1937 in the United Kingdom

1937 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1935 | 1936 | 1937 (1937) | 1938 | 1939

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport, Television and music

1937 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland 1937 in British television

Events from the year 1937 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George VI
• Prime Minister – Stanley Baldwin, national coalition (until 28 May), Neville Chamberlain, national coalition

Events

• 25 February – UK première of the historical film Fire Over England, providing the first pairing of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.
• 8 March – The Prince Edward, the abdicated King Edward VIII, is created Duke of Windsor.
• 12 April – Frank Whittle ground-tests the world's first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby.
• 12 May – Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth takes place at Westminster Abbey, London. The BBC makes its first outside broadcast covering the event.^[1] The newly formed social research organisation Mass Observation makes its first survey of social attitudes on this day.
• 27 May – George VI passes letters patent denying the style of Royal Highness to the wife and descendants of the Duke of Windsor.
• 28 May – Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister after Baldwin's retirement.^[2]
• 3 June – The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson in the Château de Candé.^[1]
• 1 July – The 999 emergency telephone number is introduced.^[1]
• 2 July – Holditch Colliery Disaster, a coal mining accident in Chesterton, Staffordshire, in which thirty men die following a fire and explosions.^[3]
• 7 July – Peel Commission proposes partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.^[4][5]
• 23 July – Matrimonial Causes Act adds insanity and desertion to infidelity as legitimate grounds for divorce.^[2]
• 28 July – Assassination attempt on King George VI in Belfast by the Irish Republican Army.^[6]
• 4 August – Return of the British Graham Land Expedition from Antarctica.
• 27 August – Benjamin Britten's string orchestral work Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10, receives its concert première at the Salzburg Festival, bringing the composer to international attention.^[7]
• 6 October – The fictional character 'Mrs. Miniver' first appears in the column on domestic life written by 'Jan Struther' for The Times.^[8]
• 16 October – Jimmy McGrory plays his last match with Celtic F.C., achieving a United Kingdom record of 550 goals scored during his senior career.^[9]
• 4 December – The first issue of children's comic The Dandy, including the character Desperate Dan, is published.^[1]
• 10 December
  • Lord Robert Cecil wins the Nobel Peace Prize.^[10]
  • George Thomson wins the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Clinton Davisson "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals".^[11]
  • Walter Haworth wins half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C".^[12]
  • Castlecary rail crash: An express on the Edinburgh to Glasgow line collides into the rear of a local train standing at Castlecary in the snow, due primarily to a signalman's error; 35 are killed.^[13]
• 16 December – The musical Me and My Girl opens in the West End Victoria Palace Theatre; the dance number "The Lambeth Walk" becomes popular.^[14]
• December – The Hawker Hurricane enters service with the Royal Air Force as its first monoplane fighter aircraft (with No. 111 Squadron at Northolt).^[15]

Undated

• Nickel-brass twelve-sided threepence coin first introduced.
• The Georgian Group is set up as part of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in England.
• Littlewoods, the pools company formed fourteen years ago by Liverpool businessman John Moores, expands to create a department store in Blackpool, Lancashire.^[16]

Publications

• Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novels Dumb Witness and Death on the Nile.
• A. J. Cronin's medical novel The Citadel
• C. S. Forester's first Horatio Hornblower novel The Happy Return.
• David Jones' World War I epic In Parenthesis
• George Orwell's book The Road to Wigan Pier.
• J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit.
• First publication under Penguin Books' Pelican Books non-fiction paperback imprint, George Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.

Births

• 1 January – Anne Aubrey, actor
• 8 January – Shirley Bassey, singer
• 27 January – John Ogdon, pianist (died 1989)
• 30 January – Vanessa Redgrave, actress
• 21 February – Jilly Cooper, author
• 25 February – Tom Courtenay, actor
• 12 May – Susan Hampshire, actress
• 13 May – Trevor Baylis, inventor of the wind-up radio
• 23 June – Sir Nicholas Shackleton, geologist (died 2006)
• 3 July – Tom Stoppard, playwright
• 6 August – Barbara Windsor, actress
• 18 August – Willie Rushton, comedian, actor and writer (died 1996)
• 21 August – Donald Dewar, First Minister of Scotland (died 2000)
• 9 October – Brian Blessed, actor
• 11 October – Bobby Charlton, English footballer
• 17 November – Peter Cook, comedian and writer (died 1995)
• 30 November – Ridley Scott, film director

Deaths

• 13 March – Elihu Thomson, engineer and inventor (born 1853)
• 17 March – Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (born 1863)
• 19 April – Martin Conway, art critic, politician and mountaineer (born 1856)
• 19 June – J. M. Barrie, novelist and dramatist (born 1860)
• 22 August – Albert Goodman, politician (born 1880)
• 9 November – Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1866)
• 25 November – Lilian Baylis, theatrical producer (born 1874)

References

See also