1956 in the United Kingdom
Encyclopedia
Events from the year 1956 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. The year is dominated by the Suez Crisis
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...

.

Incumbents

  • Monarch – Elizabeth II
  • Prime Minister – Anthony Eden
    Anthony Eden
    Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...

     (Conservative Party
    Conservative Party (UK)
    The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

    )

Events

  • 1 January – Possession of heroin becomes fully criminalised.
  • 24 January – Plans are announced for the construction of thousands of new homes in the Barbican
    Barbican Estate
    The Barbican Estate is a residential estate built during the 1960s and the 1970s in the City of London, in an area once devastated by World War II bombings and today densely populated by financial institutions...

     area of London, devastated by the Luftwaffe
    Luftwaffe
    Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

     during the Second World War.
  • 26 January–5 February – Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the Winter Olympics
    1956 Winter Olympics
    The 1956 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VII Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event celebrated in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. This celebration of the Games was held from 26 January to 5 February 1956. Cortina, which had originally been awarded the 1944 Winter Olympics, beat out...

     in Cortina d'Ampezzo
    Cortina d'Ampezzo
    Cortina d'Ampezzo is a town and comune in the southern Alps located in Veneto, a region in Northern Italy. Located in the heart of the Dolomites in an alpine valley, it is a popular winter sport resort known for its ski-ranges, scenery, accommodations, shops and après-ski scene...

    , Italy
    Italy
    Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

    , but do not win any medals.
  • February – Release of Shirley Bassey
    Shirley Bassey
    Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...

    's first single
    Single (music)
    In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

    , Burn My Candle (At Both Ends)
    Burn My Candle (at Both Ends)
    "Burn My Candle" was Shirley Bassey's first single. It was recorded in February 1956, when Bassey was nineteen years old, and released later that month on a 78 rpm shellac disc , with Stormy Weather on the B side. The record was produced by Johnny Franz, with Wally Stott and his Orchestra backing...

    .
  • 5 February – First showing of documentary film
    Documentary film
    Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

    s by the Free Cinema
    Free Cinema
    Free Cinema was a documentary film movement that emerged in England in the mid-1950s. The term referred to an absence of propagandised intent or deliberate box office appeal. Co-founded by Lindsay Anderson, though he later disdained the 'movement' tag, with Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson and Lorenza...

     movement, at the National Film Theatre, London.
  • 11 February – Two of the "Cambridge spies
    Cambridge Five
    The Cambridge Five was a ring of spies, recruited in part by Russian talent spotter Arnold Deutsch in the United Kingdom, who passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and at least into the early 1950s...

    ", Guy Burgess
    Guy Burgess
    Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess was a British-born intelligence officer and double agent, who worked for the Soviet Union. He was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring that betrayed Western secrets to the Soviets before and during the Cold War...

     and Donald Maclean appear in Moscow
    Moscow
    Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

     after vanishing as diplomats in mysterious circumstances in 1951
    1951 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1951 in the United Kingdom. This is the year of the Festival of Britain and a general election bringing a change of government.r-Incumbents:*Monarch — King George VI...

    .
  • 12 February – Double yellow lines to prohibit parking introduced in Slough
    Slough
    Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...

    .
  • 23 February – A fire at Eastwood Mills, Keighley
    Keighley
    Keighley is a town and civil parish within the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England. It is situated northwest of Bradford and is at the confluence of the River Aire and the River Worth...

    , West Yorkshire
    West Yorkshire
    West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....

    , kills eight employees.
  • 24 March – In the Grand National
    Grand National
    The Grand National is a world-famous National Hunt horse race which is held annually at Aintree Racecourse, near Liverpool, England. It is a handicap chase run over a distance of four miles and 856 yards , with horses jumping thirty fences over two circuits of Aintree's National Course...

    , Devon Loch
    Devon Loch
    Devon Loch was a famous racehorse that is probably best remembered for its involvement in the 1956 Grand National steeplechase, when owned by Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother....

    , owned by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and ridden by Dick Francis
    Dick Francis
    Richard Stanley "Dick" Francis CBE was an English jockey and crime writer, many of whose novels centre around horse racing.- Personal life :...

    , is in a clear lead when he inexplicably collapses 50 yards (45 m) from the finish, giving victory to E.S.B.
    E.S.B. (horse)
    E.S.B. was a racehorse that is best known for his victory in the 1956 Grand National, when aged ten.Trained by Fred Rimell, E.S.B. was ridden by jockey Dave Dick in the 1956 running of the famous steeplechase at Aintree Racecourse when the race seemed certain to be won by Devon Loch, who held a...

     at 100/7, ridden by Dave Dick and trained
    Horse trainer
    In horse racing, a trainer prepares a horse for races, with responsibility for exercising it, getting it race-ready and determining which races it should enter...

     by Fred Rimell. Stan Mellor is the second placed jockey.
  • 7 April – Manchester United
    Manchester United F.C.
    Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...

    , with an average team age of just 24, win the Football League First Division
    Football League First Division
    The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....

     title.
  • 17 April – Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan
    Harold Macmillan
    Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....

     introduces Premium Bonds. They first go on sale on 1 November.
  • 20 April – Humphrey Lyttleton and his band record his trad jazz
    Trad jazz
    Trad jazz - short for "traditional jazz" - refers to the Dixieland and Ragtime jazz styles of the early 20th century in contrast to any more modern style....

     composition Bad Penny Blues
    Bad Penny Blues
    "Bad Penny Blues" is a trad jazz piece written by Humphrey Lyttelton and recorded with his band in London on April 20, 1956.- Popular success :It was originally released as Parlophone ER 4184 and became a hit record in Britain at the time....

    in London with sound engineer Joe Meek
    Joe Meek
    Robert George "Joe" Meek was a pioneering English record producer and songwriter....

    . This will be the first British jazz record to get into the Top Twenty
    UK Singles Chart
    The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

    .
  • 3 May – Granada Television
    Granada Television
    Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....

     launched.
  • 5 May – Manchester City
    Manchester City F.C.
    Manchester City Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Manchester. Founded in 1880 as St. Mark's , they became Ardwick Association Football Club in 1887 and Manchester City in 1894...

     win the FA Cup
    FA Cup
    The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...

     with a 3-1 win
    1956 FA Cup Final
    The 1956 FA Cup Final was the final match of the 1955–56 staging of English football's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, better known as the FA Cup. The showpiece event was contested between Manchester City and Birmingham City at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday...

     over Birmingham City
    Birmingham City F.C.
    Birmingham City Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, they became Small Heath in 1888, then Birmingham in 1905, finally becoming Birmingham City in 1943.They were relegated at the end of the...

     at Wembley Stadium
    Wembley Stadium
    The original Wembley Stadium, officially known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, a suburb of north-west London, standing on the site now occupied by the new Wembley Stadium that opened in 2007...

    . German
    Germany
    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

     goalkeeper Bert Trautmann
    Bert Trautmann
    Bernhard Carl "Bert" Trautmann, OBE is a German former professional footballer who played for Manchester City from 1949 to 1964. Brought up during times of inter-war strife in Germany, Trautmann joined the Luftwaffe early in the Second World War, serving as a paratrooper...

     plays through the game despite being injured 15 minutes from time.
  • 7 May – Minister of Health, RH Turton, rejects a call for the government to lead an anti-smoking campaign arguing that no ill-effects had yet been proven.
  • 8 May – First performance of John Osborne
    John Osborne
    John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....

    's play Look Back in Anger
    Look Back in Anger
    Look Back in Anger is a John Osborne play—made into films in 1959, 1980, and 1989 -- about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and her haughty best friend . Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace...

    by the newly formed English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre
    Royal Court Theatre
    The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...

    . Alan Bates
    Alan Bates
    Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...

     has his first major role as Cliff.
  • 9 May
    • Anthony Eden
      Anthony Eden
      Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...

       makes a statement refusing to reveal any details surrounding the mystery of the disappearance of the frogman Lionel Crabb
      Lionel Crabb
      Lionel "Buster" Crabb OBE, GM was a British Royal Navy frogman and MI6 diver who vanished during a reconnaissance mission around a Soviet cruiser in 1956.-Early life:...

      , who vanished after diving near the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze during a state visit by Nikita Khrushchev
      Nikita Khrushchev
      Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

       and Nikolai Bulganin
      Nikolai Bulganin
      Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin was a prominent Soviet politician, who served as Minister of Defense and Premier of the Soviet Union . The Bulganin beard is named after him.-Early career:...

      .
    • The Gower Peninsula
      Gower Peninsula
      Gower or the Gower Peninsula is a peninsula in south Wales, jutting from the coast into the Bristol Channel, and administratively part of the City and County of Swansea. Locally it is known as "Gower"...

       becomes the first area in the British Isles
      British Isles
      The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

       to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
      Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
      An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is an area of countryside considered to have significant landscape value in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, that has been specially designated by the Countryside Agency on behalf of the United Kingdom government; the Countryside Council for Wales on...

      .
    • Bert Trautmann's injury in the FA Cup final is diagnosed as a broken neck.
  • 3 June – Third class
    Travel class
    A travel class is a quality of accommodation on public transport. The accommodation could be a seat or a cabin for example. Higher travel classes are more comfortable and more expensive.-Airline booking codes:...

     accommodation on British Rail
    British Rail
    British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...

    ways trains redesignated as Second class (also applies on Great Northern Railway
    Great Northern Railway (Ireland)
    The Great Northern Railway was an Irish gauge railway company in Ireland.The Great Northern was formed in 1876 by a merger of the Irish North Western Railway , Northern Railway of Ireland, and Ulster Railway. The Ulster Railway was the GNRI's oldest constituent, having opened between Belfast and...

     in Northern Ireland
    Northern Ireland
    Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

    ).
  • 3 July – Prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru
    Jawaharlal Nehru
    Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...

     of India
    India
    India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

     and Sidney Holland
    Sidney Holland
    Sir Sidney George Holland, GCMG, CH was the 25th Prime Minister of New Zealand from 13 December 1949 to 20 September 1957.-Early life:...

     of New Zealand
    New Zealand
    New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

     are made Freemen
    Freedom of the City
    Freedom of the City is an honour bestowed by some municipalities in Australia, Canada, Ireland, France, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, Gibraltar and Rhodesia to esteemed members of its community and to organisations to be honoured, often for service to the community;...

     of the City of London
    City of London
    The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

    .
  • 4 July – The National Library of Scotland
    National Library of Scotland
    The National Library of Scotland is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is one of the country's National Collections. It is based in a collection of buildings in Edinburgh city centre. The headquarters is on George IV Bridge, between the Old Town and the university quarter...

    's first purpose-built premises are opened on George IV Bridge
    George IV Bridge
    George IV Bridge is an elevated street in Edinburgh, Scotland. Measuring 300-metres in length, the bridge was constructed between 1829 and 1832 as part of the Improvement Act of 1827. Named for King George IV, it was designed by architect Thomas Hamilton , to connect the South Side district of...

     in Edinburgh
    Edinburgh
    Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

    .
  • 5 July – Parliament
    Parliament of the United Kingdom
    The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

     passes the Clean Air Act
    Clean Air Act 1956
    The Clean Air Act 1956 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in response to London's Great Smog of 1952. It was in effect until 1964, and sponsored by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in England and the Department of Health for Scotland.The Act introduced a number of...

     in response to the Great Smog of 1952.
  • 9 July – Mettoy introduce Corgi Toys model car
    Model car
    A model car or toy car is a miniature representation of an automobile. Other miniature motor vehicles, such as trucks, buses, or even ATVs, etc. are often included in the general category of model cars...

    s, manufactured in South Wales
    South Wales
    South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of...

    .
  • 26 July – Egypt
    Egypt
    Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

    ian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser
    Gamal Abdel Nasser
    Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...

     announces the nationalisation of the Suez Canal
    Suez Canal
    The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...

     triggering the Suez Crisis
    Suez Crisis
    The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...

    .
  • August – Art exhibition This Is Tomorrow
    This is Tomorrow
    This Is Tomorrow was a seminal art exhibition in August 1956 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, facilitated by curator Bryan Robertson. The core of the exhibition was the ICA Independent Group.-History:...

    , featuring principally the interdisciplinary ICA
    Institute of Contemporary Arts
    The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...

     Independent Group
    Independent Group
    The Independent Group met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London from 1952-55. The IG consisted of painters, sculptors, architects, writers and critics who wanted to challenge prevailing modernist approaches to culture. They introduced mass culture into debates about high culture,...

    , opens at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

    . Among the exhibits is Richard Hamilton
    Richard Hamilton (artist)
    Richard William Hamilton, CH was a British painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by critics and historians to be one of the...

    ’s collage
    Collage
    A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....

     Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?
    Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?
    Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? is a collage by English artist Richard Hamilton. It measures × . The work is now in the collection of the Kunsthalle Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany...

    , considered to be one of the earliest works of Pop Art
    Pop art
    Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...

    .
  • 17 August – Scotland Yard
    Scotland Yard
    Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...

     are called to Eastbourne
    Eastbourne
    Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...

     to investigate the activities of society doctor John Bodkin Adams
    John Bodkin Adams
    John Bodkin Adams was an Irish-born British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between the years 1946 and 1956, more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances. Of these, 132 left him money or items in their will. He was tried and acquitted for...

    . The case is reported around the world and press reports claim up to 400 patients may have been murdered.
  • 10 September – Guy Mollet
    Guy Mollet
    Guy Mollet was a French Socialist politician. He led the French Section of the Workers' International party from 1946 to 1969 and was Prime Minister in 1956–1957.-Early life and World War II:...

     visits London and proposes a merger of France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

     and the United Kingdom. However, the idea is rejected by Anthony Eden.
  • 25 September – The TAT-1
    TAT-1
    TAT-1 was the first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system. It was laid between Gallanach Bay, near Oban, Scotland and Clarenville, Newfoundland between 1955 and 1956. It was inaugurated on September 25, 1956, initially carrying 36 telephone channels.-History:The first transatlantic...

     transatlantic telephone cable
    Transatlantic telephone cable
    A transatlantic telecommunications cable is a submarine communications cable running under the Atlantic Ocean. All modern cables use fibre optic technology....

     between the UK and North America inaugurated.
  • 28 September – Eden considers allowing France to join the Commonwealth of Nations
    Commonwealth of Nations
    The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

    , but this idea is also rejected.
  • 15 October – The RAF retires its last Lancaster bomber.
  • 17 October – The Queen opens the world's first commercial nuclear power station at Calder Hall
    Sellafield
    Sellafield is a nuclear reprocessing site, close to the village of Seascale on the coast of the Irish Sea in Cumbria, England. The site is served by Sellafield railway station. Sellafield is an off-shoot from the original nuclear reactor site at Windscale which is currently undergoing...

    .
  • 5 November – Long-running television programme What the Papers Say
    What the Papers Say
    What The Papers Say is a BBC radio programme that originally ran for many years on British television.Its first incarnation was the second longest-running programme on British television after Panorama...

    airs for the first time.
  • 6 November – British and French
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

     forces seize control of two major ports in the Suez Canal
    Suez Canal
    The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...

     in Egypt
    Egypt
    Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

     before declaring a ceasefire
    Ceasefire
    A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces...

    .
  • 22 November–8 December – Great Britain and Northern Ireland
    Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the 1956 Summer Olympics
    The United Kingdom competed as Great Britain at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. British athletes have competed in every Summer Olympic Games. 189 competitors, 163 men and 26 women, took part in 108 events in 17 sports....

     compete at the Olympics
    1956 Summer Olympics
    The 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVI Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in Melbourne, Australia, in 1956, with the exception of the equestrian events, which could not be held in Australia due to quarantine regulations...

     in Melbourne
    Melbourne
    Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

    , Australia
    Australia
    Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

    , and win 6 gold, 7 silver and 11 bronze medals.
  • 29 November – Petrol rationing introduced because of petrol blockades from the Middle East due to the Suez Crisis.
  • 10 December – Cyril Norman Hinshelwood
    Cyril Norman Hinshelwood
    Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood OM PRS was an English physical chemist.Born in London, his parents were Norman Macmillan Hinshelwood, a chartered accountant, and Ethe Frances née Smith. He was educated first in Canada, returning in 1905 on the death of his father to a small flat in Chelsea where he...

     wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
    Nobel Prize in Chemistry
    The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...

     jointly with Nikolay Semyonov
    Nikolay Semyonov
    Nikolay Nikolayevich Semyonov was a Russian/Soviet physicist and chemist. Semyonov was awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the mechanism of chemical transformation.-Life:...

     "for their researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions".
  • 19 December
    • Six people die and several more are injured in car crashes caused by heavy fog in northern England.
    • Dr John Bodkin Adams
      John Bodkin Adams
      John Bodkin Adams was an Irish-born British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between the years 1946 and 1956, more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances. Of these, 132 left him money or items in their will. He was tried and acquitted for...

       is arrested for the murder of patient Edith Alice Morrell
      Edith Alice Morrell
      Edith Alice Morrell , was a resident of Eastbourne and patient of the suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams. He was tried for her murder in 1957 but acquitted...

      .
  • 23 December – British and French troops withdraw from Suez under United Nations
    United Nations
    The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

     and United States
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

     pressure.

Undated

  • Opening of the first Welsh
    Welsh language
    Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

    -medium secondary school in Wales – Ysgol Glan Clwyd
    Ysgol Glan Clwyd
    Ysgol Glan Clwyd is a Welsh medium secondary school, and was the first of its kind. It opened in 1956, initially at Rhyl on the coast before moving inland to St Asaph in 1969 . It is overseen by Denbighshire Local Education Authority.In 2006 it had 833 students, of whom 108 were in the sixth form...

    , Rhyl
    Rhyl
    Rhyl is a seaside resort town and community situated on the north east coast of Wales, in the county of Denbighshire , at the mouth of the River Clwyd . To the west is the suburb of Kinmel Bay, with the resort of Towyn further west, Prestatyn to the east and Rhuddlan to the south...

    .
  • Pietro Annigoni
    Pietro Annigoni
    Pietro Annigoni was an Italian portrait and fresco painter, who became world famous after painting Queen Elizabeth II in 1956.-Life:Born in Milan in 1910, Annigoni was a painter who was influenced by the Italian Renaissance....

    's portrait of the Queen is unveiled.
  • Tesco
    Tesco
    Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...

     opens its first self-service stores in St Albans
    St Albans
    St Albans is a city in southern Hertfordshire, England, around north of central London, which forms the main urban area of the City and District of St Albans. It is a historic market town, and is now a sought-after dormitory town within the London commuter belt...

     and Maldon
    Maldon, Essex
    Maldon is a town on the Blackwater estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon district and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation.Maldon is twinned with the Dutch town of Cuijk...

    .
  • PG Tips
    PG Tips
    PG Tips is a brand of tea in the United Kingdom, manufactured by Unilever UK. It is claimed that Britons drink 35 million cups of the tea every day.-Brand name:...

     launches its long-running ITV
    ITV
    ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

     advertising campaign using a chimpanzee
    Chimpanzee
    Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...

    s' tea party.
  • DIDO heavy water
    Heavy water
    Heavy water is water highly enriched in the hydrogen isotope deuterium; e.g., heavy water used in CANDU reactors is 99.75% enriched by hydrogen atom-fraction...

     enriched uranium
    Enriched uranium
    Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Natural uranium is 99.284% 238U isotope, with 235U only constituting about 0.711% of its weight...

     nuclear reactor
    Nuclear reactor
    A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...

     begins operation at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment
    Atomic Energy Research Establishment
    The Atomic Energy Research Establishment near Harwell, Oxfordshire, was the main centre for atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from the 1940s to the 1990s.-Founding:...

    , Harwell, Oxfordshire
    Harwell, Oxfordshire
    Harwell is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse west of Didcot. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire.-Amenities:...

    .
  • The Collared Dove
    Eurasian Collared Dove
    The Eurasian Collared Dove most often simply called the Collared Dove, also sometimes hyphenated as Eurasian Collared-dove is a species of dove native to Asia and Europe, and also recently introduced in North America....

     first breeds in the UK.

Publications

  • Agatha Christie
    Agatha Christie
    Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

    's Hercule Poirot
    Hercule Poirot
    Hercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era.Poirot has been portrayed on...

     novel Dead Man's Folly
    Dead Man's Folly
    Dead Man's Folly is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in October 1956 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 5 of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.95 and the UK edition at twelve shillings and sixpence ....

    .
  • Anthony Crosland
    Anthony Crosland
    Charles Anthony Raven Crosland , otherwise Tony Crosland or C.A.R. Crosland, was a British Labour Party politician and author. He served as Member of Parliament for South Gloucestershire and later for Great Grimsby...

    's book The Future of Socialism
    The Future of Socialism
    The Future of Socialism by Anthony Crosland, published in 1956, is regarded as one of the most influential books in post-war British Labour Party thinking and the seminal work of the 'revisionist' school of Labour politics....

    .
  • Gerald Durrell
    Gerald Durrell
    Gerald "Gerry" Malcolm Durrell, OBE was a naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, author and television presenter...

    's memoir My Family and Other Animals
    My Family and Other Animals
    My Family and Other Animals is an autobiographical work by naturalist Gerald Durrell, telling of the part of his childhood he spent on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939. It describes the life of the Durrell Family on the island in a humorous manner, and also richly discusses the fauna...

    .
  • Ian Fleming
    Ian Fleming
    Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...

    's James Bond
    James Bond
    James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

     novel Diamonds Are Forever
    Diamonds Are Forever (novel)
    Diamonds Are Forever is the fourth of Ian Fleming's James Bond series of novels. It was first published by Jonathan Cape in the UK on 26 March 1956 and the first print run of 12,500 copies sold out quickly...

    .
  • William Golding
    William Golding
    Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies...

    's novel Pincher Martin
    Pincher Martin
    Pincher Martin: The Two Deaths of Christopher Martin‎ , is a survivalist novel by British writer William Golding, first published in 1956...

    .
  • C. S. Lewis
    C. S. Lewis
    Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

    ' novel The Last Battle
    The Last Battle
    The Last Battle is the seventh and final novel in The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. It won the prestigious Carnegie Medal in Literature in 1956.-Plot summary:In The Last Battle, Lewis brings The Chronicles of Narnia to an end...

    .
  • Rose Macaulay
    Rose Macaulay
    Dame Emilie Rose Macaulay, DBE was an English writer. She published thirty-five books, mostly novels but also biographies and travel writing....

    's novel The Towers of Trebizond
    The Towers of Trebizond
    The Towers of Trebizond is a novel by Rose Macaulay . Published in 1956, it was the last of her novels, and the most successful. It was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in the year of its publication.-Plot:...

    .
  • Nancy Mitford
    Nancy Mitford
    Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...

    's book Noblesse Oblige: an Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy
    Noblesse Oblige (book)
    Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy is a 1956 book by Nancy Mitford, illustrated by Osbert Lancaster and published by Hamish Hamilton. It was repeatedly reprinted. The book helped popularise the U and non-U English classification of...

    , illustrated by Osbert Lancaster
    Osbert Lancaster
    Sir Osbert Lancaster, CBE was an English cartoonist, author, art critic and stage designer, best known to the public at large for his cartoons published in the Daily Express.-Biography:Lancaster was born in London, England...

    .
  • Dodie Smith
    Dodie Smith
    Dorothy Gladys "Dodie" Smith was an English novelist and playwright. Smith is best known for her novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians. Her other works include I Capture the Castle and The Starlight Barking....

    's children's novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians
    The Hundred and One Dalmatians
    The Hundred and One Dalmatians, or the Great Dog Robbery is a 1956 children's novel by Dodie Smith. A sequel entitled The Starlight Barking continues from the end of the first novel....

    .
  • Angus Wilson
    Angus Wilson
    Sir Angus Frank Johnstone Wilson, CBE was an English novelist and short story writer. He was awarded the 1958 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot and later received a knighthood for his services to literature.-Biography:Wilson was born in Bexhill, Sussex, England, to...

    's novel Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
    Anglo-Saxon Attitudes
    Anglo-Saxon Attitudes is a satirical novel by Angus Wilson, published in 1956. It was Wilson's most popular book, and many consider it his best work.-Plot summary:...

    .
  • Colin Wilson
    Colin Wilson
    Colin Henry Wilson is a prolific English writer who first came to prominence as a philosopher and novelist. Wilson has since written widely on true crime, mysticism and other topics. He prefers calling his philosophy new existentialism or phenomenological existentialism.- Early biography:Born and...

    's study The Outsider
    The Outsider (Colin Wilson)
    The Outsider is a non-fiction book by Colin Wilson first published in 1956.Through the works and lives of various artists - including H. G. Wells , Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Harley Granville-Barker , Hermann Hesse, T. E...

    .
  • The Movement
    The Movement (literature)
    The Movement was a term coined by J. D. Scott, literary editor of The Spectator, in 1954 to describe a group of writers including Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, Donald Davie, D.J. Enright, John Wain, Elizabeth Jennings, Thom Gunn, and Robert Conquest...

    's poetry anthology New Lines edited by Robert Conquest
    Robert Conquest
    George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...

    .

Births

  • 4 January – Bernard Sumner
    Bernard Sumner
    Bernard Sumner , also known as Bernard Dickin, Bernard Dicken and Bernard Albrecht is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, keyboard player and producer....

    , guitarist (Joy Division
    Joy Division
    Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...

     and New Order
    New Order
    New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris...

    )
  • 6 January – Angus Deayton
    Angus Deayton
    Gordon Angus Deayton is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian and broadcaster. He is best known for his role as Victor Meldrew's long-suffering neighbour Patrick Trench in the comedy series One Foot in the Grave...

    , actor and television presenter
  • 9 January – Imelda Staunton
    Imelda Staunton
    Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton, OBE is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her performances in the British comedy television series Up the Garden Path, the Harry Potter film series and Vera Drake...

    , actress
  • 17 January – Paul Young
    Paul Young (singer and guitarist)
    Paul Antony Young is an English pop musician. Formerly the frontman of the short-lived bands Kat Kool & The Kool Cats, Streetband and Q-Tips, his following solo success as a solo recording artist turned him into a 1980s teenage pop idol...

    , musician
  • 31 January – Johnny Rotten, singer (Sex Pistols
    Sex Pistols
    The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...

    )
  • 13 February – Peter Hook
    Peter Hook
    Peter Hook is an English bass player, musician and author.He was a co-founder of the post-punk band Joy Division along with Bernard Sumner in the mid-1970s. Following the death of lead singer Ian Curtis, the band reformed as New Order, and Hook played bass with them throughout their career until...

    , bass guitar
    Bass guitar
    The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

     player (Joy Division
    Joy Division
    Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...

     and New Order
    New Order
    New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris...

    )
  • 25 February – Davie Cooper
    Davie Cooper
    David "Davie" Cooper was a professional football player. He was a Scotland international and played as a left winger....

    , Scottish footballer (died 1995
    1995 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1995 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch - Elizabeth II*Prime Minister - John Major, Conservative-January:* 1 January - South Korean industrial giant Daewoo announces plans to build a new car factory in the United Kingdom within the next few years, costing up to...

    )
  • 12 March – Steve Harris
    Steve Harris (musician)
    Stephen Percy "Steve" Harris is an English musician and songwriter, known as the bassist, occasional keyboardist, backing vocalist and primary songwriter of the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden, which he founded in 1975...

    , bass player, founding member of Iron Maiden
    Iron Maiden
    Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band's discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; eleven live albums; four EPs; and six...

  • 20 March – Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland
    Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland
    Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, , is a British Labour politician who in 2009 became the European Union's High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy...

    , politician
  • 19 April – Sue Barker
    Sue Barker
    Susan Barker, MBE is an English television presenter and former professional tennis player. During her tennis career, she won the women's singles title at the French Open and reached a career-high singles ranking of World No. 3...

    , tennis player and television presenter
  • April 25 – Greg Richards
    Greg Richards
    Gregory Roy Richards is a retired male decathlete from England, who competed for Great Britain at the 1988 Summer Olympics. He set his personal best in the men's decathlon in 1987....

    , English decathlete
  • 26 April – Koo Stark
    Koo Stark
    Kathleen Dee-Anne Stark, better known as Koo Stark , is an American film actress and photographer. She is known for her appearance in the film Emily and subsequent relationship with Prince Andrew, son of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, before his marriage to Sarah, Duchess of York.-...

    , actress
  • 14 May – Hazel Blears
    Hazel Blears
    Hazel Anne Blears is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Salford and Eccles since 2010 and was previously the MP for Salford since 1997...

    , politician
  • 15 May – Kjartan Poskitt
    Kjartan Poskitt
    Kjartan Poskitt is an author and TV presenter who is best known for writing the Murderous Maths children's series of books.- Background :Poskitt was educated at Collingwood College, Durham.- Writing :...

    , author
  • 15 July – Ian Curtis
    Ian Curtis
    Ian Kevin Curtis was an English singer and lyricist, famous for leading the post-punk band Joy Division. Joy Division released their debut album, Unknown Pleasures, in 1979 and recorded their follow-up, Closer, in 1980...

    , musician (Joy Division
    Joy Division
    Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...

    ) (died 1980
    1980 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1980 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch - Elizabeth II*Prime Minister - Margaret Thatcher, Conservative-Events:...

    )
  • 14 September – Ray Wilkins
    Ray Wilkins
    Raymond Colin Wilkins MBE , often known as "Butch" Wilkins, is an English former footballer and at present a television pundit...

    , footballer and coach
  • 29 September – Sebastian Coe, athlete, co-ordinator of London 2012 Olympic Games
    Olympic Games
    The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

  • 27 October – Hazell Dean
    Hazell Dean
    Hazell Dean is a British dance-pop singer, who achieved her biggest success in the 1980s as a leading Hi-NRG artist. She is best known for the top ten hits "Searchin' ", "Whatever I Do " and "Who's Leaving Who"...

    , singer
  • 30 October – Juliet Stevenson
    Juliet Stevenson
    Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, CBE is an English actor of stage and screen.- Early life :Stevenson was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England, the daughter of Virginia Ruth , a teacher, and Michael Guy Stevenson, an army officer. Stevenson's father was in the army and was posted to a new place every...

    , actress
  • 28 November – Lucy Gutteridge
    Lucy Gutteridge
    Lucy Karima Gutteridge is an English actress.Gutteridge was born in London, the eldest daughter of Bernard Hugh Gutteridge by his marriage to Nabila Farah Karima Halim, the daughter of Prince Muhammad Said Bey Halim of Egypt and his British second wife, Nabila Malika...

    , actress
  • 23 December – Dave Murray
    Dave Murray (musician)
    David Michael Murray is an English guitarist and songwriter best known as one of the earliest members of the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden.-Biography:...

    , guitarist
  • 28 December – Nigel Kennedy
    Nigel Kennedy
    Nigel Kennedy is a British born violinist and violist. He made his early career in the classical field, and he has performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti...

    , violinist

Deaths

  • 31 January – A. A. Milne
    A. A. Milne
    Alan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.-Biography:A. A...

    , author (born 1882
    1882 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1882 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — William Ewart Gladstone, Liberal-Events:* 25 January — London Chamber of Commerce founded....

    )
  • 25 March – Robert Newton
    Robert Newton
    Robert Newton was an English stage and film actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the most popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys...

    , film actor (born 1905
    1905 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1905 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch - King Edward VII*Prime Minister - Arthur Balfour, Conservative , Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Liberal-Events:...

    )
  • 30 March – Edmund Clerihew Bentley
    Edmund Clerihew Bentley
    E. C. Bentley was a popular English novelist and humorist of the early twentieth century, and the inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse on biographical topics...

    , inventor (born 1875
    1875 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1875 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — Benjamin Disraeli, Conservative-Events:...

    )
  • 17 May – Austin Osman Spare
    Austin Osman Spare
    Austin Osman Spare was an English artist who developed idiosyncratic magical techniques including automatic writing, automatic drawing and sigilization based on his theories of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious self...

    , magician (born 1886
    1886 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1886 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, Conservative , William Ewart Gladstone, Liberal , Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, Conservative-Events:* 13 January — After six years of campaigning, the...

    )
  • 18 May – Maurice Tate
    Maurice Tate
    Maurice William Tate was a Sussex and England cricketer of the 1920s and 1930s and the leader of England's Test bowling attack for a long time during this period...

    , cricketer (born 1895
    1895 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1895 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — Lord Rosebery, Liberal , Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, Conservative-Events:* January–February — ”Great Frost”....

    )
  • 20 May – Max Beerbohm
    Max Beerbohm
    Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist best known today for his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson.-Early life:...

    , theatre critic (born 1872
    1872 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1872 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — William Ewart Gladstone, Liberal-Events:* 1 January — C. P...

    )
  • 22 June – Walter de la Mare
    Walter de la Mare
    Walter John de la Mare , OM CH was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and the poem "The Listeners"....

    , poet, short story writer and novelist (born 1873
    1873 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1873 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — William Ewart Gladstone, Liberal-Events:...

    )
  • 22 September – Frederick Soddy
    Frederick Soddy
    Frederick Soddy was an English radiochemist who explained, with Ernest Rutherford, that radioactivity is due to the transmutation of elements, now known to involve nuclear reactions. He also proved the existence of isotopes of certain radioactive elements...

    , chemist, Nobel Prize
    Nobel Prize in Chemistry
    The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...

     laureate (born 1877
    1877 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1877 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — Benjamin Disraeli, Conservative-Events:...

    )
  • 16 December – Nina Hamnett
    Nina Hamnett
    Nina Hamnett was a Welsh artist and writer, and an expert on sailors' chanteys, who became known as the Queen of Bohemia.- Early life :...

    , artist (born 1890
    1890 in the United Kingdom
    Events from the year 1890 in the United Kingdom.-Incumbents:*Monarch — Queen Victoria*Prime Minister — Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, Conservative-Events:...

    )
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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