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. Perhaps the most notable event of the year was the coronation of George VI, who had ascended to the throne at the end of the previous year.

Incumbents

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

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.
• April – Nickel-brass twelve-sided threepence coin first introduced.
• May – The Georgian Group is set up as part of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in England.
• 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

• Littlewoods, the pools company formed fourteen years ago by Liverpool businessman John Moores, expands to create a department store in Blackpool, Lancashire.^[16]

Publications

• 21 May – Penguin Books launches its Pelican Books sixpenny paperback non-fiction imprint with a 2-volume edition of Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.^[17]
• 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.

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
• 8 June – Gillian Clarke, Welsh poet and playwright
• 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)
• 4 October – Jackie Collins, romance novelist (died 2015 in the United States)
• 9 October – Brian Blessed, actor
• 11 October – Bobby Charlton, English footballer
• 16 November – Alan Budd, economist and academic
• 17 November – Peter Cook, comedian and writer (died 1995)
• 30 November – Ridley Scott, film director
• 10 December – Scott Baker, lawyer and judge

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