1956 in The United Kingdom - Events

Events

• 1 January – Possession of heroin becomes fully criminalised.
• 5 January - Eight months after winning the general election and barely a year after becoming prime minister, Anthony Eden's position is looking under threat as opinion polls show Labour (now led by Hugh Gaitskell) in the lead.
• 24 January – Plans are announced for the construction of thousands of new homes in the Barbican area of London, devastated by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.
• 26 January–5 February – Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, but do not win any medals.
• February – Release of Shirley Bassey's first single, Burn My Candle (At Both Ends).
• 5 February – First showing of documentary films by the Free Cinema movement, at the National Film Theatre, London.
• 11 February – Two of the "Cambridge spies", Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean appear in Moscow after vanishing as diplomats in mysterious circumstances in 1951.
• 12 February – Double yellow lines to prohibit parking introduced in Slough.
• 23 February – A fire at Eastwood Mills, Keighley, West Yorkshire, kills eight employees.
• 24 March – In the Grand National, Devon Loch, owned by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and ridden by Dick Francis, is in a clear lead when he inexplicably collapses 50 yards (45 m) from the finish, giving victory to E.S.B. at 100/7, ridden by Dave Dick and trained by Fred Rimell. Stan Mellor is the second placed jockey.
• 7 April – Manchester United, with an average team age of just 24, win the Football League First Division title.
• 17 April – In his Budget speech, Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan announces the launch of Premium Bonds, which will go on sale on 1 November, with a £1,000 prize available from the first draw in June next year.
• 20 April – Humphrey Lyttleton and his band record his trad jazz composition Bad Penny Blues in London with sound engineer Joe Meek. This will be the first British jazz record to get into the Top Twenty.
• 27 April - Doubts about the future of Anthony Eden as prime minister continue as his personal ratings in opinion polls remain low.
• 3 May – Granada Television launched.
• 5 May – Manchester City win the FA Cup with a 3-1 win over Birmingham City at Wembley Stadium. German-born goalkeeper Bert Trautmann plays through the game despite an injury 15 minutes from time diagnosed on 9 May as a broken neck.
• 7 May – Minister of Health, RH Turton, rejects a call for the government to lead an anti-smoking campaign arguing that no ill-effects had yet been proven.
• 8 May – First performance of John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger by the newly formed English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre. Alan Bates has his first major role as Cliff.
• 9 May
  • Anthony Eden makes a statement refusing to reveal any details surrounding the mystery of the disappearance of the frogman Lionel Crabb, who vanished after diving near the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze during a state visit by Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin.
  • The Gower Peninsula becomes the first area in the British Isles to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
• 3 June – Third class accommodation on British Railways trains redesignated as Second class (also applies on Great Northern Railway in Northern Ireland).
• 3 July – Prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Sidney Holland of New Zealand are made Freemen of the City of London.
• 4 July – The National Library of Scotland's first purpose-built premises are opened on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh.
• 5 July – Parliament passes the Clean Air Act in response to the Great Smog of 1952.
• 9 July – Mettoy introduce Corgi Toys model cars, manufactured in South Wales.
• 26 July – Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser announces the nationalisation of the Suez Canal triggering the Suez Crisis.
• 9 August–9 September – Art exhibition This Is Tomorrow, featuring principally the interdisciplinary ICA Independent Group, at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Among the exhibits is Richard Hamilton’s collage Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, considered to be one of the earliest works of Pop Art.
• 17 August – Scotland Yard are called to Eastbourne to investigate the activities of society doctor John Bodkin Adams. The case is reported around the world and press reports claim up to 400 patients may have been murdered.
• 10 September – Guy Mollet visits London and proposes a merger of France and the United Kingdom. However, the idea is rejected by Anthony Eden.
• 12 September - Manchester United become the first English team to compete in the European Cup, a competition for the champions of domestic leagues across Europe, when they play the first leg of the premilinary round in Belgium and beat R.S.C. Anderlecht 2-0.
• 25 September – The TAT-1 transatlantic telephone cable between the UK and North America inaugurated.
• 26 September - Manchester United qualify for the first round of the European Cup in style with a 10-0 win over R.S.C. Anderlecht at Maine Road in the second leg of the premilinary round.
• 28 September – Eden considers allowing France to join the Commonwealth of Nations, but this idea is also rejected.
• 15 October – The RAF retires its last Lancaster bomber.
• 17 October – The Queen opens the world's first commercial nuclear power station at Calder Hall.
• 24 October – Protocol of Sèvres, a secret agreement between the UK, France and Israel allowing the latter to invade Sinai with the support of the two former governments. Eden subsequently denies existence of an agreement.
• 5 November – Long-running television programme What the Papers Say airs for the first time.
• 6 November – British and French forces seize control of two major ports in the Suez Canal in Egypt before declaring a ceasefire.
• 15 November - The Manchester Guardian calls for the resignation of Anthony Eden as prime minister, despite his improvement in opinion poll showings.
• 22 November–8 December – Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, and win 6 gold, 7 silver and 11 bronze medals.
• 29 November – Petrol rationing introduced because of petrol blockades from the Middle East due to the Suez Crisis.
• 10 December – Cyril Norman Hinshelwood wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Nikolay Semyonov "for their researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions".
• 12 December – The Irish Republican Army launches its Border Campaign in Northern Ireland with co-ordinated attacks on official premises.
• 19 December
  • Six people die and several more are injured in car crashes caused by heavy fog in northern England.
  • Dr John Bodkin Adams is arrested for the murder of patient Edith Alice Morrell.
• 21 December – The Government of Northern Ireland under Basil Brooke uses the Special Powers Act to intern several hundred republican suspects without trial.
• 23 December – British and French troops withdraw from Suez under United Nations and United States pressure.
• 25 December – PG Tips launches its long-running ITV advertising campaign using a chimpanzees' tea party.