1974 in the United Kingdom

1974 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1972 | 1973 | 1974 (1974) | 1975 | 1976

Sport and Music

1974 English cricket season Football England | Scotland 1974 in British music

Events from the year 1974 in the United Kingdom. The year is marked by the Three-Day Week, two General Elections, one change of national government, a state of emergency in Northern Ireland, extensive Provisional Irish Republican Army bombing of the British mainland, and major local government reorganisation.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister – Edward Heath (until 4 March; Conservative), Harold Wilson (from 4 March; Labour)

Events

• 1 January
  • New Year's Day is celebrated as a public holiday for the first time.
  • Northern Ireland Power-sharing Executive set up in Belfast.^[1]
• 1 January–7 March - Three-Day Week introduced by the Conservative Government as a measure to conserve electricity during the period of industrial action by coal miners.^[2]
• 4 February - M62 coach bombing: 11 people are killed in a bomb explosion on a coach on the M62 motorway in West Yorkshire. Eight of the dead are off-duty soldiers, and two are children. 12 other people are injured.^[3]
• 7 February
  • Prime Minister Edward Heath calls a general election in an attempt to end the dispute over the miners' strike.^[4] During the campaign, the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress agree a 'Social Contract' intended to produce wage restraint.
  • Grenada becomes independent of the United Kingdom.^[5]
• 8 February - The M62 motorway bombing death toll reaches 12 with the death in hospital of an 18-year-old soldier who had been seriously injured in the bombing.
• 12 February - BBC1 first airs the children's television series Bagpuss, made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate's Smallfilms in stop motion animation.^[6][7]
• 14 February - Bob Latchford, the Birmingham City centre forward, becomes Britain's most expensive footballer in a £350,000 move to Everton.^[8]
• 27 February - Enoch Powell, the controversial Conservative MP who was dismissed from the shadow cabinet in 1968 for his "Rivers of Blood" speech opposing mass immigration, announces his resignation from the party, in protest against Edward Heath's decision to take Britain into the EEC.^[9]
• 28 February - The general election results in the first hung parliament since 1929, with the Conservative government having 297 seats - four fewer than Labour, who have 301 - and the largest number of votes. Prime minister Ted Heath is hoping to form a coalition with the Liberal Party in order to remain in power.^[10]
• 4 March - Ted Heath fails to convince the Liberals to form a coalition and announces his resignation as prime minister, paving the way for Harold Wilson to become prime minister for the second time as Labour forms a minority government.[12]
• 6 March - The miners' strike comes to an end due an improved pay offer by the new Labour government.^[11]
• 10 March - Ten miners die in a methane gas explosion at Golborne Colliery near Wigan, Lancashire.
• 11 March - Convicted armed robbers Kenneth Littlejohn and his brother Keith, who claimed to be British spies in the Republic of Ireland, escape from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.^[12]
• 15 March - Architect John Poulson jailed for five years for corruption.^[13]
• 18 March - Oil embargo crisis: Most OPEC nations end a 5-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.
• 20 March - Ian Ball fails in his attempt to kidnap HRH The Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips in The Mall, outside Buckingham Palace.
• 29 March - Government re-establishes direct rule over Northern Ireland after declaring a state of emergency.^[1]
• April - Soviet carmaker Lada, founded four years ago as a result of an enterprise by Italian automative giant Fiat, begins selling cars in the United Kingdom; its 1200 four-door saloon is based on the Fiat 124 and retails for £999.^[14]
• 1 April - The Local Government Act 1972 comes into effect in England and Wales, creating six new metropolitan counties and comprehensively redrawing the administrative map. Newport and Monmouthshire are legally transferred from England to Wales.
• 24 April - Leeds United win their second Football League First Division title.^[15]
• 27 April - Manchester United are relegated from the Football League First Division where they have played continuously since 1938. Their relegation is confirmed when they lose 1-0 at home to neighbours City in the penultimate game of the league season and the only goal of the game comes from former United striker Denis Law.[13]
• 1 May - Alf Ramsey, who guided England to World Cup glory in the 1966, is dismissed by the Football Association after 11 years in charge.[14]
• 2 May - The fascist far-right National Front gains more than 10% of the vote in several parts of London in council elections, but fails to net any councillors.^[16]
• 4 May - Liverpool win the FA Cup for the second time, beating Newcastle United 3-0 in the Wembley final, with Kevin Keegan scoring twice and Steve Heighway scoring the other goal.[15]
• 6 May - Inauguration of full electric service on British Rail's West Coast Main Line through to Glasgow.^[17]
• 17 May - The Loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force carries out the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in the Republic of Ireland.^[18]
• 28 May - Power-sharing in the Northern Ireland Assembly collapses following a strike by unionists.^[19]
• 1 June - Flixborough disaster: An explosion at a chemical plant in Flixborough, South Humberside, kills 28 people.
• 8 June - Jon Pertwee leaves Doctor Who in the final episode of Planet of the Spiders citing the death of his close acting friend Roger Delgado the previous year as the reason. He is replaced by a relatively unknown actor at the time, Tom Baker.
• 15 June - The Red Lion Square disorders see members of the fascist National Front clash with leftist counter-protesters in London's West End; 21-year-old Kevin Gateley, a university student, is killed.^[20]
• 17 June - A bomb explodes at the Houses of Parliament in London, damaging Westminster Hall. The Irish Republican Army claims responsibility for planting the bomb.^[5]
• 24 June - The government admits testing a nuclear weapon in the United States causing a rift in the Labour Party.^[21]
• 3 July - Don Revie, manager of Football League champions Leeds United since 1961, accepts the Football Association's £200,000-a-year deal to become the new England manager.^[22]
• 12 July - Bill Shankly, manager of FA Cup holders Liverpool, stuns the club by announcing his retirement after 15 years as manager. Shankly, 60, had arrived at Liverpool when they were in the Football League Second Division and transformed them into one of the world's top club sides with three top division titles, two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup triumph.^[23]
• 17 July - A bomb planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) explodes in the White Tower at the Tower of London, killing one person and injuring 41. Another bomb explodes outside a government building in South London.^[24]
• 20 July - Leeds United appoint the Brighton & Hove Albion manager Brian Clough, formerly of Derby County as their new manager.[16]
• 21 July - 10,000 Greek-Cypriots protest in London against the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.^[25]
• 26 July - Liverpool appointed 55-year-old first team coach Bob Paisley as their new manager.^[26]
• 29 August - Thames Valley Police break up Windsor Free Festival.
• 12 September - Brian Clough is dismissed after less than two months as manager of Leeds United following a disappointing start to the Football League season.[17]
• 23 September - Ceefax is started by the BBC - one of the first public service information systems.^[5]
• October - Five previously all-male Colleges of the University of Oxford admit women undergraduates.^[27]
• 1 October - American fast food chain McDonald's opens its first restaurant in Woolwich, London.^[28]
• 5 October - The Guildford pub bombings at The Horse and Groom and The Seven Stars kill five people.^[29]
• 10 October - The second general election of the year results in a narrow victory for Harold Wilson, giving Labour a majority of three seats.^[30] The Scottish Nationalist Party secures its highest-ever Westminster party representation, eleven seats. Enoch Powell is elected to parliament in Northern Ireland for the Ulster Unionist Party.^[31] Powell, who was dismissed from the Tory shadow cabinet in April 1968 following his controversial Rivers of Blood speech on immigration, left the Conservative Party at 28 February election and had recently rejected an offer to stand as a candidate for the National Front.^[32]
• 16 October - Rioting prisoners set fire to the Maze Prison in Belfast.^[33]
• 22 October - The Provisional IRA bomb Brooks's club in London.^[34]
• 28 October - The wife and son of Sports Minister Denis Howell survive a PIRA bomb attack on their car.^[35]
• 4 November - Judith Ward sentenced to life imprisonment for the M62 coach bombing.^[36]
• 7 November
  • Lord Lucan disappears after the murder of his children's nanny.^[37]
  • A PIRA bomb explodes at the Kings Arms, Woolwich.
• 11 November - Opening of the New Covent Garden Market in Nine Elms.^[38]
• 21 November - Birmingham pub bombings: In Birmingham, two pubs are bombed, killing 21 people and injuring many others.^[39]
• 24 November - The Birmingham Six charged with the Birmingham pub bombings.^[40]
• 25 November - Home Secretary Roy Jenkins announces the government's intention to outlaw the IRA in the UK.^[5]
• 27 November - The Prevention of Terrorism Act is passed.
• 5 December - Party Political Broadcast, the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, is broadcast on BBC 2.
• 10 December
  • Friedrich Hayek shares the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics with ideological rival Gunnar Myrdal "for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena.".^[41]
  • Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish win the Nobel Prize in Physics "for their pioneering research in radio astrophysics: Ryle for his observations and inventions, in particular of the aperture synthesis technique, and Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars".^[42]
• 15 December - New speed limits introduced on Britain's roads in an attempt to save fuel at a time of Arab fuel embargoes following the Yom Kippur War.^[43]
• 18 December - The government pays £42,000 to families of vicitims of Bloody Sunday riots in Northern Ireland.^[44]
• 22 December - The London home of Conservative Party leader and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Edward Heath is bombed in a suspected PIRA attack. Mr Heath had been away from home when the bomb exploded, but returned just 10 minutes afterwards.^[45]
• 24 December - Former government minister John Stonehouse is found living in Australia having faked his own death. He is quickly arrested by Australian police, who initially believed that he was Lord Lucan.^[46]

Undated

• Inflation soars to a 34-year high of 17.2%.[18]
• Last production in the UK of steel by the Bessemer process, at Workington.^[47]
• China gives two Giant Pandas, Ching-Ching and Chia-Chia, to Britain.^[48]

Publications

• The Campaign for Real Ale's first Good Beer Guide.
• Linton Kwesi Johnson's first poetry collection Voices of the Living and the Dead.^[49]
• Philip Larkin's poetry collection High Windows.
• John le Carré's novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, first in The Quest for Karla trilogy featuring George Smiley.
• Stanley Middleton's novel Holiday.
• Nikolaus Pevsner's guidebook Staffordshire, last in the Buildings of England series begun in 1951.^[50]
• F. W. Winterbotham's account The Ultra Secret: the inside story of Operation Ultra, Bletchley Park and Enigma.

Births

• 12 January - Melanie Chisholm, English singer
• 16 January - Kate Moss, English model
• 30 January - Christian Bale, English actor
• 31 January - Ian Huntley, English murderer
• 13 February - Robbie Williams, English singer
• 14 February - Lynden David Hall, British singer (died 2006)
• 22 February
  • James Blunt, British musician
  • Chris Moyles, British disc jockey
• 28 March
  • Mark King, English snooker player
  • Scott Mills, British radio disc jockey
• 17 April - Victoria Beckham, English singer (Spice Girls)
• 24 April - Dave Vitty, aka Comedy Dave, British television host
• 27 May - Denise van Outen, English actress, TV presenter, singer
• 21 June - Natasha Desborough, British radio personality
• 14 July - David Mitchell, English comedian and actor
• 31 July - Emilia Fox, English actress
• 23 August - Ray Park, Scottish actor
• 2 September - Lisa Snowdon, English television presenter
• 6 September - Tim Henman, English tennis player
• 13 September
  • Stephen Lawrence, English murder victim (died 1993)
  • Adam Ruckwood, English backstroke swimmer
• 18 September - Sol Campbell, English footballer
• 17 October - Matthew Macfadyen, English actor
• 29 October - Michael Vaughan, English cricketer
• 2 November - David Smith, English hammer thrower
• 4 November - Louise Redknapp, English singer
• 13 December
  • Nicholas McCarthy, English-born guitarist (Franz Ferdinand)
  • Sara Cox, English TV and radio presenter
• 29 December - Jenny Barker, British radio presenter

Deaths

• 12 January - Princess Patricia of Connaught (born 1886)
• 29 January - H. E. Bates, novelist (born 1905)
• 4 July - Georgette Heyer, English novelist (born 1902)
• 13 July - Patrick Blackett, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1897)
• 24 July - James Chadwick, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1891)
• 1 August - James Henry Govier, British artist (born 1910)
• 22 August - Jacob Bronowski, Polish-born mathematician, and television presenter (born 1908)
• 29 August - Judith Furse, actress (born 1912)
• 25 November - Nick Drake, British musician (born 1948)

References

See also