1962 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1962 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Monarch – Elizabeth II
Prime Minister – Harold Macmillan

Events

January–April – An outbreak of smallpox spreading from Cardiff infects 45 people and kills 19 in South Wales; 900,000 people in the region are vaccinated against the disease.
2 January – BBC Television broadcasts the first episode of Z-Cars, noted as a realistic portrayal of the police force.
5 January – The first album on which The Beatles play, My Bonnie, as backing to Tony Sheridan, is released by Polydor.
11 January–12 February – Bradford smallpox outbreak of 1962.
15 January – UK weather reports begin to quote the temperature in degrees Celsius in addition to Fahrenheit.
18 January – Union-Castle Line ship makes her maiden voyage Southampton–Durban, perhaps the last major British ship built to enter the regular passenger ocean liner trade.
22 January – James Hanratty goes on trial for the August 1961 A6 murder. He denies the murder of 36-year-old Michael Gregsten and the attempted murder of Mr Gregsten's mistress Valerie Storie, who is paralysed by a gunshot wound.
4 February – The Sunday Times becomes the first newspaper to print a colour supplement.
10 February – End of the Queen's 10th regnal year. From this year, Acts of Parliament are dated by calendar year.
12 February – Six members of the Committee of 100 of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament are found guilty of a breach of the Official Secrets Act.
16 February – The 430-ft high 275kV Tyne Crossing power lines collapse on the same day that the British highest wind speed of 177mph on Lowther Hill in south-west Scotland is recorded.
21 February – Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev first dance together publicly, in a Royal Ballet performance of Giselle.
26 February – The Irish Republican Army officially calls off its Border Campaign in Northern Ireland.
1 March – British nuclear testing in the United States begins with "Pampas", Britain's first underground test, at the Nevada Test Site, the first of 24 critical tests up to 1991.
6 March – Accrington Stanley, members of the Football League Fourth Division, resign from the Football League due to huge debts.
7 March
*National Economic Development Council first meets.
*An outlier of the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 destroys the Cornish community of Wherrytown near Penzance.
13 March – 1962 Blackpool North by-election: the Blackpool North seat is retained by the Conservative Party.
14 March – Parliamentary by-elections in England :
*1962 Middlesbrough East by-election: the Middlesbrough East seat is retained by Labour.
*1962 Orpington by-election: Liberal Party candidate Eric Lubbock takes the Orpington seat in the outer London suburbs from the expected winner, Conservative candidate Peter Goldman, seen as the start of a Liberal revival in the UK.
29 March – Education Act 1962 requires local education authorities to pay the tuition fees of students attending full-time first degree courses and to provide them with a maintenance grant, superseding the former system of state scholarships.
2 April – Panda crossings are introduced but their complex sequences of pulsating and flashing lights cause confusion amongst drivers and pedestrians.
4 April – James Hanratty is hanged at HM Prison Bedford for the A6 murder, despite protests from many people who believe he is innocent, and the late introduction into his trial of witnesses who claim to have seen him in Rhyl, North Wales, on the day of the murder.
12 April – British New Wave film A Kind of Loving, directed by John Schlesinger, is released.
18 April – Commonwealth Immigrants Act in the United Kingdom removes free immigration from the citizens of member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, requiring proof of employment in the UK. This comes into effect on 1 July.
23 April – This year's Aldermaston March culminates in a 150,000-strong demonstration against proliferation of nuclear weapons in Hyde Park, London.
26 April – Ariel 1, the UK's first satellite, is launched from the United States.
27 April – Opinion polls show that less than half of voters now approve of Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister.
28 April – Ipswich Town win the Football League First Division title in their first season at that level.
5 May – Tottenham Hotspur retain the FA Cup with a 3–1 win over Burnley at Wembley Stadium, with goals from Jimmy Greaves, Bobby Smith and captain Danny Blanchflower.
8 May – The last trolleybuses in London are run.
11 May – Prince Charles starts at Gordonstoun school in Scotland.
25 May – The new Coventry Cathedral is consecrated. On 30 May, Benjamin Britten's War Requiem is premiered here.
26 May – Acker Bilk's 1961 instrumental recording "Stranger on the Shore" becomes the first British recording to reach number one in the US Billboard Hot 100.
31 May
*The Northern Ireland general election again produces a large majority for the Ulster Unionist Party, winning 34 out of 51 seats, though the Nationalist Party gains two seats for a total of 9.
*The British West Indies Federation is officially wound up due to internal dissention.
2 June
* Britain's first legal casino opens in Brighton, Sussex.
* Oxford United F.C., champions of the Southern League, are elected to the English Football League in place of bankrupt Accrington Stanley.
6 June – The Beatles play their first session at Abbey Road Studios in London, having signed with EMI's Parlophone label on 9 May.
14 June
*BBC Television broadcasts the first episode of the sitcom Steptoe and Son, written by Galton and Simpson.
*The UK joins 11 other European countries in an agreement to form the European Space Research Organisation, predecessor of the European Space Agency.
1 July – Another heavy smog develops over London.
3 July – Opening of Chichester Festival Theatre, Britain's first large modern theatre with a thrust stage. Laurence Olivier is the first artistic director.
11 July – First live transatlantic television transmission, via the Telstar communications satellite and Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station, is received in the UK and broadcast by the BBC. An error at the ground station causes the initial images to be of poor quality. A full public broadcast is made on 23 July.
12 July – The Rolling Stones make their debut at London's Marquee Club, Number 165 Oxford Street, opening for Long John Baldry.
13 July – In what the press dubs "the Night of the Long Knives", the prime minister Harold Macmillan dismisses one-third of his Cabinet.
20 July – The world's first regular passenger hovercraft service is introduced between Rhyl in North Wales and Wallasey.
22 July – Advertising Standards Authority set up.
29 July – Race riots break out in Dudley, West Midlands.
31 July – A crowd assaults a rally of the right-wing Union Movement of Sir Oswald Mosley in London.
4 August – Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, the Welsh Language Society, is founded.
6 August – Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
12 August – The BMC ADO16 economy car series, best known as the Austin/Morris 1100, is launched; this becomes Britain's best selling car for most of the 1960s.
17 August – The Tornados' recording of Joe Meek's instrumental "Telstar" is released.
18 August – The Beatles play their first live engagement with the line-up of John, Paul, George and Ringo, at Hulme Hall, Port Sunlight.
23 August – John Lennon marries Cynthia Powell at an unpublicised register office ceremony at Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, with Paul McCartney as best man.
31 August
*Trinidad and Tobago gains independence from the United Kingdom.
* Mountaineers Chris Bonington and Ian Clough becomes the first Britons to climb the north face of the Eiger.
1 September – Channel Television, the ITV franchise for the Channel Islands, goes on air.
2 September – Glasgow Corporation Tramways runs its last tramcars in normal service, leaving the Blackpool tramway as the only remaining one in the UK.
6 September – Archaeologist Peter Marsden discovers the first of a set of Roman shipwrecks at Blackfriars in London, known as the Blackfriars Ships.
8–11 September – Last Gentlemen v Players cricket match played, at Scarborough, as the MCC abolishes the distinction between amateurs and professionals.
14 September – Wales West and North Television goes on air to the North and West Wales region, extending ITV to the whole of the United Kingdom.
20 September – The Ford Motor Company launches the Cortina, a family saloon costing £573 and similar in size to the Vauxhall Victor, Hillman Minx and Morris Oxford Farina.
21 September – First broadcast of the long-running television quiz programme University Challenge, made by Granada Television with Bamber Gascoigne as quizmaster.
1 October – Elizabeth Lane takes her seat as the first female county court judge.
5 October
* Dr No, the first James Bond film, is premiered at the London Pavilion, with 32-year-old Scottish actor Sean Connery playing the lead, a British Secret Service agent.
* The Beatles' first single in their own right, Love Me Do, is released by Parlophone. This version was recorded on 4 September at Abbey Road Studios in London with Ringo Starr as drummer.
9 October – Uganda gains independence from the United Kingdom.
17 October – The Beatles make their first televised appearance, on Granada television's north west local news programme People and Places.
21 October – The first American Folk Blues Festival European tour plays its only UK date at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester; artists include Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and T-Bone Walker. It will be influential on the British R&B scene, with the audience including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones with Jimmy Page, Paul Jones, John Mayall and other musicians, and with a second show filmed and shown on Independent Television.
22 October
* John Vassall, a former clerical officer in naval intelligence, is sentenced to 18 years imprisonment after admitting to passing secret material to the Soviet Union.
* Manchester Ringway Airport opens the first hub and pier terminal in Europe.
24 October – GCHQ's interception station at Scarborough is the first to detect that Soviet merchant ships implicated in the Cuban Missile Crisis are returning to their bases.
26 October – St Andrew's Hall, a concert hall in Glasgow, is destroyed in a fire thought to have been caused by a cigarette discarded during a Scotland versus Romania boxing match the previous day. The surviving facade is later incorporated into the Mitchell Library.
31 October – The United Nations General Assembly asks the United Kingdom to suspend enforcement of the new constitution in Southern Rhodesia, but the constitution comes into effect on 1 November.
November – John Charnley makes the world's first successful whole hip replacement operation at Wrightington Hospital, Wigan.
2 November – Greville Wynne, a British trader acting as a courier for MI6, is arrested by the KGB in Budapest and imprisoned in Moscow after confessing to espionage.
17 November – Seaham life-boat George Elmy capsizes entering harbour after service to coble Economy: all five crew and four of the five survivors are killed.
22 November – 1962 Chippenham by-election: the Conservatives are narrowly re-elected in Chippenham, Wiltshire, ahead of a challenge from the Liberals.
24 November – The first episode of influential satire show That Was the Week That Was, hosted by David Frost, is broadcast on BBC Television.
29 November – An agreement is signed between Britain and France to develop the Concorde supersonic airliner.
2–7 December – Severe smog in London causes numerous deaths.
6 December – The last permanent inhabitants leave the Scottish Island of Stroma.
9 December – Tanganyika becomes a republic within the Commonwealth, with Julius Nyerere as president.
10 December
* British molecular biologists Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, along with American James D. Watson, share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material".
* British biochemists Max Perutz and John Cowdery Kendrew share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work in investigating the structure of haem-containing proteins.
* David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia released.
16 December – Anglo–French talks regarding the UK's admission to the European Economic Community end in stalemate.
19 December – Britain acknowledges the right of Nyasaland to secede from the Central African Federation.
21 December – Nassau Agreement: Britain agrees to buy the Polaris missile system from the United States.
22 December
* "Big Freeze" in Britain: no frost-free nights until 5 March 1963.
* "Telstar", by The Tornados, becomes the first single by a British group to reach No. 1 on the US charts, predating The Beatles by 13 months.
30 December – United Nations troops occupy the last rebel positions in Katanga; Moise Tshombe moves to Southern Rhodesia.

Undated

Britain's motorway network expands with the completion of the first phases of the M5 between Birmingham and north Gloucestershire and the M6 bypassing Stafford.
Mirror class introduced for dinghy sailing.
Golden Wonder introduce flavoured crisps for the first time to the UK market, with cheese and onion.

Publications

The anthology The New Poetry edited by Al Alvarez.
Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange.
Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side.
Len Deighton's first novel The IPCRESS File.
Ian Fleming's James Bond novel The Spy Who Loved Me.
Dick Francis' first novel Dead Cert.
Eric Hobsbawm's book The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848.
Aldous Huxley's novel Island.
P. D. James' first novel Cover Her Face.
Doris Lessing's novel The Golden Notebook.
David Lodge's novel Ginger You're Barmy.
Anthony Sampson's study Anatomy of Britain.
Peter Townsend's report The Last Refuge: a survey of residential institutions and homes for the aged in England and Wales.

Births

January – April

January – Richard Leonard, Leader of the Scottish Labour Party.
3 January – Guy Pratt, English musician and songwriter
4 January – Robin Guthrie, Scottish guitarist and producer
5 January – Andrew Rawnsley, English journalist and broadcaster
11 January
* Chris Bryant, politician
* Melanie Hill, actress
* Brian Moore, English rugby union player
20 January – Sophie Thompson, English actress
25 January – Emma Freud, English broadcaster and cultural commentator
28 January – Hamish McColl, comedian, writer and actor
2 February – Andy Fordham, English darts player
4 February – Stephen Hammond, English banker and politician
7 February – Eddie Izzard, British actor and comedian
8 February
*Malorie Blackman, British author
*Daniel Levy, English businessman
12 February – Jimmy Kirkwood, field hockey player
13 February – Hugh Dennis, British actor, comedian and writer
17 February – Sarah Wollaston, physician and politician
21 February
*Vanessa Feltz, British television presenter
*Randy Lerner, American entrepreneur, owner of Aston Villa F.C.
25 February – John Lanchester, British journalist and novelist
26 February – Pen Hadow, Arctic explorer
4 March
*Simon Bisley, British comic book artist
*Paul Canoville, English footballer
9 March
*Richard Quest, English television anchor and presenter
*Pete Wishart, Scottish singer and politician
12 March – Graham Stuart, British Conservative politician, MP for Beverley and Holderness
17 March – Clare Grogan, Scottish actress and singer
23 March – Steve Redgrave, English rower
26 March – Sarah Mullally, Chief Nursing Officer for England, later first woman Archbishop of Canterbury
27 March – John O'Farrell, British author and broadcaster
April – Sarah Gilbert, English vaccinologist
1 April – Phillip Schofield, British television presenter
9 April – Imran Sherwani, British field hockey player
15 April
* Alex Crawford, English journalist
* Nick Kamen, English singer-songwriter, musician and model
19 April – Dorian Yates, English professional bodybuilder
22 April
* Ann McKechin, Scottish Labour politician, MP for Glasgow North
* Jeff Minter, video game designer and programmer
23 April – John Hannah, Scottish actor
24 April
* Roald Bradstock, English javelin thrower
* Stuart Pearce, English football player and manager
26 April – Colin Anderson, English footballer
29 April – Polly Samson, English journalist and writer

May – August

2 May – Jimmy White, British snooker player
6 May – Tom Brake, British Liberal Democrat politician, MP for Carshalton and Wallington
9 May
* Dave Gahan, English singer
* Paul Heaton, English singer-songwriter
12 May – Gregory H. Johnson, American astronaut
14 May – Ian Astbury, British singer
17 May
*Craig Ferguson, Scottish actor and television presenter
*Alan Johnston, journalist
*Aled Roberts, Welsh politician
20 May – Claire Horton, charity executive
26 May – Black, English singer-songwriter
29 May – Perry Fenwick, English actor
6 June – Mark Bright, English footballer, radio presenter and television pundit
8 June – Nick Rhodes, English rock keyboardist
13 June – Mark Frankel, actor
15 June – Chris Morris, English comedian, writer, director, actor, voice actor and producer
25 June – Phill Jupitus, comedian and broadcaster
27 June – Michael Ball, singer
29 June – Amanda Donohoe, English actress
30 June – Julianne Regan, singer/songwriter
1 July – Dominic Keating, English actor
4 July – Neil Morrissey, English actor
12 July – Dean Wilkins, English football manager
21 July – Victor Adebowale, Baron Adebowale, social entrepreneur
30 July – Lavinia Greenlaw, poet and novelist
1 August – Robert Clift, Welsh field hockey player
2 August – Lee Mavers, English musician
7 August – Doon Mackichan, British actress and comedian
9 August – Yinka Shonibare, artist
11 August – John Micklethwait, English journalist, editor-in-chief of The Economist
13 August – Heidi Thomas, screenwriter and playwright
20 August – Sophie Aldred, British actress and television presenter
23 August – Shaun Ryder, English musician, singer-songwriter and actor
24 August – Ali Smith, writer
30 August – Alexander Litvinenko, British citizen, previously KGB colonel and FSB lieutenant-colonel

September – December

2 September – Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2024
5 September – Peter Wingfield, Welsh actor
8 September – Daljit Dhaliwal, British newsreader and television presenter
15 September – Steve Punt, British actor, comedian and writer
18 September – John Fashanu, English football player and commentator
21 September – Nick Knowles, English television presenter
24 September
*Ally McCoist, Scottish footballer and television pundit and A Question of Sport team captain
*Mike Phelan, English footballer and football coach
26 September – Tracey Thorn, British singer
30 September – Tony Morris, newsreader
October – Micky Flanagan, comedian
5 October – Caron Keating, television presenter
7 October – Micky Flanagan, English comedian
8 October – Richard Lintern, English actor
11 October
* Nicola Bryant, actress
* Jacqueline de Rojas, tech entrepreneur
14 October
* Trevor Goddard, actor
* Amanda Noar, English actress, director and choreographer
18 October – Naive John, Stuckist artist and figurative painter
19 October – Claude Callegari, English YouTube personality
20 October
* Boothby Graffoe, born James Rogers, comedian, singer-songwriter and playwright
* Hugh Montgomery, physician
25 October – Nick Hancock, British actor and television presenter
26 October – Cary Elwes, English actor
3 November
*Marilyn, born Peter Robinson, Jamaican-born pop singer
*Jacqui Smith, English Labour politician
11 November – Alan Yau, Hong Kong-born restaurateur
12 November – Mariella Frostrup, journalist and television presenter
15 November – Maggie O'Neill, actress
21 November – Alan Smith, footballer
24 November – John Kovalic, Anglo-American cartoonist
27 November
*Samantha Bond, actress
*Davey Boy Smith, pro wrestler
29 November – Ronny Jordan, guitarist
2 December – Steve Huison, actor
3 December – Richard Bacon, British Conservative politician, MP for South Norfolk
6 December
*Colin Salmon, actor
*Ben Watt, musician, singer, DJ
7 December – Jeffrey Donaldson, Northern Irish politician, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party
17 December – Paul Dobson, English footballer
22 December – Ralph Fiennes, English actor
31 December – Heather McCartney, born Heather See, adopted daughter of Sir Paul McCartney

Unknown dates

Michele Dougherty, scientist

Deaths

16 January – R. H. Tawney, English historian and social critic
26 January – George Jeffreys, Welsh Pentecostal
13 February – Hugh Dalton, Labour politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer
16 March – Fred Pentland, footballer and coach
23 March – Clement Davies, Welsh Liberal politician
4 April – James Hanratty, murderer, one of the last people to be hanged in the UK
10 April – Stuart Sutcliffe, English artist and musician
19 April – Sir Harold Yarrow, 2nd Baronet, industrialist
21 April – Sir Frederick Handley Page, English aircraft manufacturer
30 April – Sir Jameson Adams, Antarctic explorer, Royal Navy officer and civil servant
5 May – Ernest Tyldesley, English cricketer
2 June – Vita Sackville-West, English writer and landscape gardener
12 June – John Ireland, English composer
13 June – Sir Eugene Goossens, English composer
21 July – G. M. Trevelyan, English historian
27 July – Richard Aldington, English poet
15 August – Bob McIntyre, Scottish motorcycle racer
5 September – Roy MacNairy, English cricketer
7 September – Graham Walker, English motorcycle racer
23 September
*Louis de Soissons, Canadian-born architect
*Patrick Hamilton, English dramatist
30 September – Sir Bernard Rawlings, British admiral
21 October – Hugh Franklin, English activist for women's suffrage
4 November – Saxon Sydney-Turner, English civil servant, eccentric, member of the Bloomsbury Group
5 November – Percy Cudlipp, Welsh-born journalist
15 December – Charles Laughton, English actor and director
21 December – Gary Hocking, Welsh motorcycle racer
December – Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, English working class novelist and campaigner