1950 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1950 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Events
- 16 January — The BBC Light Programme first broadcasts the daily children's radio feature Listen with Mother.[1]
- 26 January
- India becomes a republic, severing ties with the United Kingdom.[2]
- Donald Hume is sentenced to imprisonment as an accessory to the murder of Stanley Setty, having dumped his dismembered body over the Essex marshes from a light aircraft.[1]
- 8 February — George Kelly is sentenced to hang for the murder of the Cameo cinema manager in the Liverpool suburb of Wavertree, a conviction which will be quashed as unsafe 53 years later.[1]
- 20 February — Ealing Studios release the film The Blue Lamp, introducing the character PC George Dixon, played by Jack Warner (with Dirk Bogarde as a young criminal).[1][3]
- February 21 – Cunard liner RMS Aquitania arrives at the scrapyard in Faslane at the end of a 36 year career.
- 24 February — Clement Attlee wins the general election, giving Labour a second term in government after their election triumph in 1945. However, he retains power with a majority of just five seats, a stark contrast to the 146-seat majority that he gained when he came to power five years ago.[4] Among the lost Labour seats is Bexley in Kent, which 33-year-old Conservative Party candidate Edward Heath seizes from Ashley Bramall.[5]
- 1 March — The German-born theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs, working at Harwell Atomic Energy Research Establishment, is convicted following a confession of supplying secret information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.[6]
- 6 March–8 March — The World Figure Skating Championships are held in London.
- 8 March — Carmaker Rover tests a revolutionary new turbine-powered concept car.[7]
- 12 March — 80 of the 83 people on board an Avro Tudor V aircraft are killed when it crashes at Llandow in Glamorgan, making it the world's worst air disaster for the time.
- 16 March — The Gambols comic strip first appears in the Daily Express.[1]
- 1 April — Corby, a village in Northamptonshire, is designated as the first new town in central England, providing homes for up to 40,000 people by the 1960s.[8]
- 14 April — The Eagle comic first appears, featuring Dan Dare and Captain Pugwash.[1]
- 29 April — Arsenal win the FA Cup with a 2–0 win over Liverpool at Wembley Stadium.[9]
- 13 May — First Grand Prix held at Silverstone.[10]
- 20 May — First package holiday air charter, by Vladimir Raitz of Horizon Holidays, from Gatwick Airport to Calvi, Corsica, for camping.[11]
- 26 May — Motor fuel rationing comes to an end after 11 years, marking another stage in the phasing-out of rationing that was introduced in the wake of the Second World War.[12]
- 6 June — The BBC Light Programme first broadcasts the popular radio comedy feature Educating Archie, with Max Bygraves.[1]
- 7 June — Pilot episode of the series The Archers broadcast on BBC Radio. It will still be running sixty years later.[13]
- 11 July — First broadcast of the popular BBC Television pre-school children's programme Andy Pandy.[13]
- 24 June — World Cup opens in Brazil with the England national football team competing for the first time.[1]
- 28 June — In the World Cup, the England national football team is humiliated by losing 1–0 to the United States in Belo Horizonte.[1]
- 29 June — The England cricket team loses the Test Match by 326 runs to the West Indies at Lord's, an event commemorated in Lord Beginner's calypso Victory Test Match.[1]
- 31 July — Sainsbury's opens the first purpose-built supermarket, at Croydon.[14]
- 15 August — The Princess Elizabeth gives birth to her and her husband, The Duke of Edinburgh's second child, a princess.[15]
- 19 August - The Football League season begins with four new members, taking membership from 88 to 92 across the four divisions.[16] The new members are Colchester United, Gillingham (who lost their league status in 1938)[17]Scunthorpe & Lindsey United and Shrewsbury Town.[18]
- 27 August — The BBC makes its first television broadcast from the European continent.[13]
- 29 August
- 4,000 British troops are sent to Korea.[19]
- The Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh's 14-day-old daughter is named as Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise. She was then known as Princess Anne of Edinburgh and is now The Princess Royal.[15]
- 8 September — 116 miners trapped underground in a landslide at Knockshinnoch Castle colliery at New Cumnock in Ayrshire, Scotland.[20]
- 9 September
- Post-War soap rationing ends.[14]
- The first miners are rescued from Knockshinnoch Castle colliery.[20]
- 11 September — The rescue operation from Knockshinnoch Castle colliery is completed, with all 116 miners saved.[20]
- 1 October — Full-time military service by conscripted National Servicemen is extended to two years.
- 25 October — The Festival Ballet, later to become the English National Ballet, founded by Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin, makes its debut performance.[21][22]
- 26 October — The rebuilt House of Commons, following its destruction by bombing in World War II, is used for the first time.[13]
- October — Alan Turing's paper Computing machinery and intelligence, proposing the Turing test, is published in Mind.[21]
- October — A group of Conservative politicians publishes the tract One Nation: a Tory approach to social policy.[1]
- November — Attempt to hold the Second World Peace Congress at Sheffield City Hall is thwarted by the British authorities preventing many international delegates from entering the country[1] and it is relocated to Warsaw.[23]
- 10 December
- 25 December — The Stone of Scone, the traditional coronation stone of Scottish monarchs, English monarchs and more recently British monarchs, is stolen from London's Westminster Abbey by a group of four Scottish students.[13] It turns up in Scotland on 11 April 1951.
- 28 December — The Peak District is established as the first of the National parks of England and Wales.[26]
Undated
Publications
Births
- 1 January — Chris Black, Scottish hammer thrower
- 4 February — Pamela Franklin, actress
- 13 February — Peter Gabriel, musician
- 16 February — Peter Hain, politician
- 19 February — Andy Powell, musician (Wishbone Ash)
- 22 February — Julie Walters, actress
- 27 March — Terry Yorath, footballer and football manager
- 30 March — Robbie Coltrane, actor and comedian
- 3 April — Sally Thomsett, actress
- 22 April — Peter Frampton, musician
- 1 May — Danny McGrain, footballer
- 3 May — Mary Hopkin, singer
- 11 May — Jeremy Paxman, television presented and author
- 17 May — Alan Johnson, politician
- 22 May — Bernie Taupin, songwriter
- 22 May — Mary Tamm, actress
- 1 June — Tom Robinson, singer and musician
- 13 June — Nick Brown, politician
- 14 June — Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
- 30 June — Olly Flynn, race walker
- 14 July — Bruce Oldfield, fashion designer
- 18 July — Richard Branson, entrepreneur
- 19 July — Simon Cadell, actor
- 26 July — Susan George, actress
- 27 July — Simon Jones, actor
- 30 July — Harriet Harman, politician
- 15 August — Anne, Princess Royal
- 14 September — Paul Kossoff, guitarist (Free) (died 1976)
- 21 September — Charles Clarke, politician
- 25 October — Steve Barry, race walker
- 6 December — Helen Liddell, politician
Deaths
References
See also