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1952 in the United Kingdom
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Events from the year 1952 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents
Events
The UK's first nuclear bomb
- 5 January - Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives in the United States for an official visit and talks with President Harry S. Truman.[1]
- 1 February - The first TV Detector van is commissioned in Britain, as the beginning of a clampdown on the estimated 150,000 British households which have unlicenced televisions.[2]
- 6 February - King George VI dies of cancer aged 56. He is succeeded by his 25-year-old daughter, The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, who ascends to the throne as Queen Elizabeth II.[3] The new Queen was on a Royal visit to Kenya at the time of her father's death.
- 8 February - Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at St James's Palace.[3]
- 14 February–25 February - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo and win one gold medal.
- 15 February - Funeral of King George VI takes place.
- 21 February - Compulsory identity cards, issued during World War II, abandoned.[3]
- 2 May - The De Havilland Comet becomes the world's first jet airliner, with a maiden flight from London to Johannesburg.
- 19 July–3 August - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki and win 1 gold, 2 silver and 8 bronze medals.
- 16 August - 34 people killed in a flood in Lynmouth, Devon.[4]
- 6 September - 1952 Farnborough Airshow DH.110 crash: 31 people killed in an air crash at the Farnborough Airshow.[5]
- 3 October
- 5 October - Post-War tea rationing ends.[8]
- 8 October - A rail crash in North London claims the lives of 108 people.[9]
- 14 November - NME music magazine publishes the first UK Singles Chart.[3]
- 25 November - Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap starts its run at the New Ambassadors Theatre in London, where it is still showing.[10]
- 4 December - Great Smog of 1952: fog speads across London.[11]
- 9 December - The Great Smog in London finishes after five days of chaos which are believed to have caused around 4,000 deaths.
- 10 December - Archer John Porter Martin and Richard Laurence Millington Synge win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for their invention of partition chromatography".[12]
- 25 December - The Queen makes her first Christmas speech to the Commonwealth.[13]
Undated
Publications
Births
- 10 January - George Turpin, English boxer
- 1 February - Andrew Smith, politician
- 25 February - Joey Dunlop, Northern Irish motorcycle racer (died 2000)
- 11 March - Douglas Adams, author (died 2001)
- 22 March - Des Browne, politician
- 28 March - Tony Brise, racing driver (died 1975)
- 11 April - Peter Windsor, sports reporter
- 3 May - Allan Wells, Scottish athlete
- 7 June - Liam Neeson, Northern Irish actor
- 17 June - Estelle Morris, politician
- 21 August - Joe Strummer, musician (The Clash) (died 2002)
- 30 September - Jack Wild, actor (died 2006)
- 3 December - Mel Smith, comic actor and director
- 20 December - Jenny Agutter, actress
Deaths
- 6 February - King George VI (born 1895)
- 4 March - Charles Scott Sherrington, physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1857)
- 15 March - Nevil Sidgwick, chemist (born 1873)
- 21 April - Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer (born 1889)
- 6 September - Gertrude Lawrence, actress (born 1898)
- 29 September - John Cobb, racecar and motorboat driver (born 1899)
- 30 September - Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, businessman and politician (born 1879)
- 23 October - Windham Wyndham-Quin, 5th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, politician (born 1857)
- 28 October - William Morris Hughes, Welsh-descended Prime Minister of Australia (born 1862)
- 15 December - Sir William Goscombe John, sculptor (born 1860)
References
See also
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