1956 in the United Kingdom

1956 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1954 | 1955 | 1956 (1956) | 1957 | 1958

Sport and Music

1956 English cricket season Football England | Scotland 1956 in British music

Events from the year 1956 in the United Kingdom. The year is dominated by the Suez Crisis.

Contents 1 Incumbents 2 Events 2.1 Undated 3 Publications 4 Births 5 Deaths 6 References 7 See also

Incumbents

• Monarch – Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister – Anthony Eden (Conservative Party)

Events

• 1 January – Possession of heroin becomes fully criminalised.^[1]
• 24 January – Plans are announced for the construction of thousands of new homes in the Barbican area of London, devastated by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.^[2]
• 26 January–5 February – Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, but do not win any medals.
• February – Release of Shirley Bassey's first single, Burn My Candle (At Both Ends).
• 5 February – First showing of documentary films by the Free Cinema movement, at the National Film Theatre, London.^[3]
• 11 February – Two of the "Cambridge spies", Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean appear in Moscow after vanishing as diplomats in mysterious circumstances in 1951.^[4]
• 12 February – Double yellow lines to prohibit parking introduced in Slough.^[5]
• 23 February – A fire at Eastwood Mills, Keighley, West Yorkshire, kills eight employees.^[6]
• 24 March – In the Grand National, Devon Loch, owned by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and ridden by Dick Francis, is in a clear lead when he inexplicably collapses 50 yards (45 m) from the finish, giving victory to E.S.B. at 100/7, ridden by Dave Dick and trained by Fred Rimell. Stan Mellor is the second placed jockey.^[7][8]
• 7 April – Manchester United, with an average team age of just 24, win the Football League First Division title.^[9]
• 17 April – Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan introduces Premium Bonds.^[10] They first go on sale on 1 November.^[11]
• 20 April – Humphrey Lyttleton and his band record his trad jazz composition Bad Penny Blues in London with sound engineer Joe Meek. This will be the first British jazz record to get into the Top Twenty.
• 3 May – Granada Television launched.^[5]
• 5 May – Manchester City win the FA Cup with a 3-1 win over Birmingham City at Wembley Stadium. German goalkeeper Bert Trautmann plays through the game despite being injured 15 minutes from time.^[12]
• 7 May – Minister of Health, RH Turton, rejects a call for the government to lead an anti-smoking campaign arguing that no ill-effects had yet been proven.^[13]
• 8 May – First performance of John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger by the newly formed English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre.^[5][14] Alan Bates has his first major role as Cliff.
• 9 May
  • Anthony Eden makes a statement refusing to reveal any details surrounding the mystery of the disappearance of the frogman Lionel Crabb, who vanished after diving near the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze during a state visit by Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin.^[15]
  • The Gower Peninsula becomes the first area in the British Isles to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.^[16]
  • Bert Trautmann's injury in the FA Cup final is diagnosed as a broken neck.^[17]
• 3 June – Third class accommodation on British Railways trains redesignated as Second class (also applies on Great Northern Railway in Northern Ireland).
• 3 July – Prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Sidney Holland of New Zealand are made Freemen of the City of London.^[18]
• 4 July – The National Library of Scotland's first purpose-built premises are opened on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh.^[19]
• 5 July – Parliament passes the Clean Air Act in response to the Great Smog of 1952.^[20]
• 9 July – Mettoy introduce Corgi Toys model cars, manufactured in South Wales.^[21]
• 26 July – Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser announces the nationalisation of the Suez Canal triggering the Suez Crisis.^[22]
• August – Art exhibition This Is Tomorrow, featuring principally the interdisciplinary ICA Independent Group, opens at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Among the exhibits is Richard Hamilton’s collage Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, considered to be one of the earliest works of Pop Art.^[23]
• 17 August – Scotland Yard are called to Eastbourne to investigate the activities of society doctor John Bodkin Adams. The case is reported around the world and press reports claim up to 400 patients may have been murdered.^[24]
• 10 September – Guy Mollet visits London and proposes a merger of France and the United Kingdom. However, the idea is rejected by Anthony Eden.^[25]
• 25 September – The TAT-1 transatlantic telephone cable between the UK and North America inaugurated.^[5]
• 28 September – Eden considers allowing France to join the Commonwealth of Nations, but this idea is also rejected.^[25]
• 15 October – The RAF retires its last Lancaster bomber.^[5]
• 17 October – The Queen opens the world's first commercial nuclear power station at Calder Hall.^[26]
• 5 November – Long-running television programme What the Papers Say airs for the first time.^[5]
• 6 November – British and French forces seize control of two major ports in the Suez Canal in Egypt before declaring a ceasefire.^[27]
• 22 November–8 December – Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, and win 6 gold, 7 silver and 11 bronze medals.
• 29 November – Petrol rationing introduced because of petrol blockades from the Middle East due to the Suez Crisis.^[28]
• 10 December – Cyril Norman Hinshelwood wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Nikolay Semyonov "for their researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions".^[29]
• 19 December
  • Six people die and several more are injured in car crashes caused by heavy fog in northern England.^[30]
  • Dr John Bodkin Adams is arrested for the murder of patient Edith Alice Morrell.^[24]
• 23 December – British and French troops withdraw from Suez under United Nations and United States pressure.^[31]

Undated

• Opening of the first Welsh-medium secondary school in Wales – Ysgol Glan Clwyd, Rhyl.
• Pietro Annigoni's portrait of the Queen is unveiled.
• Tesco opens its first self-service stores in St Albans^[32] and Maldon.^[33]
• PG Tips launches its long-running ITV advertising campaign using a chimpanzees' tea party.
• DIDO heavy water enriched uranium nuclear reactor begins operation at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, Oxfordshire.
• The Collared Dove first breeds in the UK.^[34][35]

Publications

• Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel Dead Man's Folly.
• Anthony Crosland's book The Future of Socialism.^[36]
• Gerald Durrell's memoir My Family and Other Animals.
• Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Diamonds Are Forever.
• William Golding's novel Pincher Martin.
• C. S. Lewis' novel The Last Battle.
• Rose Macaulay's novel The Towers of Trebizond.
• Nancy Mitford's book Noblesse Oblige: an Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy, illustrated by Osbert Lancaster.
• Dodie Smith's children's novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians.
• Angus Wilson's novel Anglo-Saxon Attitudes.
• Colin Wilson's study The Outsider.
• The Movement's poetry anthology New Lines edited by Robert Conquest.

Births

• 4 January – Bernard Sumner, guitarist (Joy Division and New Order)
• 6 January – Angus Deayton, actor and television presenter
• 9 January – Imelda Staunton, actress
• 17 January – Paul Young, musician
• 31 January – Johnny Rotten, singer (Sex Pistols)
• 13 February – Peter Hook, bass guitar player (Joy Division and New Order)
• 25 February – Davie Cooper, Scottish footballer (died 1995)
• 12 March – Steve Harris, bass player, founding member of Iron Maiden
• 20 March – Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, politician
• 19 April – Sue Barker, tennis player and television presenter
• April 25 – Greg Richards, English decathlete
• 26 April – Koo Stark, actress
• 14 May – Hazel Blears, politician
• 15 May – Kjartan Poskitt, author
• 15 July – Ian Curtis, musician (Joy Division) (died 1980)
• 14 September – Ray Wilkins, footballer and coach
• 29 September – Sebastian Coe, athlete, co-ordinator of London 2012 Olympic Games
• 27 October – Hazell Dean, singer
• 30 October – Juliet Stevenson, actress
• 28 November – Lucy Gutteridge, actress
• 23 December – Dave Murray, guitarist
• 28 December – Nigel Kennedy, violinist

Deaths

• 31 January – A. A. Milne, author (born 1882)
• 25 March – Robert Newton, film actor (born 1905)
• 30 March – Edmund Clerihew Bentley, inventor (born 1875)
• 17 May – Austin Osman Spare, magician (born 1886)
• 18 May – Maurice Tate, cricketer (born 1895)
• 20 May – Max Beerbohm, theatre critic (born 1872)
• 22 June – Walter de la Mare, poet, short story writer and novelist (born 1873)
• 22 September – Frederick Soddy, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1877)
• 16 December – Nina Hamnett, artist (born 1890)

References

See also

Years in the United Kingdom Years in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 Years in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012