1951 in the United Kingdom

In 1951 the Festival of Britain was held in the United Kingdom, and a general election returned Winston Churchill to power.

Incumbents

Monarch – George VI
Prime Minister – Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill

Events

January
* British Board of Film Censors introduces X rating for films "Suitable for those aged 16 and over".
* The Ford Consul introduced.
1 January – The radio series The Archers begins on the BBC Light Programme. It will still be on the air 75 years later.
9 January – The government announces abandonment of the Tanganyika groundnut scheme, writing off £36,500,000.
February – Ferranti deliver their first Mark 1 computer to the University of Manchester, the world's first commercially available general-purpose electronic computer.
15 February – Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain takes shareholdings of principal steelmakers into state ownership.
21 February – An English Electric Canberra becomes the first jet to make an unrefuelled Transatlantic flight, taking 4 hours 37 minutes from RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland to Gander in Newfoundland.
26 February – Film noir Pool of London is released, the first British film with a major role for a black actor, Bermuda-born Earl Cameron.
12 March – The character Dennis the Menace first appears in The Beano comic.
13 March – Pineapple Poll, a Gilbert and Sullivan-inspired comic ballet, created by choreographer John Cranko with arranger Sir Charles Mackerras, is premiered at Sadler's Wells Theatre by the Sadler's Wells Ballet.
11 April – The Stone of Scone is located at Arbroath Abbey, having been stolen from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalists on Christmas Day 1950.
17 April
* The submarine HMS Affray sinks, killing all 75 crew members.
* Seven unofficial dockers' leaders are acquitted of offences under a wartime regulation intended to prevent industrial disputes.
* The Peak District is established as the first of the national parks of the United Kingdom. The Lake District is designated so in May, and designations of Snowdonia and Dartmoor come into effect on 20 November.
22–25 April – Korean War: Battle of the Imjin River: the 29th Infantry Brigade of the British Army serving with the United Nations put up brave but ultimately unsuccessful resistance to the Chinese advance, with 141 UN troops killed. The last stand of the 1st Battalion, The Gloucestershire Regiment at Hill 235 rapidly becomes part of modern military tradition.
23 April – Aneurin Bevan, recently appointed as [Secretary of State for Employment|Minister of Labour Party (UK)|Labour and National Service], together with John Freeman and Harold Wilson, resign from the government in protest at Hugh Gaitskell's announcement in the Budget of 10 April to introduce prescription charges for dental care and spectacles.
28 April – Newcastle United win the FA Cup for the fourth time with a 2–0 win over Blackpool at Wembley Stadium. Jackie Milburn scores both goals in front of a crowd of 100,000 spectators.
3 May – George VI opens the Festival of Britain in London, including the Royal Festival Hall, Dome of Discovery and Skylon. This would be the last major public event attended by the King and Queen together. Festival Gardens and a fun fair are opened in Battersea Park and the Lansbury Estate in Poplar is begun this year as a housing showcase.
4 May–6 October – Festival Ship Campania cruises the seaports.
14 May – The first volunteer-run passenger trains run on the Talyllyn Railway in Wales.
25–26 May – Spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean leave Britain to defect to the Soviet Union. This places suspicion on two other members of the 'Cambridge Five', Kim Philby and John Cairncross who are obliged to resign their official positions.
28 May
* First broadcast of The Goon Show radio series.
* Princess Elizabeth opens the Exhibition of Industrial Power, the latest part of the Festival of Britain, in Glasgow.
29 May – The Easington Colliery explosion leaves 83 people dead.
2 June – Workington F.C. are elected to the Football League in place of New Brighton A.F.C. and will compete in the Football League Third Division North for the 1951-52 season.
7 June – George VI is too ill to attend Trooping the Colour, so Princess Elizabeth leads the ceremony in his place.
26 June – Ealing comedy film The Lavender Hill Mob is released.
10 July – Boxer Randy Turpin beats the American Sugar Ray Robinson in a fight in London to become world middleweight champion.
17 July – New Port Talbot Steelworks opened at Margam, South Wales.
27 July – The first Miss World beauty pageant is held as a bikini contest as part of the Festival of Britain, at the Lyceum Ballroom, London; Kiki Håkansson of Sweden is the winner.
14 September – Clement Attlee opens the largest oil refinery in Europe at Fawley on Southampton Water.
22 September – The Colony of Singapore is granted city status through royal charter conferred by George VI.
23 September – George VI has an operation to remove part of his lung.
26 September – Rock and Ice Club formed by a group of climbers in Manchester.
30 September – Festival of Britain ends.
October – Exercise Surprise Packet, the largest British peacetime military exercise.
5 October – With three weeks to go before the second general election in less than two years, opinion polls suggest that the Conservative Party led by previous wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, will oust Clement Attlee's Labour government from power after six years, with a majority of 75 to 100 seats and a share of the vote of up to 50%.
17 October – Austin A30 introduced.
26 October – The Conservative Party led by Winston Churchill wins the General Election, regaining the position of Prime Minister that he lost six years previously, with a majority of seventeen seats, though with slightly fewer votes than the Labour Party which wins the most votes of any party at any UK general election until 1992 and highest percentage vote share but will not return to government until 1964. The Liberal Party receives its lowest-ever share of the popular vote. Four Ulster Unionist candidates are returned unopposed in Northern Ireland, the last general election in which any candidate is so returned. This is also the last election in which the Conservatives achieve a stronger result in Scotland than in England.
31 October
* Zebra crossings, a type of pedestrian crossing, is introduced for the first time.
* Egypt unilaterally abrogates the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936.
2 November – 6,000 British troops are sent to Egypt to deal with anti-British disturbances at Fayid in the Suez Canal Zone.
3 November – Express Dairies, owned by 28-year-old Patrick Galvani, open Britain's first full-size supermarket in Streatham Hill, London. Also this year, Fine Fare opens its first supermarket, in Welwyn Garden City.
7 November – UK bank rate, maintained at 2% since 26 October 1939, is raised.
20 November
* More than 1,000 families of British servicemen begin to move out of the Suez Canal Zone of Egypt after a shooting, which claimed the lives of five British soldiers as well as nine Egyptian civilians.
* The Prime Minister's Resignation Honours are announced, to mark the resignation of Prime Minister Clement Attlee.
24 November – Beinn Eighe in Scotland becomes Britain's first national nature reserve.
29 November – LEO becomes the world's first computer to run a full commercial business application, for the bakers J. Lyons and Co.
1 December – Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd is premiered at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
10 December – John Cockcroft wins the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Ernest Walton "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles".
25 December – George VI makes his Christmas Speech to the Commonwealth for the final time, but it has been pre-recorded as he is still struggling to recover from his operation three months ago.
31 December – Prime Minister Winston Churchill sets off to the United States for talks with President Harry S. Truman.

Undated

Trade union membership reaches an all-time peak, with 9,300,000 members.
GCE Ordinary Level examinations introduced, together with Advanced Levels replacing the Higher School Certificate.
First residential tower block in Britain, a 10-storey point block, The Lawn, in Harlow New Town in Essex, is constructed to the design of Sir Frederick Gibberd.
Performance of medieval mystery plays revived at York and Chester.

Publications

Agatha Christie's adventure novel They Came to Baghdad.
Graham Greene's novel The End of the Affair.
Jacquetta Hawkes' landscape study A Land.
C. S. Lewis' children's fantasy novel Prince Caspian, second published in The Chronicles of Narnia.
Nicholas Monsarrat's wartime novel The Cruel Sea.
Iona and Peter Opie's reference work The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.
Nikolaus Pevsner's guidebooks Cornwall, Nottinghamshire and Middlesex, first in the Buildings of England series.
Anthony Powell's novel A Question of Upbringing, first in the 12-volume cycle A Dance to the Music of Time.
Ronald Ridout's First English Workbook, a textbook which sells five million copies.
John Wyndham's post-apocalyptic novel The Day of the Triffids.
First edition of The Good Food Guide edited by Raymond Postgate.

Births

2 January – Piers Merchant, politician
5 January – Steve Arnold, footballer
7 January – Helen Worth, soap actress
9 January – Andy Qunta, singer-songwriter, composer and musician
15 January – Biff Byford, rock singer
19 January
* Graham James, bishop
* Arthur Taxier, Scottish-American actor
20 January – Ian Hill, rock bassist
21 January – Rosemary Shrager, chef and TV personality
26 January
* Roy Goodman, English conductor and violinist
* Anne Mills, English economist and academic
30 January – Phil Collins, musician and producer
1 February
* Christina Dodwell, explorer
* Andrew Smith, politician, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
2 February – Ken Bruce, radio broadcaster
6 February – Kevin Whately, actor
12 February – Howard Davies, economist
14 February – Kevin Keegan, footballer and football manager
15 February – Jane Seymour, actress
20 February – Gordon Brown, Prime Minister
26 February – Steve Bell, cartoonist
27 February – Steve Harley, glam rock singer-songwriter

* 4 March

* Kenny Dalglish, footballer and manager
* Chris Rea, singer-songwriter and guitarist
1 April – Kay Davies, geneticist, anatomist and academic
13 April – Peter Davison, actor
14 April
* Julian Lloyd Webber, cellist and composer
* Greg Winter, biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
16 April – David Nutt, psychiatrist and academic
20 April – Louise Jameson, actress
25 April – Ian McCartney, politician
11 May
*Kay Mellor, television scriptwriter
*Mike Slemen, English rugby player and educator
13 May
* Selina Scott, journalist and television presenter
* James Whale, radio presenter
27 May – John Conteh, light heavyweight boxer
1 June – Lola Young, Baroness Young of Hornsey, actress and author
7 June – Ralph Palmer, 12th Baron Lucas, accountant and politician
8 June – Bonnie Tyler, singer
11 June – Matthew Engel, journalist and author
14 June – Paul Boateng, politician
15 June – John Redwood, politician
27 June – Gilson Lavis, drummer
28 June – Lalla Ward, actress
30 June – Steve Waller, guitarist
1 July – Joanna Korner, judge
15 July – David Almond, writer
24 July
* Fiona Reid, English-born Canadian actress
* Chris Smith, politician
28 July
* Ray Kennedy, footballer
* Barbara Stocking, civil servant and academic
29 July – Susan Blackmore, writer and broadcaster
2 August – Gerald Suster, revisionist historian and novelist
15 August – Dave Needham, boxer
17 August
* Alan Minter, middleweight boxer
* Jonathan Ruffer, investor and philanthropist
19 August – John Deacon, rock bassist
21 August – Glenn Hughes, rock musician
23 August – Philip Wilkinson, cricketer
25 August – Rob Halford, rock singer
28 August – Colin White, military historian
1 September – David Bairstow, English cricketer
14 September – Duncan Haldane, English-born condensed-matter physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
15 September – Gavin Muir, actor
22 September – David Coverdale, singer
26 September – Stuart Tosh, musician
27 September
* Paul Craig, professor of law
* Steve Soper, racing driver
30 September – John Lloyd, comedy producer
2 October – Sting, rock musician
3 October – Clive Charles, footballer
17 October – Colin Beattie, Scottish politician
6 November – Nigel Havers, English actor
15 November – Alamgir Hashmi, poet
17 November – Jack Vettriano, painter
19 November – Lord Falconer of Thoroton, politician
23 November – David Rappaport, English actor
8 December – Bill Bryson, American-born British non-fiction author
10 December – Doug Allder, footballer
18 December - Robin Millar, record producer
20 December
* Kate Atkinson, writer
* Denise Deegan, author and playwright
* Lynne Featherstone, blogger and politician
* Christopher Le Brun, painter and sculptor
* Peter May, novelist and television dramatist
* Nuala O'Loan, Baroness O'Loan, lawyer
21 December – Nick Gilder, English-Canadian singer-songwriter
22 December – Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, landowner and aristocrat

Deaths

2 January – Edith New, suffragette
25 February – Sir Percy Malcolm Stewart, industrialist
6 March – Ivor Novello, actor, musician and composer
6 April – Robert Broom, paleontologist
14 April – Ernest Bevin, labour leader, politician and statesman
22 April – Horace Donisthorpe, myrmecologist
24 April – Joseph Maclay, 1st Baron Maclay, Glasgow shipowner and Minister of Shipping, 1916–1921
2 May – Tufton Beamish, British admiral and politician
11 June – W. C. Sellar, humourist
3 July – Gwendoline Davies, philanthropist
21 August – Constant Lambert, composer
27 September – Robert Thomas, politician
29 September – Evan Roberts, preacher
11 December – Christopher Addison, anatomist and politician