1964 in the United Kingdom
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1964 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966

Sport and Music

British and Irish current events

1964 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1964 in British music

Events from the year 1964 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - Alec Douglas-Home, Conservative (until 16 October), Harold Wilson, Labour

Events

The Forth Road Bridge.

• 29 January–9 February - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and win one gold medal.
• 6 February - The British and French governments agree a deal for the construction of a Channel Tunnel. The twin-tunneled rail link is expected to take five years to build.^[1]
• 28 March - Pirate radio station Radio Caroline begins broadcasting.^[2]
• 30 March - Violent disturbances between Mods and Rockers at Clacton beach.^[3]
• 1 April - Ministry of Defence takes over the duties of the War Office, Admiralty, and Air Ministry, which cease to exist.^[3]
• 16 April - 7 of the Great Train Robbers are sentenced to 30 years each for their role in the 1963 robbery.^[2]
• 21 April - The UK's third television channel BBC Two begins broadcasting; its first programme is Play School.^[2]
• 11 May - Terence Conran opens the first Habitat store on London's Fulham Road.^[2]
• 17 June - A missing persons investigation is launched in Fallowfield, Manchester, as police search for 12-year-old Keith Bennett, who went missing yesterday evening.
• 6 July
  • Malawi gains its independence.^[4]
  • The first The Beatles film, A Hard Day's Night, released.^[5]
• 15 July - The Post Office Tower in London is completed, although it does not open for business until October 1965.^[3]
• 4 September - Forth Road Bridge opens over the Firth of Forth, linking Fife and Edinburgh.^[2]
• 14 September - the Daily Herald ceases publication, replaced by The Sun.
• 21 September - Malta obtains independence from the UK.^[4]
• October - Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (the first British woman to win a Nobel) "for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances".^[6]
• 10 October–24 October - Great Britain competes at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and wins 4 gold, 12 silver and 2 bronze medals.
• 15 October - General election: Labour Party defeats the Conservatives, ending 13 years of Conservative Party rule. Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister, replacing Alec Douglas-Home.
• 18 October - Wilson creates the Welsh Office.^[3]
• 24 October - Northern Rhodesia, a former British protectorate, becomes the independent Republic of Zambia, ending 73 years of British rule.^[4]
• 2 November - ITV soap opera Crossroads aired for the first time.^[2]
• 9 November - House of Commons votes to abolish the death penalty for murder in Britain. The last execution took place in August and the death penalty is set to be officially abolished before the end of next year.
• 23 December - Richard Beeching announces his intention to resign as Chairman of the British Railways Board after three-and-a-half years, during which he ordered the closure of many smaller and financially non-viable railways.^[7]
• 26 December - Police launch a missing persons investigation after 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey goes missing from a fairground in Ancoats, Manchester.
• 31 December - Donald Campbell sets the world speed record on water at 276.33 mph on Dumbleyung Lake in Australia.^[2]

Undated

• The European Car of the Year award, in its second year, is again won by a British Motor Corporation product, this time the Austin 1800 large family saloon.

Publications

• Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel A Caribbean Mystery.
• Ian Fleming's James Bond novel You Only Live Twice and his children's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
• William Golding's novel The Spire.
• Philip Larkin's poetry collection The Whitsun Weddings.

Births

• 16 February - Christopher Eccleston, actor
• 24 February - Bill Bailey, comedian
• 29 February - James Ogilvy, son of Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy and the Sir Angus Ogilvy
• 10 March - Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex- youngest son of The Queen
• 11 March - Shane Richie, actor
• 26 March - Martin Donnelly, Northern Irish racecar driver
• 3 April - Nigel Farage, United Kingdom Independence Party leader and MEP for South East England
• 18 April - Niall Ferguson, Scottish historian
• 25 April - Andy Bell, singer and songwriter (band Erasure)
• 28 April - Lady Helen Taylor, daughter of The Duke and Duchess of Kent
• 1 May - Lady Sarah Chatto- daughter of Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon and Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon
• 24 May - Adrian Moorhouse, swimmer
• 13 June - Kathy Burke, actress and comedienne
• 3 July - Joanne Harris, novelist
• 22 July - Bonnie Langford, actress and entertainer
• 7 November - Philip Hollobone, British Conservative politician and MP for Kettering
• date unknown - Armando Iannucci, Scottish comedian, satirist and radio producer

Deaths

• 17 January - T.H. White, author (born 1906)
• 9 June - Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Canadian-British business tycoon, politician and writer (born 1879)
• 12 August - Ian Fleming, author and journalist (born 1908)
• 18 September - Clive Bell, art critic (born 1881)
• 1 December - J. B. S. Haldane, geneticist (born 1892)
• 8 December - Simon Marks, 1st Baron Marks of Broughton, businessman (born 1888)
• 9 December - Edith Sitwell, poet (born 1887)
• 24 December - Claudia Jones, black activist (born 1915)

References

See also