1936 in The United Kingdom - Events

Events

• 13 January - GPO Film Unit documentary Night Mail, incorporating poetry by W. H. Auden and music by Benjamin Britten, is premiered at the Cambridge Arts Theatre.
• 20 January - King George V dies at Sandringham House, Norfolk. He was 70 years old and had served as monarch for more than 25 years. His eldest son, The Prince Edward, Prince of Wales succeeds as King Edward VIII.
• 21 January - King Edward VIII breaks royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his own accession to the throne from a window of St. James's Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis Simpson.
• 6 February–16 February - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany and win 1 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze medals.
• 5 March - First test flight of the Supermarine Spitfire.
• 11 April - Billy Butlin opens his first Butlins holiday camp, Butlins Skegness in Skegness (Ingoldmells), Lincolnshire.
• 17 May - Barquentine Waterwitch is laid up at Par, Cornwall, the last square rigged ship to trade under sail alone in British ownership.
• 27 May - The RMS Queen Mary leaves Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York.
• 3 July - Short Empire flying boat makes first flight, from Rochester, Kent.
• 16 July - George McMahon tries to shoot King Edward VIII during the Trooping the Colour ceremony.
• 24 July - The General Post Office introduces the speaking clock.
• 27 July - Opening of new swimming pool at Morecambe, claimed to be the largest open-air example in Europe.
• 31 July - Public Health Act empowers local authorities to make byelaws regulating building construction.
• 1 August–16 August - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Olympics in Berlin and win 4 gold, 7 silver and 3 bronze medals.
• 6 August - An underground explosion at Wharncliffe Woodmoor Colliery in South Yorkshire kills 58.
• 26 August - Signing of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty which requires the withdrawal of British troops and recognises Egypt as a sovereign state.
• 8 September - Arson attack on a bombing school building at Penyberth on the Llŷn Peninsula as part of the Tân yn Llŷn campaign led by Saunders Lewis, Lewis Valentine and D.J. Williams of the Welsh nationalist group Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru.
• 30 September - Official opening of Pinewood Studios.
• 4 October - Battle of Cable Street between Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and anti-fascist demonstrators.
• 5–31 October - Jarrow March: 207 miners march from Jarrow to London in a protest against unemployment and poverty.
• 20 October - Prime minister Stanley Baldwin confronts King Edward VIII about his relationship with Wallis Simpson.
• 27 October - Wallis Simpson divorces Ernest Aldrich Simpson, removing the legal barrier to her marrying Edward VIII.
• 31 October - Elizabeth Cowell becomes the first female British television presenter making a broadcast from Alexandra Palace.
• 2 November - BBC launch world's first regular television service.
• 6 November - Terence Rattigan's comedy French Without Tears premieres in London.
• 16 November - King Edward VIII informs Stanley Baldwin of his intention to marry Wallis Simpson. Baldwin responds by informing the King that any woman he married would have to become Queen, and the British public would not accept Wallis Simpson as Queen. The King tells Mr Baldwin that he is prepared to abdicate if the government opposes his marriage.
• 25 November - The King tells Stanley Baldwin that he would be prepared to conduct a morganatic marriage with Mrs Simpson, which would allow him to carry on as King but not install Mrs Simpson as Queen. Stanley Baldwin informs him that this would not be accepted either (such a thing has never been known in British laws).
• 27 November - Stanley Baldwin raises the issue of a morganatic marriage in the Cabinet, where it is rejected outright.
• 30 November - The Crystal Palace is destroyed in a fire.

• December - Henry Hallett Dale wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Otto Loewi "for their discoveries relating to chemical transmission of nerve impulses".
• 1 December - Alfred Blunt, Bishop of Bradford, makes a speech which inadvertently leads to the abdication crisis becoming public in the British media.
• 2 December - Stanley Baldwin confirms in a meeting with the King that a Morganatic marriage would not be accepted, and in order to marry Mrs Simpson the King would have to abdicate.
• 10 December - Abdication crisis: The King signs an instrument of abdication at Fort Belvedere in the presence of his three brothers, The Duke of York, The Duke of Gloucester and The Duke of Kent.
• 11 December
  • Parliament passes His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, providing the legislative authority for the King to abdicate.
  • The King performs his last act as sovereign by giving royal assent to the Act.
  • Prince Albert, Duke of York, becomes King, ruling as King George VI.
  • The abdicated King Edward VIII, now HRH The Prince Edward, makes a broadcast to the nation explaining his decision to abdicate. He leaves the country for Austria.
  • The office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State is abolished by the Irish government.