1929 in the United Kingdom
Events from the year 1929 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Events
- 30 March - Imperial Airways begins operating the first commercial flights between London and Karachi.[1]
- 22 April - Chat Moss airport opens in Manchester, Britain's first municipal airport.[2]
- 14 May - Wilfred Rhodes takes his 4000th first-class wicket during a performance of 9 for 39 at Leyton.
- 31 May - The General election returns a hung parliament. Liberals will determine who has power. Among the Conservative casualties is Harold Macmillan, the 35-year-old MP for Stockton-on-Tees, who first entered parliament five years ago.[3]
- 7 June - The Conservatives concede power rather than risk courting Liberals for fragile majority.
- 8 June - Ramsay MacDonald founds new Labour government.[2]
- 17 June - Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail shown for the first time in London, the first British sound film.[1]
- 1 July - C. P. Scott retires after 57½ years as editor of The Manchester Guardian and is succeeded by his son, Ted.
- 5 July - Scotland Yard seizes 13 nude paintings by D. H. Lawrence from a Mayfair gallery on grounds of indecency.[4]
- 11 July - Gillingham Fair fire disaster kills 15 as a firefighting demonstration goes catastrophically wrong.
- 20 August - First transmissions of John Logie Baird's experimental 30-line television system by the BBC.[5]
- 2 October - The Union between the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church of Scotland takes place.
- 28 October - Sharp fall on the London Stock Exchange, following a similar crash on Wall Street on 24 October.[2]
- 1 November - The Pony Club established.[1]
- 10 November - Première of John Grierson's documentary film Drifters about North Sea herring fishermen, made for the Empire Marketing Board, effectively inaugurating the British Documentary Film Movement. (It debuts at the private Film Society in London on a double-bill with the UK première of Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin.)[6]
- 1 December - Underground Electric Railways Company of London officially opens its new headquarters building at 55 Broadway designed by Charles Holden and incorporating sculptures by Jacob Epstein, Eric Gill and Henry Moore.[7]
- 10 December
- 31 December - Glen Cinema Disaster in Paisley, Scotland: 69 children die trying to escape smoke.[10]
Undated
Publications
Births
- 28 January - Acker Bilk, jazz clarinetist and band leader
- 31 January - Jean Simmons, actress (died 2010)
- 6 February - Keith Waterhouse, novelist and journalist (died 2009)
- 15 February - Graham Hill, race car driver (died 1975)
- 17 February - Patricia Routledge, actress
- 18 February - Len Deighton, author
- 21 February - James Beck, actor (died 1973)
- 23 March - Sir Roger Bannister, runner
- 5 April - Nigel Hawthorne, actor (died 2001)
- 18 April - Peter Jeffrey, actor (died 1999)
- 22 April - Michael Atiyah, mathematician
- 4 May - Audrey Hepburn, actress (died 1993)
- 14 May - Henry McGee, actor (died 2006)
- 12 June - Brigid Brophy, author (died 1995)
- 13 June - Alan Civil, horn player (died 1989)
- 5 July - Tony Lock, cricketer (died 1995)
- 24 July - Peter Yates, film director
- 31 July - Lynne Reid Banks, author
- 8 August - Ronald Biggs, criminal
- 25 August - Clifford Forsythe, politician (died 2000)
- 29 August - Thom Gunn, poet (died 2004)
- 15 September - John Julius Norwich, historian
- 21 September - Bernard Williams, philosopher (died 2003)
- 25 September - Ronnie Barker, comedian (died 2005)
- 7 October - Robert Westall, author (died 1993)
- 28 October - Joan Plowright, actress
- 11 December - Kenneth MacMillan, ballet dancer and choreographer (died 1992)
- 12 December - John Osborne, playwright and film producer (died 1994)
- 16 December - Nicholas Courtney, actor (died 2011)
- 16 December - James Moore, author
- 17 December - Jacqueline Hill, actress (died 1993)
- 28 December - Brian Redhead, journalist and broadcaster (died 1994)
- undated - Kenneth Grange, industrial designer
Deaths
References
See also