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1987 in the United Kingdom:

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British and Irish current events

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1987 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1987 in British music

Events from the year 1987 in the United Kingdom. At the beginning of the year, the Archbishop of Canterbury's envoy Terry Waite was kidnapped in Lebanon and remained a hostage until 1991. The major political event of this year was the re-election of Margaret Thatcher in June, making her the longest continuously serving Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in the early 19th century. The year was also marked by a number of disasters — the sinking of the ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise, the Hungerford massacre, the "Great Storm", the Remembrance Day Bombing in Northern Ireland and the King's Cross fire.

Incumbents

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

Events

• 8 January - With the United Kingdom still yet to fully recovery from the recession that occurred at the start of this decade, an official report states that Telford new town in Shropshire has the highest level of unemployment in the West Midlands region, which in turn has suffered the biggest rise in unemployment since the Tory government came to power in 1979.
• 13 January - Prince Edward quits the Royal Marines just three months after joining.
• 15 January - Unemployment is reported to have fallen in December 1986 at a higher rate than ever before during Margaret Thatcher's reign as prime minister.
• 20 January - Terry Waite, the special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury in Lebanon, disappears in Beirut while negotiating for the release of hostages.^[1]
• 11 February
  • British Airways is privatised and listed on the London Stock Exchange.^[2]
  • Cynthia Payne is acquitted of controlling prostitutes in her London home.^[3]
• 26 February - Church of England's General Synod voted to allow ordination of women.^[4]
• 6 March - British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsized while leaving the harbour of Zeebrugge, Belgium, killing 193 on board.^[5]
• 23 March - 31 people are injured when a suspected IRA bomb explodes at a British army barracks in Rheindahlen, West Germany. [1]
• 30 March - Christie's auction house in London sells one of Vincent Van Gogh's iconic Sunflowers paintings for £24,750,000.^[1]
• 3 April - The jewellery of the late Wallis, Duchess of Windsor sold at auction for £31 million, six times the expected value.^[1]
• 16 April - Conservative MP Harvey Proctor appeared in Court charged with gross indecency.^[6]
• 29 April - Chancellor Nigel Lawson promises that the United Kingdom will soon have an income tax rate of 25p in the pound.
• 8 May - Soldiers of the SAS kill eight members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army at Loughgal, County Antrim.^[7]
• 16 May - Coventry City win the FA Cup for the first time in their history with a 3-2 win in the final over Tottenham Hotspur (who had already appeared in seven FA Cup finals before, but won each one).^[8]
• 3 June - The last MORI poll before the general election shows that the Tories are 11 points ahead of Labour with 43% of the vote, while the Liberal/SDP Alliance's support stands at 24% and their hopes of building on their result at the last election are looking exceedingly slim. [2]
• 11 June - The 1987 General Election sees Margaret Thatcher secure her third term in office.^[9]
• 18 June - Unemployment has fallen below 3,000,000 for the first time since late 1981 after the biggest month fall in unemployment since records began in 1948.
• 25 June - A MORI poll shows Tory support stands at almost 50% - the highest during Mrs Thatcher's rule. [3]
• 30 June - Peter Beardsley, the 26-year-old England striker, becomes the most expensive player transferred between British clubs when he completes a £1.9million move from Newcastle United to Liverpool. [4]
• 12 July - £60 million stolen during the Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery.^[10]
• 16 July - British Airways and British Caledonian agree a £237million merger. [5] There is good news for the British economy with reports that unemployment is now down to just over 2,900,000.
• 22 July - Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali is shot in London; his condition is described as "critical".^[11]
• 24 July - Novelist and former Conservative MP Jeffrey Archer wins a libel case against Daily Star over allegations that he was involved in a vice ring.^[12]
• 31 July
  • Attorney General instituted legal proceedings against The Daily Telegraph to prevent it publishing details from the book Spycatcher.^[13]
  • The Queen opens the Docklands Light Railway, the first driverless railway in Great Britain, in London.^[14]
• 6 August - Dr David Owen resigns as leader of the Social Democratic Party after its members vote to merge with the Liberal Party.^[15]
• 19 August
  • Order of the Garter is opened to women.^[16]
  • Michael Ryan shoots dead 15 people in the Berkshire town of Hungerford before taking his own life with a rifle.^[17] A 16th victim dies two days later.
• 27 August - Robert Maclennan replaces David Owen as leader of the Social Democratic Party.^[18]
• 29 August - Naji Salim al-Ali dies in hospital more than five weeks after being shot. [6]
• 9 September - 25 Liverpool football fans are extradited to Belgium to face charges of manslaughter in connection with the Heysel Stadium disaster more than two years ago.^[19]
• 23 September - An Australian court lifts the ban on the publication of Spycatcher.^[20]
• 11 October - £1 million pound Operation Deepscan in Loch Ness fails to locate the legendary Loch Ness Monster.^[21]
• 15 October - Following a coup, Fiji becomes a republic with the resignation of the Governor-General.^[22]
• 15 October–16 October - Hurricane force winds batter much of south-east England, killing 23 people and causing extensive damage to property.^[23]
• 19 October - Black Monday Wall Street crash leads to £50billion being wiped of the value of shares on the London stock exchange.^[24]
• 23 October - Retired English jockey Lester Piggott is jailed for 3 years after being convicted of tax evasion.^[25]
• 25 October - Peugeot begins production of its second car - the 405 four-door saloon - at the Ryton plant near Coventry. The first customers are set to take delivery of their cars after Christmas. A French-built estate version will be launched next year.
• 5 November - London City Airport opens.^[7]
• 8 November - Enniskillen bombing: Eleven people killed by a Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb at a Remembrance Day service at Enniskillen.^[26]
• 12 November - The national unemployment rate is now below 10 per cent for the first time since the summer of 1982, with the current total of unemployed people now at just over 2,700,000 - the lowest for six years.
• 18 November - A fire at Kings Cross on the London Underground kills 31 people.^[27]
• 19 November - Tory support has reached 50% in a MORI poll for the first time. [7]
• December - The British-built Peugeot 405 is European Car of the Year, and Peugeot's first winner of the award for nearly 20 years.
• 9 December - The England cricket team's tour of Pakistan is nearly brought to a premature end when captain Mike Gatting and umpire Shakoor Rana row during a Test Match.^[1]
• 15 December - Channel Tunnel construction is initiated, with completion targeted within seven years.^[28]
• 17 December - A year that has seen an excellent recovery for the British economy ends with unemployment at less than 2,700,000.
• 25 December - ITV enjoys a record breaking audience when more than 26,000,000 viewers tune in for the Christmas Day episode of Coronation Street, in which Hilda Ogden (Jean Alexander) makes her last appearance in the show after 23 years.
• 31 December - 31 British and Belgian people are recognised in the New Year's Honours List for heroism shown in the rescue operation at the Zebrugge tragedy earlier this year. [8]

Undated

• Inflation remains low for the sixth year running, standing at 4.2% for 1987. [9]

Publications

• London Daily News, short-lived newspaper (24 February–23 July)
• Iain M. Banks' novel Consider Phlebas.
• Iain Banks' novel Espedair Street.
• William Golding's novel Close Quarters, second of the To the Ends of the Earth trilogy.
• Paul Kennedy's historical study The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
• Penelope Lively's novel Moon Tiger.
• Ian McEwan's novel The Child in Time.
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels Equal Rites and Mort.

Births

• January 23 — Michael Christie, Scottish field hockey defender
• 11 April — Joss Stone, musician
• 15 May — Andrew Murray, Scottish tennis player
• August 14 — Nikki Kidd, Scottish field hockey forward
• 4 September — Mike O'Shea, cricketer
• 22 September — Tom Felton, actor

Deaths

• 2 February - Alistair MacLean, writer (heart attack) (born 1922)
• 4 February - Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, writer and broadcaster (born 1908)
• 28 March - Patrick Troughton, actor (born 1920)
• 4 April - Richard Ithamar Aaron, philosopher (born 1901)
• 26 April - John Ernest Silkin, politician (born 1923)
• 22 May - Keidrych Rhys, poet and editor (born 1915)
• 6 June - Fulton Mackay, actor (born 1922)
• 22 June - John Hewitt, poet (born 1907)
• 4 September - Bill Bowes, cricketer (born 1908)
• 11 September - Hugh David, television director (born 1925)
• 17 September - Harry Locke, actor (born 1913)
• 25 September - Emlyn Williams, dramatist and actor (born 1905)
• 19 October - Jacqueline du Pré, cellist (born 1945)
• 22 December - Henry Cotton, golfer (born 1907)
• 27 December - Anna Eliza Williams, oldest documented person in the world (born 1873)

References

See also