1933 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1933 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Monarch – George V
Prime Minister – Ramsay MacDonald

Events

January – The London Underground diagram designed by Harry Beck is introduced to the public.
9 February – The King and Country debate: The Oxford Union student debating society passes a resolution stating, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and country."
28 February – English cricket team in Australia in 1932–33: Tour concludes with the England cricket team winning The Ashes using the controversial bodyline tactic.
25 March – First car race at Donington Park circuit in Leicestershire.
28 March – 1933 Imperial Airways Dixmude crash: The Imperial Airways Armstrong Whitworth Argosy biplane airliner City of Liverpool catches fire in the air over Belgium and crashes, killing the crew of three and all twelve passengers, the deadliest accident in the history of British civil aviation to this date. The fire onboard may have been started deliberately.
2 April – As a member of the English cricket team touring New Zealand, 1933, batsman Wally Hammond scores a record 336 runs in a test match at Eden Park, Auckland.
3 April – The Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale leads an expedition to be the first to fly an aircraft over Mount Everest.
13 April – Children and Young Persons Act 1933 passed. This raises the age of criminal responsibility from 7 to 8, raises the minimum age for capital punishment to 18, places restrictions on the identification in the press of persons under 18 appearing in court, sets a minimum full-time working age of 14 with other limitations on the employment of school-age children, and makes it illegal for adults to sell cigarettes or other tobacco products to children under 16.
27 April – The Jessop & Son department store in Nottingham is acquired by the John Lewis Partnership, its first store outside London.
30 April – First air service internal to Scotland, Renfrew-Campbeltown, operated by Midland & Scottish Air Ferries Ltd. Winifred Drinkwater, "the world's first female commercial pilot", is hired to fly the route.
2 May – First modern "sighting" of the Loch Ness Monster.
3 May
* Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald arrives back in the UK following talks with U.S. President Roosevelt on the global economic situation.
* In the Irish Free State, Dáil Éireann abolishes the Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown.
1 July – London Passenger Transport Board begins operations, unifying multiple earlier services by road and Underground.
3 July – New Chiswick Bridge, Twickenham Bridge and Hampton Court Bridge over the River Thames are officially opened.
15 July – Signing of the Four-Power Pact by the UK, France, Germany and Italy.
26 July – Battersea Power Station, London, first generates electricity.
28 July – Grand jury abolished in English law.
late July–early October – Albert Einstein is on a visit to Britain, for some time living in a wooden hut near Roughton, Norfolk. Having surrendered his German citizenship because of the Nazi regime, he campaigns at this time for safe homes for other exiled Jewish scientists.
12 August – Winston Churchill makes his first public speech warning of the dangers of German rearmament.
17 August – Release of the film The Private Life of Henry VIII. Charles Laughton receives an Academy Award for the title rôle, making this the first British film to win an Oscar.
September – National Grid completed.
6 October – Milk Marketing Board established.
13 October – British Interplanetary Society founded in Liverpool.
15 October – The Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine is run for the first time.
23 October – Birmingham city council's 40,000th council house is opened by Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain.
27 October – George Eyston achieves a world land speed record for a diesel car of 101.98 mph at Brooklands.
21 December
* Newfoundland returns to Crown Colony status following financial collapse.
* The British Plastics Federation is founded.

Undated

Ronald Lockley establishes the first British bird observatory on the Welsh island of Skokholm.
Norman Angell is given the Nobel Peace Prize, not awarded until 1934.

Publications

Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel Lord Edgware Dies.
Robert Hichens' novel The Paradine Case.
James Hilton's utopian novel Lost Horizon.
A. G. Macdonell's comic novel England, Their England.
George Orwell's book Down and Out in Paris and London.
Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novel Murder Must Advertise.
Angela Thirkell's novel High Rising.
H. G. Wells' novel The Shape of Things to Come.
Dennis Wheatley's first published novel The Forbidden Territory.

Births

1 January – Joe Orton, playwright
5 January – Derek Johnson, athlete
6 January
* John Clive, author and actor
* Ian McColl, Baron McColl of Dulwich, surgeon and academic
13 January – Janet Kear, ornithologist
15 January – Frank Bough, television presenter
18 January
* David Bellamy, botanist, author, broadcaster and environmental campaigner
* John Boorman, film director
24 January – Jane Somerville, cardiologist
26 January – Peter Zinovieff, engineer and composer
2 February
* Rodney Gordon, architect
* Tony Jay, British-American actor
6 February – Leslie Crowther, television comedian and game show host
7 February
* John Anderton, footballer
* Stuart Burrows, operatic tenor
8 February – Donald Burgess, track cyclist
9 February – John Michell, writer
13 February – Caroline Blakiston, actress
17 February – Cedric Robinson, Queen's Guide to the Sands
18 February
* Sir Bobby Robson, footballer and football manager
* Mary Ure, actress
22 February
* Sheila Hancock, actress
* Katharine, Duchess of Kent
27 February – Stan Anderson, English football player, manager
9 March – Sir David Weatherall, physician
12 March – Ken Hodgkisson, English footballer
14 March
* Sir Michael Caine, actor
* Sir Gavin Laird, trade unionist
17 March – Dame Penelope Lively, novelist
21 March – Michael Heseltine, British politician and businessman.
23 March – Norman Bailey, opera singer
25 March – Ray Spencer, footballer
1 April – Brianne Murphy, cinematographer
4 April – Brian Hewson, track and field athlete
6 April
* Sir Roy Goode, legal academic
* Dudley Sutton, actor
11 April
* Derek Martin, actor
* Torquil Norman, businessman and philanthropist
14 April – Paddy Hopkirk, Northern Irish rally driver
16 April – Joan Bakewell, broadcaster
18 April – Michael Bradshaw, actor
19 April
*Dickie Bird, cricketer and umpire
*Philip Wroughton, insurance executive and Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire
21 April – Ian Carr, jazz musician
24 April – Claire Davenport, actress
27 April – Peter Imbert, Baron Imbert, Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
2 May – Harry Woolf, Baron Woolf, lawyer, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
9 May – Jessica Steele, romance novelist
10 May – Barbara Taylor Bradford, English–born novelist
14 May – Siân Phillips, actress
15 May
* Peter Broadbent, footballer
* Shirley Dynevor, Welsh actress
17 May – Shelley Rohde, journalist and author
22 May – Don Estelle, actor
23 May – Joan Collins, actress
24 May – Anne Mustoe, teacher, cyclist and travel writer
25 May – Biddy Baxter, television producer
29 May – Nick Whitehead, Olympic sprinter
2 June – David Mudd, politician
7 June – Stanley Clarke, businessman
8 June – Robert Stevens, English lawyer and academic
10 June – Colin Grainger, footballer
14 June – John McHardy Sinclair, linguist
16 June – John Cunliffe, author
20 June – Claire Tomalin, hjournalist and biographer
22 June – Tony Booth, poster artist
26 June – David Winnick, Labour Party politician
1 July – Joe Buick, Scottish footballer
6 July – Frank Austin, footballer
7 July – Bruce Wells, boxer, actor
8 July – Jeff Nuttall, actor, poet and painter
9 July – Oliver Sacks, English-born neurologist
13 July – David Storey, novelist and playwright
15 July – Julian Bream, guitarist and lutenist
22 July – Alexander Trotman, businessman
29 July – Peter Baldwin, actor
2 August – Tom Bell, actor
5 August – Nicholas Scott, politician
9 August – Albert Quixall, footballer
10 August
* Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, judge
* Keith Duckworth, automotive engineer
11 August – Chris Harris, basketball player
15 August
* Rita Hunter, opera singer
* Michael Rutter, Lebanese-English psychiatrist and academic
18 August – Michael Baxandall, art historian
21 August
* Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano
* Barry Norman, film critic
4 September – George Claydon, actor
8 September – Michael Frayn, playwright and novelist
11 September – Margaret Booth, judge
19 September – David McCallum, actor and musician
20 September – Dennis Viollet, English footballer
26 September – Nicholas J. Phillips, physicist
30 September – Barbara Knox, English actress
2 October – John Gurdon, developmental biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
9 October
* Peter Mansfield, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
* Bill Tidy, cartoonist and illustrator
11 October – Richard Abel Smith, British army officer
13 October – Thomas Bingham, judge
21 October – Maureen Duffy, English poet, playwright, author and activist
24 October – Kray twins, gangsters
25 October – Peter Dennis, actor
3 November – John Barry, film score composer
8 November – Peter Arundell, racing driver
9 November – Geoff Gunney, English rugby league footballer
23 November – John Sanders, organist and composer
2 December – Peter Robin Harding, air marshal and pilot
3 December – Rosalind Knight, actress
14 December – David Maloney, television producer
16 December – Jennifer Toye, opera singer
29 December – Samuel Brittan, economic journalist

Deaths

5 January
* Arthur Borton, soldier, Victoria Cross recipient
* J. M. Robertson, politician, writer and journalist
7 January – Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, artist and designer
14 January – Sir Robert Jones, 1st Baronet, orthopaedic surgeon
January – Bowman Malcolm, railway engineer, Belfast and Northern Counties Railway
31 January – John Galsworthy, novelist, Nobel Prize laureate
2 February – Sir Herbert Cory, politician
22 April – Sir Henry Royce, car manufacturer
7 June – Sir Morley Fletcher, physiologist and administrator
14 June – Sir Ernest William Moir, civil engineer
16 July – Sir Tudor Walters, politician
25 July – John May, Scottish international footballer
31 July – Robert Fleming, financier
10 August – Alf Morgans, Welsh-born Prime Minister of Western Australia
12 October – John Lister, politician
18 October
* Christine Murrell, medical doctor, first female member of the British Medical Association's Central Council
* Ivor Herbert, 1st Baron Treowen, soldier and politician
24 October – Annie Swynnerton, painter
25 October – Lillian Hall-Davis, actress
20 November – Augustine Birrell, author and politician
30 November – Harry de Windt, explorer
19 December – George Jackson Churchward, locomotive engineer, Great Western Railway
21 December – Dora Montefiore, suffragist and socialist
26 December – Henry Watson Fowler, lexicographer
30 December – Dugald Cowan, educationalist and Liberal politician