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1983 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985

Sport and Music

British and Irish current events

1983 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1983 in British music

Events from the year 1983 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

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

Events

• 6 January - Danish fishermen invade British waters after the government bans non-British boats entering UK coastal waters. The ban was lifted on January 23 when the European Economic Community's Common Fisheries Policy came into effect.^[1]
• 17 January - First British breakfast time television programme, Breakfast Time, broadcast by the BBC.
• 25 January - launch of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, the first-ever space-based observatory to perform a survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths. The satellite is a joint project between the American space agency NASA, the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programmes and the UK's Science and Engineering Research Council.^[2]
• 26 January - Red rain falls in the UK, caused by sand from the Sahara Desert in the droplets.
• 31 January - Seatbelt use for drivers and front seat passengers becomes mandatory, 11 years after becoming compulsory equipment.^[3]
• 1 February - First broadcast of TV-am.^[3]
• 10 February - After discovering several sets of human remains at a property in Muswell Hill, North London, police begin the search for serial killer Dennis Nilsen.
• 1 March - Austin Rover, the successor organisation to British carmaking combine British Leyland, launches the Austin Maestro. The Maestro is a medium-sized five-door hatchback with front-wheel drive. It replaces the ageing Allegro and provides the firm with a modern and practical competitor to the likes of the Ford Escort, Vauxhall Astra and Volkswagen Golf. The Maestro's chassis will also form the base of a larger four-door saloon which goes on sale next year to replace the outdated Morris Ital.
• 28 March - Ian MacGregor appointed as head of the National Coal Board.^[4]
• 1 April - Thousands form a 14-mile human chain in protest at the siting of American nuclear weapons in British military bases.^[5]
• 11 April - Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi wins eight Academy Awards.^[3]
• 21 April - The one pound coin introduced in England and Wales.^[3]
• 16 May - Wheel clamps first used to combat illegal parking in London.^[6]
• 21 May - Manchester United and Brighton & Hove Albion draw 2-2 in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium. The replay will be held in five days time.^[7]
• 26 May - Manchester United defeat Brighton & Hove Albion 4-0 in the FA Cup final replay at Wembley Stadium. Bryan Robson scores two of the goals, with the other two coming from Arnold Muhren and 18-year-old Norman Whiteside.^[7]
• 1 June - jockey Lester Pigott rides Teenoso to victory at the Epsom Derby, Pigott's ninth win.^[3]
• 9 June - Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 1979, wins a landslide victory (42% of the popular vote) over Michael Foot, who led a highly-divided and weakened Labour Party which earned only 28% of the vote.^[4]
• 14 June - Roy Jenkins resigns as leader of the Social Democratic Party and is succeeded by David Owen. Although the SDP gained 25% (some 7,000,000 of the votes) and fell just short of Labour in terms of votes, they attained only a fraction of the number of seats won by Labour.^[4]
• 16 June - National Media Museum (then known as the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television) opens in Bradford.^[8]
• 19 July - a large new model of a flesh-eating dinosaur is erected at the British Museum. [1]
• 26 July - a mother of ten, Victoria Gillick, loses a case in the High Court of Justice against the DHSS. Her application sought to prevent the distribution of contraceptives to children under the age of 16 without parental consent. The case went to the House of Lords in 1985 when it was decided that it was legal for Doctors to prescribe contraceptives to under-16s without parental consent in exceptional circumstances.^[9] (See Gillick competence.)
• 5 August - 22 IRA members receive sentences totalling over 4,000 years from a Belfast Court.^[3]
• 22 September - Docklands redevelopment in east London begins with the opening of an Enterprise Zone on the Isle of Dogs.^[6]
• 23 September - Maze Prison escape: 38 prisoners hijack a lorry and escape from HM Prison Maze in County Antrim, Northern Ireland; one guard dies of a heart attack and 20 others are injured in the attempt to foil the escape.^[10][11]
• 2 October - Neil Kinnock is elected leader of the Labour Party on the retirement of Michael Foot.^[12]
• 7 October - A plan to abolish the Greater London Council is announced.
• 22 October - over a million people demonstrate against nuclear weapons at a CND march in London.^[13]
• 24 October
  • Arthur Hutchinson kills three members of Laitner family and rapes their daughter in the Sheffield suburb of Dore.
  • Dennis Nilsen goes on trial at the Central Criminal Court accused of six murders and two attempted murders.^[14]
• 13 November - The first US cruise missiles arrive at RAF Greenham Common amid protests from peace campaigners at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp.
• 24 November - Fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann is found raped and strangled in the village of Narborough.
• 26 November - Brinks Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly UK£26 million are taken from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow Airport. Only a fraction of the gold is ever recovered, and only two men are convicted of the crime.^[15]
• 4 December - an SAS undercover operation ends in the shooting and killing of two IRA gunmen, a third is injured.^[16]
• 6 December - first heart and lung transplant carried out in Britain at Harefield.^[17]
• 8 December - the House of Lords votes to allow television broadcast of its proceedings.^[18]
• 10 December - William Golding wins the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today".^[19]
• 17 December - A Provisional Irish Republican Army car bomb kills six, three police and three members of the public, and injures 90 outside Harrods in London.^[20]

Undated

• Gerry Adams elected leader of Sinn Féin.^[4]
• Compact discs first marketed in Britain.^[6]
• Despite unemployment remaining in excess of 3million, the battle against inflation which has largely contributed to mass unemployment is being won as unemployment has fallen to 4.6% - the lowest level since 1966. [2]

Publications

• Terry Pratchett's first Discworld novel The Colour of Magic.
• Salman Rushdie's novel Shame.
• Graham Swift's novel Waterland.

Births

• 14 March — Joe Flynn, actor
• 15 March — Sean Biggerstaff, actor
• 21 March — Bruno Langley, actor
• 28 March — Ryan Ashington, footballer
• 14 April — Simon Burnett, swimmer
• 13 May — Natalie Cassidy, actress
• 30 May — Jennifer Ellison, actress
• June 8 — Allan Dick, Scottish field hockey goalkeeper
• 17 June — Lee Ryan, singer
• 30 June — Cheryl Cole, singer
• 20 July — Rory Jennings, actor
• 5 August — Sam Stacey, model
• 21 August — Chantelle Houghton, reality TV star
• August 22 — Julie Kilpatrick, Scottish field hockey player
• 24 August — Christopher Parker, actor
• September 30 — Louise Munn, Scottish field hockey defender
• November 10 — Jo Ellis, English field hockey forward
• 17 November — Harry Lloyd, actor
• 20 December — Lucy Pinder, model

Deaths

• 23 January - Fred Bakewell, cricketer (born 1908)
• 28 January - Billy Fury, singer songwriter (born 1940)
• 22 February - Sir Adrian Boult, conductor (born 1889)
• 8 March - William Walton, composer (born 1902)
• 15 March - Rebecca West, writer (born 1892)
• 21 May - Kenneth Clark, art historian (born 1903)
• 4 July - John Bodkin Adams, suspected serial killer (born 1899)
• 29 July - David Niven, actor (born 1910)
• 10 October - Ralph Richardson, actor (born 1902)
• 15 November - John Le Mesurier, actor (born 1912)
• 25 November - Anton Dolin, dancer and choreographer (born 1904)
• 30 November - Richard Llewellyn, novelist (born 1906)
• 11 December - Sir Neil Ritchie, general (born 1897)
• 13 December - Mary Renault, novelist (born 1905)
• 23 December - Colin Middleton, artist (born 1910)

References

See also