1937 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1937 in the United Kingdom.
The coronation of King George VI took place on 12 May, after he had ascended to the throne at the end of the previous year.

Incumbents

Events

1 January – safety glass in vehicle windscreens becomes mandatory in the United Kingdom.
25 February – UK première of the historical film Fire Over England, providing the first pairing of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.
8 March – Prince Edward, the former King Edward VIII, is created Duke of Windsor.
19 March – Regency Act 1937 provides for the minority, incapacity or absence abroad of any future monarch.
12 April – Frank Whittle ground-tests the world's first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby.
27 April – National Maritime Museum opened at Greenwich in former Royal Hospital School premises.
April – the Royal Mint introduces the nickel-brass twelve-sided threepence coin, replacing the earlier round silver coin.
May – the Georgian Group is set up as part of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in England.
1–27 May – London's bus drivers and conductors go on strike.
12 May – Coronation of George VI and Elizabeth takes place at Westminster Abbey, London. The BBC makes its first television outside broadcast covering the event. The newly formed social research organisation Mass Observation makes its first survey of social attitudes on this day.
23 May – nearly 4000 Basque child refugees of the Spanish Civil War arrive at Southampton.
27 May – George VI passes letters patent denying the style of Royal Highness to the wife and descendants of the Duke of Windsor.
28 May – Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister after Baldwin's retirement.
3 June – the Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson in the Château de Candé.
1 July
* Ministers of the Crown Act 1937 for the first time formally recognises the offices of Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the Leader of the Opposition and provides them with official salaries.
* The 999 emergency telephone number is introduced.
2 July – Holditch Colliery Disaster, a coal mining accident in Chesterton, Staffordshire, in which thirty men die following a fire and explosions.
6 July – Littlewoods, the pools company formed fourteen years ago by Liverpool businessman John Moores, expands to create a department store in Blackpool, Lancashire.
7 July – Peel Commission proposes partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.
23 July – Matrimonial Causes Act adds insanity and desertion to infidelity as legitimate grounds for divorce.
28 July – assassination attempt on King George VI in Belfast by the Irish Republican Army.
4 August – return of the British Graham Land Expedition from Antarctica.
27 August – Benjamin Britten's string orchestral work Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10, receives its concert première at the Salzburg Festival, bringing the composer to international attention.
7 September – Witley Court in Worcestershire is gutted by fire.
30 September – last issue of The Morning Post newspaper before it is absorbed by The Daily Telegraph.
October–December – Croydon typhoid outbreak of 1937: 341 cases of typhoid fever result from a polluted well.
6 October – the fictional character 'Mrs. Miniver' first appears in the column on domestic life written by 'Jan Struther' for The Times.
16 October – Jimmy McGrory plays his last match with Celtic F.C., achieving a United Kingdom record of 550 goals scored during his senior career.
4 December – the first issue of children's comic The Dandy, including the character Desperate Dan, is published.
10 December
* Nobel Prizes announced:
** Lord Robert Cecil wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
** George Thomson wins the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Clinton Davisson "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals".
** Walter Haworth wins half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C".
* Castlecary rail crash: an express on the Edinburgh to Glasgow line collides into the rear of a local train standing at Castlecary in the snow, due primarily to a signalman's error; 35 are killed.
16 December – the musical Me and My Girl opens in the West End Victoria Palace Theatre; the dance number "The Lambeth Walk" becomes popular.
December – the Hawker Hurricane enters service with the Royal Air Force as its first monoplane fighter aircraft.
Undated
* The sugar-coated chocolate sweets Smarties are first marketed under this name by Rowntree's of York.
* Kensal House in Ladbroke Grove, London, two low-rise blocks of modernist flats for the working class designed by Maxwell Fry, is completed as a prototype for modern urban living.

Publications

21 May – Penguin Books launches its Pelican Books sixpenny paperback non-fiction imprint with a 2-volume edition of Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.
Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novels Dumb Witness and Death on the Nile.
A. J. Cronin's medical novel The Citadel.
C. S. Forester's first Horatio Hornblower novel The Happy Return.
David Jones' World War I epic In Parenthesis.
George Orwell's social reportage and political polemic The Road to Wigan Pier.
J. R. R. Tolkien's children's fantasy novel The Hobbit.

Births

1 January
*Anne Aubrey, actress
*John Fuller, poet and author
2 January – Terence Rigby, actor
7 January – Ian La Frenais, English screenwriter and producer
8 January – Shirley Bassey, Welsh-born singer
9 January
* Malcolm Cecil, jazz bassist and record producer
* Michael Nicholson, journalist and author
14 January – Ken Higgs, English cricketer
18 January – John Hume, Northern Irish SDLP politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
19 January – Ian Samwell, rock guitarist, singer-songwriter and record producer
21 January – Ursula Owen, editor and publisher
27 January – John Ogdon, pianist
29 January – Jeff Clyne, jazz bassist
30 January – Vanessa Redgrave, actress
7 February – Peter Jay, economist, broadcaster and diplomat
10 February – Anne Anderson, Scottish physiologist
11 February – Ian Gow, Member of Parliament for Eastbourne
12 February – Roland Boyes, Labour politician
16 February – Peter Hobday, radio presenter and journalist
17 February
* Peter Beet, general practitioner and railway preservationist
* Benjamin Whitrow, actor
21 February – Jilly Cooper, novelist
25 February – Tom Courtenay, actor
16 March – Ben Aris, actor
22 March – Foo Foo Lammar, drag queen
6 April
* Angus Grossart, businessman
* Terrence Hardiman, actor
9 April
*Barrington J. Bayley, science fiction author
*Valerie Singleton, television presenter
10 April – Stan Mellor, National Hunt jockey and trainer
11 April - Jill Gascoine, actress
12 April – Edward Hide, jockey
13 April – Edward Fox, actor
18 April
* Jan Kaplický, Czech-born British architect
*Teddy Taylor, politician
29 April – Jill Paton Walsh, novelist
30 April – Tony Harrison, poet and playwright
1 May
* Tamsyn Imison, illustrator and educator
* Una Stubbs, actress
5 May – Delia Derbyshire, electronic music composer
6 May – Paul Stephenson, civil rights campaigner
12 May
* Beryl Burton, racing cyclist
* Susan Hampshire, actress
13 May
*Trevor Baylis, inventor of the wind-up radio
*John Cope, Baron Cope of Berkeley, accountant and politician, Treasurer of the Household
19 May – Pat Roach, wrestler and actor
22 May – Charles Beare, luthier and violin expert
26 May – Neil Ardley, composer
2 June – Rosalyn Higgins, born Rosalyn C. Cohen, President of the International Court of Justice
8 June – Gillian Clarke, Welsh poet and playwright
15 June – Alan Thornett, Trotskyist activist
16 June – Charmian May, actress
21 June
* John Edrich, cricketer
* Averil Mansfield, surgeon
23 June – Sir Nicholas Shackleton, geologist
26 June – Len Worley, English footballer
27 June – Kathryn Beaumont, English actress
2 July – Dee Palmer, born David Palmer, composer, arranger and progressive rock keyboardist
3 July
* Brian Garvey, English footballer
* Tom Stoppard, Czech-born playwright
4 June – Richard Robson, English-born chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
13 July – Ghillean Prance, botanist and ecologist
14 July
* David Lytton Cobbold, 2nd Baron Cobbold, aristocrat and rock festival promoter
* Duncan MacKay, Scottish footballer
16 July
* Tommy Bruce, singer
* Jeremy Spenser, actor
17 July – Alan Hopper, English footballer
18 July – Peter Smith, Scottish footballer
21 July – Neville Bannister, footballer
22 July – Jon Price, cricketer
25 July – Colin Renfrew, archaeologist
27 July – Anna Dawson, actress
2 August – Jim McLean, football player and manager
3 August – Steven Berkoff, actor and writer
4 August – Dave Pearson, painter
6 August – Barbara Windsor, actress
18 August
* Willie Rushton, comedian, actor and writer
* Peter Usborne, publisher
19 August – Richard Ingrams, journalist and editor
20 August – Jim Bowen, born Peter Williams, stand-up comedian and television host
21 August – Donald Dewar, First Minister of Scotland
28 August – Ian Campbell, 12th Duke of Argyll, peer
1 September – Allen Jones, pop artist
2 September
* John Cornforth, architectural historian
* Derek Fowlds, actor
7 September – Clive Everton, sports commentator
13 September – Jessica Mann, crime novelist
16 September – Keith Bosley, broadcaster, poet and translator
20 September – Geoffrey Dear, Baron Dear, police officer
27 September – Valerie Gearon, actress
1 October – Matthew Carter, type designer
4 October – Jackie Collins, romance novelist
7 October – Christopher Booker, journalist
9 October – Brian Blessed, actor
11 October – Bobby Charlton, England footballer
17 October – Paxton Whitehead, English actor
24 October – Barry Davies, English journalist and sportscaster
8 November – Paul Foot, journalist
9 November – Roger McGough, Liverpool poet
15 November – Ron Yeats, Scottish footballer
16 November – Alan Budd, economist and academic
17 November – Peter Cook, comedian and writer
19 November – Penelope Leach, psychologist
23 November – Geoffrey Hinsliff, actor
27 November – Rodney Bewes, television actor
28 November – Matisyahu Salomon, English-born American rabbi
30 November
* Frank Ifield, yodelling singer
* Ridley Scott, film director
7 December – Kenneth Colley, actor
10 December – Scott Baker, lawyer and judge
18 December – Anne Wood, children's television producer
21 December – Jimmy Collins, Scottish footballer
22 December – Charlotte Lamb, novelist
26 December – John Horton Conway, mathematician
29 December – Barbara Steele, actress
30 December – Gordon Banks, English goalkeeper
31 December – Anthony Hopkins, Welsh actor

Deaths

5 January – Marie Booth, third daughter of William and Catherine Booth
10 January – Bertie Crewe, theatre architect
18 January – Isaac Barr, Anglican clergyman, promoter of colonial settlement schemes
28 January – Dame Agnes Jekyll, artist, writer on domestic matters and philanthropist
19 February – Edward Garnett, critic
20 February – Sir Percy Cox, army general and colonial administrator
27 February – Douglas Carnegie, politician
13 March – Elihu Thomson, engineer and inventor in the United States
16 March – Sir Austen Chamberlain, statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
20 March – Harry Vardon, golf professional
22 March
* Alfred Dyke Acland, military officer
* Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford, aviator, ornithologist, in plane crash
25 March – John Drinkwater, poet and dramatist
8 April
* Billy Bassett, footballer
* Sir William Henry Hadow, educationalist
19 April – Martin Conway, 1st Baron Conway of Allington, art critic, politician and mountaineer
24 April – Lucy Beaumont, actress
10 May – Sir James Blindell, politician
12 May
* Sir Henry Birchenough, businessman and public servant
* Cecil Meares, explorer
15 May – Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden, politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer
5 June – Owen Philipps, 1st Baron Kylsant, shipowner
11 June – R. J. Mitchell, aeronautical engineer
19 June – J. M. Barrie, novelist and dramatist
22 June – Sir Eric Geddes, transport manager and politician
12 July – Hugo Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss, politician, public servant
17 July – Percy Gardner, archaeologist
18 July – Julian Bell, poet, killed in Spanish Civil War
14 August – H. C. McNeile, novelist and soldier
22 August – Albert Goodman, politician
24 August – Gervase Beckett, politician
31 August – Ruth Baldwin, socialite
6 September – Harry Charles Purvis Bell, civil servant, commissioner
15 September – Clifford Heatherley, actor
16 October – William Sealy Gosset, statistician
17 October – J. Bruce Ismay, shipowner
30 October – Sir Herbert Maxwell, Scottish novelist, essayist, artist, antiquarian, horticulturalist and Conservative politician
4 November – William Bennett, politician
6 November – Johnston Forbes-Robertson, stage actor
9 November – Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
25 November – Lilian Baylis, theatrical producer
9 December — Lilias Armstrong, phonetician
14 December - Lord Edward Gleichen, army officer
22 December – Joseph Darby, spring jumper
26 December
* Ivor Gurney, war poet and composer, of tuberculosis
* Mittie Frances Clarke Point, American novelist
27 December – Sir Coote Hedley, army officer and sportsman
28 December – Herbert Bullmore, Scottish Rugby Union international