1973 in the United Kingdom

1973 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1971 | 1972 | 1973 (1973) | 1974 | 1975

Sport and Music

1973 English cricket season Football England | Scotland 1973 in British music

Events from the year 1973 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister – Edward Heath (Conservative)

Events

• 1 January - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community.^[1]
• 4 January - 400 children attack British Army troops in Derry, Northern Ireland.
• 11 January - Open University awards its first degrees.^[2]
• 19 January - The super tug Statesman is sent to protect British fishing vessels from Icelandic ships in the Cod War.^[3]
• 22 January - British share values fall by £4billion in one day.
• 25 January - English actor Derren Nesbitt is convicted of assaulting his wife Anne Aubrey.
• 20 February - Two Pakistanis are shot dead by police in London after being spotted carrying pistols, which are later established to have been fake pistols.
• 27 February - Rail workers and civil servants go on strike.
• 3 March - Two IRA bombs explode in London, killing one person and injuring 250 others. Ten people are arrested hours later at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of being involved in the bombings.
• 8 March
  • In the Northern Ireland referendum there is a substantial majority for remaining within the UK. Voter turnout is reported as 59%, although less than 1% of Catholics vote.^[4]
  • IRA bombs explode in Whitehall and the Old Bailey in London.
• 10 March - The governor of Bermuda Richard Sharples and his aide-de-camp assassinated.^[5]
• 17 March - Elizabeth II opens the new London Bridge.^[6]
• 21 March - Lofthouse Colliery disaster: seven men killed in an inrush of water to the West Yorkshire coal mine.
• 24 March - Pink Floyd release The Dark Side of the Moon.
• 26 March - Women are admitted into the London Stock Exchange for the first time.^[7]
• April - Price and Pay Code Stage Two restricts rises in pay and prices.
• 1 April - VAT comes into effect in the UK.^[8]
• 17 April British Leyland launches its new Austin Allegro range of small family saloons, to replace the ageing 1100 and 1300 ranges that were sold under the Austin, Morris, Riley, Wolseley, MG and Vanden Plas brands from the range's 1962 launch.
• 28 April - Liverpool and Celtic are crowned league champions of England and Scotland respectively.^[9]
• 1 May - 1.6 million workers go on strike over government pay restraints.^[10]
• 5 May–28 July - BBC Television series The Ascent of Man, written and presented by Jacob Bronowski, airs; there is also an accompanying bestselling book.^[11]
• 5 May - Sunderland achieve a shock 1-0 win over Leeds United in the FA Cup final at Wembley. Ian Porterfield scores the only goal of the game. It is the first time that an FA Cup winning team has not contained a single player to be capped at full international level, and the first postwar FA Cup win by a side outside the First Division.^[12]
• 10 May - The Liberal Party gains control of Liverpool council in the local council elections.
• 15 May - In the House of Commons, Edward Heath, the prime minister, describes large payments made by Lonrho to Duncan Sandys through the tax haven of the Cayman Islands at a time when the government is trying to implement a counter-inflation policy as the "unacceptable face of capitalism"'^[13]
• 20 May - The Royal Navy sends three frigates to protect British fishing vessels from Icelandic ships in the Cod War dispute.^[14]
• 29 May - The Princess Anne announces her engagement to Mark Phillips.
• 23 June - A fire at a house in Hull which kills a 6-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 fire deaths caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.
• 1 July - The British Library is established.
• 6 July - The James Bond film Live and Let Die is released in British cinemas, with the spy now being played by 45-year-old The Saint star Roger Moore.^[15]
• 10 July - The Bahamas gain full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.^[16]
• 30 July - £20 million compensation is paid to victims of Thalidomide following an 11-year court case.^[17]
• 31 July
  • Militant protesters of Ian Paisley disrupt the first sitting of the Northern Ireland Assembly.^[18]
  • Markham Colliery disaster: eighteen coal miners are killed at the coal mine near Staveley, Derbyshire, when the brake mechanism on their cage fails.
• 8 August - Gordon Banks, the Stoke City and England goalkeeper, announces his retirement from football having lost the sight in one eye in a car crash in October last year.^[19]
• 20 August - Football League president Len Shipman calls for the government to bring back the birch as a tactic of dealing with the growing problem of football hooliganism.
• 21 August - The coroner in the Bloody Sunday inquest accuses the British army of "sheer unadulterated murder" after the jury returns an open verdict.^[20]
• 8 September - The IRA detonates bombs in Manchester and Victoria Station in London.^[21]
• 10 September
  • IRA bombs at King's Cross and Euston railway stations in London injure 13 people.^[21]
  • The fashion store Biba re-opens in Kensington High Street.^[22]
• 12 September - Further IRA bombs in Oxford Street and Sloane Square.^[21]
• 28 September - Somerset Coalfield last worked (at Lower Writhlington near Radstock).^[23]
• 8 October
  • London Broadcasting Company, Britain's first legal commercial Independent Local Radio station, begins broadcasting.^[24]
  • Prime minister Edward Heath announces government proposals for its counter-inflationary Price and Pay Code Stage Three (continuing to July 1974), including limiting pay rises to 7%, restricting price rises, and paying £10 bonuses to pensioners before Christmas - a move which will cost around £80million, funded by a 9p rise in National Insurance contributions.
• 16 October - Film Don't Look Now, containing one of the most graphic sex scenes hitherto shown in mainstream British cinema, is released in a double bill with The Wicker Man.^[25]
• 20 October - The Dalai Lama makes his first visit to the UK.^[26]
• 26 October - Firefighters in Glasgow stage a one-day strike following a pay dispute. Troops are drafted in to run the fire stations.
• 8 November
  • The Second Cod War between Britain and Iceland ends.^[6]
  • The government makes £146million compensation available to three nationalised industries to cover losses resulting from the price restraint policies.
• 12 November
  • Miners begin overtime ban; ambulance drivers begin selective strikes.
  • Television sitcom Last of the Summer Wine begins its series run on BBC One, following a premiere in Comedy Playhouse on 4 January. It will run for 31 series.
• 14 November
  • Eight members of the Provisional IRA convicted of the March bombings in London.^[27]
  • The Princess Anne marries commoner Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey.^[28]
• 26 November - Peter Walker, the Secretary for Trade and Industry, warns that petrol rationing may have to be introduced in the near future as a result of the oil crisis in the Middle East which is restricting petrol supply.
• 5 December - The speed limit on motorways is reduced to 50 mph from 70 mph until further notice.^[29]
• 9 December - The Sunningdale Agreement is signed in Sunningdale, Berkshire by Prime Minister Edward Heath, Irish premier Liam Cosgrave, and representatives of the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.^[30]
• 10 December
  • Brian Josephson shares the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects".^[31]
  • Geoffrey Wilkinson wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Ernst Otto Fischer "for their pioneering work, performed independently, on the chemistry of the organometallic, so called sandwich compounds".^[32]
• 31 December - As a result of coal shortages caused by industrial action, the electricity consumption reduction measure - the Three-Day Week, announced on 17 December - will come into force at midnight.^[6]

Undated

• Inflation has risen to 8.4%.^[33]
• Start of Secondary banking crisis of 1973-1975.^[34]
• Vindolanda tablets discovered by Robin Birley near Hadrian's Wall.
• Pizza Hut opens its first UK restaurant in Islington.^[35]
• The National House Building Council is formed.
• Completion of Cromwell Tower, the first tower block on the Barbican Estate in the City of London and at this date London's tallest residential tower at 42 storeys and 123 metres (404 ft) high.

Publications

• Martin Amis's novel The Rachel Papers.
• Agatha Christie's novel Postern of Fate.
• J. G. Farrell's novel The Siege of Krishnapur.
• Graham Greene's novel The Honorary Consul.
• Iris Murdoch's novel The Black Prince.

Births

• 18 January - Crispian Mills, British musician (The Jeevas and Kula Shaker)
• 8 February - Sonia Deol, presenter
• 27 February - Peter Andre, singer
• 3 April - Jamie Bamber, actor
• 26 April - Chris Perry, English footballer
• 10 May - Dario Franchitti, Scottish race car driver
• 24 May - Dermot O'Leary, British television presenter
• 30 May - Leigh Francis, British comedian
• 9 June - Iain Lee, British comedian and radio and television presenter
• 2 July - Peter Kay, British comedian
• 3 July - Emma Cunniffe, British actress
• 23 July - Fran Healy, British singer (Travis)
• 26 July - Kate Beckinsale, English actress
• 12 August - Richard Reid, English terrorist
• 12 September - Darren Campbell, British athlete
• 21 October - Beverly Turner, British TV and radio presenter
• 29 November - Ryan Giggs, Welsh footballer
• 17 December - Paula Radcliffe, British athlete
• Katie Carr, actress and model

Deaths

January - April

• 15 January - Neil M. Gunn, Scottish novelist, critic, and dramatist(born 1891)
• 19 January - Max Adrian, Northern Irish actor (born 1903)
• 28 January - Francis Romney, English cricketer (born 1873)
• 16 February - Harold Gibbons, English cricketer (born 1904)
• 22 February - Elizabeth Bowen, novelist (born 1899)
• 12 March - David Lack, British ornithologist and biologist (born 1910)
• 26 March - Noël Coward, English composer and playwright (born 1899)
• 30 March - Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, British politician and Conservative peer (born 1903)

May - August

• 11 May - Russell Everitt, English cricketer (born 1881)
• 14 May - A. C. Ewing, British philosopher (born 1899)
• 6 June - Jimmy Clitheroe, aka 'The Clitheroe Kid', English comedian (born 1921)
• 18 June - Roger Delgado, English actor (Doctor Who) (born 1918)
• 1 July - Charles Ernest Garforth, English soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross (born 1891)
• 8 July - Wilfred Rhodes, English cricketer (born 1877)
• 18 July - John Brown Hamilton, Scottish soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross (born 1896)
• 29 July
  • Roger Williamson, British race car driver (born 1948)
  • Cecil Griffiths, British athlete, winner of gold medal in 4x400 m relay at the 1920 Summer Olympics (born 1901)
• 6 August - James Beck, actor (born 1929)
• 16 August - A. K. Chesterton, British politician and journalist (born 1896)
• 17 August - George Benson, British Labour Party politician (born 1889)
• 18 August - Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, British Ulster Unionist politician (born 1888)
• 29 August - Stringer Davis, English actor (born 1896)

September - December

• 2 September - J. R. R. Tolkien, British writer (born 1892)
• 6 September - William Henry Harris, English organist and composer (born 1883)
• 11 September - E. E. Evans-Pritchard, British anthropologist (born 1902)
• 21 September - C. H. Dodd, Welsh scholar and theologian (born 1884)
• 24 September - Barbara Freyberg, Baroness Freyberg, British peeress
• 25 September - George Porter, British Labour Party politician (born 1884)
• 29 September - W. H. Auden, English poet (born 1907)
• 4 October - Walter Montagu-Douglas-Scott, 8th Duke of Buccleuch, British politician and Conservative peer (born 1894)
• 9 October - Hilda Plowright, English actress (born 1890)
• 10 November - Gerald Cock, British broadcasting executive (born 1887)
• 5 December - Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, Scottish inventor (born 1892)
• 9 December - Anthony Gilbert (pen name of Lucy Beatrice Malleson), British crime-fiction writer (born 1899)
• 13 December - Henry Green, novelist (born 1905)

References