1947 in The United Kingdom - Events

Events

• January – One of the most severe winters on record in the UK.
• 1 January – The government nationalises the coal industry in the UK and Cable & Wireless Ltd.
• 2 January – British coins cease to include any silver content.
• 5 February – The Minister of Food, John Strachey, announces the £25 million Tanganyika groundnut scheme.
• 20 February – Earl Mountbatten of Burma appointed the last Viceroy of India.
• February – Ealing Studios release the film Hue and Cry, regarded as the first of the Ealing Comedies.
• 4 March – Treaty of Dunkirk (coming into effect 8 September) signed with France providing for mutual assistance in the event of attack.
• 15 March – Thames floods and other widespread flooding as the exceptionally harsh winter ends in a thaw.
• March – Postwar boom in births reaches peak.
• April – Raising of school leaving age in England and Wales to 15.
• 3 April – The private healthcare firm BUPA founded.
• 9 April – How Does Your Garden Grow? first broadcast on BBC Radio. As Gardeners' Question Time it will still be running more than sixty-five years later.
• 18 April – In the largest non-nuclear single explosive detonation in history, the Royal Navy sets off 6,800 tonnes of surplus ammunition in an attempt to destroy Heligoland, Germany.
• 23 April – Mumbles life-boat RNLB Edward Prince of Wales capsizes on service to Liberty ship SS Samtampa off South Wales: all 8 lifeboat and 39 steamship crew are lost.
• 26 April – Charlton Athletic, who lost the FA Cup final last year, win this year's final 1–0 against Burnley.
• May – The Conservative Party publishes its Industrial Charter.
• 6 May – East Kilbride designated as the first New Town in Scotland under powers of the New Towns Act 1946.
• 11–15 June – First Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod is held.
• 15 June – Restrictions on foreign travel imposed during World War II lifted.
• June – Retail Prices Index begins.
• 10 July – The Princess Elizabeth (now Elizabeth II) announces her engagement to Lt Philip Mountbatten (now The Duke of Edinburgh).
• 15 July–20 August – "Convertibility Crisis": Pound sterling fully convertible into United States Dollars, leading to loss of currency reserves.
• 31 July – Fire Services Act returns fire services in the United Kingdom from the National Fire Service to control of local authorities (from 1948) and provides the legislative basis for their organisation for more than fify years.
• First few days of August – Anti-Jewish riots
• 5 August – Release of Holiday Camp, first of the popular Huggetts Trilogy of comedy films.
• 13 August – A mining accident at William Pit, Whitehaven, in the Cumberland Coalfield, kills 104.
• 14 August and 15 August – Pakistan and India gain independence from the UK, remaining Commonwealth Realms under King George VI.
• 15 August – 'GLEEP' (the Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile) experimental nuclear reactor runs for the first time at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, Oxfordshire, the first reactor to operate in Western Europe.
• 24 August – First Edinburgh Festival of the Arts opens.
• September – The University of Cambridge votes to allow women to become full students.
• 29 September – Harold Wilson is appointed President of the Board of Trade at 31, the youngest member of the Cabinet this century.
• October – Snoek is imported as a food fish from South Africa.
• 16 November – The British Army begins to withdraw troops from Palestine.
• 18 November – Tommy Lawton, 28-year-old centre-forward, becomes Britain's first £20,000 footballer in a move from Chelsea to Notts County.
• 19 November – Philip Mountbatten created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich, with the style His Royal Highness.
• 20 November – The Princess Elizabeth (now Elizabeth II), daughter of George VI marries The Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey, London.
• 25 November – New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom.
• 29 November – The United Nations approves the Partition Plan for Palestine thus ending the British Mandate of Palestine.
• 6 December – Women are admitted to full membership of the University of Cambridge.
• December
  • Edward Victor Appleton wins the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his investigations of the physics of the upper atmosphere especially for the discovery of the so-called Appleton layer".
  • Robert Robinson wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations on plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids"
  • The Friends Service Council wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • First permanent Oxfam charity shop begins trading, in Broad Street, Oxford.