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1970 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 | 1972

British and Irish current events

Sport and Music

1970 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1970 in British music

Events from the year 1970 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - Harold Wilson ( – 19 June), Labour Party ; Edward Heath, Conservative Party (19 June – )

Events

• 1 January - Half crown coin ceases to be legal tender.^[1]
• 22 January - A Boeing 747 lands at Heathrow Airport, the first jumbo jet to land in Britain.^[2]
• 2 March - Ian Smith declares Rhodesia a republic breaking all ties with the British Crown, four years after the declaration of independence. Wilson's government refuses to recognise the new state.^[3]
• 6 March - the importation of pets banned after an outbreak of rabies in Newmarket, Suffolk.^[4]
• 13 March - the Bridgwater by-election becomes the first election in which 18-year-olds could vote. Tom King won the election for the Conservative Party.^[5]
• 17 March - Martin Peters, who scored for England in their 1966 World Cup final win, becomes the nation's first £200,000 footballer in his transfer from West Ham United to Tottenham Hotspur. [1]
• 16 April - Dr Ian Paisley enters the Parliament of Northern Ireland after winning the Bannside by-election.^[6]
• 22 May - A cricket tour by the South African cricket team called off after several African and Asian countries threatened to boycott the Commonwealth Games.^[7]
• 24 May - the Menai Suspension Bridge is badly damaged by fire.^[1]
• 1 June - Harold Wilson hit in the face with an egg thrown by a Young Conservative demonstrator.^[8]
• 4 June - Tonga becomes independent of the UK.^[1]
• 17 June - The bodies of two children are found buried in shallow graves in woodland at Waltham Abbey, Essex. They are believed to be those of Susan Blatchford (11) and Gary Hanlon (12), who were last seen alive near their homes in North London on 31 March this year.^[9]
• 19 June - The General election won by Edward Heath's Conservative Party.^[10]
• 21 June - British golfer Tony Jacklin wins the U.S. Open.^[1]
• 26 June - Riots break out in Derry over the arrest of Mid-Ulster MP Bernadette Devlin.^[11]
• 4 July - 112 people are found dead among the wreckage of a British Airways Manchester to Barcelona aeroplane that went missing yesterday. The wreckage was found in the mountains of Northern Spain, and there are no survivors.^[12]
• 15 July Dockers vote to strike leading to the docks strike of 1970.^[13]
• 16 July - a state of emergency declared to deal with a dockers' strike.^[13]
• 16–25 July - 1970 British Commonwealth Games held in Edinburgh.
• 17 July - Lord Pearson proposes settlement of docks strike.^[13]
• 30 July - Docks strike settled.^[13]
• 20 August - England national football team captain Bobby Moore is cleared of stealing a bracelet while on World Cup duty in Colombia.^[14]
• 21 August - Moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party established in Northern Ireland.^[15]
• 9 September - BOAC Flight 775 hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine after taking off from Bahrain — the first time a British plane is hijacked.^[1]
• 18 September - American rock star Jimi Hendrix, 27, dies in London from a suspected drug-induced heart attack.^[16]
• 19 September - the first Glastonbury Festival held.^[1]
• 19 October - British Petroleum discovers a large oil field in the North Sea.^[17]
• 17 November - the first Page Three girl appears in The Sun.^[1]
• 27 November - The Gay Liberation Front organises its first march in London.^[18]
• 10 December - Bernard Katz wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod "for their discoveries concerning the humoral transmittors in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation".^[19]
• 26 December - Athlete Lillian Board, 22, dies in Munich, West Germany, after a three-month battle against cancer.

Undated

• Mathematician Alan Baker wins a Fields Medal.^[20]
• Ford launches its Cortina MK3 range of saloons and estates which will be built at the Dagenham plant. It is virtually identical to the Taunus, which is being built at the Cologne plant in West Germany.
• Chrysler UK launches its new Hillman Avenger small family car, which will be built at the Ryton plant near Coventry and will compete with the likes of the Ford Escort and Vauxhall Viva.
• British Leyland creates a niche in the four-wheel drive market with its luxurious Range Rover, which is to be marketed as a more upmarket alternative to the utilarian Land Rover that has been in production since 1948.

Publications

• Agatha Christie's novel Passenger to Frankfurt.
• James Gordon Farrell's novel Troubles.
• Germaine Greer's book The Female Eunuch.
• Ted Hughes' poetry collection Crow.
• Bernice Rubens' novel The Elected Member.
• The complete New English Bible (the New Testament having been published in 1961).

Births

• 7 January — Andrew Burnham, politician
• 19 January — Tim Foster, rower
• 20 January — Mitch Benn, comedian and songwriter
• 31 January — Minnie Driver, actress
• 10 February — Rob Shearman, television and radio scriptwriter
• 14 February — Simon Pegg, comedian, writer and actor
• February 25 — Ian Walker, English sailboat racer
• March 1 — Tina Cullen, field hockey player
• 2 March — James Purnell, politician
• 27 April — Kylie Travis, actress and model
• 6 May — Chris Adams, cricketer
• 20 May — Louis Theroux, TV personality, author
• 21 May — Jason Lee, field hockey player and coach
• 22 May — Naomi Campbell, model and actress
• 27 May — Joseph Fiennes, actor
• 19 June — MJ Hibbett, singer-songwriter
• 20 June — Russell Garcia, field hockey player
• June 22 — Christine Cook, field hockey player
• 25 June — Lucy Benjamin, actress
• 2 July — Steve Morrow, footballer
• 6 July — Martin Smith, singer and songwriter
• 7 July — Wayne McCullough, boxer
• 10 July
  • Jason Orange, singer
  • John Simm, actor
• 11 July — Saj Karim, politician
• 29 July — Andi Peters, TV presenter and producer
• 30 July — Christopher Nolan, writer and director
• 31 July — Ben Chaplin, actor
• 13 August — Alan Shearer, footballer
• 27 August — Peter Ebdon, snooker player
• 18 September — Darren Gough, cricketer
• 29 September — Emily Lloyd, actress
• 4 October — Richard Hancox, footballer
• 10 October — Sir Matthew Pinsent, Olympic winning rower
• 11 October — Andy Marriott, footballer
• 7 November — Neil Hannon, musician (The Divine Comedy)
• 12 November — Harvey Stephens, child-actor
• 22 November — Stel Pavlou, novelist and screenwriter
• 23 November — Zoë Ball, television and radio presenter
• 29 December — Aled Jones, singer and television presenter

Deaths

• 23 January - Ifan ab Owen Edwards, founder of the Urdd (born 1895)
• 26 January - Albert Evans-Jones (Cynan), poet (born 1895)
• 29 January - Basil Liddell Hart, military historian (born 1895)
• 2 February - Bertrand Russell, logician and philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (born 1872)
• 14 February - Herbert Strudwick, cricketer (born 1880)
• 28 February - Arthur Henry Knighton-Hammond, painter (born 1875)
• 20 April - Thomas Iorwerth Ellis, academic (born 1899)
• 7 May - Jack Jones, novelist (born 1884)
• 7 June - E. M. Forster, writer (born 1879)
• 15 June - Robert Morrison MacIver, Scottish-born sociologist (born 1882)
• 7 July - Allen Lane, publisher (born 1902)
• 20 July - Iain Macleod, politician (born 1913)
• 29 July - John Barbirolli, conductor (born 1899)
• 5 September - Jesse Pennington, footballer (born 1883)
• 8 November - Alasdair Mackenzie, Liberal MP (born 1903)
• 26 December - Lillian Board, Olympic athlete (born 1948)

References

See also