1951 in The United Kingdom - Events

Events

• January
  • British Board of Film Censors introduces X rating for films "Suitable for those aged 16 and over".
  • Ford Consul car introduced.
• 1 January – Production run of the series The Archers begins on the BBC Light Programme. It will still be on the air 60 years later.
• 9 January – The government announces abandonment of the Tanganyika groundnut scheme, writing off of £36.5M.
• February – Ferranti deliver their first Mark 1 computer to the University of Manchester, the world's first commercially available general-purpose electronic computer.
• 13 March – Pineapple Poll, a Gilbert and Sullivan-inspired comic ballet, created by choreographer John Cranko with arranger Sir Charles Mackerras is premiered at Sadler's Wells Theatre by the Sadler's Wells Ballet.
• March – The character Dennis the Menace first appears in The Beano comic.
• 11 April – The Stone of Scone is located in Forfar, having been stolen by Scottish Nationalists.
• 17 April
  • The submarine HMS Affray sinks, killing its 75 crew.
  • Seven unofficial dockers' leaders are acquitted of offences under a wartime regulation intended to prevent industrial disputes.
• 22–25 April – Korean War: Battle of the Imjin River: The 29th Infantry Brigade of the British Army serving with the United Nations put up brave but ultimately unsuccessful resistance to the Chinese advance, with 141 UN troops killed. The last stand of the 1st Battalion, The Gloucestershire Regiment (the "Glorious Glosters") at Hill 235 rapidly becomes part of modern military tradition.
• 23 April – Aneurin Bevan, recently appointed as Minister of Labour and National Service, together with John Freeman and Harold Wilson, resign from the government in protest at Hugh Gaitskell's announcement in the Budget of 10 April of prescription charges for dental care and spectacles (in order to meet the financial demands imposed by the Korean War).
• 28 April – Newcastle United win the FA Cup for the fourth time win a 2–0 win over Blackpool at Wembley Stadium. Jackie Milburn scores both goals in front of a 100,000 crowd.
• 3 May – George VI opens the Festival of Britain in London, including the Royal Festival Hall, Dome of Discovery and Skylon. In addition, the Lansbury Estate in Poplar is begun this year as a housing showcase.
• 4 May – 6 October – Festival Ship Campania cruises the seaports.
• 28 May
  • First broadcast of The Goon Show radio series.
  • The Princess Elizabeth opens the Exhibition of Industrial Power – the latest part of the Festival of Britain – in Glasgow.
• 29 May – The Easington Colliery explosion leaves 83 dead.
• 2 June – Workington F.C. are elected to the Football League in place of New Brighton A.F.C., and will compete in the Football League Third Division North for the 1951-52 season.
• 7–8 June – Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean defect to the USSR.
• 26 June – Ealing Comedy film The Lavender Hill Mob released.
• 10 July – Boxer Randy Turpin beats the American Sugar Ray Robinson in a fight in London to become world middleweight champion.
• 17 July – New Port Talbot Steelworks opened at Margam, South Wales.
• 15 August – The first Miss World beauty pageant is held as part of the Festival of Britain.
• 14 September – Clement Attlee opens the largest oil refinery in Europe at Fawley on Southampton Water.
• 23 September – George VI has an operation to remove part of his lung.
• 26 September – Rock and Ice Club formed by a group of climbers in Manchester.
• 30 September – Festival of Britain ends.
• 5 October - With three weeks to go before the general election, opinion polls suggest that the Conservative Party will oust Clement Attlee's Labour government from power after six years, with a majority of 75 to 100 seats and a share of the vote of up to 50%.
• 17 October – Austin A30 car introduced.
• 26 October – Conservative Party under Winston Churchill wins the general election, regaining (a month before his 77th birthday) the position of Prime Minister that he lost six years previously, with a majority of 17 seats, though slightly fewer votes than Labour.
• 31 October – Zebra crossings, a type of pedestrian crossing, introduced.
• 2 November – 6,000 British troops are sent to Egypt to deal with anti-British disturbances at Fayid in the Suez Canal Zone.
• 3 November – Express Dairies, owned by 28-year-old Patrick Galvani, open Britain's first full-size supermarket in Streatham Hill, London.
• 7 November – UK Bank Rate, maintained at 2% since 26 October 1939, is raised.
• 20 November – More than 1,000 families of British servicemen begin to move out of the Suez Canal Zone of Egypt after a shooting which claimed the lives of five British soldiers as well as nine Egyptian civilians.
• 20 November – The Prime Minister's Resignation Honours are announced, to mark the resignation of Prime Minister Clement Attlee.
• 29 November – LEO becomes the world's first computer to run a full commercial business application, for the bakers J. Lyons and Co.
• 1 December – Benjamin Britten’s opera Billy Budd is premiered at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
• 10 December – John Cockcroft wins the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Ernest Walton "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles".
• 25 December – King George VI makes the Christmas Speech to the Commonwealth, but it has been pre-recorded as he is still struggling to recover from his operation three months ago.
• 31 December – Prime minister Winston Churchill sets off to the United States of America for talks with president Harry S. Truman.