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1981 in the United Kingdom:

British and Irish current events

Sport and Music

1981 British Grand Prix

1981 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1981 in British music

United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1981

Events from the year 1981 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - Margaret Thatcher, Conservative

Events

• 5 January - Peter Sutcliffe, a 35-year-old lorry driver from Bradford, is charged with being the notorious "Yorkshire Ripper" mass murderer who is believed to have murdered 13 women and attacked seven others across northern England since 1975.^[1]
• 9 January - The funeral of Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, the last surviving grandchild of Queen Victoria, takes place at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. She had died six days previously at the age of 97.
• 16 January - Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and former Westminster MP, Bernadette McAliskey is shot and injured by Loyalist paramilitaries at her home in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. suspected.^[2]
• 18 January - New Cross Fire: 18 young black people are killed in an arson attack on a house in New Cross, London.^[3]
• 25 January - The Limehouse Declaration: Four Labour MPs, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, William Rodgers and David Owen announce plans to form a separate political party- the Social Democratic Party.^[4]
• 6 February - The Liverpool-registered coal ship Nellie M is bombed and sunk by an IRA unit driving a hijacked pilot boat in Lough Foyle.
• 18 February - Thatcher government withdraws plans to close down 23 mines after negotiations with National Union of Mineworkers.^[5]
• 24 February - The Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer announce their engagement.^[6]
• 9 March - John Lambe, a 37-year-old lorry driver, is sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape of 12 women in the space of less than four years.^[7]
• 23 March - government imposes a ban on animal transportation on the Isle of Wight and southern Hampshire after an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in cattle.^[8]
• 24 March - Barbados police rescue Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs after being kidnapped in Brazil.^[9]
• 26 March - Social Democratic Party formed by the so-called "Gang of Four": Shirley Williams, William Rodgers, Roy Jenkins, and David Owen, who have all defected from the Labour Party.^[10]
• 29 March - The first London Marathon is held.^[11]
• 4 April - Bucks Fizz was the winner of Eurovision Song Contest with the song, Making Your Mind Up.
• 10 April - Bobby Sands, an IRA member on hunger strike in the Maze prison, Northern Ireland is elected MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone in a by election.^[12]
• 11 April - More than 300 people (most of them police officers) are injured and extensive damage is caused to property in the Brixton riot.^[13]
• 20 April - Snooker player Steve Davis wins the World Snooker Championship 1981.^[1]
• 5 May - Bobby Sands, a 27-year-old republican, dies in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison after a 66-day hunger strike.^[1]
• 7 May - Ken Livingstone becomes leader of the GLC after Labour wins the GLC elections.^[14]
• 9 May - The 100th FA Cup final ends with a 1-1 draw between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley Stadium, where the replay will be held in five days. [1]
• 11 May - First performance of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats at the New London Theatre.^[1]
• 12 May - Francis Hughes (aged 25) becomes the second IRA hunger striker to die in Northern Ireland.
• 14 May - Tottenham Hotspur win the FA Cup for the sixth time in their history with a 3-2 win over Manchester City in the final replay. [2]
• 19 May - Peter Sutcliffe is found guilty of being the Yorkshire Ripper after admitting 13 charges of murder and a further seven of attempted murder. He is sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum of 30 years after the trial judge rejects his plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
• 21 May - The IRA hunger strike death toll reaches four with the deaths of Raymond McCreesh and Patrick O'Hara.
• 27 May - Liverpool F.C. win the European Cup for the third time by defeating Real Madrid of Spain 1-0 in the final at Parc des Princes, Paris, France. Alan Kennedy scores the only goal of the game. [3]
• 30 May - More than 100,000 people from across Britain march to Trafalgar Square in London for the TUC's March For Jobs. [4]
• 3 June - Shergar wins the Epsom Derby.^[1]
• 13 June - The Queen is shot at by a youth, Marcus Sarjeant, who fired six blank cartridges as the Queen entered Horse Guards Parade.^[15]
• 13 June-14 June - More than 80 arrests were made during clashes between white power skinheads and black people in Coventry, where the National Front was planning a march later that month, on the same day as an anti-racist concert by The Specials.^[16]
• 21 June - a fire at Goodge Street tube station kills one person and injures 16.^[1]
• 15 June - Lord Scarman opens an enquiry into the Brixton riots. [5]
• 16 June - Liberal Party and SDP form an electoral pact.^[14]
• 3 July - Hundreds of Asians and skinheads riot in Southall, London. [6]
• 5 July - Toxteth riots: about 80 police injured in two days of rioting, and first use was made of CS gas by British police.^[17]
• 7 July - 43 people are charged with theft and violent disorder following a riot in Wood Green, London. [7]
• 8 July -
  • - Joe McDonnell becomes the fifth IRA hunger striker to die.
    • - Inner city rioting continues when a riot in Moss Side, Manchester, sees more than 1,000 people besiege the local police station.
• 10 July -
  • - Rioting breaks out in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Leicester, Ellesmere Port, Luton, Sheffield, Portsmouth, Preston, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Derby, Southampton, Nottingham, High Wycombe, Bedford, Edinburgh, Wolverhampton, Stockport, Blackburn, Huddersfield, Reading, Chester and Aldershot. [8]
    • - Two days of rioting in Moss Side draws to a close, during which there has been extensive looting of shops. Princess Road, the main road passing through Moss Side, will be closed for several days while adjacent buildings and gas mains damaged by rioting and arson are made safe.
• 13 July - The IRA hunger strike death toll reaches six when Martin Hurson dies.
• 17 July - The official opening of the Humber Bridge by the Queen.^[1]
• 25 July - Around 1,000 motorcyclists clash with police in Keswick, Cumbria. [9]
• 27 July - British Telecommunications Act separates British Telecom from the Royal Mail.^[14]
• 29 July - The marriage of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer takes place at St Paul's Cathedral. More than 28,000,000 viewers watch the wedding on television - one of the highest television audiences of all time in Britain.^[18]
• August - A busy month for the British motor industry sees two major new car launches. British Leyland releases its new Triumph Acclaim four-door saloon, the first product of a recent venture with Honda which is expected to see a Rover SD1 replacement on sale by 1986. Vauxhall launches the new front-drive Cavalier, which is available as a five-door hatchback for the very first time.
• 1 August - Kevin Lynch becomes the seventh IRA hunger striker to die.
• 2 August - Within 24 hours of Kevin Lynch's death, Kieran Doherty becomes the eighth IRA hunger striker to die.
• 8 August - The IRA hunger strike claims its ninth hunger striker so far (and its third in a week) with the death of Thomas McElwee.
• 9 August - Broadmoor Hospital falls under heavy criticism after the escape of a second prisoner in three weeks. The latest absconder is 32-year-old Alan Reeve, a convicted double murderer.
• 20 August - The tenth IRA hunger striker, Michael Devine, dies in prison.
• 25 August - Britain's largest Enterprise Zone is launched on deindustrialised land on Tyneside. [10]
• 10 September - Another Enterprise Zone is launched, the latest being in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. [11]
• 17 September - a team of divers begin removing gold ingots worth £40 million from the wreck of the HMS Edinburgh, sunk off the coast of Norway in 1942.^[1]
• 29 September - Football mourns the legendary former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, who died today at the age of 67 after suffering a heart attack. [12]
• 1 October - Bryan Robson, 24-year-old midfielder, becomes Britain's most expensive footballer in a £1.5million move from West Bromwich Albion to Manchester United.
• 3 October - Hunger strikes at the Maze Prison end after seven months. The final six hunger strikers had been without food for between 13 and 55 days.^[19]
• 10 October - Chelsea Barracks bombed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, killing two people.^[14]
• 24 October - CND anti-nuclear march in London attracts over 250,000 people.^[20]
• 30 October - Nicholas Reed, chief of the Euthanasia charity Exit jailed for two-and-a-half years for aiding and abetting suicides.^[21]
• 16 November - Production of the Vauxhall Astra commences in Britain at the Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire. The Astra was launched two years ago but until now had been produced solely at the Opel plant in West Germany.
• 25 November - A report into the Brixton Riots, which scarred inner-city London earlier this year, points the finger of blame at the social and economic problems which have been plaguing Brixton and many other inner-city areas across England.
• 8 December - Arthur Scargill becomes leader of the National Union of Mineworkers.^[1]
• 20 December - Penlee lifeboat disaster: crew of ship Union Star and lifeboat sent to rescue it all killed in heavy seas. Some of the bodies were never found.^[22]

Undated

• The London department store Whiteleys closes, after 107 years in business.
• Inflation has fallen to 11.9%, the second lowest annual level since 1973, but has been largely achieved by the mass closure of heavy industry facilities that have contributed to the highest postwar levels of unemployment. [13]

Publications

• Alasdair Gray's novel Lanark: A Life in Four Books.
• Terry Pratchett's novel Strata.
• Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children.
• D. M. Thomas' novel The White Hotel.

Births

• 25 January — Alex Partridge, rower
• 13 January — Peter Crouch, footballer
• February 16 — Alison Rowatt, Scottish field hockey midfielder
• 27 March — Terry McFlynn, Northern Irish footballer
• 1 April — Hannah Spearritt, singer (S Club 7)
• 10 April — Liz McClarnon, singer (Atomic Kitten)
• 15 May — Zara Phillips, daughter of Anne, Princess Royal and equestrienne
• 20 May — Sean Conlon, musician (5ive)
• June 9 — Helen Don-Duncan, English backstroke swimmer
• June 11 — Alistair McGregor, Scottish field hockey goalkeeper
• June 28 — Joanne Ellis, field hockey midfielder
• September 15 — Richard Alexander, English field hockey defender
• September 16 — David Mitchell, Scottish field hockey defender
• September 23 — Helen Richardson, field hockey defender
• 25 October — Shaun Wright-Phillips, footballer
• 26 November — Natasha Bedingfield, singer

Deaths

• 3 January - Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, daughter of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany; and the longest living grandchild of Queen Victoria (born 1883)
• 6 January - A. J. Cronin, Scottish novelist (born 1896)
• 6 March - George Geary, English cricketer (born 1893)
• 11 March - Maurice Oldfield, intelligence chief (born 1915)
• 16 April- George Cambridge, 2nd Marquess of Cambridge (born 1895)
• 5 May - Bobby Sands, IRA member and MP (born 1954)
• 9 May - Ralph Allen, footballer (born 1906)
• 17 June - Sir Richard O'Connor, British General in WWII (born 1889)
• 8 September - Bill Shankly, Scottish football manager (born 1913)

References

See also