1962 in The United Kingdom - Events

Events

• 2 January – BBC television broadcasts the first episode of Z-Cars, noted as a realistic portrayal of the police.
• 5 January – The first album on which The Beatles play, My Bonnie, credited to "Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers" (recorded last June in Hamburg), is released by Polydor.
• 18 January – Union-Castle Line ship RMS Transvaal Castle (1961) 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 A6 murder. He denies the murder of 36-year-old Michael Gregsten and the attempted murder of Mr Gregsten's mistress Valerie Storie, who was paralysed by a gunshot wound.
• 4 February – The Sunday Times becomes the first paper to print a colour supplement.
• 21 February – Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev first dance together in a Royal Ballet performance of Giselle.
• 23 February – Twelve European countries form the European Space Agency.
• 26 February – The Irish Republican Army officially calls off its Border Campaign in Northern Ireland.
• 6 March - Accrington Stanley, members of the Football League Fourth Division, resign from the Football League due to huge debts.
• 13 March – A by-election is held in Blackpool North.
• 14 March – A by-election is held in Middlesbrough East.
• 15 March – Orpington by-election, often described as the start of the Liberal Party revival in the UK, has Liberal Eric Lubbock upsetting the expected winner, Conservative candidate Peter Goldman for the seat in Orpington.
• 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 Bedford Prison for the A6 murder, despite protestations from many people who believed he was innocent, and the late introduction of witnesses who claimed to have seen him in Rhyl, North Wales, on the day of the murder.
• 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.
• 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.
• 25 May – The new Coventry Cathedral is consecrated.
• 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 collapses and is officially wound up due to internal power struggles.
• 2 June –
  • - Britain's first legal casino opens in Brighton, Sussex.
  • - Oxford United, champions of the Southern League, are elected to the Football League in place of bankrupt Accrington Stanley.
• 6 June – The Beatles play their first session at Abbey Road Studios.
• 14 June – BBC television broadcasts the first series episode of the sitcom Steptoe and Son, written by Galton and Simpson.
• 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 – Live television broadcast from the USA to Britain for the first time, via the Telstar satellite and Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station.
• 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 introduced between Rhyl in North Wales and Wallasey.
• 23 July – First live public transatlantic television broadcasts of full-length programmes, via the Telstar satellite.
• 28 July – Race riots break out in Dudley, West Midlands.
• 31 July – A crowd assaults the 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.
• 17 August – The Tornados' recording of Joe Meek's 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 secretly marries Cynthia Powell.
• 31 August
  • Trinidad and Tobago gains its independence.
  • Mountaineers Chris Bonington and Ian Clough becomes the first Britons to climb the north face of the Eiger.
• 2 September – Glasgow Corporation Tramways runs its last cars in normal service, leaving the Blackpool tramway as the only remaining one in Britain.
• 8–11 September – Last Gentlemen v Players cricket match played, at Scarborough.
• 21 September
  • First broadcast of the long-running television quiz programme University Challenge.
  • Ford launches the Cortina, a family saloon costing £573 and similar in size to the Vauxhall Victor, Hillman Minx and Morris Oxford.
• 5 October
  • Dr No, the first James Bond film, is released, with 32-year-old Edinburgh-born 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.
• 9 October – Uganda gains its independence.
• 17 October – The Beatles make their first televised appearance on People and Places.
• 31 October – The UN General Assembly asks the United Kingdom to suspend enforcement of the new constitution in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), but the constitution comes into effect on 1 November.
• 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 – A by-election is held in Chippenham, Wiltshire, where the Tories are narrowly re-elected ahead of the Liberals.
• 24 November – The first episode of influential satire show That Was The Week That Was is broadcast on BBC Television.
• 29 November – An agreement is signed between Britain and France to develop the Concorde supersonic airliner.
• 2 to 7 December – Severe smog in London causes numerous deaths.
• 9 December – Tanganyika (now Tanzania) becomes a republic within the Commonwealth, with Julius Nyerere as president.
• 10 December
  • Britons Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, along with American James D. Watson, win 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 win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work in investigating the structure of haem-containing proteins.
  • David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia released.
• 19 December – Britain acknowledges the right of Nyasaland (now Malawi) 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.
• 30 December – United Nations troops occupy the last rebel positions in Katanga; Moise Tshombe moves to South Rhodesia.