1929 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1929 in the United Kingdom. This year sees the start of the Great Depression.

Incumbents

Events

23 January – The Lancashire Cotton Corporation is set up by the Bank of England to rescue the Lancashire cotton milling industry by means of horizontal integration.
18 March – An underground fire at Coombs Wood colliery near Halesowen kills 8 miners, the last major disaster in the Black Country coalfield.
30 March – Imperial Airways begins operating the first commercial flights between London and Karachi.
22 April – Chat Moss airport opens in Manchester, Britain's first municipal airport.
10 May
* Age of Marriage Act 1929 passed, raising the legal marriageable age to sixteen years for both parties to a marriage.
* Yorkshire cricketer Wilfred Rhodes takes his 4000th first-class wicket during a match against Oxford University.
14 May – The North East Coast Exhibition opens, and would run for six months.
31 May – The general election returns a hung parliament, with Labour as the largest party. Liberals will determine who has power. Amongst the Conservative casualties is future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, the 35-year-old MP for Stockton-on-Tees, who first entered parliament five years earlier. This is the first UK general election in which women have an equal franchise with men and they form a majority of the electorate.
7 June – The Conservatives concede power rather than risk courting Liberals for a fragile majority.
8 June – Ramsay MacDonald forms a new Labour government. Margaret Bondfield becomes the first female member of the Cabinet when she is named Minister of Labour.
17 June – Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail shown for the first time in London, the first British sound film.
1 July – C. P. Scott retires after 57 and a half years as editor of The Manchester Guardian and is succeeded by his son, Ted Scott.
5 July – Scotland Yard seizes thirteen paintings of male and female nudes by D. H. Lawrence from a Mayfair gallery on grounds of indecency under the Vagrancy Act 1838.
11 July – Gillingham Fair fire disaster kills nine boys and six men as a firefighting demonstration goes catastrophically wrong in Kent.
4 August – Bekonscot opens to the public in Buckinghamshire, the world's oldest original miniature park.
20 August – First transmissions of John Logie Baird's experimental 30-line television system by the BBC in London.
2 October – The union between the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church of Scotland takes place.
28 October – Sharp fall on the London Stock Exchange, following a similar crash on Wall Street on 24 October.
1 November
* The Pony Club established.
* Release in the United States of the historical film Disraeli. George Arliss plays the title rôle, for which he will be awarded the Academy Award for Best Actor, the first British winner.
10 November – Première of John Grierson's documentary film Drifters about North Sea herring fishermen, made for the Empire Marketing Board, effectively inaugurating the British Documentary Film Movement.
1 December – Underground Electric Railways Company of London officially opens its new headquarters building at 55 Broadway designed by Charles Holden and incorporating sculptures by Jacob Epstein, Eric Gill and Henry Moore.
10 December
* Arthur Harden wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Hans von Euler-Chelpin "for their investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes".
* Frederick Hopkins wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discovery of the growth-stimulating vitamins".
15 December – Beatification of the One Hundred and Seven Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope Pius XI.
31 December – Glen Cinema disaster in Paisley, Scotland: 69 children die trying to escape smoke.

Undated

First Tesco store opens, at Burnt Oak, Edgware, Middlesex.
Coypu introduced to East Anglia for their fur.
Ross County F.C. founded in Dingwall, Scotland. They initially play in the Highland League.

Publications

Agatha Christie's novel The Seven Dials Mystery.
Robert Graves' memoir Good-Bye to All That.
Patrick Hamilton's play Rope.
Richard Hughes' novel A High Wind in Jamaica.
Charles Kay Ogden's book Basic English.
J. B. Priestley's novel The Good Companions.
Alison Uttley's children's book The Squirrel, The Hare and the Little Grey Rabbit, introducing Little Grey Rabbit.
Virginia Woolf's essay A Room of One's Own.

Births

10 January – Tony Soper, naturalist, author and broadcaster
12 January – Alasdair MacIntyre, Scottish philosopher
15 January – Ronnie Allen, footballer
21 January – John Hayes, art historian
23 January
* George Ffitch, journalist and broadcaster
* Ian Thomson, cricketer
28 January – Acker Bilk, jazz clarinetist and band leader
30 January – Richard Long, 4th Viscount Long, politician
31 January – Jean Simmons, actress
4 February – Mary Coombs, computer programmer
6 February – Keith Waterhouse, novelist and journalist
8 February – Roger Byrne, footballer
15 February – Graham Hill, racing driver
17 February
*Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, English politician, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
*Patricia Routledge, actress
18 February – Len Deighton, thriller writer
21 February – James Beck, actor
5 March – David Sheppard, cricketer and Bishop of Liverpool
13 March
* Keith Schellenberg, Olympic sportsman, businessman and laird
* Jim Slater, investor
21 March – John Oaksey, horse racing jockey and journalist
23 March – Sir Roger Bannister, middle-distance runner
24 March – Francis Essex, television producer
1 April – Barbara Bryne, actress
5 April
* Nigel Hawthorne, actor
* Joe Meek, record producer
10 April – Mike Hawthorn, racing driver
11 April – John Brownjohn, literary translator
13 April – Ronald Eyre, theatre and television director
14 April
* Gerry Anderson, puppeteer, television producer and director
* Lady Pamela Hicks, socialite, cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
15 April – Adrian Cadbury, businessman
17 April
* John Erickson, historian
* John Raymond Hobbs, pathologist
18 April
* Peter Jeffrey, actor
* Eddie Stobart, businessman
21 April – Barbara Keogh, actress
22 April
*Michael Atiyah, mathematician
*John Nicks, figure skater and skating coach
29 April – Jeremy Thorpe, Liberal leader
4 May – Audrey Hepburn, Belgian-born actress
6 May – Rosemary Cramp, archaeologist
9 May – Tony Lloyd, Baron Lloyd of Berwick, lawyer and judge
10 May – Thomas McGhee, footballer
12 May – Don Gibson, footballer
14 May – Henry McGee, actor
15 May – Andrew Bertie, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
18 May
*William Kerr Fraser, civil servant
*Adrian Morris, artist
19 May
* David Jacobs, broadcaster
* Jack Walker, industrialist
* Johnny Wright, boxer
21 May – Robert Welch, designer
23 May – Peter Wells, athlete
26 May – John Jackson, lawyer and businessman
29 May – Peter Higgs, theoretical physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics
1 June – Giles Constable, historian
5 June – Denis Coe, soldier, educator and politician
8 June – Robert Shirley, 13th Earl Ferrers, politician
10 June – Thomas Taylor, Baron Taylor of Blackburn, Labour Party politician
12 June – Brigid Brophy, author
13 June – Alan Civil, horn player
20 June – Anne Weale, romantic novelist
22 June – Bruce Kent, peace campaigner, previously Catholic priest
23 June
* Peter Dunn, paediatrician
* Dave King, actor and comedian
26 June – Rodney Nuckey, racing driver
30 June
* Ron Phoenix, English footballer
* Ivor Seemley, English professional footballer
5 July – Tony Lock, cricketer
6 July – Jack Edwards, Welsh footballer and manager
7 July – Colin Walker, footballer
8 July – A. T. Q. Stewart, Northern Irish historian and academic
9 July
*Christopher Morahan, stage, television director and production executive
*Derek Ratcliffe, conservationist
10 July – Winnie Ewing, Scottish nationalist politician
12 July – Brian Woodward, footballer
15 July
* Rhoda Bulter, Scottish poet
* Larry Lamb, newspaper editor
17 July – Kenneth Grange, industrial designer
20 July – Irving Wardle, writer and theatre critic
21 July – John Woodvine, stage and screen actor
22 July – U. A. Fanthorpe, poet
24 July
* Lady Rosemary Spencer-Churchill, aristocrat
* Peter Yates, film director
25 July – Bryan Pearce, artist
27 July – Jack Higgins, born Harry Patterson, thriller writer
30 July – Donald Hamilton Fraser, artist
31 July
* Lynne Reid Banks, author
* Johnny Carlyle, ice hockey player and coach
2 August – David Waddington, Baron Waddington, politician
5 August – Al Alvarez, poet and critic
8 August – Ronald Biggs, criminal
11 August – Alun Hoddinott, Welsh composer
12 August – Jean Miller, actress and painter
23 August – Pete King, saxophonist
25 August – Clifford Forsythe, politician
28 August – John Evans, footballer
29 August
* Thom Gunn, poet
* Susan Shaw, actress
30 August – Ian McNaught-Davis, television presenter
2 September – Victor Spinetti, actor
4 September – Robin Hunter, actor
15 September – John Julius Norwich, historian
17 September – Stirling Moss, racing driver
18 September
* Richard Grimsdale, electrical engineer
* Elizabeth Spriggs, actress
19 September
* Timothy Colman, businessman
* Charles Gordon-Lennox, 10th Duke of Richmond
21 September – Bernard Williams, philosopher
23 September - James Carnegie, 3rd Duke of Fife, peer
25 September – Ronnie Barker, comic actor
28 September – Gordon Reece, journalist and political strategist
2 October – Robin Hardy, film director and author
6 October – George Carman, lawyer
7 October
* Tony Beckley, character actor
* Robert Westall, author
8 October – Betty Boothroyd, Speaker of the House of Commons
11 October – Vivian Matalon, theatre director
16 October
* Jane Griffiths, actress
* Ray Jessel, Welsh songwriter, screenwriter, orchestrator and musical theatre composer
* Mary Parry, figure skater
20 October – Colin Jeavons, actor
24 October – Clifford Rose, actor
25 October – Robin Parkinson, actor
28 October
* Jack Hedley, character actor
* Joan Plowright, actress
30 October
* Jean Chapman, romantic novelist
* Bill Shelton, politician
4 November – Dickie Valentine, singer and actor
7 November
* Peter Evans, musicologist
* Lila Kaye, actress
12 November – Peter Lamont, art director and production designer
13 November – Theo Aronson, royal biographer
20 November – Penelope Hobhouse, garden writer and designer
23 November – Maurice Flitcroft, golfer
27 November
* David Nickson, Baron Nickson businessman and crossbench peer
* Alan Simpson, comedy scriptwriter
29 November – Derek Jameson, journalist and broadcaster
8 December – Ali Bongo, magician
9 December – Reay Tannahill, writer
11 December – Kenneth MacMillan, ballet dancer and choreographer
12 December – John Osborne, playwright and film producer
16 December
* Nicholas Courtney, actor
* Bernard Crick, political theorist
* James Moore, author
17 December – Jacqueline Hill, actress
23 December – Hugh Millais, actor and author
24 December – Tim Brinton, politician
25 December – Stuart Hall, presenter
28 December – Brian Redhead, journalist and broadcaster
31 December – Peter May, England cricketer

Deaths

15 January – Sir William Boyd Dawkins, geologist
24 January – Wilfred Baddeley, tennis player
6 February – Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, Scottish writer and women's rights activist
12 February – Lillie Langtry, British singer and actress
14 February – Sydney Carline, painter, war artist
2 March – Sir Edward Seymour, admiral
12 April – Flora Annie Steel, writer
21 April – Lucy Clifford, novelist, dramatist and screenwriter
9 May – Kate Perugini, née Dickens, painter
21 May – Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
5 June – Sir Cecil Burney, admiral
16 June – Bramwell Booth, General of The Salvation Army
21 June – Leonard Hobhouse, political theorist and sociologist
24 June – Queenie Newall, archer
28 June – Edward Carpenter, English poet
5 August – Dame Millicent Fawcett, British suffragist and feminist
13 August – Sir Ray Lankester, zoologist
14 August – Henry Horne, 1st Baron Horne, general
26 August – Sir Ernest Satow, British diplomat and scholar
7 September – Frederic Weatherly, English lyricist
19 September – Francis Darwin, botanist and academic
27 September – Johnny Hill, flyweight boxer
29 October – Emily Robin, brothel owner, in road accident
30 October – Gertrude Keightley, English-born Northern Ireland local government and charity official
14 December – Sir Henry Jackson, admiral
17 December – Arthur G. Jones-Williams, aviator