1957 in the United Kingdom

1957 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1955 | 1956 | 1957 (1957) | 1958 | 1959

Sport and Music

1957 English cricket season Football England | Scotland 1957 in British music

Events from the year 1957 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister – Anthony Eden (until 9 January; Conservative), Harold Macmillan (Conservative)

Events

• 9 January – Resignation of Anthony Eden as Prime Minister due to ill-health.^[1]
• 10 January – Harold Macmillan succeeds Eden as Prime Minister.^[2]
• 16 January
  • Royal Ballet granted a Royal Charter.^[3]
  • Cavern Club opens in Liverpool.^[3]
• January – National Trust for Scotland agrees to accept the bequest of the islands of St Kilda.^[4]
• February – Norwich City Council becomes the first British local authority to install a computer (an Elliott 405).^[5]
• 11 February – East Midlands earthquake.^[6]
• 16 February – The "Toddlers' Truce" (an arrangement whereby there were no television broadcasts between 6 PM and 7 PM to allow parents to put their children to bed) is abolished.
• 6 March – Ghana becomes independent of the United Kingdom.^[7]
• 1 April – The BBC broadcasts a spoof documentary showing spaghetti being harvested in Switzerland, believed to be the first April Fool's Day joke on television.^[8]
• 10 April – Royal Court Theatre (London) premieres John Osborne’s The Entertainer with Laurence Olivier in the title role.^[9]
• 11 April – The British Government agrees to allow Singapore its independence.^[10]
• 15 April – Suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams is controversially found not guilty at the Old Bailey after Britain's longest murder trial. Political interference is suspected.^[11]
• 20 April – Manchester United retain the Football League First Division title with a 4-0 win over Sunderland.^[12]
• 24 April – First broadcast of BBC Television astronomy series The Sky at Night presented by Patrick Moore. This will still be running with the same presenter more than fifty years later
• 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.^[13]
• 14 May – End of petrol rationing following the Suez Crisis.^[14]
• 15 May – Operation Grapple: Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb, at Maiden Island in the Pacific.^[15]
• 1 June – The first Premium Bond winners selected by the computer ERNIE.^[3]
• 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.[1]
• 27 June – A report by the Medical Research Council reveals that there is evidence to support a link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer.^[16]
• 20 July – Prime minister Harold Macmillan makes an optimistic speech to his fellow party members at Bedford, telling them that "most of our people have never had it so good".^[17]
• 20–28 July – Transport and General Workers' Union stages national strike by provincial (non-municipal) bus crews; some violence against non-strikers is reported.^[18]
• 31 July – The Tryweryn Bill, permitting Liverpool City Council to build a reservoir which will drown the village of Capel Celyn, becomes law.
• 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.^[19]
• 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".^[20]
• October – The Consumers' Association begins publishing Which? magazine.
• 1 October – Britain introduces a vaccine against Asian Flu, which has already killed thousands of people worldwide.^[21]
• 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.^[22]
• 11 October – Jodrell Bank Observatory becomes operational.^[3]
• 30 October – The government unveils plans which will allow women to join the House of Lords for the first time.^[23]
• 8 November – 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.^[24]
• 4 December – The Lewisham rail crash kills ninety people and injures 173.^[25]
• 10 December – Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes".^[26]
• 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.^[3]
• 28 December – A case of foot-and-mouth disease is found at an abattoir in Liverpool.^[27]

Publications

• John Braine's novel Room at the Top.
• B²FH, an astrophysics paper by the British astronomers Geoffrey Burbidge, Margaret Burbidge and Fred Hoyle and the American astronomer William Fowler describes the synnthesis 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.
• Ted Hughes' first collection of poems The Hawk in the Rain.
• 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.

Births

• 6 January – Michael Foale, astronaut
• 15 January – Patrick Dixon, business guru and author
• 24 January – Adrian Edmondson, comedian
• 9 February – Gordon Strachan, footballer and manager
• 22 February – Robert Bathurst, actor
• 12 March – Steve Harris, bassist (Iron Maiden)
• 17 March – Mal Donaghy, footballer
• 25 March – Christina Boxer, English middle distance runner
• 1 April – David Gower, cricket player and commentator
• 3 April – Julia Hills, actress
• 17 April – Nick Hornby, novelist
• 29 April – Daniel Day-Lewis, actor
• 3 May – Jo Brand, comedian
• 10 May – Sid Vicious, bassist (Sex Pistols) (died 1979)
• 27 May – Siouxsie Sioux, singer (Siouxsie and the Banshees)
• 9 July
  • Marc Almond, singer
  • Paul Merton, actor and comedian
• 11 July – Peter Murphy, singer (Bauhaus)
• 17 July – Fern Britton, television presenter
• 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
• 31 August – Glenn Tilbrook, Squeeze singer songwriter
• 10 September – Mark Naylor, English high jumper
• 12 September – Rachel Ward, actress
• 7 October – Jayne Torvill, ice skater
• 11 October – Dawn French, comedian
• 13 November – Stephen Baxter, science fiction author
• 30 November – Colin Mochrie, comedian
• 8 December – Phil Collen, singer and guitarist (Def Leppard)
• 20 December – Billy Bragg, singer
• Unknown – Jacquie de Creed, stunt woman (d. 2011)

Deaths

• January – Harry Gordon, popular entertainer (born 1893)
• 9 February – John Axon, railwayman (born 1900)
• 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 – 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)
• 19 August – David Bomberg, painter (born 1890)
• 20 August – Edward Evans, 1st Baron Mountevans, explorer and admiral (born 1880)
• 1 September – Dennis Brain, French horn player (born 1921)
• 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)
• 21 December – Eric Coates, composer (born 1886)

References

See also