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1973 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975

Sport and Music

British and Irish current events

1973 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1973 in British music

Events from the year 1973 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - Edward Heath, Conservative Party

Events

• 1 January - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community.^[1]
• 11 January - Open University awards its first degrees.^[2]
• 19 January - the super tug Statesman is sent to protect British fishing vessels from Icelandic ships in the Cod War.^[3]
• 25 January - English actor Derren Nesbitt is convicted of assaulting his wife Anne Aubrey.
• 8 March - IRA bombs explode in Whitehall and the Old Bailey in London.
• 9 March - Northern Ireland vote overwhelmingly to remain within the UK. Voter turnout is reportedly at 59%, although less than 1% of Catholics vote.^[4]
• 10 March - the governor of Bermuda Richard Sharples and his aide-de-camp assassinated.^[5]
• 17 March - Queen Elizabeth II opens the modern London Bridge.^[6]
• 24 March - Pink Floyd release The Dark Side of the Moon.
• 26 March - Women are admitted into the London Stock Exchange for the first time.^[7]
• April - British Leyland launches its new Austin Allegro range of small family saloons, to replace the ageing 1100 and 1300 ranges that were sold under the Austin, Morris, Riley, Wolseley, MG and Vanden Plas brands from the range's 1962 launch.
• 1 April - VAT comes into effect.^[8]
• 1 May - 1.6 million workers go on strike over government pay restraints.^[9]
• 5 May - Sunderland achieve a shock 1-0 win over Leeds United in the FA Cup final at Wembley. Ian Porterfield scores the only goal of the game. It is the first time that an FA Cup winning team has not contained a single player to be capped at full international level.
• 20 May - the Royal Navy sends three frigates to protect British fishing vessels from Icelandic ships in the Cod War dispute.^[10]
• 23 June - A fire at a house in Hull which kills a 6-year-old boy is passed off as an accident; it later emerges as the first of 26 fire deaths caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.
• 10 July - The Bahamas gain full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.^[11]
• 30 July - £20 million compensation is paid to victims of Thalidomide following an 11-year court case.^[12]
• 31 July - Militant protesters of Ian Paisley disrupt the first sitting of the Northern Ireland Assembly.^[13]
• 21 August - the coroner in the Bloody Sunday inquest accuses the British army of "sheer unadulterated murder" after the jury returns an open verdict.^[14]
• 8 September - the IRA detonates bombs in Manchester and Victoria Station in London.^[15]
• 10 September
  • two IRA bombs at King's Cross Station and Euston Station in London injure 13 people.^[15]
  • the fashion store Biba re-opens in Kensington High Street.^[16]
• 12 September - further IRA bombs in Oxford Street and Sloane Square.^[15]
• 8 October - London Broadcasting Company, Britain's first legal commercial Independent Local Radio station, begins broadcasting.^[17]
• 20 October - The Dalai Lama makes his first visit to the UK.^[18]
• 8 November - The Second Cod War between Britain and Iceland ends.^[6]
• 14 November
  • Eight members of the Provisional IRA convicted of the March bombings in London.^[19]
  • Princess Anne marries commoner Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey.^[20]
• 9 December - The Sunningdale Agreement is signed in Sunningdale, Berkshire by Prime Minister Edward Heath, Irish premier Liam Cosgrave, and representatives of the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.^[21]
• 10 December
  • Brian David Josephson shares the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects".^[22]
  • Geoffrey Wilkinson wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Ernst Otto Fischer "for their pioneering work, performed independently, on the chemistry of the organometallic, so called sandwich compounds".^[23]
• 31 December - Due to coal shortages caused by industrial action, the electricity consumption reduction measure - the Three-Day Week comes into force.^[6]

Undated

• The British Library is established.
• The National House Building Council is formed.
• Inflation has risen to 8.4%.^[24]

Publications

• Martin Amis's novel The Rachel Papers.
• Agatha Christie's novel Postern of Fate.
• James Gordon Farrell's novel The Siege of Krishnapur.
• Graham Greene's novel The Honorary Consul.
• Iris Murdoch's novel The Black Prince.

Births

• 18 January - Crispian Mills, British musician (The Jeevas and Kula Shaker)
• 8 February - Sonia Deol, presenter
• 26 April - Chris Perry, English footballer
• 10 May - Dario Franchitti, Scottish race car driver
• 24 May - Dermot O'Leary, British TV Star
• 30 May - Leigh Francis, British comedian
• 9 June - Iain Lee, British comedian and radio and television presenter
• 2 July - Peter Kay, British comedian
• 3 July - Emma Cunniffe, British actress
• 23 July - Fran Healy, British singer (Travis)
• 26 July - Kate Beckinsale, English actress
• 12 August - Richard Reid, English terrorist
• 12 September - Darren Campbell, British athlete
• 21 October - Beverly Turner, British TV and radio presenter
• 29 November - Ryan Giggs, Welsh footballer
• 17 December - Paula Radcliffe, British athlete
• Katie Carr, actress and model

Deaths

January - April

• 15 January - Neil M. Gunn, Scottish novelist, critic, and dramatist(born 1891)
• 19 January - Max Adrian, Northern Irish actor (born 1903)
• 28 January - Francis Romney, English cricketer (born 1873)
• 16 February - Harold Gibbons, English cricketer (born 1904)
• 22 February - Elizabeth Bowen, novelist (born 1899)
• 12 March - David Lack, British ornithologist and biologist (born 1910)
• 26 March - Noel Coward, English composer and playwright (born 1899)
• 30 March - Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, British politician and Conservative peer (born 1903)

May - August

• 11 May - Russell Everitt, English cricketer (born 1881)
• 14 May - A. C. Ewing, British philosopher (born 1899)
• 6 June - Jimmy Clitheroe, aka 'The Clitheroe Kid', English comedian (born 1921)
• 18 June - Roger Delgado, English actor (Doctor Who) (born 1918)
• 1 July - Charles Ernest Garforth, English soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross (born 1891)
• July 8 - Wilfred Rhodes, English cricketer (born 1877)
• 18 July - John Brown Hamilton, Scottish soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross (born 1896)
• 29 July
  • Roger Williamson, British race car driver (born 1948)
  • Cecil Griffiths, British athlete, winner of gold medal in 4x400 m relay at the 1920 Summer Olympics (born 1901)
• 6 August - James Beck, actor (born 1929)
• 16 August - A. K. Chesterton, British politician and journalist (born 1896)
• 17 August - George Benson, British Labour Party politician (born 1889)
• 18 August - Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, British Ulster Unionist politician (born 1888)
• 29 August - Stringer Davis, English actor (born 1896)

September - December

• 2 September - J. R. R. Tolkien, British writer (born 1892)
• 6 September - William Henry Harris, English organist and composer (born 1883)
• 11 September - E. E. Evans-Pritchard, British anthropologist (born 1902)
• 21 September - C. H. Dodd, Welsh scholar and theologian (born 1884)
• 24 September - Barbara Freyberg, Baroness Freyberg, British peeress
• 25 September - George Porter, British Labour Party politician (born 1884)
• September 29 - W. H. Auden, English poet (born 1907)
• 4 October - Walter Montagu-Douglas-Scott, 8th Duke of Buccleuch, British politician and Conservative peer (born 1894)
• 9 October - Hilda Plowright, English actress (born 1890)
• 10 November - Gerald Cock, British broadcasting executive (born 1887)
• 5 December - Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, Scottish inventor (born 1892)
• 9 December - Anthony Gilbert (pen name of Lucy Beatrice Malleson), British crime-fiction writer (born 1899)
• 13 December - Henry Green, novelist (born 1905)

References

See also