1957 in the United Kingdom

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1957 in the United Kingdom
Other years
1955 | 1956 | 1957 (1957) | 1958 | 1959
Constituent countries of the United Kingdom
Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales
Popular culture

Events from the year 1957 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents[]

  • Monarch – Elizabeth II
  • Prime Minister
    • Anthony Eden (Conservative) (until 10 January)
    • Harold Macmillan (Conservative) (starting 10 January)
  • Parliament – 41st

Events[]

  • 1 January – Sexual Offences Act 1956 (a consolidation of the English criminal law) comes into effect.
  • 9 January – resignation of Anthony Eden as Prime Minister due to ill health.[1]
  • 10 January – Harold Macmillan succeeds Anthony Eden as Prime Minister[2] through "the customary processes of consultation".[3]
  • 16 January
    • Royal Ballet granted a Royal Charter.[4]
    • The Cavern Club opens in Liverpool as a jazz club.[4]
  • 24 January – Sunday Express newspaper editor John Junor is called to the Bar of the House of Commons to be reprimanded for contempt of Parliament[5] – the last non-politician to be so called.
  • January – National Trust for Scotland agrees to accept the bequest of the islands of St Kilda.[6]
  • February – Norwich City Council becomes the first British local authority to install a computer (an Elliott 405).[7]
  • 11 February – East Midlands earthquake.[8]
  • 16 February – the "Toddlers' Truce" (an arrangement whereby there have been no television broadcasts between 18:00–19:00 to allow parents to put their children to bed) is abolished.
  • 22 February – the Queen grants her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom.
  • 6 March – The Northern Territories protectorate and British Togoland are annexed to the Crown which territories together with Ashanti and Gold Coast become Ghana which is independent of the United Kingdom.[9]
  • 21 March – Homicide Act amends the common law offence of murder in English law by introducing the partial defences of diminished responsibility and suicide pact, reforming the partial defence of provocation, and largely abolishing the doctrine of constructive malice; it also restricts the application of the death penalty to aggravated murder, allowing commutation of sentence to life imprisonment in other cases. It is no longer a requirement for the Attorney General to prosecute poisoning cases in person.
  • 1 April – the BBC's Panorama current affairs television programme presented by Richard Dimbleby broadcasts a spaghetti tree hoax report purporting to show spaghetti being harvested in Switzerland, believed to be the first April Fool's Day joke on television.[10]
  • 4 April – 1957 Defence White Paper presented by Duncan Sandys, Minister of Defence, introduces major cuts in conventional land and air forces.[11]
  • 10 April – Royal Court Theatre (London) premieres John Osborne's The Entertainer with Laurence Olivier in the title role.[12]
  • 11 April – the UK Government agrees to allow Singapore its independence.[13]
  • 15 April – suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams is controversially found not guilty at the Old Bailey after Britain's longest murder trial. Political interference is suspected.[14]
  • 20 April – Manchester United retain the Football League First Division title with a 4–0 win over Sunderland.[15]
  • 24 April – first broadcast of BBC Television astronomy series The Sky at Night presented by Patrick Moore. This will run with the same presenter until his death in December 2012.
  • 2 May – Hammer Film Productions' The Curse of Frankenstein released.
  • 4 May – Aston Villa win the FA Cup for a record seventh time with a 2–1 win over Football League First Division champions Manchester United at Wembley Stadium. Peter McParland scores both of Villa's goals, with United's consolation goal coming from Tommy Taylor. The result ends Manchester United's hopes of becoming the first team this century to win the double of the league title and FA Cup.[16]
  • 14 May – end of petrol rationing following the Suez Crisis.[17]
  • 15 May
    • Operation Grapple: Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb, at Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean.[18]
    • Stanley Matthews plays his final international soccer game, ending an English record international career of almost 23 years.
  • 21 May – Project E: agreement for the United States to supply Thor intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Britain under U.S. control.[19]
  • 1 June – the first Premium Bond winners selected by the computer ERNIE.[4]
  • 3 June – actor and playwright Noël Coward returns to Britain from the West Indies amid criticism that he is living abroad to avoid having to pay tax.[20]
  • 13 June – eight people are killed in Oxford Street, London after a bus on route 7 collides with a queue of people at a bus stop.[21]
  • 26 June – six miners are killed in Barnburgh Main Colliery after an underground explosion.[22]
  • 27 June – a report by the Medical Research Council reveals that there is evidence to support a link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer.[23]
  • End June – the 1957–1958 influenza pandemic ("Asian flu"), which has already killed thousands of people worldwide, reaches Britain where it will kill a number estimated at between 20,000 and 33,000.[24]
  • 6 July – future members of The Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney first meet as teenagers at a garden fête at St. Peter's Church, Woolton, Liverpool, at which Lennon's skiffle group, The Quarrymen, is playing.
  • 20 July
    • Prime Minister Harold Macmillan makes a speech to his fellow Conservative Party members at Bedford, telling them that "most of our people have never had it so good".[25]
    • Civic Trust (England), founded by Duncan Sandys to promote improvement of the built environment, holds its inaugural conference in London.
    • Stirling Moss finishes the British Grand Prix at Aintree in first position in a Vanwall VW5, the first World Championship victory for a British car.[26]
  • 20–28 July – the Transport and General Workers' Union stages a national strike by provincial (non-municipal) bus crews; some violence against non-strikers is reported.[27]
  • 31 July – the Tryweryn Bill, permitting Liverpool City Council to build a reservoir which will drown the village of Capel Celyn, becomes law. Every Welsh MP votes against (or, in one case, abstains).
  • 5 August – the cartoon character Andy Capp first appears in northern editions of the Daily Mirror.
  • 31 August
    • The Federation of Malaya becomes independent from Britain.[28]
    • Central Scotland's independent channel Scottish Television goes on air, the first 7-day-a-week ITV franchise to do so.
  • August – ZETA fusion reactor begins operation at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, Oxfordshire.
  • 4 September – publication of the Wolfenden report recommending "homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence".[29]
  • 10 September – Tony Lock becomes the last bowler to reach 200 wickets in a first-class season,[30] a feat subsequently impossible due to limited-overs cricket and covered pitches.
  • October – the Consumers' Association begins publishing Which? magazine.
  • 1 October – 1957–1958 influenza pandemic: the UK introduces a vaccine against the "Asian flu";[31] deaths from the condition will peak in week ending 17 October at 600 in England and Wales.[24]
  • 2 October – David Lean's Academy Award-winning film The Bridge on the River Kwai is released.
  • 10 October – Windscale fire: The graphite core of the nuclear reactor at Windscale, Cumbria, catches fire, releasing substantial amounts of radioactive contamination into the surrounding area.[32]
  • 11 October – Jodrell Bank Observatory becomes operational.[4]
  • 28 October – Today first broadcast as a daily early-morning topical radio show on the BBC Home Service; it will still be running 60 years later.
  • 30 October – the government unveils plans which will allow women to join the House of Lords for the first time.[33]
  • 8 November
    • Operation Grapple: first successful (test) explosion of a British hydrogen bomb, at Christmas Island in the Pacific.[34]
    • An inquiry into last month's fire at Windscale nuclear power plant blames the accident on a combination of human error, poor management and faulty instruments.[35]
  • 15 November – 1957 Aquila Airways Solent crash: a flying boat crash on the Isle of Wight kills 45.
  • 4 December – the Lewisham rail crash kills ninety and injures 173.[36]
  • 10 December – Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes".[37]
  • 12 December – Wales gets its own minister of state in the Westminster government for the first time.
  • 25 December – the Royal Christmas Message is broadcast on television with the Queen on camera for the first time.[4]
  • 28 December – a case of foot-and-mouth disease is found at an abattoir in Liverpool.[38]
  • Undated – minting of the sovereign as a bullion piece resumes.

Publications[]

  • John Braine's novel Room at the Top.
  • B2FH, an astrophysics paper by British astronomers Geoffrey Burbidge, Margaret Burbidge and Fred Hoyle and American astronomer William Fowler describing the synthesis of the lightest elements through nuclear processes in stars.
  • Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel 4.50 From Paddington.
  • Lawrence Durrell's novel Justine, first of The Alexandria Quartet, and his memoir Bitter Lemons.
  • Ian Fleming's James Bond novel From Russia, with Love.
  • Richard Hoggart's study The Uses of Literacy.
  • Ted Hughes' first collection of poems The Hawk in the Rain.
  • Alistair MacLean's wartime adventure novel The Guns of Navarone.
  • Stevie Smith's poem "Not Waving but Drowning".
  • Evelyn Waugh's novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold.
  • Bert Weedon's guitar tutorial Play in a Day.
  • John Wyndham's novel The Midwich Cuckoos.
  • Michael Young and Peter Willmott's sociological study Family and Kinship in East London.

Births[]

  • 6 January – Michael Foale, astronaut
  • 11 January – Bryan Robson, footballer
  • 15 January – Patrick Dixon, business guru and author
  • 16 January – Mark Pawsey, businessman and politician
  • 17 January – Keith Chegwin, actor and television presenter (died 2017)
  • 22 January – Francis Wheen, English journalist and author
  • 24 January – Adrian Edmondson, comedian
  • 9 February – Gordon Strachan, footballer and manager
  • 10 February – Helen Alexander, businesswoman
  • 22 February – Robert Bathurst, actor
  • 27 February – Timothy Spall, character actor
  • 12 March – Steve Harris, bassist (Iron Maiden)
  • 17 March – Mal Donaghy, footballer
  • 25 March – Christina Boxer, middle-distance runner
  • 1 April
    • David Gower, cricket player and commentator
    • Stephen O'Brien, lawyer and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
  • 3 April – Julia Hills, actress
  • 17 April – Nick Hornby, novelist
  • 20 April – Graeme Fowler, English cricketer, coach and sportscaster
  • 25 April – Eric Bristow, darts player (died 2018)
  • 29 April – Daniel Day-Lewis, actor
  • 3 May – Jo Brand, comedian
  • 10 May
    • Alex Jennings, actor
    • Sid Vicious, born John Ritchie, bassist (Sex Pistols) (died 1979)
  • 13 May
    • Frances Barber, actress
    • Mark Heap, actor
  • 18 May – Constance Briscoe, barrister disbarred and jailed for perverting the course of justice[39]
  • 25 May – Alastair Campbell, journalist
  • 27 May – Siouxsie Sioux, born Susan Ballion, singer (Siouxsie and the Banshees)
  • 4 June – Sue Hodge, actress
  • 10 June – Lindsay Hoyle, politician
  • 15 June – Stephen Lloyd, Kenyan-born English businessman and politician[40]
  • 22 June – Danny Baker, broadcaster and music journalist
  • 9 July
    • Marc Almond, singer
    • Paul Merton, actor and comedian
  • 11 July – Peter Murphy, singer (Bauhaus)
  • 15 July – Kate Kellaway, journalist and literary critic
  • 17 July – Fern Britton, television presenter
  • 20 July – Paul Daisley, politician (died 2003)
  • 10 August – Michael J. Todd, police officer (died 2008)
  • 17 August �� Robin Cousins, figure skater
  • 20 August – Simon Donaldson, mathematician
  • 22 August – Steve Davis, snooker player
  • 24 August – Stephen Fry, comedian, author and actor[41]
  • 27 August – Johnny Cunningham, Scottish composer (died 2003)
  • 31 August – Glenn Tilbrook, Squeeze singer songwriter
  • 10 September – Mark Naylor, high jumper
  • 12 September – Rachel Ward, actress
  • 3 October – Tim Westwood, DJ and presenter
  • 7 October – Jayne Torvill, ice skater
  • 11 October – Dawn French, comic actor
  • 15 October – Michael Caton-Jones, Scottish film director
  • 13 November – Stephen Baxter, science fiction author
  • 30 November – Colin Mochrie, comedian
  • 8 December – Phil Collen, singer and guitarist (Def Leppard)
  • 20 December
    • Stephen Bicknell, organ builder (died 2007)
    • Billy Bragg, singer
  • Unknown – Jacquie de Creed, stunt woman (died 2011)

Deaths[]

  • January – Harry Gordon, popular entertainer (born 1893)
  • 9 February – John Axon, railwayman (born 1900)
  • 14 February – Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart, diplomat (born 1881)
  • 16 February – Leslie Hore-Belisha, 1st Baron Hore-Belisha, statesman after whom Belisha beacons are named (born 1893)
  • 7 March – Wyndham Lewis, painter and author (born 1882, Canada)
  • 21 March – Charles Kay Ogden, linguist, philosopher and writer (born 1889)
  • 23 March – Sir Patrick Abercrombie, town planner (born 1879)
  • 21 April – John Graham Kerr, embryologist and politician (born 1869)
  • 17 June – Dorothy Richardson, feminist writer (born 1873)
  • 27 June – Malcolm Lowry, novelist (born 1909)
  • 1August 1 – Rose Fyleman, English writer and poet (born 1877)[42]
  • 19 August – David Bomberg, painter (born 1890)
  • 20 August – Edward Evans, 1st Baron Mountevans, explorer and admiral (born 1880)
  • 1 September – Dennis Brain, horn player (born 1921)
  • 11 September – James Burns, cricketer (born 1866)
  • 29 September – Jane Carr, actress (born 1909)
  • 14 October – Fred Russell, "The Father of Modern Ventriloquism" (born 1862)
  • 20 October – Jack Buchanan, actor, singer and film director (born 1891)[43]
  • 4 November – William Haywood, architect (born 1876)
  • 9 December – Llewellyn Henry Gwynne, first bishop of Egypt and Sudan (born 1863)
  • 13 December – Michael Sadleir, novelist (born 1888)
  • 17 December – Dorothy L. Sayers, writer (born 1893)
  • 21 December – Eric Coates, composer (born 1886)
  • 31 December – Sir Archibald Bodkin, Director of Public Prosecutions (born 1862)

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Sir Anthony Eden resigns". BBC News. 9 January 1957. Archived from the original on 12 January 2008. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  2. ^ "Macmillan becomes Prime Minister". BBC News. 10 January 1957. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  3. ^ Roth, Andrew (1972). Heath and the Heathmen. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. p. 173. ISBN 0-7100-7428-X.
  4. ^ a b c d e Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
  5. ^ "Committee of Privileges (Second Report) (Hansard, 23 January 1957)". api.parliament.uk.
  6. ^ "St Kilda". National Trust for Scotland. Archived from the original on 31 August 2010. Retrieved 10 September 2010.
  7. ^ "Our Computer Heritage". Computer Conservation Society. 4 March 2012. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
  8. ^ Dollar, A.T.J (1957). "The Midlands earthquake of February 11, 1957". Nature. 179 (4558): 507–510. Bibcode:1957Natur.179..507D. doi:10.1038/179507a0. S2CID 4186065.
  9. ^ "Ghana celebrates independence". BBC News. 6 March 1957. Archived from the original on 13 January 2008. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  10. ^ "BBC fools the nation". BBC News. 1 April 1957. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  11. ^ Defence: The Outline of Future Policy. Cmd.124.
  12. ^ The Daily Express, 10 April 1957, p. 4
  13. ^ "Britain agrees to Singapore self-rule". BBC News. 11 April 1957. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  14. ^ Cullen, Pamela (2006). Stranger in Blood: the case files on Doctor John Bodkin Adams.
  15. ^ "Manchester United retains English soccer supremacy". Leader-Post. Regina, Saskatchewan. 22 April 1957. p. 19. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
  16. ^ "FA Cup Final 1957". 25 March 2008. Archived from the original on 25 March 2008.
  17. ^ "Cheers as petrol rationing ended". BBC News. 14 May 1957. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  18. ^ "Britain drops its first H-bomb". BBC News. 15 May 1957. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  19. ^ Lamb, Richard (1995). The Macmillan Years 1957–1963. London: John Murray. pp. 284–5. ISBN 071955392X.
  20. ^ "Noel Coward comes home". BBC News. 3 June 1957. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
  21. ^ Marshall, Prince (1972). Wheels of London. The Sunday Times Magazine. p. 124. ISBN 0-7230-0068-9.
  22. ^ "Report on the causes of, and circumstances attending, the Explosion which occurred at Barnburgh Main Colliery, Barnburgh, in the County of York, on 26th June, 1957". Durham Mining Museum. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  23. ^ "Smoking 'causes lung cancer'". BBC News. 27 June 1957. Archived from the original on 10 November 2007. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  24. ^ a b Honigsbaum, Mark (13 June 2020). "Revisiting the 1957 and 1968 influenza pandemics". The Lancet. 395 (10240): 1824–1826. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31201-0. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 32464113.
  25. ^ Originally reported by Michael Freedland. "Britons 'have never had it so good'". BBC News. 20 July 1957. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
  26. ^ "Grand Prix Results: British GP, 1957". grandprix.com. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
  27. ^ "Bus dispute turns violent". BBC News. 23 July 1957. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  28. ^ "Malaya celebrates independence". BBC News. 31 August 1957. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  29. ^ "Homosexuality 'should not be a crime'". BBC News. 4 September 1957. Archived from the original on 15 December 2007. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  30. ^ "The Home of CricketArchive". cricketarchive.com.
  31. ^ "British public gets 'Asian Flu' vaccine". BBC News. 1 October 1957. Archived from the original on 4 May 2009. Retrieved 10 May 2009.
  32. ^ "Inquiry publishes cause of nuclear fire". BBC News. 8 November 1957. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  33. ^ "Lords to admit first women peers". BBC News. 30 October 1957. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
  34. ^ Arnold, Lorna; Pyne, Katherine (2001). Britain and the H-bomb. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-230-59977-2. OCLC 753874620.
  35. ^ "Inquiry publishes cause of nuclear fire". BBC News. 8 November 1957. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
  36. ^ "Lewisham rail crash dead honoured". BBC News. 2 December 2007. Archived from the original on 3 December 2007. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  37. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1957". Archived from the original on 24 October 2007. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  38. ^ "Foot-and-mouth shuts down abattoir". BBC News. 28 December 1957. Retrieved 4 December 2007.
  39. ^ Briscoe, Constance (13 November 2008). Ugly. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 9781848940512 – via Google Books.
  40. ^ "Lloyd, Stephen, (born 15 June 1957), MP (Lib Dem) Eastbourne, since 2017 | WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO". doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U251155.
  41. ^ Rubinstein, W. D. (2011). The Palgrave dictionary of Anglo-Jewish history. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 307. ISBN 9781403939104.
  42. ^ Hay, Ann G. (1978). "Fyleman, Rose (Amy)". In Kirkpatrick, D.L. (ed.). Twentieth-century Children's Writers. London: Macmillan. p. 485. ISBN 978-0-33323-414-3.
  43. ^ Hardy, Phil (1995). The Da Capo companion to 20th-century popular music. New York: Da Capo Press. p. 124. ISBN 9780306806407.

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