1934 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1934 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Monarch – George V
Prime Minister – Ramsay MacDonald

Events

1 January – Establishment of the National Council for Civil Liberties by Ronald Kidd and Sylvia Crowther-Smith.
21 January – Ten thousand people attend a British Union of Fascists rally in Birmingham, organised by Oswald Mosley.
16 February – A Commission of Government for the Dominion of Newfoundland is sworn in as a form of return to direct colonial rule by the UK forced by the island's economic collapse.
27 March – The Betting and Lotteries Act 1934 is passed. Part 1 is designed to restrict betting on racecourses and tracks to a maximum of 104 days. Part 2 prohibits the sale of lottery tickets, primarily directed against the Irish Free State Hospitals' Sweepstake.
April – Meccano Ltd introduce the first Dinky Toys.
3 April – Percy Shaw patents the cat's eye road-safety device.
6 April – Rudyard Kipling and William Butler Yeats are awarded the Gothenburg Prize for Poetry.
21 April
* The "surgeon's photograph" of the Loch Ness Monster, much later admitted to be a hoax, is published in the Daily Mail.
* David Low's cartoon character Colonel Blimp first appears in the London Evening Standard.
May – The London Zoo penguin pool, designed by Berthold Lubetkin's Tecton Architectural Group with Ove Arup, one of the most significant examples of modern architecture in Britain, is opened.
4 May – 54-year-old grandmother Mrs G. E. Alington becomes the first woman in Britain to complete a parachute jump, skydiving from 1500 feet over Brooklands Aerodrome.
28 May – Opening of the first Glyndebourne Festival Opera season.
29 May – First regular domestic airmail service, inaugurated by Highland Airways between Inverness and Kirkwall.
12 July – Petroleum Act vests ownership of all U.K. subterranean oil and natural gas in the Crown.
18 July – Opening of the Queensway Tunnel beneath the River Mersey by King George V.
19 July – 41 squadrons added to the Royal Air Force as part of a new air defence program.
4–11 August – British Empire Games held at Wembley Park, London.
6 September – The BBC's most powerful long-wave transmitter, Droitwich Transmitting Station, starts transmitting regularly at 200 kilohertz, following test transmissions from 8 May.
10 September – The British Graham Land Expedition sets out to explore Graham Land in Antarctica.
22 September – Gresford disaster: a gas explosion takes place at Gresford Colliery in Wrexham, north-east Wales, which leads to the death of 266 miners and rescuers, one of the worst tragedies in Welsh mining history.
26 September – Launch of the liner at Clydebank.
29 September – Stanley Matthews makes his debut for the England national football team, beginning a record 23-year international career.
29 November – Marriage of Prince George, Duke of Kent, to Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, the first this century, and last, foreign-born princess to marry into the British royal family; the wedding is the first to be broadcast live on radio.
30 November – London and North Eastern Railway steam locomotive Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman becomes the first officially to exceed 100 miles per hour on test in England.
10 December – Arthur Henderson wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
21 December – Special Areas Act provides grants from central government funds to assist regions with high unemployment.

Undated

The "British Committee for Relations with Other Countries", which will become the British Council, is set up to foster cultural relations.
Aero Pictorial, a British aerial photography company is founded.
EKCO introduces its distinctive round bakelite radio cabinets.

Publications

John Betjeman's guidebook Cornwall, first of the Shell Guides.
Agatha Christie's novels Murder on the Orient Express and Why Didn't They Ask Evans?.
Robert Graves' novel I, Claudius.
A. P. Herbert's satirical novel Holy Deadlock.
James Hilton's novel Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
George Orwell's memoir Burmese Days.
J. B. Priestley's travelogue English Journey.
Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novel The Nine Tailors.
Dylan Thomas' first collection 18 Poems, including "The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower".
P. L. Travers' first children's story Mary Poppins.
Geoffrey Trease's children's story Bows against the Barons.
Evelyn Waugh's novel A Handful of Dust.
P. G. Wodehouse's Thank You, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves, the first Jeeves stories written as full-length novels.
V. M. Yeates' war novel Winged Victory.

Births

6 January – Sylvia Syms, actress
8 January – Roy Kinnear, actor
12 January – Mick Sullivan, English rugby league footballer
14 January – Richard Briers, actor
18 January – Raymond Briggs, writer and illustrator
19 January – Ron Newman, British-American soccer player and manager
20 January – Tom Baker, actor
22 January – Graham Kerr, TV cook
25 January – George William Coventry, 11th Earl of Coventry, peer
29 January – Noel Harrison, singer, actor and Olympic skier
2 February – Hugh McIlvanney, sports journalist
6 February – Roger Becker, tennis player
11 February – John Surtees, racing driver and motorcyclist
12 February – Anthony Howard, journalist
17 February – Alan Bates, actor
18 February – Geraldine Newman, actress
19 February – David Jones, film director
21 February – Michael Grylls, politician
24 February – Ray Honeyford, head teacher
25 February
* Bernard Bresslaw, actor
* Nicholas Edwards, Baron Crickhowell, politician
28 February – Ronnie Moran, football captain
4 March – John Dunn, radio presenter
5 March – Nicholas Smith, actor
6 March – John Noakes, children's television presenter
7 March – Zena Walker, actress
8 March
* Gawaine Baillie, race car driver and industrialist
* John McLeod, Scottish composer
11 March – Dilys Laye, actress and screenwriter
15 March – Richard Layard, Baron Layard, economist
16 March – Roger Norrington, conductor
20 March – Eric Hebborn, art forger
22 March – Larry Martyn, comic actor
26 March
* Richard Harris, scriptwriter
* Norman Reynolds, production designer and film director
28 March – Laurie Taitt, Olympic sprint hurdler
29 March – Delme Bryn-Jones, baritone
1 April – Marie Patterson, English trade union leader
2 April – Brian Glover, actor and wrestler
3 April – Jane Goodall, primatologist
6 April – Brian Cosgrove, animator
7 April
*Ian Richardson, actor
*Roger Webb, jazz musician
8 April – Bernard Donoughue, Baron Donoughue, politician and academic
11 April – Ron Pember, actor and dramatist
16 April
*Vince Hill, singer
*Michael Jackson, British-born American radio broadcaster
*Richard Kershaw, journalist
*Geoffrey Owen, journalist, academic and businessman
3 May – Henry Cooper, boxer
5 May – Jim Reid, folk musician
8 May – David Williamson, Baron Williamson of Horton, English soldier and politician
9 May
*Alan Bennett, playwright, screenwriter, actor and author
*David Plastow, English businessman
*Peter Ramsden, rugby league player
14 May – Alasdair Macintosh Geddes, infectious diseases expert
15 May
* John Keegan, military historian
* George Roper, comedian
16 May
* Victor Emery, physicist
* Nicholas Goodison
24 May
* Barry Rose, choir director and organist
* Margaret Tebbit, nurse
26 May
*Jeffrey Alan Gray, psychologist
*Mike Rawson, track and field athlete
29 May – Nanette Newman, actress
5 June – Bryon Butler, sports journalist
6 June – Joanne Cole, artist
11 June – Lady Annabel Goldsmith, socialite
12 June – John Townend, politician
15 June – Eileen Atkins, actress
19 June
*Terence Clark, soldier and diplomat, British Ambassador to Iraq
*Brian London, boxer
20 June
*Brian Barder, diplomat
*Keith Hopkins, historian and sociologist
21 June
* Maggie Jones, actress
* Ken Matthews, race walker
23 June – Keith Sutton, bishop
24 June
*Rodney Peppé, author and illustrator
*Peter Stoddart, English cricketer
26 June – Jeremy Wolfenden, journalist and spy
30 June – Richard Jolly, development economist
1 July
*Paddy Jones, salsa dancer
*Jean Marsh, actress
*Ian Robinson, publisher
2 July – Tom Springfield, songwriter and record producer
4 July – James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Abercorn, British nobleman, peer and politician
5 July – Philip Madoc, actor
7 July
* Robert McNeill Alexander, zoologist
* Richard Taylor, medical doctor, politician and Royal Air Force officer
8 July – Marty Feldman, writer, comedian and actor
9 July – John Clegg, Indian-born English actor
11 July – Helen Cresswell, writer
13 July – Gordon Lee, football player and manager
14 July – John Tyndall, politician
15 July – Harrison Birtwistle, composer
21 July – Jonathan Miller, polymath theatre director
23 July – Tony Lee, jazz pianist
26 July – Anthony Gilbert, composer
28 July
* Pat Douthwaite, artist
* Ron Flowers, footballer
31 July – Julia Bodmer, geneticist
6 August – Chris Bonington, mountaineer
8 August – Keith Barron, actor
16 August – Diana Wynne Jones, English writer
18 August – Michael de Larrabeiti, writer
19 August – Ronald Jones, track and field athlete
20 August – Tom Mangold, journalist and author
2 September – Allen Carr, writer and anti-smoking campaigner
4 September
* Tony Book, football player and manager
* Clive Granger, economist, Nobel Prize laureate
8 September – Peter Maxwell Davies, composer
11 September
* Ian Abercrombie, English-American actor
* Kallistos Ware, Eastern Orthodox theologian and bishop
* Cedric Price, architect and writer
19 September
* Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles
* Austin Mitchell, politician
20 September – David Marquand, academic and politician
21 September – David J. Thouless, Scottish-born condensed-matter physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
24 September
* Tommy Anderson, Scottish footballer
* Robert Lang, English stage, television actor
26 September – Dick Heckstall-Smith, jazz saxophonist
30 September
* Alan A'Court, English footballer
* Anna Kashfi, Welsh actress
1 October – Geoff Stephens, songwriter and record producer
14 October – Rose Wylie, painter
17 October – Alan Garner, young adult fiction writer
20 October
* Maureen Cleave, journalist
* Timothy West, actor
24 October – Wally Herbert, explorer
27 October
* David and Frederick Barclay, businessmen
* Peter Donaldson, economist
14 November – Dave Mackay, Scottish footballer
19 November – David Lloyd-Jones, conductor
22 November – Nicolas Walter, anarchist writer
25 November – John Drummond, arts administrator
28 November – Ted Walker, poet, travel writer and broadcaster
1 December – Jane Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 28th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, peer
3 December – Bob Cryer, politician
9 December – Judi Dench, actress
16 December – Jim Parker, composer
17 December – Ray Wilson, footballer
18 December – John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan
27 December – Pat Moss, racing driver
28 December
*Alasdair Gray, Scottish fiction writer and artist
*Maggie Smith, English actress
31 December – George Christie, opera manager

Deaths

6 January – Herbert Chapman, football manager
23 January
* Charles McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway, politician and jurist
* Sir William Hardy, biologist and food scientist
23 February – Sir Edward Elgar, composer
10 March – Thomas Anstey Guthrie, comic novelist 'F. Anstey'
25 March – Edmund Selous, ornithologist and writer
11 April – John Collier, writer and Pre-Raphaelite painter
25 May – Gustav Holst, composer
10 June – Frederick Delius, composer
10 September – Sir George Henschel, musician
27 September – Ellen Willmott, horticulturalist
3 November – Sir Robert McAlpine, 1st Baronet, builder
16 November – Alice Hargreaves, née Alice Liddell, inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
25 November – N. E. Brown, English plant taxonomist