Cabinet, with
Harold
Macmillan becoming Minister of Defence.
7/10/1954, Seebohn Rowntree, English social reformer,
died aged 83.
3/7/1954. Plans for a new steelworks at Motherwell,
Scotland, were announced.
1/7/1954. 90% of rabbits
in southern Britain were infected with myxomatosis. Farmers were happy since rabbits destroyed crops worth
�50 million each year; scientists worried about upsetting the balance of
nature.
7/6/1954, Alan Turing, mathematician who broke the Nazi codes during World
War Two, committed suicide. After his conviction for homosexuality on 31/3/1952
he had opted for chemical �treatment� rather than prison; this consisted of
oestrogen injections, which made him put on weight and grow breasts.
14/4/1954, Aneurin Bevan resigned from the Labour Cabinet in protest at British Government support for the re-arming of Germany, so
soon after World War Two.
3/4/1954, Oxford won the 100th boat race.
1/12/1953, Harold Macmillan boasted that 301,000 new homes have been built in
Britain during the Conservatives second year in office.
21/11/1953. The discovery of the Piltdown Man skull on 18/12/1912 in Sussex by Charles Dawson was revealed to
be a hoax, see 22/9/1990.
6/5/1953. Tony Blair,
UK Prime Minister 1997 - 2007, was born.
24/4/1953. Queen Elizabeth II knighted Winston Churchill.
23/2/1953, An amnesty
was granted to WW II deserters.
1/1/1953, �Bomber� Harris, head of Bomber Command
responsible for the bombing of Dresden,
was knighted.
23/10/1952. The Claerwen
Dam, on the River Claerwen in mid-Wales, was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth
II. Construction work had begun on 18/8/1946 when the Mayor of
Birmingham set off the first charge of dynamite.
Birmingham had begun to be threatened by a water
shortage from the 1890s, and the nearest supply was in mid-Wales. An Act of
Parliament was passed in 1892 authorising the construction of three dams on the
River Elan and three more on the River Claerwen. The Elan reservoirs were built first, and then satisfied the demand of
Birmingham, which then had a population of half a million, and most had to
carry their water in a bucket from an outside tap. But by 1946 Birmingham had
over a million people, and more of these had a sink and a bathroom, and there
had been a severe drought in 1937. By 1940 city planners determined to
build the Claerwen reservoirs too, as soon as the War was over. The largest
dam, designed by Sir William Halcrow, was to be 184 feet high and 1,166 feet
long. Behind would be a lake four miles long and holding ten billion gallons of
water. Birmingham could not have all the water; places as far as Hereford also
relied on the water from here, so enough had to be let through for this. During
construction, accommodation had to be built on site for over 200 men, with
housing, canteen, stores, and offices. The building work was held up by
terrible weather during the late 1940s; blizzards, interspersed with floods and
droughts, finally completed in 1952.
21/9/1952, Sir Montague Burton, British multiple tailor,
knighted in 1931, died in Leeds.
11/7/1952, Figures from the 1951 Census showed that one household in three lacked a bath,
and one in twenty had no piped water.
21/4/1952, Stafford Cripps, British Labour politician,
died aged 62.
31/3/1952, Alan
Turing, the computing expert who led the effort to break the German
Enigma codes in World War Two, was convicted of being party to
gross indecency, meaning homosexuality.
3/2/1952, In England, 283 people died 8in gale force winds
and high tides causing major floods in the east coast. Thousands were made
homeless.
28/11/1952, The UK Government confirmed the order
setting up the North York Moors National
Park.
20/11/1951, Snowdonia in
Wales was designated a National Park.
15/8/1951. Dartmoor was designated a National Park.
28/12/1950. In the
UK, the Peak District was designated as
the first National Park.
27/10/1951, In Britain, Winston Churchill formed a Conservative
Government, with Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary and R A (Rab) Butler as Chancellor
of the Exchequer.
25/10/1951. Margaret Roberts, later Margaret Thatcher, became the
youngest person, at age 26, to stand in a general election. She lost. However the Conservatives won 321 seats against
295 for Labour, 6 for the Liberals, and 3 for other parties. The Conservatives
had the majority of seats yet Labour had won more of the votes cast. Winston Churchill succeeded Clement Attlee as
Prime Minister. The Conservative s promised to de-nationalise steel and road
haulage, but wuold leave other nationalised industries alone.
24/7/1951, The Tyne pedestrian and cycle tunnel, Newcastle, opened.
It was Britain�s first purpose-built cycle tunnel, opened as part of the
Festival of Britain celebrations, and cost �833,000 to construct.
25/5/1951. British diplomats Burgess (1910 � 1963) and MacLean
(1913 � 1983) were first reported missing. They had defected to Moscow.
They had been recruited by the Soviets whilst working at MI5 during the 1930s.
14/4/1951. Ernest Bevin, Labour
politician and Trade Unionist, died.
11/4/1951. The Stone of Scone (Stone of Destiny) was recovered
at Forfar three months after its
theft from Westminster. It returned to Westminster on 13/4/1951. Scottish Nationalists had stolen it
from Westminster Abbey on 25/12/1950.
3/4/1951, Brendan Barber, English Trades Union leader,
was born
1/4/1951, A survey of 12.4 million dwellings in Britain revealed that 1.9
million had three rooms or less, that 4.8 million had no fixed bath, and that
almost 2.8 million lacked exclusive use of a toilet. 4.7 million, 38%, had been
built before 1891, and 2.5 million dated from before 1851.
1/1/1951, The UK steel industry was nationalised.
25/12/1950. Scottish Nationalists stole the Stone of Scone from
Westminster Abbey, see 11/4/1951. The
Stone is a piece of sandstone marked with a Latin cross; according to legend it
was the stone Jacob used as a pillow at Bethel where he saw visions of angels.
In around 700 BC the Stone was taken to Ireland where it was set on the Hill of
Tara, the crowning place of Irish kings. Invading Celtic Scots took the Stone
to Scotland. In 1259 the English under King Edward I removed the Stone to
Westminster. In 1997, when Scotland got its own Parliament, the Stone was
formally returned to Edinburgh.
11/1950, Over five years after World
War Two ended, the Women�s Land Army in
Britain was finally disbanded.
19/10/1950. Hugh Gaitskell
became UK Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He replaced Sir Stafford
Cripps who had retired in health grounds.
2/10/1950. Legal aid became available in Britain.
24/5/1950, Field Marshall Lord Archibald Wavell, British
military commander (born 1883) died.
4/4/1950, At Liverpool, the liner Franconia was found to be full of smuggled nylon stockings with a black market value of �80,000.
28/2/1950. Clement Attlee formed a new Labour Government
in the UK.
23/2/1950. The first General Election in the UK where the results were televised. Clement Attlee,
Labour prime Minister, narrowly won for Labour, which had just a majority
over the Conservatives and Liberals combined. The result was Labour 315 seats,
Conservative 298, Liberal 9, others 3. Voter turnout was 84%. 319 out of 475
Liberal candidates lost their deposits.
19/12/1949, Britain
passed the National Parks Act.
29/11/1949, The
Parliament Act was passed in the UK, restricting the Lords delaying abilities.
The House of Lords had rejected this Bill but it still became law as MPs had
voted for it three times.
6/8/1949, John Haugh, the �acid bath murderer� was executed.
1/5/1949. In the UK, the gas industry was nationalised.
1/4/1949, The National
Parks Bill was approved by the UK Parliament. 12 National Parks were created, covering
9% of the� area of England and Wales;
none were created in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
1/12/1948. National
Service in Britain was increased
from 12 to 18 months.
1/7/1948. The first Oxfam shop opened in the UK.
23/5/1948. The Empire Windrush sailed from Jamaica with
the first West Indian migrants, to alleviate Britain�s severe labour shortage.
15/3/1948. The UK
Civil Service was closed to Fascists and Communists regarding
posts vital to State Security.
14/12/1947, Stanley Baldwin, British Conservative politician, three times Prime Minister, who became
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, died.
13/11/1947. Chancellor Hugh Dalton resigned after
admitting passing tax details to a reporter minutes before the Budget speech.
31/10/1947, Sidney Webb, British economist, socialist and
reformer, died aged 88.
4/10/1947, Ann Widdecombe,
British politician, was born.
30/9/1947, The UK
Government asked women to wear shorter skirts, to save cloth.
29/9/1947, Sir Stafford
Cripps was appointed by PM Attlee, as Minister of Economic Affairs. He
went on to replace Hugh Dalton as Chancellor of the Exchequer
following Dalton�s
resignation on 13/11/1947. Sir Cripps was a keen advocate of austerity,
as the UK made efforts to cut back on imports from outside the Sterling Area.
17/9/1947, Tessa Jowell,
UK politician, was born.
14/9/1947, Baldwin retired in May 1937 and was made Earl Baldwin of
Bewdley. He died on 14 September 1947.
27/8/1947. The UK Government announced cuts to deal with an economic crisis.
7/2/1947. The Minister of Fuel and Power, Emanuel Shinwell, startled the House of
Commons by announcing that Britain�s power stations were running out of coal,
as very cold snowy weather paralysed the rail system. Four weeks of
intermittent power cuts followed, with two million workers suspended. Greyhound
racing, TV and magazine production were halted.
8/1/1947. In Britain, a shortage
of coal caused closures of steel works. There were also food shortages because of the hauliers�
strike. Troops were called in to move
supplies.
1/1/1947. Britain�s coal industry was nationalised under the Coal industry Nationalisation Act, 1946.
The National Coal Board (NCB) was set up, to control 1,647 mines, 100,000
miners homes and over a million acres of land. The NCB was chaired by Lord Hyndley.
1946, Britain passed the Distribution
of Industry Act, incetivising industrialists to relocate production to
areas of high unemployment.
27/12/1946, In Britain, 12 cotton mills closed today and much
industry in the Midlands went on a 4-day week as a fuel shortage deepened. Meanwhile a world food shortage, compounded by a global shipping shortage, and,
for the UK, a lack of foreign exchange, caused UK rations to be cut. In February 1946 butter, margarine and
cooking fat rations were reduced from 8 to 7 ounces per person per week. In May 1946 bread, previously un-rationed,
came on-ration.
18/12/1946. Labour
MPs triumphantly sang The Red Flag as the House of Commons voted to nationalise
the railways, road haulage, and ports. This was under Clement Attlee�s Labour
Government. The Bank of England had already been nationalised and, despite the
UK�s economic problems, civil aviation, broadcasting, road transport and steel
woild soon follow. Attlee also proposed independence for Burma
and India.
11/11/1946. Stevenage, Hertfordshire, became the first �New
Town� to be designated in Britain.
6/11/1946. In the UK, the National Health Act came into
force.
8/7/1946. Margaret Roberts, later Margaret Thatcher, was elected president of
the Oxford University Conservatives.
6/7/1946, The Young
Conservatives political organisation was founded in Britain.
2/4/1946. The Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst was
founded.� The Woolwich Academy was merged
with Sandhurst.
31/3/1946, General Gort, British commander of the British Expeditionary Force�
that entered France in 1939 and retreated again in 1940, died.
5/3/1946. Winston Churchill referred to an �Iron
Curtain� descending across Europe, in a speech at Fulton, USA. The first public acknowledgement that the
Cold War had begun. See 12/3/1947.
28/2/1946, Robin Cook,
British politician, was born.
0.0 Intensification of UK rationing post -
War, 1946 - 51
27/1/1951 In Britain, meat rations
were reduced to their lowest level yet, the equivalent of 4 ounces of rump
steak a week.
10/11/1947, Strachey
admitted to the House of Commons that because of food shortages and rationing,
the average daily Calorie intake per head was down to 2,700, as opposed to a
British Medical Association recommendation of 3,386 made in July 1933.
30/6/1947. In the UK, food rations were cut further in
the midst of an economic crisis.
9/4/1947, The
first food packages from the USA for Britain arrived at Liverpool. They were sent by
the charity organisation CARE (Co-operative for Remittance to Europe) and
intended for unemployed widows who had children to look after.
22/1/1947. The meat
ration in Britain was reduced,
again, to 1 shilling (5p) worth weekly.
31/12/1946, In
Britain, people were eating horsemeat as the food, fuel and transport crisis
continued.
7/2/1946. In response to world food shortages, UK food rations were reduced.
14/2/1946, The British Labour Government stated it would
nationalise the Bank of England.
22/1/1946, UK pit owners protested at
plans to nationalise the coal industry.
30/12/1945, The SS Tilapia docked in Bristol with the first cargo of bananas to enter the UK
since the War, since 11/1940, when the UK Government banned all fruit
imports except oranges.
5/11/1945, In Britain, a seven-week dock strike ended.
12/4/1945. The Scottish Nationalists won their first by-election, gaining a seat
from Labour at Motherwell. However Labour regained the seat at the General
Election a few months later.
26/3/1945. David Lloyd George, British Liberal Prime Minister from 1916 to
1922, died in Llanystundwy, near Criccieth, north Wales, aged 82.
-1.0, Britain
and the end of World War Two in Europe, 1944-45
12/9/1945, An estimate of War casualties reckoned
that Britain had lost 420,000 members of the armed forces; the US had lost
292,000, and the USSR, 13 million. German loss of military men was put at 3.9
million, Japan�s at 2.6 million. British civilian casualties from air raids
were set at 60,000, with 860,000 severely injured.
26/7/1945. Clement Attlee�s Labour Government came to power
with a huge majority of 173 seats. The result was Labour, 412 seats,
Conservative 213 seats, and Liberals 12 seats. Clement Attlee was born in
Putney, London, on 3/1/1883. The former government of Winston Churchill was defeated. Churchill�s
warning that �no Socialist system can be established without some form of
political police or gestapo� did the Conservatives more harm than Labour, as
voters thought it ridiculous to compare politicians like Attlee and Bevan to Hitler. However the new Labour Government now faced severe economic problems.
�4 billion of British foreign investments had gone, exports were half the 1938
level, industry was damaged and run-down, and 700,000 houses in London alone
were bomb damaged. Then there were the Labour commitments to a Welfare
State, free healthcare, and the nationalisation of major industries. Politically the USA and USSR emerged as superpowers,
but Britain had lost its premier standing in the world forever.
7/7/1945, Trains
carried a record 102,889 holidaymakers to Blackpool. UK beaches had been off
limits to civilians since the War began in 1939. In 1948 the Holidays With Pay
Act increased the holiday trade even more.
5/7/1945, UK
General Election. The results were delayed three weeks to allow for postal
votes cast overseas by members of the armed forces.
18/6/1945, The first
demobilisations began in Britain (see 22/9/1944).
9/5/1945, The German occupation of the Channel Islands ended. The German commander of the Channel Islands, Vice-Admiral
Huffmeier, had threatened to fight on but his 10,000 men ignored him
and surrendered without a shot being fired. The ordinary people had come close
to starvation, subsisting on stewed rabbits and cabbage. As late as 7/5/1945
the German occupiers had been issuing orders to improve coastal fortifications.
8/5/1945. VE Day. The Second World War officially ended in
Europe, at one minute past midnight. Field
Marshall Keitel signed the final capitulation. The
Channel Islands remained under Nazi occupation till the following day,
9/5/1945. Street parties were held all over Britain.
23/4/1945, Blackout
restrictions removed in Britain.
20/4/1945, Britain
estimated its civilian casualties from the war at 146,760. Civilian casualties
in London amounted to 80,307. In Greater Manchester 684 people died in the bombing, and an
additional 2,364 were injured.
See
France/Germany for main events of World War Two
3/12/1944, The Home Guard was formally disbanded in London as King George VI witnessed its final parade.
Britons were jubilant that this symbolised imminent victory in the War. The
Black-Out was replaced by the Dim-Out as the
Luftwaffe was no longer a credible threat. However British strikes rose,
particularly in the coal mines. Coal miners pay was relatively low compared to
other occupations, and conditions were poor.
-2.0, Britain
and World War Two, 1941-44
27/11/1944. Between 3,500 and 4,000 tons of high explosives went
off in a cavern beneath Staffordshire, killing 68 people. The explosion was heard as far away as Geneva. The
former gypsum mine at Hanbury was
used by the RAF to defuse bombs that had failed to drop from planes raiding
Germany. Against strict rules, an operative used a steel screwdriver, causing a
spark.
22/9/1944, In
Britain details of demobilisation were released to the public. Class B �demob�
covered builders and others with skills greatly needed for post-war
reconstruction; these had priority of demob, but could be recalled to the
military if they entered another trade. Class A covered everyone else. They
would be released from military service on a scheme that equated years of age
to years of military service at 6:1. This meant a 40 year old with 1 year�s
military service had the same demob priority as a 22 year old with 3 year�s
military service. The first demobilisations in the UK were on 18/6/1945.
6/6/1944. D � Day. Allied forces landed in Normandy. Operation Overlord was the biggest sea-borne
invasion in history. It was delayed 24 hours due to bad weather.
15/5/1944. In St
Pauls School, London, the D-Day landings of 6/6/1944 were planned using a huge
map of the area. 8 divisions, 5 seaborne and 3 airborne, were to be landed in the first
48 hours. The Germans had 60 divisions defending the coast of the Netherlands,
Belgium and France. An elaborate deception was mounted to make Germany think
Calais was the landing point with fake radio traffic, misleading reports from
Nazi agents who had been �turned� to serve the Allies,� and a phantom army with wooden tanks
stationed in south-east England. In May 1944 Montgomery received a decode of a
message from Field Marshall Rommel to Hitler saying that Allied bombing of
railways in northern France was disrupting his efforts to defend the Calais
area from an Allied invasion.
14/5/1944, The last attempted air raid on Bristol. 91 bombers
took part but most failed even to find the city; a few small bombs were dropped
in the suburbs.
6/5/1944, Rehearsals for the D-Day landings were held at
Slapton Sands, Devon.
8/3/1944, 9,000 Welsh miners went on strike over pay
differentials; the government met their demands.
18/1/1944, The first
batch of UK conscripts to be sent down the mines, nicknamed �Bevin Boys�, began their training.
See
France/Germany for main events of World War Two
20/11/1943. Oswald Moseley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, was
released from gaol on grounds of ill-health. The UK Labour Party protested.
31/10/1942, The Germans
bombed Canterbury in retaliation for
the bombing of Cologne.
22/10/1942, German
planes dropped high explosives and incendiaries on Appleby-Frodingham steelworks, Scunthorpe, injuring 15 employees.
4/10/1942, A small
British air raid on Sark.
2/7/1942, Churchill, having been criticised for his leadership
following German victories in North Africa, easily won a vote of confidence in
the House of Commons, by 476 to 25 votes with 30 abstentions.
1/7/1942. The charity, Oxford Famine Relief (Oxfam)
was formed, see 1/7/1948.
5/5/1942, The first of the �Baedeker raids�; the Germans used Baedeker guidebooks
to guide them to targets in British towns and cities.
3/5/1942, Heavy
German air raid on Exeter. 30 acres of the city were destroyed, 156 killed and
593 injured.
29/4/1942. York was
bombed by the Luftwaffe. 79 were killed.
24/4/1942, The Germans
bombed Exeter, in revenge for the
raid on Lubeck on 28/3/1942.
6/5/1941, The
Luftwaffe bombed the town of Greenock, Scotland.
1/5/1941,
The first of seven consecutive nights of bombing raids on Liverpool began
16/4/1941,
Belfast was bombed by the Luftwaffe.
11/4/1941.
Major German air
raid on Coventry.
13/3/1941,
Heavy German air raid on Clydebank, 1,100 killed
19/2/1941,
Start of a devastating 48-hour air raid on Swansea. 230 were killed and
over 400 injured as 41 acres of
the city and its docks were destroyed by the |Luftwaffe. Previously it had been
hoped that Swansea was too far west to be at risk of air raids.
15/1/1941, Heavy air raid by 126 bombers on Avonmouth Docks, Bristol.
-3.0, UK rationing 1940-44
1944, Food distribution was
�zoned� in Britain to save on transport costs, so that Mars Bars were now only
available in the south of the country.
22/12/1943.
The UK government announced there were only enough turkeys left for one in ten
families.
1942, The Oxford Marmalade
factory near Oxford, UK, was requisitioned by the Government, so that no more
of this food was made until after World War Two. Oxford Marmalde was a
thick-cut orange marmalade originally marketed by Frank Cooper from 1908.
26/7/1942, In
Britain, sweets were rationed.
17/3/1942, In
the UK, coal, electricity and gas were to be rationed.
1/3/1942, Skirts were being made several centimetres shorter to
save material. A woman�s winter tweed coat sold for �4 3s 11d. Men�s shirt
tails were also 5 centimetres shorter.
18/2/1942. The British
public were urged to take fewer baths and to only use five inches of water when
they did.
9/2/1942. Soap rationing
began in Britain.
4/7/1941. In the UK, coal rationing began.
2/6/1941. Clothes rationing was introduced in
Britain, and not lifted until 15/3/1949.
60 clothes coupons were allowed a year; for all except baby clothes; a dress
cost 11 coupons, a man�s suit, 26.
8/1/1940. Sugar, butter, ham and bacon were rationed
in Britain. Bacon, butter and ham were limited to 4 oz (110 g) per person
per week, and sugar to 12 oz (330 g) . The UK had not seen food rationing since
1918. This was about half the pre-War consumption for middle-class families.
However poor families seldom consumed this much meat anyway, so butchers found
themselves with a surplus of these meats. The Ministry of Food then doubled the
rations.
See
France/Germany World War Two for main events of World War Two
-4.0, UK civil measures 1940-43
2/12/1943, Britain was running out of manpower.
The number of registered unemployed, 1,250,000 in 1939, was now just 60,000,
and the conscription age was now from 18 to 51. Conscription of women had also
been extended upwards from those in their 20s to those in their 50s, although
they could choose between armed forces or factory work.
6/1943, In
Britain, 65,000 members of the Women�s Land Army were now producing 70% of the
nation�s food.
3/5/1943. The UK
government made part-time war work compulsory for women aged 18 to 45.
7/4/1943. Keynes
published his plan for the post-war recovery of Britain.
21/2/1943, Britons
celebrated �;Red Army Day� to congratulate the Russians on their success at Stalingrad.
6/3/1942, A
controversial political cartoon by Philip Zec appeared in the Daily Mirror, showing a seaman clinging
to the remains of a ship in rough seas with the caption, "The price of
petrol has been increased by one penny � Official." Winston Churchill interpreted
the cartoon as �defeatist� and considered banning the Daily Mirror from publication.
5/12/1941, A civilian gas mask exercise was held in
Plymouth. At 3pm all civilians were supposed to don their gas masks for 15
minutes; many did not comply.
4/12/1941, In Britain,
unmarried women in their 20s were now being called up to perform non combat
support work for the military, such as factory work, fire services and
policing. For men, the call-up age was extended down to 18 and up to 49.
18/8/1941, Britain
set up a national fire service.
26/3/1941, Britain passed
the National Service Bill, making
civil defence duties compulsory.
17/3/1941. The UK Labour
Minister, Ernest Bevin, called for women to fill vital jobs.
1/2/1941. The Air Training Corps, the junior arm of the Royal Air Force, was
formed.
21/1/1941, In� Britain the Communist
newspaper The Daily Worker was banned.
14/1/1941, King George V signed a royal warrant authorising the formation of the
Reconnaissance Corps.
31/12/1940. Fire-watching became compulsory in wartime Britain.
19/12/1940, The British Purchasing Commission placed an order with the US for
U$750 million of military equipment, including 12,000 aircraft.
29/3/1943. British Prime Minister John Major was born.
28/3/1942. �Neil Kinnock, Labour leader, was born in Tredegar, south Wales.
1941, Woolton Pie, a vegetable pie designed to
eke out meagre meat rations, was publicised by the UK Government. It was named
after FJ
Marquis (1883-1964), 1st Earl of Woolton, then Minisyter
for Food.
27/2/1941, Jeremy (Paddy) Ashdown,
Liberal leader, was born.
10/11/1940, Screaming Lord
Sutch, British politician, was born.
8/1/1941. Lord Baden Powell, British soldier and Boer
War hero, also founder of the Boy Scouts in 1908, died aged 83.
9/11/1940. The former British Prime Minister (1937-1940), Neville Chamberlain, died of cancer, at
Heckfield, near Reading.
-5.0, Britain and
World War Two, 1940-41
10/5/1941. Rudolph Hess, Hitler�s deputy,
parachuted into Scotland to try and negotiate a peace settlement� but was arrested and imprisoned for the
remainder of the war. He landed at Eaglesham. After the war, Hess
was tried at Nuremberg and found guilty of war crimes.
17/2/1941, The British ship SS Gairsoppa
was torpedoed and sunk 300 miles southwest of Ireland. She had been carrying
110 tons of silver, in the form of 2,792 bars, to boost Britain�s funds as War
costs mounted.
12/12/1940, Heavy
bombing of Sheffield; a further raid followed on 15/12/1940. The weather was
clear with a full moon; massive fires from the city�s steelworks further
illuminated the city. 600 people were killed and a further 1,500 injured;
40,000 were made homeless.
24/11/1940, The first
large scale air raid on Bristol, by 135 bombers.
14/11/1940. Coventry Cathedral was destroyed by German bombing. Over 1,000 civilians died in the raid, of a population of
250,000. 449 Luftwaffe bombers dropped 503 tons of bombs and 881
incendiaries.
4/11/1940, Night air
raid on London.
27/10/1940, A German
bomb fell on Scunthorpe, killing 11.
25/10/1940, Air raid
on Birmingham.
19/10/1940, British
destroyer Venetia struck a mine and sank in the Thames Estuary.
11/10/1940, German
air raids on London and Liverpool.
7/10/1940, German
air raids on London, Liverpool and Wales.
23/9/1940. The
Red Cross was instituted. This was the highest British civilian award for
acts of courage.� The George Medal was also instituted.
18/9/1940, German air
raids in SE England and Merseyside.
See
France/Germany World War Two for main events of World War Two
-6.0, Battle
of Britain 1940; German bid to defeat the RAF failed.
17/9/1940. Hitler
ordered the indefinite postponing of the invasion of Britain, after the
Luftwaffe had failed to establish command of the air over Britain.
15/9/1940, The Battle of Britain ended with victory to the
Allies.� 1,733 German planes were destroyed as against
915 lost by the RAF. It began on 8/8/1940. The Nazis had given up hope of
achieving air superiority and invading Britain. The RAF had also destroyed much of the shipping that was to carry
German troops to England.
1/9/1940, Biggin
Hill aerodrome in Kent was heavily damaged by a German bombing raid.
25/8/1940. First
British air raid on Berlin.
17/8/1940, Germany began a blockade of British waters.
14/8/1940, German air
raids on Dover, Southampton and Hastings.
13/8/1940, German air
raids on the Thames Estuary and Southampton.
12/8/1940, (1)� Dover
was hit by German shells, the first bombardment of the War here.
(2) An Aliens Order banned foreigners
from al of Cornwall and Devon and most of Somerset, without police permission,
they also needed leave to use telescopes cameras or maps. Residents had to tell
the police if an alien visited them in the protected areas.
11/8/1940, Further German air raids on Weymouth and Portland radar stations.
8/8/1940. Battle of Britain began. See 31/10/1940. German aircraft had already made raids
on Britain; on 10/7/1940 the Cornish port of Falmouth was attacked by 63
Junkers 88s. However it was on this day
that mass attacks of over 1,000 German aircraft began. Hermann Goering was confident of
victory. Until 30/8/1940 German air attacks were mainly on British shipping and
coastal towns, and German air losses exceeded those sustained by the RAF. But
between 30/8/1940 and 6/9/1940 the Luftwaffe switched its attacks to airfields
in southern Britain. The RAF lost 20% of its fighter planes and at one stage
only 2 airfields in southern Britain were operational. In one week 185 RAF
fighter planes were destroyed. There was
a real possibility that the Luftwaffe could destroy the RAF. However on
24/8/1940 a German pilot accidentally dropped his bombs on London, and Churchill
ordered revenge raids on Berlin. This angered Hitler and he ordered Goering
to switch the Luftwaffe�s raids to London, which faced continual bombing until
2/11/1940. The Luftwaffe faced the
problem that if their aircraft were shot down, the pilot was captured as a POW;
however if a British plane was shot down, over Britain, the pilot could return
to the fighting. Pilots were much harder to replace, with all their training,
than an aircraft was to build. Prime Minister Winston Churchill said that �never in the field of human conflict has so
much been owed by so many to so few�.
-7.0, Britain declares war on Germany. Early
stages of World War Two in the UK, 1939-40
7/8/1940. First German air raid on Exeter.
31/7/1940. Hitler gave orders for a massive air offence against
Britain (see 8/8/1940).
23/7/1940, Britain�s :Local Defence Volunteers were renamed as
the Home Guard. The one million
strong force, containing many World War One veterans, would have been the
Resistance had Hitler invaded.
10/7/1940. The British
Union of Fascists was banned.
30/6/1940. German troops occupied Guernsey and Alderney,
Channel Islands, after the defeat of the French.
20/6/1940. The first
Australian and New Zealand troops arrived in Britain.
5/6/1940. The UK
government outlawed strikes.
31/5/1940. Britain arrested Sir Oswald Moseley,
leader of the British fascists. He
was interned at Brixton Prison. 24/5/1940, Middlesborough became the first British industrial town to be
bombed by Germany.
14/5/1940. Local
Defence Volunteers, later called the Home
Guard, was formed in Britain as a makeshift protection against Nazi
invasion.
11/5/1940, Winston Churchill became
head of the Wartime Coalition Government.�
10/5/1940. Neville Chamberlain, born 18/3/1869, resigned as Prime Minister in favour of Winston Churchill, who was born
on 30/11/1874. Chamberlain
died on 9/11/1940.
9/5/1940, German
bombs fell near Canterbury.
16/3/1940, The first
British civilians were killed by a German bomb, in the Shetlands.
6/2/1940, In Britain
the Government launched a �careless talk
costs lives� campaign.
14/1/1940, The
British Government announced that it was to arm all merchant shipping vessels.
1/1/1940. In Britain, 2 million 19 to 27 year olds were called
up.
16/10/1939, German air
raid on the Firth of Forth, causing naval casualties.
14/10/1939, The Royal
Navy battleship Royal Oak was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in
Scapa Flow, with the loss of 810 lives.
6/10/1939. Britain and
France rejected Hitler's peace bid.
30/9/1939. Identity cards were issued in Britain.
10/9/1939. The British Expeditionary force arrived in Cherbourg, France. Four divisions, comprising 158,000 men and
25,000 vehicles crossed the Channel with no interference from U-boats or the
Luiftwaffe.
The Dunkirk evacuation was completed on 4/6/1940.
4/9/1939. The
British liner Athenia sank the day
after being torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland. 93 lives were lost. She had sailed from Liverpool
on 2/9/1939 on her way to Montreal, and was informed about the outbreak of war
at 11.am on the 3rd. She sank with the loss of 19 crew and 93
passengers. This was the start of the Battle of the Atlantic. The last ship
sunk was the British Avondale Park on
7/5/1945. The German fleet was attacked by the RAF.
2/9/1939. Men aged 18-41
were conscripted in Britain under the National
Service Bill.
See
France/Germany for main events of World War Two
1/9/1939. Germany invaded Poland. Without a
declaration of war, 1.25 million German troops invaded Poland under Operation
Fall Weiss (White Plan) as the Luftwaffe destroyed the Polish rail system and
its airforce. Some 60,000 Poles were killed, 200,000 wounded, and 700,000
taken prisoner. Germany here eschewed the static trench warfare of World War
One, and the English language acquired a new word � blitzkrieg, meaning
lightning war. Warsaw is bombed at 6.am. On
11.am. 3/9/1939 Britain declared war on Germany because of this invasion. For the first time in history the King
went to Downing Street rather than the Prime Minister going to the Palace,
because Neville Chamberlain needed to stay near his phone. On the same day, 3/9, New Zealand, Australia, and France, at 5.pm. also
declared war on Germany. See 28/3/1939.
30/8/1939. The great evacuation of children from British cities
began, to avoid anticipated German bombing. In September 1939, 827,000 children and 535,000 pregnant women were
sent to rural areas. �Billeters� were paid 10s 6d for the first child and 8s 6d
for each subsequent child, per week.
25/8/1939, Britain
signed an assistance pact with Poland.
26/6/1939. The first National Serviceman, Private
Rupert Alexander, number 10000001, signed up with the Middlesex Regiment. The
Military Training (Conscription) Act had received Royal Assent on 26/5/1939.
1/7/1940. The practice of informal marriages at Gretna Green was abolished by Statute.
7/5/1940, George Lansbury, British Labour party leader, died in London aged 81.
15/4/1940, Geoffrey Archer, British politician and
author, was born.
1939, Citizen�s Advice Bureaux were established across the UK. By 1990
the UK had over 600 of them. They were originally set up to help solve family
problems in wartime, when the husband was likely away on te Front and the
children were evacuated to the countryside.
-8.0, Preparations
for War, 1937-39
23/11/1939, The deadline for British households to
register for their ration books for bacon, butter and sugar rations. Delays
were caused at shops because many customers had failed to write their name and
address in the ration book.
9/9/1939, In response to the War, Britain
re-established a Ministry of Food.
21/8/1939. Civil Defence started in Britain.
1/8/1939, The UK Government announced that if war
broke out, petrol would immediately be rationed. This did no0t encourage people
to travel on holiday, despite assurances by some hoteliers that bookings
cancelled because of a national Emergency need not be paid for.
6/1939, In Britain, as hostilities loomed in Europe, the
Women�s Land Army was reconstituted.
1/6/1939, The British naval submarine Thetis
sank whilst on trials in Liverpool Bay, with the loss of 99 lives. She was
later raised and put back into service as HMS Thunderbolt.
31/5/1939, Britain interned Oswald Moseley
and other fascists as the Government consolidated emergency powers.
25/5/1939, An
Anglo-Polish treaty was signed in London.
19/5/1939, The TUC
decided not to oppose the UK Government�s conscription plans.
27/4/1939. Britain announced that men aged 20 would be
conscripted. This was the first
time conscription had been used since World War One. 6 months military service
was required from men reaching age 20.
31/3/1939. The British Prime Minister, Neville
Chamberlain, pledged to defend Poland,
if attacked by Germany; so did France.�
21/12/1938, The UK
Government allocated �200,000 to the building of air-raid shelters.
1/12/1938, Britain
started a National Register for war service.
1/11/1938, In
Britain, Balloon Command was formed, under Fighter Command, to establish
barrage balloon protection for 12 cities including Bristol and Cardiff.
Experiments with barrage balloons had been carried out by the Germans back in
1917; the Allies also used them to protect Venice in 1918. The idea was to hoist a �barrage�
of cables to prevent bomber aircraft diving low, so their accuracy was
impaired. With the balloons, they could still dive but could not pull out
afterwards without hitting a cable and crashing. The balloon wincher faced
danger from lightning bolts, and from the static electric charge built up on
the wincher, especially in wet weather. An operator had to jump away from the
winch when leaving to avoid electrical conductance between his body and the
winch and earth.
30/9/1938, Chamberlain told a crowd �I believe it is peace in our time�
and waved the agreement he had made with Hitler at Munich, bearing Hitler�s
signature.� Chamberlain said �How horrible,
fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on
gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of
whom we know nothing�.
28/9/1938, The British navy was mobilised.
9/9/1938, The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS),
the women�s branch of the Army, was formed by Royal Warrant.
See
France/Germany for main events of World War Two
15/7/1938, The UK Government ordered 1,000 Spitfire
fighters.
9/7/1938. Gas masks were issued to the British
population, in anticipation of war with Germany. 35 million of them were
ordered by the British Government.
9/6/1938, The British Government ordered 400
warplanes from the USA.
30/3/1938, The UK Government announced it was to spend
�11 million on new RAF airfields.
24/3/1938, The British Prime Minister, Chamberlain,
announced that Britain would not oppose the German occupation of
Czechoslovakia, in the interests of peace. However Britain would fight for
France and Belgium.
14/3/1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made a speech
in the House of Commons on the Austrian situation, saying the government
"emphatically" disapproved of Germany's deed 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."
21/2/1938. Churchill led a protest against Chamberlain�s
policy of appeasement.
20/2/1938. Anthony Eden resigned as British Foreign
Secretary. He was unable to support the policy of appeasement of the Prime
Minister Chamberlain,
who had held talks with Mussolini.
3/1/1938. In the UK, the government announced that
all schoolchildren would be issued with gas masks.
16/11/1937, MPs in Westminster voted in favour of
constructing air-raid shelters in towns and cities.
5/11/1937. The Air Raid Precautions Bill was
introduced in the Commons. Passed on 16/11/1937, it allowed the construction of
air raid shelters in UK towns and cities. Winston Churchill said they were
�indispensable� but Labour opposed them, saying they would mean a big increase
in the rates.
10/9/1937, The TUC voted in favour of re-armament.
27/2/1939, Borley Rectory, reputed to be Britain�s most
haunted house, burnt down this day.
13/9/1938, John Smith,
leader of the UK Labour Party 1992-94, was born in Dalmally, Argyllshire.
2/7/1938, David Owen, British
politician and first leader of the Social Democratic Party, was born in
Plympton, Devon.
16/5/1938, The WVS (Women�s
Voluntary Service) was started in Britain by the Marchioness of Reading. It
became �Royal� in 1966.
3/5/1938.
King George VI
opened the Glasgow exhibition.
31/3/1938, David Steel,
Liberal Party leader, was born.
11/1/1938, Arthur Scargill,
President of the National Union of Mineworkers, was born.
9/11/1937. Ramsay
MacDonald,
British Labour Prime Minister in
1924, died at sea whilst on a cruise for his health.
28/5/1937. Mr Stanley Baldwin resigned as Prime Minister and
was succeeded by Mr Chamberlain. A
government of National Unity was formed in Britain. Born on 3/8/1867, Mr Baldwin
was the son of a west Midlands industrialist and was elected Conservative MP
for Bewdley in 1906. He became Prime Minister in May 1923. He had faced many
crises, such as the 1926 General Strike. In 1935 he replaced Ramsay
MacDonald as Prime Minister, and faced criticism over his foreign
policy. Mr
Baldwin appeared to belittle the growing threat of Nazi Germany and
he failed to intervene in the Spanish Civil War. After the abdication crisis
and subsequent coronation of George VI in May 1937, Baldwin retired and was granted
the title 1st Earl of Bewdley. Mr
Stanley Baldwin�s last act as Prime Minister was to raise the salaries
of MPs from �400 a year to �600 and to give the Leader of the Opposition a
salary.
16/3/1937, British statesman Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain
died.
14/1/1937. First ever Gallup opinion poll in Britain,
conducted by Sir
Henry Durant.
-9.0, Britain re-armament and Fascist
conflicts, 1933-37
10/1/1937, The UK Government banned volunteers from
fighting for the anti-Franco forces in Spain, introducing a two-year prison
sentence for the offence.
1/1/1937. Britain
banned political uniforms under the Public Order Act, so sounding the
death-knell for Oswald Mosley�s British
Union of Fascists.
14/7/1936, Britain
started producing gas masks.
30/4/1936, The
UK Government announced plans to build 38 warships.
14/7/1935, In Britain the
Peace Pledge Union was formed, after a meeting at the Albert Hall, to oppose
re-armament and war.
8/5/1935, The UK Cabinet heard that it was
estimated that the RAF was inferior to
the Luftwaffe by 370 aircraft and that in order to reach parity the RAF must
have 3,800 aircraft by April 1937�an extra 1,400 on the existing air programme.
It was learnt that Germany was easily able to outbuild this revised programme
as well. On 21 May 1935, the Cabinet agreed to expanding the home defence
force of the RAF to 1,512 aircraft (840 bombers and 420 fighters).
22/5/1935, The day
after Hitler
had made a speech claiming that German rearmament offered no threat to peace, Attlee
asserted that Hitler's
speech gave "a chance to call a halt in the armaments race". However
Britain announced plans to treble the size of the RAF in the next two years, to
make it equal to Germany�s.
19/7/1934. The UK government
announced that the RAF would receive another 500 planes.
21/1/1934. The British Union of Fascists, led by Sir Oswald
Moseley, held its biggest rally ever in Birmingham. Moseley called for a fascist dictatorship
in Britain.
15/10/1933, Moseley�s Fascist supporters were stoned in Manchester.
24/5/1933. In
Britain, the TUC called for a boycott of
Germany to protest against Hitler, who became Chancellor on 30/1/1933.
1/10/1932, The British Union of Fascists was founded.
30/4/1931, Moseley�s New Party
candidate split the vote in a by-election in Ashton Under Lyne, letting in the Conservative candidate.
28/2/1931, Oswald Moseley formed the 'New Party' in Britain after leaving the Labour Party.
-10.0, Jarrow March 1936
5/11/1936, A
special train took the Jarrow Marchers back home again from London. They
received a hero�s welcome, and the news that their unemployment benefit had
been cut as they had made themselves unavailable for work.
1/11/1936, Baldwin refused to meet the Jarrow Marchers.
5/10/1936. The Jarrow March, of 200 unemployed ship
workers, started from Jarrow, Tyneside, towards London; their petition had
11,000 signatures.� Jarrow had an
unemployment rate of 67%. The march was led by Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson. Jarrow had an
unemployment rate of 67%. The marchers reached London on 1/11/1936, where Ellen Wilkinson
presented a petition of 11,572 signatures so the Government. See 5/11/1936.
30/10/1932. Hunger marchers, protesting at
unemployment, clashed on the streets of London with police.
27/10/1936. Mrs Wallace Simpson divorced her
second husband Ernest,
becoming free to marry King Edward VIII, see 13/11/1936.
6/10/1936. The British Labour Party refused to affiliate with
the Communists.
-11.0, Postal
and telephone developments 1934-37
1/7/1937. The 999 emergency service came into operation in Britain, the first
such service in the world. The idea of setting up a joint number for the emergency services came
after five people died in a fire in Wimpole Street, London. The fireman came
late as the witness to the fire could not get through to the switchboard; at
that time a call to the emergency services received no more priority than any
other call. With the new system a light lit up on a map showing where the
call had been made from and a klaxon sounded at the operator centre. The number
111 was suggested but rejected at it might have led to many false calls. The
first 999 call was made seven days after the system was set up and resulted in
police arresting a burglar at the house of a Mr Stanley Beard in Hampstead.
24/7/1936. The
Speaking Clock was introduced by the GPO at the suggestion of Eugene Wender
of Hampstead, London.� It was known as TIM from the phone dial letters.
24/7/1935. Greetings
telegrams were introduced by the GPO. If they were in a gold envelope they cost
an extra 3d.
20/11/1934, Plans for numbered postal districts in British
towns were introduced.
22/5/1936, In Britain, J H Thomas, Colonial Secretary, resigned over
his leakage of Budget information.
14/5/1936, Viscount Allenby, British Army Commander in
Palestine in World
War One, died.
22/12/1935. In
the UK, Anthony Eden was appointed Foreign Secretary.
8/10/1935. Clement Attlee
was appointed stopgap leader of the Labour Party.
7/6/1935. Stanley Baldwin became British Prime Minister.
Ramsay
McDonald retired.
19/5/1935. T.E. (Thomas Edward) Lawrence, or Lawrence of
Arabia, died six days after a motorcycle accident in a country lane
in Moreton, Dorset; he swerved to avoid two boys on bicycles, and crashed. Colonel Lawrence was sent to Saudi Arabia to gain information about an Arab revolt
in the Arabian desert. Lawrence realised this revolt could be used to disrupt
the Turkish war effort. He persuaded the
British Army in Egypt to supply guns, armoured cars, and even aircraft. With these,
Lawrence led the Arabs on strategic attacks on railways and captured the town
of Aqaba. The Arabs then supported the British advance in Palestine. Lawrence was furious when after the War,
the Arabs were not given independence.
-12.0, Leisure and Tourism developments 1927-38
1/8/1938, The 1938
Holidays With Pay Act increased the number of British workers entitled to paid holiday
from 3 million to 11 million. Holiday entitlement was usually one week. Resorts
such as Blackpool had boomed with
charabancs bringing in crowds of vacationers, and in 1937 a Butlins holiday
camp opened at Skegness.
21/1/1935, Snowdonia,
Wales, was designated a national
park.
14/11/1932. Book
tokens were sold in Britain for the first time.
24/4/1932. Thousands of ramblers established public
access rights in the Peak District with a mass trespass �of 500 walkers
on Kinder Scout, the highest hill in
the Peak District. The event turned into a riot and 4 walkers and the leader Benny Rothman
was arrested, and spent 4 months in jail after sentencing at Derby Assizes. There
was a new fashion for outdoor pursuits, and just 1,212 acres of the 150,000
acres of moorland, close to the big cities of Manchester, Sheffield and Derby,
were open top the public. Benny Rothman died aged 90 in 2002.
10/6/1931, Chester
Zoo opened.
23/5/1931. Whipsnade
Zoo in Bedfordshire opened.
1/11/1929, The Pony
Club movement was founded in Britain.
2/10/1929, Britain set up a committee to consider the
establishing of National Parks.
21/4/1927. The National
Museum of Wales opened in Cardiff.
7/3/1934, John
Campbell Aberdeen, British politician, died (born 3/8/1847).
7/9/1933, Sir Edward Grey (born 25/4/1862), Liberal MP
for Berwick on Tweed from 1885 and UK Foreign Secretary 1905-1916, died at
Fallodon. He attempted to avert war in 1914 through negotiations with Germany.
23/8/1933. The King and Queen opened the new Civic Hall at Leeds.
21/5/1933. Britain signed a ten-year non-aggression pact with Italy, France, and
Germany.
19/4/1933. The UK banned trade with the USSR. See 18/4/1933.
21/3/1933 Michael Heseltine, British Conservative politician, was born.
28/12/1932, Roy Hattersley, British Labour Deputy Prime Minister, was born.
25/10/1932. (1) George Lansbury was elected leader of the British Labour Party.
(2) UK policemen�s pay was cut by 10%.
18/4/1932, Business reply-paid enveloped were introduced by
the GPO in Britain.
6/4/1932, The British Ministry of Health urged local
authorities to clear their slum areas.
22/3/1932, Sir Arthur Cecil Tyrrell Beck, British Liberal
Party politician, died (born 3/12/1878).
11/3/1932, Nigel Lawson, British Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, was born.
11/12/1931. The Statute
of Westminster, recognising the independence of the British Commonwealth,
became law.
27/10/1931. General
election held in the UK. A landslide victory by the National Government; Ramsay Mc
Donald continued to be Prime Minister. McDonald won 554 seats (470
of them Conservative) against 46 for Labour.
15/9/1931, The British Royal Navy mutinied at Invergordon
over servicemen�s pay cuts.
24/8/1931, Ramsay McDonald
formed a National Government, following the collapse of the UK�s Labour
Government. Most Labour MPs opposed it, but it was generally supported by the
Liberals and Conservatives.
6/7/1931, The 1931
Census showed Britain�s population almost static since the last census, at 44.8
million. However there had been a drift to the south, and London now had
8 million people, a rise of almost 10% since 1921.
29/3/1931, Norman Tebbit, British Conservative politician and chairman of the Party, was born.
27/10/1930, The London Naval Treaty was ratified.
29/8/1930, (1) The
inhabitants of St Kilda were
evacuated by the British Government. The 36 islanders, from the only village of
Hirta, were relocated on the Morvern
Peninsula, Argyll. The population of St Kilda had halved in a generation.
Formal school
education had only arrived on St Kilda in 1884.
(2) The Reverend William
Spooner, originator of spoonerisms, died.
27/7/1930, Shirley Williams, British politician who
co-founded the Social Democratic Party, was born, the daughter of Vera Brittain.
19/3/1930, Arthur James Balfour, British Conservative
Prime Minister from 1902-06, died aged 81.
15/1/1930, Ramsay Mac Donald advocated that the world powers
abolish battleships.
4/12/1929, The House of Lords voted 43 to 21 against the UK
resuming diplomatic relations with the USSR.
1/10/1929, Britain resumed diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia.
29/7/1929, Britain�s Foreign Secretary, Arthur Henderson, had talks with
his Soviet counterpart about restoring Anglo-Soviet diplomatic relations.
30/5/1929. UK General Election. Labour secured its first Parliamentary majority � see 22/1/1924.
The Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald,
running Britain�s second Labour government, appointed Margaret Bondfield as Britain�s first woman minister. She was
Minister of Labour, a key post, given the lengthening dole queues Britain faced.
Labour won 288 seats, the Conservatives 260.
21/5/1929, Lord Roseberry, British Liberal Prime
Minister, died.
29/4/1929, The future Liberal
Party leader, Jeremy Thorpe, was
born.
20/4/1928, Archaeologist Gerard Stanley Hawkins was born in Norfolk,
England,
15/2/1928. (1) Herbert Harry Asquith, Liberal
Prime Minister in the UK from 1908 to 1916, died.
(2) The Oxford
English Dictionary was completed after 70 years of work.
29/1/1928, General Earl Haig, WW I Commander and founder
of the British Legion, died in London. He was buried at Dryburgh Abbey.
31/12/1927, In Britain the Electricity Supply Act provided for the setting up of a Central
Electricity Board, which was to create a uniform national supply via a national
grid. At the time, there were many small
competing power companies, delaying the spread of electrification, and only about 10% of UK homes could run the new
electrical gadgets such as vacuum cleaners.
22/11/1927, 200
unemployed Welsh miners marched to London, but Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin refused to meet them.
5/10/1927. The
Labour Party voted to nationalise the coal
mines at its party conference at Blackpool.
8/9/1927, In
Edinburgh, the� Trades Union Congress
voted to cut ties with Soviet trades unions.
14/7/1927, The Prince of Wales opened the Scottish National
War Memorial in Edinburgh, It now contains the names of over 100,000 Scots who
died in both World Wars.
23/6/1927. Britain passed the Trades Disputes Act, making sympathetic strikes illegal. This was a
consequence of the General Strike,
to support the miners, which began on 3/5/1926.
20/11/1926. (1) The
Commonwealth was born out of the British Empire. Britain decided that the
self-governing dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and
Newfoundland should have equal status with Britain as members of a
�commonwealth of nations�. Ireland also became independent. The status of India
was unchanged.
(2) Sir
Geoffrey Howe,
British Conservative politician, was born.
19/11/1926. British
striking miners returned to work, after a six-month strike, agreeing to
work longer hours in return for no pay cut.
12/5/1926. Striking
miners in Britain resolved to carry on alone, after the TUC called off a
general strike in support. 10/5/1926. Striking UK miners grew angry as the army moved food from the docks by
rail (see 1/5/1926). The Flying Scotsman was derailed in Northumberland,
partly because the volunteer driver refused to heed warnings that the track
ahead had been lifted. No serious injuries were caused, but the miners
responsible got prison sentences of up to eight years.
8/5/1926, The naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough was born.
3/5/1926, The General
Strike began in Britain.
1/5/1926. In Britain, a coal strike began over proposed
pay cuts and longer working hours by the mine owners, faced with a slump in the
coal trade (see 25/7/1925). The miners were locked out, and voted
overwhelmingly for strike action. The first General Strike In British history began on 4/5/1926 when the TUC
(Trades Union Congress) voted to back the striking miners. There were
worries about a Communist revolution in Britain. On 11/5/1926 the
engineering and shipworkers unions called their men out on strike, but at this
time negotiations were going on to end the strike. The TUC agreed to government
terms but the miners did not. The TUC called off the General Strike on
12/5/1926 leaving the miners on their own. Many trains were run by volunteers,
especially undergraduates and rail enthusiasts, and troops took over the
unloading of food at London�s docks (see 10/5/1926). Students also drove
lorries, trams, and buses, the illegality of this being ignored. On 23/6/1927
the Trades Disputes Act was passed,
outlawing sympathetic strikes. The Trade Union movement suffered a setback;
membership had been falling from a peak of 8.3 million in 1920 to 5.3 million
in 1926, and further fell to 4.3 million by 1933. See 12/5/1926.
6/3/1926. Fire destroyed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at
Stratford on Avon. Only a blackened shell was left.
25/11/1925, In Britain, 12 Communists arrested in October 1925
were jailed for sedition.
13/10/1925, The future Conservative
leader, Margaret Thatcher, was born as Margaret Roberts.� She was born in Grantham, the daughter of a
grocer. She was Prime Minister 1979-90.
12/8/1925. Norris and Ross McWhirter, the British twins
who founded the Guinness Book of Records, were born. After the Bible, it is the
best selling book in the world (2002). Ross McWhirter was murdered by the IRA.
7/8/1925. The Summer
Time Act in the UK was made permanent.
5/8/1925, The first public
meeting of Plaid Cymru, the Welsh
Nationalist Party. Founder-member Saunders
Lewis planned a wholly-Welsh-speaking summer school at Machynlleth to open
in August 1926.
22/5/1925, Sir John French, British General who led the
British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium, died.
12/5/1925, Alfred, Lord Milner, British statesman, died
aged 71.
9/4/1925, Tom Jackson, British union leader, was born.
3/4/1925, Anthony Wedgewood Benn, British Labour politician, was born.
20/3/1925, Lord Curzon, British statesman, died aged 66.
13/3/1925, British MPs approved the Summer Time Bill, making annual daylight saving time permanent,.
2/12/1924, The UK and Germany signed a trade pact.
21/11/1924, The new Conservative Government of Britain
repudiated a treaty made by the previous Labour administration with the USSR.
6/11/1924. The new Conservative Prime Minister of Britain, Stanley Baldwin,
appointed Winston
Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
9/10/1924. Britain�s
minority Labour government fell after a vote of censure in the Commons; the
vote was 364 against the Government, 198 in favour. On 29/10/1924 the
Conservatives won a large victory following a scare over the �Zinoviev letter�. This was a forged letter allegedly from Moscow, urging a Communist
revolution in Britain. A General Election was held on 30/10/1924 and the
result was 413 seats to the Conservatives, against 151 for Labour and 40 for the
Liberals. Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister.
7/10/1924, The British
Labour Party banned Communists from becoming members.
January 1924 General Elections; Labour win
23/1/1924, Ramsay McDonald formed Britain�s first Labour
Government (without an overall majority). Philip Snowden became Chancellor of the
Exchequer.
22/1/1924. The Labour Party won 288 seats against the
Conservatives 266, but had no overall majority as the Liberals held 59. Ramsay
MacDonald became Britain�s first
Labour Prime Minister, succeeding
the Conservative, Stanley Baldwin. See also 26/7/1945. The first
Labour government in Britain was elected. King George V sent for Ramsay MacDonald (born
12/10/1866) following the Conservative defeat on a censure motion in the
Commons the previous day. The state of the Commons was then, previous to the
election, Conservative 259 seats, Labour 191, and Liberals 159. Labour secured
its first UK Parliamentary majority on 30/5/1929.
The new Labour government was to prioritise
unemployment; slum clearance and house building would also be tackled.
8/12/1923. In the UK 8 women were now MPs. The British
general election resulted in a hung Parliament. The Conservatives, standing on
a platform of protectionist tariffs to reduce unemployment, lost seats, finishing
with 258 seats. Labour had 191 seats, and the Liberal had 159 seats.
30/10/1923, Andrew Bonar-Law, Canadian-born UK Prime Minister, died.
22/5/1923. Stanley Baldwin became Conservative Prime
Minister after the resignation Andrew Bonar
Law of due to illness. Baldwin was to serve as PM for three
terms.� See 23/10/1922.
11/4/1923, In Britain, the Conservative Government suffered a
Commons defeat, by 145 votes to 138, on a motion on ex-servicemen.
21/11/1922. Ramsay MacDonald was elected leader of the Labour
Party.
November 1922
General Elections; Conservative win
16/11/1922. In Britain, the
Tories under Bonar
Law won the General Election with a majority of 77. The
Conservatives got 345 seats. Labour won
142 to become the main opposition party for the first time, and the
Liberals had 117 seats.
26/10/1922, King George V
dissolved parliament and called new
elections for November 15.
23/10/1922, A Bonar Law became UK Conservative Prime Minister, succeeding Austin
Chamberlain.� He resigned
22/5/1923 due to illness (died 30/10/1923), and was replaced by Stanley Baldwin
on 22/5/1923, becoming the shortest term of office in the 20th
century.
20/5/1923, Bonar Law, UK Prime Minister,
resigned due to illness.
19/10/1922, At the Carlton Club Meeting, in Britain, the
Tories decided to quit the coalition with the Liberals.
1/8/1922, Britain distributed the Balfour Note to the rest of the Allies, stating that Britain would
only attempt to recover from its European debtors the same amount as the US was
seeking to recover from Britain as a War Loan. This placed the burden of moral responsibility for war damages squarely
on the USA.
14/5/1922, William Abraham, British Labour politician
from south Wales (born 1842) died.
26/2/1922, Britain and France concluded a 20-year alliance.
13/2/1922, Francis Pym,
British politician, was born.
4/1/1922, 80 acres
of Hartlepool devastated by a major fire.
1921, The British Medical
Association estimated that a family of five needed to spend 22s 6 � d on food
to eat healthily; however Unemployment Benefit was just 29s 3d a week, and the
poorest slum accommodation still cost 6s a week to rent.
11/11/1921, The British legion held its first Poppy Day.
23/8/1921. The 1921
Census of Britain showed the population had increased by almost 2 million to
42,767,530. 7.4 million of these lived in London.
War losses affected the total, but the loss due to emigration was greater.
Women exceeded men by 2 million, much the same as in 1911.
29/6/1921, Lady Randolph Churchill, American mother of Winston
Churchill, died.
22/6/1921, The British Labour Party decided against
affiliating with the Communists.
12/6/1921. Last Sunday deliveries by British postmen.
14/5/1921. The British
Legion was founded in London by Earl Haig. It was renamed the Royal British Legion in 1971.
15/4/1921, Less than
a day before it was due to begin, a rail and transport workers strike in support
of the striking coalminers was called off. The miners had been locked out of
the pits since 1/4/1921. The miners wanted higher wages, and wage equality
across the country; the pit owners wanted to reduce wages. The owners proposed
a compromise of continuing with present wages, but this was rejected by the
miner�s executive this day by a majority of one vote. The miners called this
day �Black Friday�.
1/4/1921. In
Britain, a coal strike began; a state of emergency was proclaimed. Coal rationing
began on 3/4/1921. However the strike became a lockout, and the coal miner's
traditional allies, the railway and transport unions, failed to support them.
The miners had to return on humiliating terms, including a wages cut. The
strike was settled on 4/7/1921, after the UK government promised to subsidise
the coal industry. Wage reductions in other industries followed and neither
Lloyd George or any other politician ever again had the chance to make Britain 'a land fit for heroes'.
21/3/1921. Austen Chamberlain succeeded Andrew Bonar
Law as Conservative leader (who had resigned due to ill-health).
17/3/1921. In Britain, Andrew Bonar Law resigned leadership of the
Conservative Party.
12/2/1921, In Britain, Winston Churchill was appointed Colonial Secretary.
8/1/1921, Lloyd George became the first Prime Minister to occupy Chequers, the house near Wendover
given to the nation by Lord Lee of Fareham.
1/1/1921, The Navy, Army, and Air Force Institute, or NAAFI, was founded in Britain.
11/11/1920, The Labour politician Roy Jenkins was born at
Abersychan.
18/10/1920. Britain's miners walked out over a claim for 2
shillings (10p) more a week, work did not resume until 3/11/1920.
1/8/1920, The Communist Party of Great Britain was
founded.�
30/4/1920. Britain abolished conscription.
6/1/1920, Walter Cunliffe, British banker (born
4/12/1855), died at Epsom.
11/1919, A year after World War One ended, the Women�s Land Army was disbanded.
27/10/1919, Lord Curzon succeeded A J Balfour as British Foreign
Secretary.
10/10/1919, British teachers,
their salaries still at pre war levels, asked for a doubling of their pay.
10/9/1919, The TUC favoured nationalising the coal industry.
3/8/1919, Riots in Liverpool during the policemen�s strike.
19/7/1919, Allied victory in the Great War was celebrated with
parades and banquets, three weeks after the Treaty of Versailles had been
signed. However many British demobbed servicemen felt aggrieved at this, being
unemployed and without the �Homes for Heroes� they had been promised. There
were civil disturbances in several towns, which escalated into a full riot in Luton,
where a crowd burnt down the Town Hall, where a feast had been prepared for
local dignitaries. The Mayor was forced to flee the town.
23/6/1919, The British Government recommended nationalising the coal mines.
21/6/1919. German sailors
unexpectedly scuttled the captive German fleet, 72 warships, at Scapa Flow.
31/1/1919, In Glasgow, a sheriff was hit by a bottle as he
read the Riot Act; 40 were injured in clashes with police.
7/1/1919, Labour began to act as the official opposition in
the UK House of Lords.
31/12/1918, The British War Cabinet met for the last time.
28/12/1918. Lloyd George�s coalition was re-elected to
government. Lloyd
George had the support of 478 MPs; the Opposition had 229 MPs, of
whom 63 were Labour.
20/11/1918, The Germans
surrendered their submarines at Harwich.
19/11/1918, The UK government
revealed that the War had cost 767,000 deaths and some 2.3 million injured.
11/11/1918. Armistice Day. World War One ended. Fighting ceased on the Western Front, and
Austro-Hungary signed an armistice with the Allies. See 29/9/1918.� Church
bells rang out across Britain in celebration. The Allies had not expected
such a sudden collapse of Germany; in September 1918 they were planning
campaigns for 1919. However General Ludendorff was shaken by the sudden Allied
advance (see 8/8/1918) and begged Kaiser Wilhelm to seek an armistice immediately.
The Armistice was signed in Marshal Foch�s railway carriage, near
Compiegne.� Warsaw became the capital of a restored Polish State. The armistice
required Germany to relinquish 5,000 heavy guns, 30,000 machine guns, 2,000
aircraft, all U-boats, 5,000 locomotives,�
150,000 wagons and 5,000 lorries. The surface fleet was to be interned
(see 21/11/1918), the Allies were to occupy the Rhineland, and the blockade of
German ports would continue. World War One cost 9 million lives, with a further
27 million injured. Britain alone had lost 750,000 men, and a further 200,000
from the Empire, with another 1.5 million seriously injured. The War had cost
the Allies an estimated US$ 126 billion, and the Central Powers a further US$
60 billion. Britons now
celebrated, and wages rose, although higher food prices eroded some of those
gains. Women, at least those over 30, finally had the vote, and smoking,
gambling and movies boomed, with Charlie Chaplin as movie star. The US was the greatest beneficiary of the War. US
losses amounted to 53,000 men, a small number compared to 8,500,000 casualties
of the European combatants. US industry had become more efficient, and key
sectors such as chemicals had learned to do without Europe; the US aviation
industry had been transformed. Economically, The US had needed European capital
before 1914; by 1918 Europe owed the US some US$ 10,000 million.
See France-Germany
for main events of World War One
15/9/1918, Mr C Chubb gave Stonehenge to the nation.
1/7/1918, A catastrophic
explosion at the Chilwell munitions
plant near Nottingham killed 134
workers. The women who worked there making nitrogen-based explosives were known
as �Canary Girls�, because the chemicals turned theor skin yellow and hair green.
The blast was heard 30 miles away, but news of it was suppressed. The Chilwell
factory had produced 19 million shells, half of those used by British forces
during the First World War. Of the 7,000 surviving workers, all but 12 were
back working at Chilwell the day after.
18/6/1918, The UK Government
asked for a further War Loan of �500 million. General rationing in the UK began
on 19/6/1918.
19/4/1918, Alfred Milner became British War Secretary.
7/3/1918, Bonar Law asked the UK Commons for another War Loan of �600 million.
25/2/1918. Rationing of meat,
butter, and margarine began in London and the Home Counties.
6/2/1918. A deposit of �150 was required from UK
Parliamentary candidates.
30/1/1918, The Commons
rejected the Lords� proposal for proportional representation.
23/1/1918, The UK Government ordered restaurants to have two
�meatless� days a week.
19/1/1918, The training ship Warspite was destroyed by fire.
17/1/1918, Sir Keith Joseph, British politician, was
born.
1/1/1918, Sugar rationing
began in Britain.
31/12/1917, During the year
1917 German submarines sank 6,500,000 tons of Allied shipping whilst only
2,700,000 tons was built. In April 1917 Britain had only two months� worth of
food stocks. However with US destroyer patrols searching for German submarines,
escorted transatlantic convoys and the mining of the seas between Scotland and
Norway, Allied losses were dramatically reduced and after April 1918 never
exceeded 200,000 tons a month.
5/10/1917. Sir Arthur Lee donated Chequers to the nation as a country retreat for British Prime
Ministers.
14/9/1917. German submarine
shelled Scarborough.
2/9/1917, Major
German night time air raid on Dover.
30/8/1917. Denis Healey, British Labour politician, was born.
28/7/1917, The formation of
the Royal Tank Corps in the British
Army was authorised.
17/7/1917. Churchill returned to UK government as Minister for Munitions.
5/7/1917, Joe Gormley, President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM),
was born.
19/6/1917, All German titles
and names are renounced by the British
Royal Family, who adopted the name Windsor.
The old name had been Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
13/6/1917, Large
German air raid on Folkestone, Shorncliffe and other Kent towns. 95 died and
260 were injured.
12/5/1917. The British army
began to accept men aged 41-50.
26/4/1917. �German naval raid on Ramsgate.
18/3/1917. Ramsgate and
Broadstairs shelled from the sea.
2/1917, In Britain the Women�s Land
Army (WLA) was set up, to boost domestic food production whilst the men
were away fighting in the trenches. The UK Government promoted a �voluntary
rationing� scheme. By 1918 the WLA
had 20,000 volunteers, doing dairy work, ploughing, and tree felling.
7/12/1916. In Britain, David Lloyd George succeeded Herbert Asquith
as Prime Minister (see 8/4/1908). A Coalition government led by the Liberals was formed.
5/12/1916, An
explosion at the Barnbow munitions factory, Leeds, killed 35 women. The
incident was censored and went unreported at the time. War production resumed
within a week, with wages on �12 a week, equivalent to over �1,000 a week in
2015.
Military Tanks
15/9/1916. Tanks went into battle for the first time, for the
British Army at the battle of Flers on the�
Somme.� They were invented by Sir Ernest Swinton, weighed 30
tons, and travelled at 4mph. It was hoped they would break the stalemate of
trench warfare. Some German soldiers
fled, thinking the Devil had come. The tank forces achieved their objective but
infantry reserves could not arrive in time to consolidate the successes.
29/1/1916. Military tanks were trialled at Hatfield,
Hertfordshire.
9/7/1916. British Prime Minister (1970-74) Edward Heath, was born in Broadstairs, Kent.
25/5/1916, Britain extended
compulsory military conscription from single men (Military Service Act, given
Royal Assent on 27/1/1916) to married men too (a second Military Service Act).
21/5/1916, Daylight saving
time began in Britain. It was introduced by William Willett, to save coal
stocks by reducing the demand for electric lighting.
17/5/1916. The Daylight
Saving Act was passed. Clocks went forward in Britain for the first time on
21/5/1916, causing some confusion. See 7/8/1925.
16/5/1916, French diplomat Francois-Georges Picot and
British diplomat Mark Sykes began a secret correspondence to decide how the
Middle East would be divided up after World War One (see also 30/10/1917). The
Western Powers had already decided that the Ottoman Empire was too vast and too
corrupt to be allowed to survive. Britain would claim Jordan, most of Iraq, and
the port city of Haifa. France� would
take SE Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Palestine would be jointly
administered between Britain and France. Russia would be granted the city of
Constantinople and several Armenian-dominated regions. In fact the Russian
Revolution of 1917 and further diplomatic developments meant that not all these
provisions became reality, but the Sykes-Picot agreement set the scene for many
of the issues of the Middle East during the 20th century.
2/4/1916, A large explosion occurred at the Uplees explosives
factory, Kent, which was producing armaments for World War One. 116 men and
boys were killed.
11/3/1916. British Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was born in Huddersfield,
Yorkshire.
Britain
faces unanticipated issues during the War
29/9/1916, The British Government asked people to
observe a �meatless day� to prevent food price rises.
10/3/1916, The UK War
Office urged women to be less extravagant in their dress. From now until the end of the war there would be no imports of spirits,
pianos, or motors.
23/2/1916, The
British Government urged well-off families to release their servants for �more
useful purposes�.
6/1/1916, The
Commons voted in favour of conscription
by 403 votes to 103, although the Home Secretary Sir John Simon resigned over the
issue. Single men were to be conscripted first; armed service became compulsory
for single men aged between 18 and 41. Many
British soldiers had been killed in the War, and volunteering rates had dropped
off sharply.
1915, The Women's Institute was formed in 1915 to revitalise rural
communities and encourage women to become more involved in producing food
during the First World War.
13/11/1915. Churchill
resigned from the cabinet over the Dardanelles.
See
France-Germany for main events of World War One
9/11/1915, British war
casualties now totalled 510,000.
12/10/1915. The British
nurse, Edith
Cavell, was executed by a German firing squad in Brussels for
helping Allied prisoners escape over the Dutch frontier; she had given medical
attention to both Allied and German casualties equally.� The
Brussels authorities had ordered her execution, which was opposed by the Kaiser
and the German High Command as a political mistake, carried out quickly by
the German occupation regime in Belgium before Berlin was informed.� Her
death aroused patriotic fervour in Britain against Germany.
25/5/1915. Prime
Minister Herbert
Asquith of Britain formed a wartime Liberal-Conservative coalition,
replacing the former Liberal Government; Asquith remained Prime Minister. The Liberal Government had been shaken by
the scandal of British troops in the front line facing a shortage of high
explosive shells.
26/9/1915. Kier Hardie, founder of the Labour Party, died.
15/7/1915. 200,000 Welsh miners went on strike for more pay.
Wartime
curbs on civil liberties
24/1/1916. Conscription started in Britain. It was for
single men aged 19-30.
13/10/1915, The
British Government banned �treating� � buying drinks for another � in an effort
to curb drunkenness amongst factory workers.
16/7/1915, In Britain
the National Registration Act made it compulsory for men eligible for military
service to register.
14/5/1915, Britain
began internment of enemy aliens.
13/5/1915, In Britain,
street violence against those suspected of being �aliens� increased following
the sinking of the Lusitania on
7/5/1915.
1/5/1915, Widespread
resentment by British workers at alcohol
sales restrictions.
30/3/1915, In Britain King George V offered to give up alcohol as an example to the munitions
workers.
1/2/1915,
British passport holders were required to carry photographs, not just written
descriptions.
27/11/1914, The UK
passed the Defence of the Realm Act
(DORA), enabling the government to requisition factories and censor the
press. Further restrictions were imposed as the War progressed.
10/5/1915. Denis Thatcher, wife of Margaret, British Prime Minister,
was born.
26/2/1915. Clydeside armament workers went on strike for more
pay.
30/1/1915, John Profumo, British Cabinet Minister
involved in the Profumo Affair with Christine
Keeler and a Russian attach�, was born.
22/11/1914, Peter Townsend, British Air Force officer in
World War Two, was born.
Build up to
World War One in Britain
26/11/1914, At Sheerness, Kent, the HMS Bulwark
exploded, killing 700 people.
3/10/1914, The first national flag day was held in
England, in aid of the Belgian Relief Fund.
11/8/1914. Young men
in Britain formed long queues outside army recruiting offices, anxious not to miss the war, which was
expected to be over by Christmas. Farm boys, city workers, peers, and
dustmen left their jobs �to serve King and country�. Schoolboys gave false ages
and friends join up together to fight together on the front. War was seen not only as a patriotic duty
but as a break from a humdrum existence. However Sir Edward Grey, the
Foreign Secretary, was more realistic. He said �the lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit
again in our lifetime�.
9/8/1914. The first British troops arrived in France. The British
Expeditionary Force was landed from 9th to 17th
August at Boulogne.
4/8/1914. Britain declared war on Germany for violating the Treaty of London. President
Wilson declared the USA neutral. That morning, Germany began the invasion of Belgium (see 2/8/1914, and 6/8/1914). The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia
brought Russia in as Serbia�s ally, and Germany entered as Austria�s ally. Britain might well have stayed neutral had
Germany not invaded Belgium in an attempt to outflank France. Germany began
mining Danish waters and requested Denmark to mine the Great Belt. Denmark,
believing Germany would mine it anyway, said it would do so. Britain believed the war would be over by
Christmas.
See
France-Germany for main events of World War One
2/8/1914. Britain mobilised the Royal Navy after Germany
declared war on Russia.. The
British Cabinet had finally agreed that a German
presence in French Channel ports could not be tolerated, and so France must
be helped against Germany (see 9/8/1914), although at the end of July most of
the Cabinet had been for non-intervention in Europe.
1/1/1914, Lloyd George called the arms build-up in western Europe �organised insanity�.
22//7/1912. To counter the growing
German naval threat, the British Admiralty recalled warships from the
Mediterranean to begin patrols in the North Sea.
9/10/1911,
The King George V, Britain�s biggest battleship to date, was launched.
21/7/1911, Lloyd George,
Chancellor of the Exchequer, warned Germany not to threaten British interests
in the western Mediterranean, or Gibraltar.�
See 1/7/1911.� Germany denied such
ambitions, but Britain began preparing for war with Germany.
9/3/1911,
The British Government announced that five more battleships were to be built.
2/2/1910,
The British army was concerned about a possible shortage of horses if war
should break out with Germany.
2/7/1914, Joseph Chamberlain, British politician, died.
4/6/1914, In Britain, railway workers and miners came out on
strike in support of builders and other workers already on strike.
15/5/1914, The Commons rejected the idea of Home Rule for
Scotland.
10/5/1914, In Britain, the Liberal Unionist Party united with
the Conservatives.
30/3/1914. 100,000 miners in Yorkshire went on strike.
1913, Almost 4 million
holidaymakers had visited Blackpool this year, up from nearly 2 million in 1893
and 850,000 in 1873.
7/11/1913. Box Hill, Surrey, was formally given to the
nation.
26/10/1913, Hugh Scanlon, British trade unionist, was
born.
14/10/1913, Britain�s
worst coal mining disaster occurred at Universal Colliery, Senghenydd,
Glamorgan, when 439 died in a pit explosion. The blast was heard 11 miles away
in Cardiff.
31/7/1913, Lloyd George said the Lords should be abolished.
23/6/1913, Michael Foot, UK Labour Party Leader, was
born.
3/1/1913, James Hamilton Abercorn, British politician
(born 24/8/1838) died.
1912, The
D Notice committee was founedto �guide� the press on matters concerning
national security.
18/12/1912. The Piltdown Man was discovered in Sussex.
It was claimed to be the fossilised skull and other remains of the earliest
known European man. On 21/11/1953 it was revealed as� a hoax, the skull was that of an orang-utan.
21/9/1912, Ian McGregor, chairman of British Steel and
British Coal, was born.
24/7/1912, Emma Cons, British social worker and
philanthropist, died at Hever, Kent (born 4/3/1838 in London).
21/7/1912, UK, Second
reading of the Franchise Bill, giving all men over 21 the vote.
26/6/1912, The first Alexandra Day.
16/6/1912. Enoch Powell
was born in Stechford, Birmingham.
26/5/1912, The UK was paralysed by a transport strike.
10/4/1912, Troops were called out to quell riots in Wigan.
27/3/1912. British Labour leader and Prime Minister 1976-1979,
James Callaghan, was born in
Portsmouth.
15/2/1912, An attempt by the British Labour Party to
institute a Minimum Wage was
defeated in the House of Commons.
13/11/1911. Bonar Law became leader of the Tory Party,
succeeding Arthur
James Balfour.
9/11/1911, A squadron of soldiers, the 18th
Hussars, with rifles, patrolled the streets of Tonypandy, south Wales, after
clashes between striking miners and the police, in which the police had been
stoned.
8/11/1911, Arthur Balfour, Conservative leader, resigned.
23/10/1911. Winston Churchill
was appointed First Lord of the
Admiralty.
6/10/1911. Barbara Castle,
British Labour politician, was born.
6/9/1911. The British TUC condemned the use of troops in
strikes.
18/8/1911. In the UK, the
Official Secrets Bill got Royal Assent. This made it a criminal offence for government
departments to disclose certain categories of information.
17-19/8/1911. Railway strike in the UK. Armed troops were called
out to assist the police in safeguarding the nation�s food supplies. Food
convoys left main railway goods junctions under heavy guard.
14/8/1911, South Wales miners ended their strike after 14
months.
13/8/1911, Rioting broke out in Liverpool after Tom Mann
and other trade unionists held mass meetings near St George�s Hall.
8/8/1911. Violence flared in Liverpool�s streets as a nationwide strike
continued.
The strike by railwaymen,
dockers, and other transport workers threatened a
nationwide famine, and warships stood by to help merchant ships off Liverpool
to unload. 50,000 troops stood by in Liverpool.
20/7/1911, 20 rioters in Wales shot dead by troops.
19/7/1911, The Liver Building in Liverpool was opened.
23/6/1911. Coronation of King George V.
22/6/1911, Liverpool�s Liver Clock, called �Great George�,
began showing the time.
15/5/1911, King George V
and his cousin the Kaiser reasserted their friendship.
3/5/1911, In Britain, Lloyd George introduced a National Health
Insurance Bill.
7/4/1911, The House of Commons gave a second reading to a
Bill giving copyright during an author�s lifetime and for 50 years after their
death.
6/2/1911. The Labour Party elected Ramsay MacDonald as its leader,
replacing Kier Hardie.
20/12/1910. Liberals and
Tories tied in the UK general election. Liberals and Conservatives got 272
seats each (from 397 Liberal MPs). The Liberals under Herbert Asquith remained in
power with the backing of 42 Labour MPs and 84 Irish Nationalists. The Tories
lost support because their blocking of the Budget landed Britain with a �10
million debt. If the House of Lords still blocked the Budget, Asquith
threatened to create 300 new peers to ensure it passed, a measure reluctantly
agreed to by King
George V. Reform of the powers of the House of Lords has now become
a major political issue. This issue sidelined Liberal policies for home rule
for Wales and Scotland. In the event, World War One also delayed home rule for
Ireland.
29/10/1910, A J Ayer, British philosopher, was born (died
1989).
10/5/1910, In Britain the House of Commons resolved that the
House of Lords should have no power to veto money Bills, limited power to
postpone other Bills, and that the maximum lifetime of a Parliament should be
reduced from seven to five years.
27/4/1910, In Britain the �People�s Budget� was passed
again� by the Commons; after three hours
of debate it was also passed by the Lords, and received Royal Assent.
4/4/1910, The first Commons reading of a Bill to abolish the Lords� power of veto.
11/3/1910, A dam burst in The Rhondda, Wales, sweeping away
500 children; 494 were rescued.
21/2/1910, Douglas Bader, World War Two fighter pilot and
squadron leader, was born in London.
Continued
defence worries over Germany
15/1/1910. UK General Election. German rearmament, the
power of the Lords,and Irish Home Rule were major issues. The Liberals won with
a reduced majority of 275 seats, against Labour with 40, the Irish nationalists
with 82, and the Unionists with 273 seats.issue.
1909, The security
agencies MI5 and MI6 were founded in Britain.
21/3/1909, Reginald McKenna,
First Lord of the Admiralty, caused dismay in the House of Commons when he
stated that the UK Government had underestimated Admiral von Tirpitz�s programme
to expand the German
navy.
8/2/1909, The UK
Government announced that six more Dreadnought battleships were to be built for
the Navy.
7/11/1908, The British Navy launched its biggest
battleship to date, the HMS Collingwood.
16/10/1908, A new harbour at Dover was opened as part
of a national system of defence.
1/4/1908, The Territorial Army was officially founded, as
the Territorial Force, by Lord Haldane.
26/10/1907, The UK�s�
Territorial
Army was conceived by the Secretary of State for War, Richard Haldane.
28/2/1907, Britain�s Royal Navy ordered three more
Dreadnought warships.
30/11/1909, The House of Lords threw out a Budget by Liberal
Chancellor Lloyd George they considered too left-wing. Prime Minister Herbert
Asquith now faced a General Election. The controversial Budget proposed taxing
the highest 10,000 earners with incomes over �5,000 a year in Britain an extra
6d in the � income tax, over and above the rate of 1 shilling 2d in the � paid
by all earners above �2,000 a year, a rise from 1 shilling in the �. Unearned
income was also to be taxed at 1s 2d in the �. Death duties were to be doubled.
The tax money would fund rearmament and old age pensions. The Tories described
the Budget as a tax on the propertied classes. On 3/12/1909 King Edward VII
dissolved Parliament, and taxes on alcohol, tobacco and cars were suspended as
no Budget had been passed. For half a century it had been accepted that the
unelected Lords could not veto a money Bill from the elected Commons, but the
Tories argued this Bill had too many non-financial measures to come under this
rule.
5/11/1909, The first Woolworth
store opened
in Britain, in Lord Street, Liverpool.
9/10/1909, Donald Coggan, 101st Archbishop of Canterbury,
was born.
30/7/1909, Northcote Parkinson,
British author, historian and journalist, best known for stating Parkinson�s Law that work expands to fill the time available,
was born.
6/6/1909, Isaiah Berlin,
Russian-British political philosopher, was born.
28/11/1908, The Court
of Appeal in Britain ruled that Unions could not use their funds for political
purposes. Many Labour MPs depended on sponsorship by the Unions.
26/11/1908, Charles (Lord) Forte, hotelier, was born.� He opened Newport Pagnell services on the M1
in 1959, and died in 2007.
6/11/1908, A cotton workers strike in Lancashire ended after
seven weeks with the workers accepting a pay cut.
5/11/1908, The Cullinan Diamond was cut for Queen Alexandra,
Britain.
25/10/1908, Lewis Campbell, British classical scholar (born
3/9/1830) died.
12/9/1908, Winston Churchill married Clementine Hosier.
15/8/1908, Winston Churchill announced his engagement to Clementine
Hosier.
7/9/1908, Frederick Blayes, English classical scholar,
died in Southsea (born Hampton Court Green 29/9/1818).
2/6/1908, Sir Redvers Buller, British General, died
(born 1839).
30/5/1908, Bernard Fitz Alan Howard, 16th Duke of
Norfolk, British statesman, was born.
11/5/1908, The foundation stone of the Liver Building,
Liverpool, was laid.
12/4/1908, Herbert Asquith was appointed Prime Minister,
replacing Sir
Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who had resighned through ill-health.
David Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer.
5/4/1908, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, English Prime
Minister, died (born 7/9/1836).
1/3/1908, John Adrian, 1st Marquess of Linlithgow, died.
22/1/1908, The British Labour Party decided to adopt Socialism.
6/1/1908, 2,000 textile workers went on strike in Oldham,
Lancashire.
6/10/1907, Henry Brampton, English judge, died in London
(born in Hitchin 14/9/1817).
31/8/1907, The UK and Russia agreed an entente, defining
spheres of influence in Persia, Tibet, and Afghanistan.� There was an implicit agreement that Britain
would not allow Russia to control the Bosporus, and the entente opened up the
London money markets to Russia, allowing it to recover from the Japanese defeat
of 1904/5. France was also part of this agreement, forming a Triple Entente to contain the newly
unified Prussian-dominated Germany.
7/2/1907, George Goschen, British statesman, died (born
10/8/1831).
14/6/1907, The UK Government announced a Bill to curb the House of Lords.
19/5/1907, Sir Benjamin Baker, British engineer, died in
Pangbourne, Berkshire (born 1840).
2/5/1907, King Edward VII of Britain met the French
President in Paris.
24/4/1907, Winston Churchill, Colonial Under-Secretary,
was made a Privy Councillor.
25/3/1907, The British Government killed off a Channel Tunnel
Bill.
9/3/1907, John Alexander Dowie, Scottish evangelist and
faith healer (born 25/5/1847 in Edinborgh, Scotland) died in Chicago, Illinois.
23/1/1907, In the UK, Lloyd George advocated reducing the power of the House of Lords.
19/1/1907, Captain Henry Singleton Pennell, English
soldier who received the Victoria Cross, died.
30/11/1906, The Prince of Wales opened the new Cotton Exchange in Liverpool.
21/11/1906, In Glasgow, a man died when 200,000 gallons of hot
whisky burst out of vats.
30/10/1906, Gathorne Cranbrook, British statesman, died
(born 1/10/1814).
2/10/1906, John Humphreys Whitfield, British scholar of
Italian language & literature, was born in Wednesbury, England (died 1995).
8/3/1906. The British government stated that the British Empire covered 11.5 million square
miles, one fifth of the world�s land area, and had a population of 400 million,
a quarter of the world total. The Empire had grown by a third in the last 25 years.
12/1/1906. The Liberals won a landslide victory in the British
general elections. Labour under Keir Hardie also made gains. The
Liberals had 399 seats, up from 184 in the 1900 election. The Conservatives retained
156 seats, down from 402. Labour gained 29 seats; a secret Liberal-Labour pact
gave the Labour candidate a free run against the Tories in key constituencies.
Labour�s share of the vote was just 4.8%, but this was treble their 1900 share.
In December 1905 the new Liberal
Government got the Trades Disputes Bill passed by the (Conservative-dominated)
House of Lords, reversing the House of Lords ruling in the Taff Vale case
(1901), which had meant trades unions were liable for losses to the employer caused
by strikes.
4/12/1905, British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour resigned.
25/10/1905, Lord Roseberry called for a future Liberal Government to challenge the power of the House of Lords.
7/9/1905, John Whitley, British air-marshal was born
(died 1997)
22/7/1905, Ralph Lingen, British civil
servant, died.
19/4/1905. A judge decided the public
had no right of way to Stonehenge.
31/3/1905, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany arrived in Tangier, Morocco, to
give a speech in favour of Moroccan independence. This was intended to humiliate France, who saw Morocco as their own
protectorate, and to test the closeness of the Franco-British entente.
Germany intended to subsequently �grant France limited control in Morocco�, a
move supposed to bring France closer to Germany and away from Britain. However Germany was surprised by the
forcefulness with which British Foreign Secretary Sir
Edward Grey backed France; Germany was further isolated from France,
Britain and hence Russia too. This event paved
the way for the Agadir crisis of 1911.
2/3/1905, Dr Gore
was installed as the first Bishop of Birmingham.
20/1/1905, Herbert Bowden,
British politician, was born.
Concerns over poverty
1904, Child malnutrition in the
poorest parts of Britain was attributed to a decline in breast feeding. In turn
some of this was due to mothers working, but more was due to chronic ill-health
of the mothers making them incapable of breast feeding.
1902, A survey found that in the
poorest parts of Leeds, England, 60% of the children had bad teeth and half had
rickets.
Demographic
concerns
11/9/1905,
Figures were released showing rural lunacy on the rise; this was attributed to
the tedium of living in the countryside.
1/7/1905, The Colonial
Office considered a plan to relocate Britain�s �surplus population� in various
parts of the Empire.
1904, Construction work on
Letchworth New Town began.
15/12/1904, In London,
British politician Joseph Chamberlain called for curbs on
immigration; he said they were responsible for crime and disease.
7/7/1903, Britain�s
falling birth-rate would result in a halt to population growth in 18 years.
26/2/1903. In
the UK, a Commons Debate called for curbs on immigration.
Rising
British Protetcionism; concerns about Germany, increased ties with France
10/2/1906, Britain launched the revolutionary new battleship Dreadnought.� She made every other warship obsolete, outgunning
and outranging them all. Her new steam turbine propulsion made her much faster
than older ships. This marked the start of a keen naval arms race between
Britain and Germany. Germany now realised that the latest class of battleships were too big
to pass through the Kiel Canal. The Russo-Japanese War demonstrated
the need for such battleship innovation, as naval battles were now fought at long range, using torpedoes, and
torpedo boats therefore had to be destroyed at a distance with accurate
long-range artillery.
19/9/1905, Britain and
Germany held simultaneous war manoeuvres.
1/3/1905, Britain
announced that spending on the navy was to increase by 350%..
For Dogger Bank Incident,
October 1904, see Russia
28/8/1904. A treaty
was concluded in London whereby France would
allow the British freedom of action in Egypt in
return for the British allowing the French a free hand in Morocco. For many
years the nominally independent Sultanate of Morocco had been losing power as
it became increasingly dependent on French, Spanish, and German business and
subsidies for financial security. In October 1904 the French also concluded a
secret treaty with the Spanish. This disturbed Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany
who saw his country being squeezed out of North Africa. Wilhelm II therefore landed at
Tangier on 31 March 1905. The sultan sided with the Germans and serious
friction with the French resulted. On 161/1906 the Algecieras Conference was held. German claims were backed by Austria
whilst French claims were backed by Britain. Germany failed to curb France�s
privileged position in Morocco. See 8/4/1904.
12/7/1904, Britain and Germany signed a five-year
treaty, to resolve disputes through arbitration rather than by military means.
8/4/1904. Entente
Cordiale set up between Britain and France. Each country recognised the other�s colonial interests.� France agreed not to interfere in Egypt and England agreed not to interfere in Morocco.
Germany,
which also wanted control in Morocco, felt threatened by this entente.
Britain had become unpopular with many countries after the Boer War, and needed
friends; relations with France had been strained since the Fashoda incident in 1898. Now both Britain and France felt anxious
over the rise of the German economy and
military might, especially its navy. The entente meant Britain�s navy could concentrate
on defending the North Sea whilst France�s monitored the Mediterranean.
See 28/8/2904.
1/2/1904, Britain agreed with France to remain neutral
if there was war between Russia and Japan.
6/7/1903, French President Emile Loubet, and Theophile
Delcasse, visited London to begin the Entente Cordiale.
6/3/1903, In
response to the growing German navy, construction began on a huge new British
naval base at Rosyth.
4/3/1903, King Edward VII of Britain concluded a visit
to Paris, during which Anglo-French relations were strengthened.
8/11/1902, The Kaiser arrived in London on a 12-day State Visit to try
and improve Anglo-German relations.
18/12/1902, In London, the Committee of Imperial
Defence held its first meeting.
30/6/1902, At the Colonial Conference in London, a
principle of Imperial Preference was agreed; that Britain and the colonies
should set preferential tariffs for each other�s goods.
24/5/1902, Empire
Day was celebrated for the first time (Queen Victoria�s birthday).
27/10/1901, Negotiations on an Anglo-German alliance
broke down, after the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, made an
anti-German speech in Edinburgh.
1/8/1901, The Commons
voted an extra �12.5 million for naval and war budgets.
15/5/1901, The British
Admiralty decided to build three large battleships.
17/8/1904, In the UK, the Postmaster General reported that postcard
usage increased by 25% in 1903.
24/11/1903, Sir John Maple, British business magnate,
died.
22/8/1903. Lord Salisbury, four times Conservative Prime
Minister, died, aged 73.
10/7/1903, Kenneth Clarke, UK Conservative politician,
was born (died 1983).
3/9/1902, The Trades Unions Congress voted in London to back
independent Labour Parliamentary candidates rather than rely on local alliances
with Liberals.
12/7/1902. (1) Arthur Balfour
(Conservative) succeeded Lord Salisbury
as Tory Prime Minister.�
(2) Kitchener returned to a heroes�
welcome in London.
4/2/1901, Queen Victoria was buried at Windsor, next to Albert.
22/1/1901. Queen Victoria died, at of a cerebral haemorrhage Osborne House on the Isle of
Wight, aged 81; the longest reigning and longest lived monarch of Britain. Accession of King
Edward VII to the British throne. His coronation was on 9/8/1902. King Edward VII
was born on 9/11/1840, and was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Crowned at 60 years of age, he proved a popular monarch who gave his name to
the Edwardian era. He was made
Prince of Wales by his mother when only one month old. His free and easy social
life made him a prominent figure in society and he was involved in several scandals. His coronation was elaborate
and was a departure from the rather dour
image of the monarchy in the latter part of Queen Victoria�s reign. Edward VII
is remembered as a popular man who tried to ensure peace in Europe, touring
European capitals in a diplomatic role. An estimated 500,000 watched the funeral. procession of Queen Victoria as
it travelled through the silent streets of London, on 2/2/1901. The
funeral took place at Windsor.
31/12/1900, At Stonehenge, Stone No. 21 and its lintel fell
down.
17/10/1900, Lord Salisbury�s
Tory government was re-elected, in
the British General Election. Tory
popularity was high after the Boer War victory.
See South Africa
for events of Boer War
25/6/1900, Earl Louis Mountbatten, military commander and last Viceroy of
India, was born at Frogmore House, Windsor.
22/5/1900, William Lindley, English engineer, died (born
7/9/1808).
27/2/1900, The British
Labour Party was formed by the Trades Unions, along with the Fabians. Ramsay MacDonald was its secretary; he later became
its leader and Prime Minister.
19/5/1898, William Ewart Gladstone, born 29/12/1809, four
times Liberal Prime Minister, died at Hawarden Castle, north Wales, aged 88.
15/11/1897, British Labour leader Aneurin Bevan was born in Tredegar, Wales.� He was one of 13 children, son of a miner.
23/9/1893, Thomas Hawkesley, English engineer, died (born
12/7/1807).
21/5/1897, Sir Augustus Franks, English antiquary, died
(20/3/1826).
12/6/1897, Anthony Eden, Conservative Prime
Minister, was born at Windlestone Hall, Bishop Auckland, Durham.� He later became the Earl of Avon.
27/12/1896, Sir John Brown, Sheffield armour plate
manufacturer, died (born 6/12/1816).
1895, The National Trust was founded, to �preserve lands and buildings of
historic interest or natural beauty for public access and benefit�.
29/12/1895. Leander Starr Jameson, an agent of the British South
Africa Company, invaded the Boer Republic of Transvaal with 470 men. On
2/1/1896 Jameson
surrendered At Doorn Kop after a defeat at Krugersdorp. On 3/1/1896 Kaiser William
II sent a telegram to Paul Kruger
congratulating him on the defeat of Jameson.
This caused outrage in Britain, which saw the telegram as an attempt by Germany
to expand its influence in Africa. Britain mocked the German Navy, saying
it would be �child�s play� for the British Navy to wipe it out. Wilhelm I
now decided on a course of massive expansion of the German Navy, seeing Britain
no longer as an ally but a potential threat.
15/5/1895, Joseph
Whitaker,
who founded Whitaker�s Almanac in 1869, died.
24/1/1895, Lord Randolph Churchill, founder of the
British Conservative Party, died.
1894, The Trafford Park industrial estate, Manchester,
opened. By 1939 it was the largest in the country, with 200 works on 1,200
acres employing 50,000 people.
18/9/1894,The Blackpool
Tower opened. It is a 500 foot high replica of the Eiffel Tower.
1/9/1894, The first use of postcards with adhesive stamps in
Britain.
7/9/1893, (1)
The Featherstone Massacre. In Yorkshire, striking miners campaigning for a living
wage were fired upon; soldiers killed 2 and wounded 16.
(2) Leslie Hore-Belisha, British Liberal politician, was born in
Devonport.
14/1/1893, The UK Labour Party was founded in
Bradford, W Yorks.
16/9/1892, Edward Neale, British Co-operative promoter,
died.
18/8/1892. In Britain, William Ewart Gladstone formed his fourth Liberal Government after his election defeat of the Conservatives under Lord Salisbury.
11/8/1892, (1) The Marquess of
Salisbury left office as Prime Minister.
(2) Hugh McDaimid, Scottish poet
and founder of the Scottish Nationalist
Party, was born.
18/7/1892, Pioneer travel agent Thomas Cook died.
15/7/1892, Thomas Cooper, Chartist, died (born
20/3/1805).
4/7/1892, James Kier Hardie, standing in the General
Election at Holytown, Lanarkshire, became the first Socialist to win a seat
in the British Parliament. He was MP for the London docklands area of West
Ham. He was elected as an independent socialist but planned to form a Labour
party to represent the workers. See 14/1/1893.
28/6/1892, Sir Harry Albert Atkinson, British politician,
died.
13/4/1892, Sir Arthur (Bomber) Harris,
RAF Marshal was born. He joined the
Royal Flying Corps in 1915, and was appointed Commander in Chief of the RAF
Bomber Command in 1942. From 1942 on he
developed and applied the technique of �saturation bombing� to Axis occupied
cities, totally demolishing them.
2/3/1892, Sir John Coode, British engineer, died (born
11/11/1816).
10/12/1891, Earl Alexander, British Army Commander in
North Africa, and Italy in World War II, was born in County Tyrone, Ireland.
8/10/1891, The first street collection for charity
took place in Britain. It was on the streets of Manchester and Salford, for
Lifeboat Day.
6/10/1891, Death of W H Smith, the bookseller.
25/9/1891, The foundation of Blackpool Tower was laid.
2/6/1891, Sir John Hawkshaw, British engineer, died
(born 1811).
31/5/1889, Britain passed the Naval Defence Act in response to the growing naval power of both
Russia and France.
24/4/1889, Sir Stafford Cripps, the Labour Chancellor
who introduced austerity measures in Britain after the Second World War, was
born.
12/1/1889, Churchill Babington, English archaeologist,
died in Suffolk (born in Roecliffe, 11/3/1821).
6/8/1888, Elected County Councils were established in
Britain through the local Government Act.
9/7/1888, Simon Marks, British retailer, was born in Leeds.
1887, Victoria Park, 16 acres
was laid out in Salisbury.
21/6/1887, Hastings Lionel Ismay, British soldier and
statesman, was born.
1/2/1886, William
Gladstone resumed office as Prime Minister.
28/1/1886, The Marquess of
Salisbury left office as Prime Minister.
22/10/1885, James Fraser,
English Bishop, died (born 18/8/1818). He did much to secure the provision of
churches for the rapidly-growing population of Manchester, exceeding even the
efforts of his predecessor, James Lee, who had consecrated 130 Manchester
churches.
23/6/1885, The Marquess of
Salisbury took up post as Prime Minister.
9/6/1885, William
Gladstone left office as Prime Minister.
1884, The Fabian Society
was founded. Named after the Roman General Fabius Maximus Cunctator (The
Delayer), noted for his cautious military tactics, the Fabians adopted a
gradualist approach to socialist reform. The movement was closely associated
with the founding of the British Labour
Party.
6/12/1884, The
Franchise Act, or Third
Parliamentary Reform Act was passed, giving almost all adult males the
vote. However domestic servants, bachelors living with their parents, and those
of no fixed address were still voteless. This measure increased the electoral
roll by some 2 million, four times the number added in 1832.
26/12/1883, Thomas Holloway,
English philanthropist, died (born 22/9/1800).
4/10/1883, Sir William Alexander Smith founded the Boys Brigade in Glasgow.
3/10/1883, Burnham Beeches was dedicated to public use
for all time.
1/8/1883, Inland parcel
post began in Britain.
24/4/1882, Lord Dowding, British Air Force Commander who won the Battle of Britain, was born in
Moffat, Scotland.
26/7/1881, George Borrow, English traveller, died (born
in East Dereham, Norfolk 5/7/1803).
19/4/1881, Benjamin Disraeli, British Conservative Prime Minister, died. He was
buried at Hughenden, near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Robert Gascoyne Cecil, Lord Salisbury,
was chosen to replace him as leader of the Conservative Party.
7/3/1881, Ernest Bevin, Labour Party politician, was
born in Winsford, Somerset.
22/12/1880, George Elliot died.
28/11/1880, Mark Firth, British steel maker and
philanthropist, died (born 25/4/1819).
15/4/1880, In Britain the Liberals won the General Election.
Prime Minister William Gladstone took
over from Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of
Beaconsfield.
18/9/1879, Blackpool�s first annual illuminations were
switched on.
23/4/1879, First Royal Shakespeare Theatre opened in Stratford
on Avon (replaced by a new one on 23/4/1932).
14/12/1878, Mary Alice Maud, 3rd child of Queen Victoria, died
(born 25/4/1843 in Buckingham Palace).
13/9/1877, Manchester
Town Hall opened.
23/8/1877, Britain passed the Merchandise Act, obliging exporters to indicate the place of
manufacture of their goods.
13/8/1877, Birkenhead, near Liverpool, became a
borough; John
Laird was the first Mayor.
20/9/1876, Sir Titus Salt, born 20/9/1803, died.
3/8/1876, Stanley Baldwin, British Prime Minister in the
1920s and 30s, was born.
7/5/1876, Samuel Courtauld, British industrialist and arts patron, was born in Braintree,
Essex.
25/8/1875, Matthew Webb, 27, from Shropshire, became the first person to
swim the English Channel. He took 21 hours 45 minutes, using the
breast-stroke,� from Admiralty Pier,
Dover, to Calais.
8/7/1875, John Cairnes, British political economist,
died (born 1823).
26/12/1874, Boxing Day was first recognised as a Bank
Holiday in the UK.
30/11/1874, Sir Winston
Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
5/4/1874, Birkenhead
Park, the first publically-funded park in Britain and model for Central
Park, New York, opened.
21/2/1874, Disraeli became UK Prime Minister; he served
until 1880.
17/2/1874, William
Gladstone left office as Prime Minister.
6/9/1873, Austin Reed, men�s outfitter, was born in Newbury, Berkshire.
9/5/1873, Howard Carter, who discovered Tutankhamun�s tomb in 1922,
was born at Swaffham, Norfolk.
1872, Hastings Pier opened.
18/7/1872, Britain passed the Ballot Act, providing for secret ballots at elections.
24/10/1871, The Aurora
Borealis was seen as far south as southern England.
18/6/1871, The Test Act allowed students at Oxford and
Cambridge universities to gain degrees and fellowships without subscribing to
any particular religion.
29/5/1871, Whit Monday,
became the first Bank Holiday in Britain.
25/5/1871, The House of Commons passed the Bank Holiday Act,
creating public holidays on Easter Monday, Whit Monday, and Christmas Day.
Monday
18/3/1869, Neville Chamberlain,
British Conservative Prime Minister
1937 to 1940 was born in Birmingham.
10/12/1868. The first edition of Whitakers Almanack was
published.
9/12/1868. Following a Liberal
General Election victory, William Ewart Gladstone formed the next UK
government, defeating Disraeli.�
This was the first of Gladstone�s four
terms of office as Prime Minister.
8/11/1868, Viscount Lee of Fareham, who gave the
Buckinghamshire country house Chequers
to the nation in 1921, was born.
12/7/1868, The Scottish Reform Act was passed.
28/3/1868. The Earl of Cardigan, who led the Charge of the Light Brigade (25/10/1854) to disaster at
Balaclava, in the Crimean War, died. He
is best remembered for the woollen garment named after him.
17/2/1868. Ill health caused the resignation of the Conservative Prime Minister Lord Derby.
He was succeeded by Benjamin Disraeli
on 29/2/1868.
12/11/1867, The
Conservative Party held their first Annual Parry Conference, in a London pub,
the Freemasons in Great Queen Street.
15/8/1867. By a Parliamentary
Reform Act, one million more voters were added to the UK electorate, mostly
urban ratepayers. Those who owned house and paid rates, or lodgers paying more
than �10 a year rent, could now vote.�
The enfranchised population of the UK now stood at 7.9%.
3/8/1867, Stanley Baldwin, British Conservative and
three times Prime Minister between 1923 and 1937, was born at Bewdley, Worcestershire,
the only son of a wealthy industrialist and member of parliament. The author Rudyard Kipling
was Baldwin's cousin on his mother's side of the family
1866, Britain passed the Metropolitan Commons Act, prohibiting any further enclosure (for
private housing development) of urban commons lands. This Act was largely the
result of disputes over development of common lands around London, Hampstead Heath, Wimbledon and
Epping Forest in particular. The rapid expansion of Britain�s towns and cities
put great pressure on common lands. In London the Lord of Hampstead Manor in
the early 19th century, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, had fought a legal
battle from 1829 onwards to be allowed to build on Hampstead Heath. After the
passage of the Metropolitan Commons Act, and the death of Sir Thomas Wilson in 1868, his
heir withdrew from the legal fight. The Metropolitan Board of Works then bought
the rights to Hampstead Heath for �45,000 (Sir Thomas Wilson had been asking for
�400,000) and Hampstead Heath became public property.
12/10/1866. Ramsay MacDonald,
who in 1924 became Britain�s first Labour Prime Minister, was born in
Lossiemouth, Morayshire, Scotland.
11/5/1866, London was hit by a financial panic, �Black
Friday�.
18/10/1865. Lord Palmerston
died, two days short of his
81st birthday. He was staying at his wife�s house, Brockett Hall in
Welwyn,� Hertfordshire, when struck by
fever. He was Secretary for War, Foreign Secretary, and then Prime Minister
during a time when Britain was the richest and most powerful nation on
Earth.� When he was born, on 20/10/1784, Britain had a population of 9 million,
80% of whom worked in agriculture. When he died, Britain had a population of 29
million, 60% of whom worked in manufacturing.
22/9/1865, George Elkington, founder of the Birmingham
electroplating industry, died.
11/3/1864, The Dale Dyke Dam in Yorkshire burst, flooding
Sheffield from the Bradfield Reservoir and killing 240 people
1/2/1864, Austrian and Prussian troops under the command of
Friedrich von Wangle invaded Schleswig, Denmark. Although the British monarch, Queen Victoria,
was pro-German, the British Prince Edward, the future King Edward VII � who had only
months earlier married Alexandra of Denmark � was shocked; they
supported Denmark. The Second Schleswig War began. This event ensured that
under King
Edward VII�s reign, British foreign policy was pro-Danish,
anti-German, and Britain formed a triple
entente with France and Russia
against Germany.
16/10/1863, Sir Austin Chamberlain, British politician,
was born in Birmingham.
27/5/1863, Broadmoor
asylum for the criminally insane at Crowthorne, Berkshire was opened.
13/10/1861, Sir William Cubitt, British engineer, died
(born 1785).
19/6/1861, Earl Haig, British military commander in WWI, was born.
23/4/1861, Viscount Allenby, British World War One Army Commander, was born in
Brackenhurst, Nottinghamshire.
See India
for British colonisation of India
20/2/1861, In a gale, the 82 metre high spire of Chichester
Cathedral collapsed.
3/2/1861, Edwin Cannan, British economist, was born.
25/2/1860, James William Ashley, English economist, was
born in London.
28/6/1859, The
first dog show in the UK took place at Newcastle on Tyne Town Hall, with 60
entries split between two classes, Pointers and Setters.
18/6/1859, Lord Palmerston became Prime Minister.
21/2/1859, Viscount Palmerston left office as Prime Minister.
24/11/1858, A legal case in Dorset caused the UK
Parliament to standardise time to GMT across the country. A judge in a land
case in Dorset ruled against a man who had failed to turn up for a 10,00 am
case, at 10.06. Two minutes later he turned up and claimed he was on time, by
the station clock of his home town, Carlisle in Cumbria. At that time all towns
set their clocks by their own, local, noon, meaning accurate rail
timetables were problematic. By 1850 the rail companies all used London
time, adding to confusion as provincial clocks often had two minute hands, one
for local time, one for London time. The case was re-tried, and in 1880
Parliament ordered the entire country keep Greenwich Mean Time.
1/1/1858, John Britton,
English antiquary died (born 7/7/1771).
11/1/1857. Birth of Henry Gordon Selfridge,
founder of Britain�s first large department store. Also on this day was born
the champion jockey Fred Archer.
1856, An Army Staff College was set up at Sandhurst.
15/8/1856, Kier Hardie, Labour leader, was born near Holytown, Lanarkshire.� He
helped found the Labour Party.
18/4/1856, Aldershot Camp was publically inaugurated by Queen Victoria.
29/1/1856. Queen Victoria instituted the Victoria
Cross, Britain�s highest military decoration. Awarded for conspicuous
bravery or great devotion to duty. The
award was backdated to 1854 to cover the Crimean War; on 26/6/1856
62 men were given the Victoria Cross for deeds during this war. The VC has been
awarded 1,354 times since then, to 2002, but has only been given posthumously
since 1920. It has been awarded only 11 times since 1945, the last 2 being in
the Falklands War of 1982. The medal is
made of metal from Russian guns captured in the
Crimean War.
19/2/1855. Bread riots broke out in Liverpool.
9/2/1855, Mysterious hoof-prints appeared in the snow in
Devon, as if a two legged creature had walked 100 miles over fields, walls, and
roof-tops. No explanation was ever found.
6/2/1855, The Whig/Liberal
Lord
Palmerston became Prime
Minister. He succeeded Lord Aberdeen, who resigned on 20/1/1855.
For Crimean
War see Russia
1850s
1854, The UK Govermnent purchased a large tract of
moorland known as Aldershot Heath, to set up Aldershot Camp. This was to enable
military practices in a large enough area to allow for brigade and divison
manoeuvres in peacetime, since this had not been done since the Napoleonic Wars
with France.
26/9/1854, Thomas Denman, English Judge, died (born
23/7/1779).
21/6/1854, The first Victoria Cross was awarded, to Charles Lucas,
a 20-year-old
Irishman who threw an unexploded Russian bomb overboard, whilst on HMS Hecla
at Bomarsund in the Baltic.
9/1/1854, Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston Churchill, was born.
1/4/1853,
Manchester, UK, was constituted a city.
26/10/1852, Henry Elkington, founder of the Birmingham
electroplating industry, died.
13/10/1852,
Birth of Lilly Langtry, actress and
mistress to King Edward VII.
14/9/1852, The Duke of Wellington,
victor at Waterloo, died at Walmer Castle, Kent, aged 83, as Lord Warden of the
Cinque Ports.
1851,
Saltaire Village, near Shipley,
Yorkshire, was opened by Sir Titus Salt as model housing for his workers The
solid stone houses were served by a wash-house, hospital, library, concert
hall, gym and science laboratory.
24/7/1851, In
Britain the Window Tax was abolished.
8/7/1851, Sir Arthur John Evans,
British archaeologist who excavated Knossos on Crete, was born.
19/4/1850, The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty between the USA
and UK was signed. It was an agreement on the terms for building a canal across
Nicaragua; under this treaty, neither party would exercise exclusive control
over such a canal or fortify it. The US
and the UK each had territorial interests in Central America, and were
suspicious of each other�s activities in the region. Ultimately this Treaty
was superseded by a similar neutralisation policy regarding the Panama Canal under the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1902.
29/12/1849, William Cunningham,
English economist, was born.
13/2/1849, Lord Randolph Churchill, British Conservative
politician and father of Winston Churchill, was born at Blenheim
Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
31/1/1849, Britain�s Corn
Laws were abolished.
1848, Manchester prohibited the
construction of back-to-back housing. However such accommodation was still
being constructed in Leeds until after 1900.
19/1/1848, Matthew Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel, was born in Dawley,
Shropshire, the son of a doctor.
1847, The British Army replaced
service for life by a minimum ten-year term.
16/5/1845, Charles Chubb, English locksmith and
safe-maker, died.
13/5/1845, Alexander Baring Ashburton, English baron and
financier, died.
19/2/1845, Sir Thomas Buxton, English philanthropist,
died (born 1/4/1786).
6/8/1844, Albert Ernst Albert, 4th child of Queen
Victoria (died 30/7/1900) was born at Windsor Castle.
25/4/1843, Mary Alice Maud, 3rd child of Queen Victoria,
was born in Buckingham Palace (died 14/12/1878).
1842, The first public laundry opened, in Manchester. It was not a place for
the respectable.
1841, Norfolk Park, Sheffield,
was laid out as a public park.
28/8/1841, The Conservative leader Sir Robert Peel succeeded the
Whig, Lord
William Melbourne, as Prime Minister. Under Peel�s second term in office, he
intended to reduce import duties to
promote free trade.
28/1/1841, Henry Stanley, British explorer and
journalist, was born at Denbigh, north Wales, as John Rowlands.
30/3/1840, Beau Brummel,
Regency Dandy, died at Caen in a pauper�s
lunatic asylum. He had fled Britain to escape gambling debts.
1/7/1837, The first Register of
Births, Deaths, and Marriages was begun in England and Wales. The first entry was for the birth of a baby
girl, Mary Ann Aaaron, born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire.
27/12/1836, A
landslide at Lewes, Sussex, swallowed up houses and killed 8 people.
See Economy & Prices for more events
related to Chartist Movement
17/8/1836, Registration of all births, marriages, and
deaths in Britain was required under the Registration Act.
9/9/1835, The Municipal Corporation Act in Britain
reformed city and town government in line with the major population
shifts brought on by the Industrial Revolution. The old ruling oligarchies
of borough councils were replaced by elected councils, elected by all rate
paying householders of three year�s standing. Tory lawyers, Anglican clergy,
and the aristocracy lost power to small shopkeepers, businessmen, Non-conformists,
and better off members of the working class. This paved the way for public improvements like street widening, public
utilities such as gas and water, and a municipal fire service.
22/4/1834, Saint
Helena became a British colony.
Swing Riots
and electoral reform
29/1/1833, The Reform Parliament of Great Britain
opened.
4/6/1832, The
Representation of the People Act received Royal Assent. It introduced electoral reform in Britain. Smaller
property owners were given the vote (tenant farmers paying �50 or more a year
in rent), extending the electorate to 20% of adult males, twice as many as
before. However the ballot was till not secret, until 18/7/1872. Landlords
often evicted tenants who failed to vote for the candisate the landlord
supported. Furthermore, 56 �rotten
boroughs� with a total population of 2,000 were abolished, and some rural
areas lost one of their two MPs. New constituencies were created in the expanding industrial towns of
Manchester, Birmingham, and elsewhere. There
was resistance in the House of Lords from 21 bishops.
31/10/1831, Riots in
Bristol raised fears of revolution breaking out across Britain. Four
of the rioters were executed.
10/10/1831, Three days of rioting in Derby (8-10 October)
following the defeat in the House of Lords of the Reform Bill. This Bill, which passed its Third reading in the
Commons in September 1831, would have enlarged the electorate. Further riots
in Bristol, 29-31 October. In April 1832 a second Reform Bill was passed by the House of Lords.
10/8/1831, George Goschen, British statesman, was born
(7/2/1907).
8/1830, The Swing Revolt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_Riots
got underway in Kent, spreading rapidly to other counties in the South East.
�Captain Swing� was the pseudonym used by the rebels when they threatened the
destruction of machinery unless wages were raised or tihe payments cut.
Impoverished agricultural
workers destroyed 387 threshing machines and 26 other agricultural machines
across 22 counties between now and September 1832. Machinery worth �20,000 was
destroyed, and a further �100,000 damage done through arson. See Luddites
3/1811.
Agricultural wages were raised, at least temporarily, and the spread of
labour-saving threshing machines was curbed. However the Swing Revolt resulted
in the execution of 19 labourers and the transportation to Australia of nearly 500 more.
13/4/1829. The Catholic Emancipation Act became law. Catholics were allowed to hold every public office
except those of Regent, Lord Chancellor, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
This was a concession reluctantly granted by the British Conservative
government of the Duke of Wellington, following Catholic
agitation in Ireland by Daniel O�Connell and the Catholic Association.
26/1/1828, The Duke of Wellington became Tory Prime
Minister.
25/1/1828. The Duke of Wellington and Robert Peel
formed a Conservative government.
13/8/1827, The first giraffe
arrived in Britain.
16/7/1827, Pottery expert Josiah Spode died.
17/2/1827, The Earl of Liverpool left post as Prime Minister,
paralysed by a stroke.
17/1/1827, The Duke of Wellington was appointed Commander in
Chief of the British Army.
10/11/1826, Joseph Arch, English politician and founder of
the National Agricultural Labourers Union, was born in Barlford, Warwickshire.
20/3/1826, Sir Augustus Franks, English antiquary, was
born (died 212/5/1897).
24/6/1825. William Henry
Smith, English newsagent and bookseller, was born. He joined his father�s
news agency business and took full control in 1846, building the biggest chain of newsagents in Britain.
1824, The UK Government
standardised official weights and measures across Britain.
22/3/1824, The British Government agreed to spend �57,000 to
purchase 38 paintings to establish a national collection.
25/11/1823, Brighton�s Chain Pier was opened.
14/2/1822, The increasing popularity of Valentines Cards
forced the Post Office to employ extra sorters. See 14/2/1477.
7/8/1821, Caroline, Queen of King George IV of Britain, died
(born 17/5/1768).
11/3/1821, Churchill Babington, English archaeologist,
was born in Roecliffe, Leicestershire (died 12/1/1889 in Suffolk).
Manchester,
demands for political reform
16/8/1819, At St Peters Fields, or Peterloo, Manchester, a meeting
demanding parliamentary reforms was dispersed by the military. There was a crowd of 60,000 present to hear the
speech of the pugnacious reformer Henry Hunt, who also demanded an end to the
Corn Laws. 11 demonstrators were killed and 600 injured by the Manchester
Yeomanry. After this the UK government issued the Six Laws, in 1819, banning
any gathering of over 50 people, and any flag-bearing procession, authorising
the arrest of anyone carrying a firearm, and imposing a tax on newspapers.
10/3/1817, Several hundred
Manchester weavers set out from St Peters Fields, Manchester, to march
to Westminster, demanding Parliamentary Reform. They were
called the Blanketeers, as they carried blankets to keep
warm at night. Troops
stopped most of them at Stockport but some reached Derbyshire, and one made it
as far as London.
This march later inspired the Jarrow March.
25/4/1819, Mark Firth,
British steel maker and philanthropist, was born (died 28/11/1880).
18/8/1818, James Fraser,
English Bishop, was born (died 22/10/1885). He did much to secure the provision
of churches for the rapidly-growing population of Manchester, exceeding even
the efforts of his predecessor, James Lee, who had consecrated 130 Manchester
churches.
8/2/1817, Francis Horner,
British economist, died (born 12/8/1778).
6/12/1816, Sir John Brown,
Sheffield armour plate manufacturer, was born (died 27/12/1896).
11/11/1816, Sir John Coode,
British engineer, was born (died 2/3/1892).
24/8/1816, Tristan da
Cunha, four islands in the south Atlantic, were annexed and garrisoned by
the UK.
29/3/1815, Sir Henry Frere, British colonial
administrator, was born (died 29/5/1884).
15/1/1815, Emma, Lady Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson,
died in poverty in Calais.
1814, Sheerness Naval Dockyard opened.
21/4/1814, Angela Burdett-Coutts, English philanthropist,
was born (died 30/12/1906).
7/6/1812, The Earl
of Liverpool took up post as Prime Minister.
11/5/1812, Spencer Perceval became the only British Prime
Minister so far to be assassinated as he entered the House of Commons, by a
bankrupt broker, Francis Bellingham,� who blamed the Government for his woes.
Luddite
Riots
12/4/1812, 150 masked
Luddites attacked Cartwright�s Mill, between Leeds and Huddersfield.
The mill owner had been forewarned and had prepared defences, including vats of
acid. 40 Luddites
were injured in the affray and 2 subsequently died. It took some time to
discover the identity of the attackers but a trial was eventually held at York
Assizes in January 1813, at which 8 were sentenced to death.
8/1/1812, Two British regiments were called out to
control outbreaks of Luddite rioting.
3/1811, The Luddite movement, distressed
textiles workers smashing machinery, began in Nottinghamshire and spread across
the Midlands and Yorkshire. Britain had lost access to continental markets
because of the Napoleonic Wars, and this was exacerbated by
the collapse of the American
market in 1811. The machine breakers took up the name �Ned Lud�, and used large
sledgehammers, nicknamed �Enoch�, to smash their way into textiles mills.
Between March 1811 and February 1812 the Luddites destroyed some 1,000 frames, valued
at �6,000 to �10,000, In February 1812 Parliament made frame-breaking a capital
offence. See also wages of textiles workers (decline 1805-31). See Swing Revolt
8/1830.
28/2/1810, Sir Robert Rawlinson, English engineer was
born (died 31/5/1898).
21/7/1809, Daniel Lambert, Englishman famous for his
great size, died (born 13/3/1770).
22/11/1808, Pioneer travel agent Thomas
Cook was born in Melbourne, Derbyshire.� He died in 1892.
15/10/1808, James Anderson, Scottish economist (born 1739)
died.
7/9/1808, William Lindley, English
engineer, was born (died 22/5/1900).
21/8/1808, British troops under Wellington
defeated the French under General Junot.� This was at the Battle of Vimiero, during the Peninsular War.� The Peninsular War absorbed some
300,000 of Napoleon�s best troops, and� was ended when Napoleon
heard reports that Austria, backed by Britain,
was arming against him.
2/9/1807, Britain bombarded and
destroyed the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, to prevent its use by France or
Russia.
12/7/1807, Thomas
Hawkesley, English engineer, was born (died 23/9/1893).
23/11/1806, Sir
Roger Newdigate, English philanthropist, died (born 30/5/1719).
23/1/1806, William Pitt the Younger, twice Prime Minister
(the first when only 24), died at Putney aged 47. He was buried in Westminster
Abbey. Napoleon
was still strong in Europe. Prussia, who had been reluctant to join the Allies,
now had to live with French domination of the puppet state of the Confederation
of the Rhine.
Lord Nelson
9/1/1806, The funeral and burial of Admiral Lord
Nelson at St Paul�s Cathedral.
21/10/1805, Battle of Trafalgar. Death of Nelson. Nelson blockaded the combined fleets of France
and Spain in Cadiz. The French Admiral, Villeneuve, attempted to break out, but
British ships sank or captured most of the French and Spanish ships. The
French had planned to link up with the Spanish fleet in the West Indies and so
lure the British into giving chase across the Atlantic. However Nelson
guessed at the French tactics and the Admiralty was warned. A British fleet
under Calder found the French fleet off Cape Finistere and they put into
Spanish harbours. The French fleet later emerged to sail, not for Britain, but
to return to the Mediterranean. The French were intercepted off Cape Trafalgar,
and destroyed in the Battle of Trafalgar.
See
also France-Germany
for events connected to Napoleon
18/5/1802, Britain declared war on Napoleonic France.
20/2/1797, Nelson was made a Knight of the Bath and
promoted to Rear Admiral for his action in the Battle of Cape St Vincent.
3/1787, Horatio Nelson married Nisbet,
at Nevis in the Caribbean. He was frustrated at being put on half pay and out
of service for the next five years.
6/1779, Horatio
Nelson (1758-1805) was appointed captain of the Hinchinbrooke.
21/12/1804, Benjamin
D�Israeli, British statesman, was born.
10/5/1804, William Pitt
the Younger resumed office as Prime Minister.
7/3/1804, John Wedgwood, son of the famous Midland
pottery manufacturer, and uncle to Charles Darwin, founded the Royal Horticultural Society. John�s
mother�s garden inspired his interest in plants and in 1801 he wrote to William Forsyth,
gardener to George
III, suggesting the formation of a horticultural society. Forsyth
passed the idea on to the Royal Society President, Sir Joseph Banks, and the
society was founded three years later. The inaugural meeting was at the London
booksellers, Mr
Hatchard, at 187 Piccadilly. In 2003 the Royal Horticultural Society
had over 300,000 members who have access to over 80 gardens in the UK. It
organises the Chelsea Flower Show, runs courses at Wisley in Surrey, and
organises over 1,000 lectures and talks annually.
5/7/1803, George Borrow, English traveller, was born in
East Dereham, Norfolk (died 26/7/1881).
21/2/1803, Edward Despard, conspirator against King
George III, was executed.
5/12/1802, James Baird, Scottish ironmaster, was born in
Kirkwood, Lanarkshire (died in Ayrshire 20/6/1876).
17/10/1801, George Elkington, founder of the Birmingham
electroplating industry, was born.
29/6/1801, The figures
from Britain�s first census were
published. Britain�s population was set at 8,872,000.
10/3/1801,
Britain�s first census was held.
14/3/1801, William Pitt
the Younger left office as Prime Minister.
1/1/1801, The Act of Union between Britain and Ireland came into force. Irish MPs could sit at Westminster. However some
smaller Irish boroughs were disenfranchised so as to limit the number of Irish
MPs to 100,
25/12/1800,� Britain�s first Christmas Tree was
erected at Windsor by Queen Charlotte.
7/10/1799, The bell was salvaged from the Lutine,
which sank off the island of Vlieland, off the coast of Holland. It was
presented to Lloyds of London. Known as the Lutine Bell, it has been
rung ever since to mark a marine disaster.
Naval
Mutiny at Spithead
1797, Following Britain�s naval
mutinies, the Mutiny Act was passed
making it a treasonable offence to incite disaffection amongst the armed
forces. Meanwhile the army and navy received pay rises.
30/6/1797, The
naval mutiny at The Nore, led by Richard Parker, was put down.� It had started as a protest against poor food
and low pay.
16/4/1797, The
British navy mutinied at Spithead, near Portsmouth, over poor pay, bad
food, and arduous blockade duty. On 2/5/1797 the mutiny spread to the North Sea
fleet.
17/4/1797, Britain�s first prisoner of war camp opened at
Norman Cross Depot, near Stilton, Huntingdonshire. Prior to this, PoWs had
been confined in civil prisons, floating hulks, or fortresses, but by 1796 the
number of French PoWs was so large other accommodation had to be found.
12/2/1797, The last
invasion of Britain. The Irish-American General William Tate landed at Fishguard,
Pembrokeshire with 1,400 French troops, who soon surrendered.
23/2/1795, Sir Josiah Mason, English entrepreneuer and
philanthropist, was born (died� 16/6/1881).
1/6/1794, The Battle
of the Glorious 1st June. The British fleet under Lord Howe defeated the French
under Admiral
Villaret-Joyeuse, 700km west of Ushant.
1/2/1793, Britain declared war on France. The British economy entered
a depression.
1792, In Britain, a barracks building programme began to
house troops in ports and major industrial centres. Often the least affluent
areas of town were chosen to site the barracks, in the event of urban riots
breaking out there.
14/7/1791, In Birmingham, England,
rioters destroyed the home and labarotory of Joseph Priestley, who discovered
oxygen, because he supported the French Revolution. In 1794 Priestley
left Britain for America.
3/1/1791, George Rennie, English civil engineer, was
born in Surrey.
Death of the last Jacobite Catholics
1/11/1793, Lord
George Gordon, British anti-Catholic agitator and leader of the Gordon Riots in 1780, died in Newgate Prison,
London. He had been convicted of libelling Marie Antoinette.
5/3/1790, Flora Mac Donald, the Scottish
Jacobite heroine who helped Prince Charles Edward (The Younger Pretender)
to escape from the island of Benbecula, died.
31/1/1788, Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), the Young
Pretender and leader of the Jacobite
Rebellion, aimed at deposing King George II,
died in exile in Rome.
2/6/1780, The Gordon Riots, anti-Catholic �No Popery� demonstrations
named after Lord George Gordon, broke out in London. Lord Gordon had called his
supporters to St Georges Fields and led them to protest against removal of some restrictions on Roman Catholics
under the Catholic Relief Act of 1778.
1/1/1766, James Stuart, the Old Pretender, and father of Bonnie Prince
Charlie, died in Rome.
22/2/1790, French soldiers landed at Fishguard, Wales,
but were soon captured.
26/2/1789, Eaton Hodgkinson, British engineer, was born
(died 18/6/1861).
1788, Cheltenham became famous as a spa town with the six-week visit of
King George III. The spa waters had
first been commercially exploited by Captain Henry Skillicorne (born 1678, died
1763) in 1738, though some locals had drunk the water before then.
1/4/1786, Sir Thomas Buxton, English philanthropist, was
born (died 19/2/1845).
1784, A window tax was introduced in Britain. To save money, many
householders bricked up some of their wondows.
30/5/1784, Sir William Brown, financier, was born (died
1864).
7/12/1783, William Pitt the
Younger became the youngest
Prime Minister of Britain, aged 24.
24/2/1783, The
British Parliament voted to discontinue
the American War.
1/1/1783, Britain�s
oldest Chamber of Commerce was
established, in Glasgow.
20/3/1782, Lord North
left office as Prime Minister.
19/9/1781, Tobias Furneaux,
English navigator, died (born 21/8/1735).
12/8/1778, Francis Horner, British economist, was born
(died 8/2/1817).
1777, Dolly Pentreath,
the last known person to speak the Cornish language only, and no English, died.
1773, An Assay
Office was established in Sheffield due to the amount of silver cutlery being
manufactured there.
7/7/1771, John Britton, English antiquary, was born
(died1/1/1857).
27/11/1770, Horatio Nelson joined the Royal
Navy as a 12-year-old moidshipman on the HMS Raisonnable.
13/3/1770, Daniel Lambert, Englishman
famous for his great size, was born (died 21/7/1809).
1765, The Cyfarthfa iron works at Merthy Tydfil was set up.
7/5/1765, HMS Victory was launched. She is now in dry dock
in Portsmouth. Nelson
was on board when killed by a musket shot.
26/4/1765, Emma, Lady Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson,
was born in Ness, Cheshire.
10/2/1763, The end of the Seven Years War. France
ceded Canada to Britain at the Treaty of Paris. See 26/7/1758 and 13/9/1759.
The same treaty gave Florida to Britain in exchange for Britain returning Cuba,
which it had invaded on 12/8/1762, to Spain; Spain also regained Louisiana and
the Philippines. Britain gained all of America east of the Mississippi. Britain
also gained Minorca, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Tobago, St Vincent, Grenada,
Dominica, and Senegal, as well as becoming pre-eminent in India; Britain
therefore became the world�s major colonising power. Frederick of Prussia
retained Silesia, which set Prussia on the road to also becoming a major
European power.
3/11/1762, Britain
concluded a peace with France at Fontainbleau. See 10/2/1763.
For main events of Seven
Years War see France-Germany, Russia, and East Europe
3/2/1762, The English dandy and gambler Richard �Beau�
Nash died.
2/1/1762, Britain
declared war on Spain, three months after William Pitt resigned (see 5/10/1761).
5/10/1761, In
Britain, Pitt
resigned because Britain would not declare war on Spain; France was trying to
bring Spain into its war on Prussia and Britain, with France allied to Austria
and Russia. Britain virtually abandoned support for Prussia.
25/10/1760,
George II died suddenly at 8am, in Kensington, London, aged 76. His successor George III was inclined to concentrate on
British, not Hanoverian, interests, and disliked William
Pitt, Earl of Chatham, who had promoted the Anglo-Prussian Alliance.
Without British help, Prussia could not continue fighting.
For
British-French conflict in Canada, 1700s, see Canada
23/7/1759, Work began on the Royal Navy�s 104 gun
battleship HMS Victory at Chatham, Kent, built with the wood of 2,200
oak trees.
29/9/1758, Horatio
Nelson was born in Burnham Thorpe rectory, Norfolk.� He was the son of a clergyman, one of 11
children.� He died in battle in 1805.
18/5/1756, Britain declared war on France. This was
the start of the Seven Years War. See France-Germany,
Russia, East Europe.
16/1/1756. George II
secured an agreement, the Convention of
Westminster, by which Frederick of Prussia guaranteed to help
England if Hanover was attacked, and England promised to help Prussia if
Silesia was attacked.� This guaranteed
the neutrality of the Prussian states under Frederick II in the escalating
Anglo-French dispute.� However it was also alarming to Russia, who saw the Treaty as a potential
Anglo-Prussian alliance against them. See 1/5/1756.
14/10/1755, Thomas Charles, Welsh educationalist, was born
(died 5/10/1814).
27/4/1750, Sir Thomas Bernard, English social reformer,
was born in Lincoln (died 1/7/1818).
Scottish
Jacobite Rebellion
9/4/1747, The
Scottish Jacobite
Lord Lovat
was executed by beheading at the Tower of London for High Treason.� He was the last person to be executed this
way in Britain.� Only persons of high
rank were beheaded; lesser persons were hanged. After this date, all were
hanged. Hanging, drawing, and quartering for treason was not abolished until
1870.
20/9/1746, Prince Charles Edward escaped capture by dressing as a girl and sailing
to France on the ship L�Heureux.
18/8/1746, Two
rebellious Scottish Jacobite Lords, the Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmeniro, were beheaded
at the Tower of London.
1/8/1746, England
passed the Dress Act, banning the wearing of Scottish Highland
Dress, including the kilt, from 1/8/1747.�
This was an attempt to suppress
Scottish Highland culture.
16/4/1746, Bonnie Prince Charlie and his 5,000 Jacobite soldiers were decisively
defeated at Culloden, near Inverness, by the Duke of Cumberland and an army of 9,000
regulars. Fought on flat ground, the battle gave the advantage to Cumberland�s
latest artillery. This ended the Jacobite Rebellion and the hopes of the Stuart dynasty
of any return to power in Britain. On 27/6/1746 Charles escaped over the sea to
Skye, disguised as the Irish maid Betty Burke, with Flora MacDonald.� In Scotland, the Highlanders were disarmed
and forbidden to wear their tartan kilts. The hereditary jurisdiction of the
Highland Chiefs over their clans was abolished. This was the last battle fought in Britain.
17/1/1746,
At the Battle of Falkirk, Charles and the Jacobites defeated the English under General Hawley. This was the last Jacobite success.
8/1/1746,
Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied
Stirling.
18/12/1745,
Battle
of Clifton Moor.� The Jacobites won a victory over the English at Penrith.
4/12/1745,
Marching south, Charles�s forces reached Derby. However they were faced there by the
superior forces of General Wade and William Augustus,
Duke of Cumberland. The Jacobite
army retreated, to be finally defeated at Culloden (16/4/1746).
31/10/1745,
Charles led his
5,000-strong army into England hoping, in vain, for popular support.� Not gaining this, he returned to Scotland.
21/9/1745.
Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Stuart) and his Jacobite army defeated the English under Sir John Cope at the Battle of Prestonpans.�
11/9/1745. The Jacobites under the Young Pretender occupied Edinburgh,
with 2,000 men.
19/8/1745, To claim
the English throne, Prince Charles raised his father�s flag at Glenfinnan,
after travelling from France.
25/7/1745, Prince Charles (Edward Stuart), the Young Pretender, landed in Scotland. He proclaimed
his father as King James VIII of Scotland and James III of England. Highland
clans rose in support of him.
11/5/1745, The Battle of Fontenoy took place in
Belgium, during the War of the Austrian
Succession. Marshal
de Saxe won a French
victory over British and Allied forces. William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, had been
sent with Austrian, British, Dutch and Hanoverian troops to relieve Tournai,
Belgium, under siege by the French. Cumberland�s army was beaten back with
casualties of 7,000 and forced to retreat during the night towards Brussels.
The British suffered further setbacks in Flanders and as troops were called
back to fight the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart. The
British made peace with France at Aix la Chapelle in 1748.
27/8/1743, Henry Pelham
took up office as Prime Minister.
16/6/1743, The last battle in which a British monarch
commanded an army on the battlefield. George II
defeated the French at the Battle of Dettingen, in Bavaria, during the War of the Austrian Succession.