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1993 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 1995

Sport and Music

British and Irish current events

1993 English cricket season

Football England | Scotland

1993 in British music

Events from the year 1993 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister - John Major, Conservative

Events

• 5 January - The MV Braer runs aground on the Shetland Islands, spilling 84,700 tonnes of crude oil into the sea.^[1]
• 8 January - Ford unveils its new Mondeo, a range of large hatchbacks, saloons and estates which will reach showrooms on 22 March as replacement for the long-running Sierra.
• 10 January - British newspapers carry reports that Princess Diana wants a divorce from Prince Charles, despite the announcement of their separation last month stating that there were no plans for a divorce.
• 11 January - British Airways admits liability and apologises "unreservedly" for an alleged "dirty tricks" campaign against Virgin Atlantic.^[2]
• 14 January - Wayne Edwards, a 26-year-old Lance Corporal, becomes the first British fatality in the conflict in Bosnia, former Yugoslavia.
• 17 January - Bookmakers cut their odds on the monarchy being abolished by the year 2000 from 100 to 1 to 50 to 1.
• 21 January - Unemployment has increased for the 31st month running, but is still just short of the 3,000,000 total that was last seen nearly six years ago. Economists warn that it could hit a new high of more than 3,500,000 by the end of this year. However, the Tories have still managed to cut Labour's lead in the opinion polls from 13 points to eight points, according to the latest MORI poll. [1]
• 26 January - The Bank of England lowers interest rates to 6% - the lowest since 1978.
• 12 February - Merseyside toddler James Bulger is reporting missing after he disappeared from the Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle.^[3]
• 14 February - Police on Merseyside confirm that they have found the body of James Bulger, who went missing two days previously. James's body was found on a railway line in Walton, approximately two miles from where he was last seen.^[3]
• 18 February - Unemployment has reached 3,000,000 (and a rate of 10.6%) for the first time in six years.
• 20 February - Two 10-year-old boys are arrested in connection with the death of James Bulger.^[4]
• 22 February - The two boys arrested in connection with James Bulger's death are charged with murder.
• 24 February - Bobby Moore, who captained the England national football team to World Cup glory in 1966, dies of cancer aged 51. He had been ill for two years but only made his illness public nine days ago.
• 25 February - A MORI poll shows that 80% of Britons are dissatisfied with the way that John Major is running the country, and nearly 50% believe that the economy will get worse during this year.
• 3 March - Tony Bland, who was given the right to die by the High Court due to injuries suffered into the Hillsborough disaster, dies after being in a coma for nearly four years. This brings the Hillsborough death toll to 96.
• 16 March - Chancellor Norman Lamont unveils a budget plan which is centred on economic recovery.
• 19 March - Unemployment has fallen for the first time since May 1990, now standing at 2,970,000, sparking hopes that the recession is nearly over.
• 20 March - Warrington bomb attacks: An IRA bomb on Warrington, Cheshire, claims the life of three-year-old Jonathan Ball and injures more than 50 other people.^[5]
• 25 March - The IRA attack on Warrington claims its second victim when 12-year-old Timothy Parry dies in hospital from his injuries.^[5]
• April - Rover Group enters the compact executive market with its 600 Series, which is based on the Honda Accord and built at the Cowley plant in Oxford.
• 2 April - Vauxhall launches its all-new Corsa supermini, which replaces the decade-old Nova.
• 3 April - A false start forces the Grand National to be cancelled.^[6]
• 18 April - Arsenal are Football League Cup winners for the second time, defeating Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 at Wembley Stadium in the final. Steve Morrow, the player who scored the winning goal, breaks his arm in a freak accident during the end-of-match celebrations.
• 22 April - Black student Stephen Lawrence, 18, is stabbed to death in Eltham, London. Police suspect that the murder was racially motivated.
• 24 April - Bishopsgate bombing. A massive bomb explodes at Bishopsgate in the City of London. The blast destroys the medieval St Ethelburga's church, and badly damages the NatWest Tower and Liverpool Street tube station.^[7]
• 26 April
  • The British government declares the official end of the recession after revealing that the economy grew by 0.6% in the first three months of this year. The recession began nearly three years ago and lasted much longer than most economists expected. [2]
  • Brian Clough, currently the longest serving manager with any English Premier League or Football League club, announces that he will retire next month after 18 years in charge of Nottingham Forest.
• 28 April - It is reported that 1992 saw a record 5,600,000 crimes reported in England and Wales.
• 29 April - The Queen announces that Buckingham Palace will open to the public for the first time.^[8]
• 2 May - Manchester United become top division champions of English football for the first time since 1967 when their nearest rivals, Aston Villa, suffer a surprise 1-0 home defeat by Oldham Athletic.
• 7 May - Local council elections see the Tories losing control of 15 local councils and remain in control of just one out of 47 county councils in England and Wales. They also lose a 12,357 majority in the Newbury by-election, with the Liberal Democrats gaining the seat by 22,055 votes.
• 14 May
  • The economic recovery continues as business failures are reported to have fallen for the second quarter running.
  • Terry Venables, chief executive and former manager of Tottenham Hotspur F.C., is dismissed from the club by chairman Alan Sugar, only to be reinstated by the High Court.
• 15 May - The FA Cup final ends in a 1-1 draw between Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday at Wembley Stadium. The two clubs met two months ago in the Football League Cup final (which Arsenal won 2-1), and will contest the FA Cup final replay in four days time.
• 17 May - Nurse Beverley Allitt is found guilty of murdering four children and attempted to murder nine others. Allitt, who killed the children with injections at Grantham Hospital, is sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation of at least 40 years. Allitt, who suffers from a personality disorder, will serve her sentence in a secure mental hospital.
• 19 May - Arsenal defeat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 in the FA Cup final replay.
• 20 May - The latest MORI poll has shown that the Tory government has yet to benefit from bringing the economy out of recession, as they trail Labour (who have 44% of the vote) by 16 points. [3]
• 22 May - Inflation reaches a 29-year low of 1.3%.
• 23 May - Former nurse Beverley Allitt, 25, is sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of killing four children and harming nine others at a Lincolnshire hospital.
• 27 May - Kenneth Clarke succeeds Norman Lamont as Chancellor.
• 2 June - The England football team's hopes of World Cup qualification are thrown into doubt when they suffer a shock 2-0 defeat by Norway in Oslo.
• 9 June - The England football team suffer their second humiliation in a week when they lose 2-0 to the United States of America national football team in a friendly in Foxboro.
• 17 June - Unemployment now stands at less than 2,900,000 after the fourth successive monthly fall.
• 20 June - A high speed train makes the first journey from France to England via the Channel Tunnel, which will open to the public next year.
• 21 June - Andrew Wiles announces a proof to Fermat's Last Theorem at the Isaac Newton Institute. The proof was slightly flawed, but Wiles announced a revised proof the following year.
• 24 June - Northern Ireland Minister Michael Mates resigns over links with fugitive tycoon Asil Nadir.^[9]
• 30 June - Michael Hunt, former deputy chairman of Nissan UK, is jailed for eight years for his involvement in Britain's worst case of tax fraud.
• 17 July - Roy Keane becomes the most expensive player signed by a British club when he joins Manchester United from Nottingham Forest for £3.75million. Keane, who turns 22 next month, is a Republic of Ireland international who made his English league debut in 1990.
• 18 July - Ian Botham announces his retirement from cricket.
• 19 July - American film maker Sam Wanamaker is awarded an honarary CBE.
• 22 July
  • government almost defeated by "Maastricht Rebels", however a vote of no confidence did not succeed.
  • Roy Keane becomes the most expensive player signed by a British club when a £3.75million fee takes him from Nottingham Forest to Manchester United. Keane, 22 next month, is a Republic of Ireland international midfielder. [4]
• 29 July - Conservative Party loses the Christchurch by-election to the Liberal Democrats - a seat they have held since 1910.
• 29 July - Two Lewisham teenagers, both aged under 18, are acquitted of murdering Stephen Lawrence, who was fatally stabbed in London three months ago.^[10]
• 3 August - A wave of vandalism in Southampton sees anti-Semitic slogans daubed on 150 Jewish graves.
• 11 August - The Department of Health reveals that the number of people on hospital waiting lists has reached 1,000,000 for the first time.
• 16 September - Unemployment has risen for the second month running, now standing at 2,922,100 (10.4% of the workforce), sparking fears that the economic recovery could be stalling and the economy could soon slide back into recession just months after coming out of it.
• 17 September - The British National Party wins its first council seat on Tower Hamlets.^[11]
• 19 September - Rioting between anti-fascist campaigners and Neo Nazis breaks out in the East End of London in the wake of the British National Party gaining its first local councillor.
• 30 September - The Queen approves an honorary knighthood for General Colin Powell, who retired yesterday as chief of American armed forces.
• 8 October - John Major launches his Back to Basics campaign.^[12]
• 13 October - England's hopes of football World Cup qualification are left hanging by a thread when they lost 2-0 to Holland in the penultimate qualifying game in Rotterdam. Fierce fighting between English and Dutch fans takes place after the game.
• 23 October - Shankill Road bombing in Northern Ireland kills ten people including the bomber.
• 30 October - Greysteel massacre in Northern Ireland in retaliation for the Shankill Road bombing kills another eight.
• 1 November - Two 11-year-old boys go on trial at Preston Crown Court accused of murdering Liverpool toddler James Bulger.
• 5 November - Civil servants stage a one-day strike.
• 9 November - Princess Diana sues the Daily Mirror over photographs that were taken of her at a gym.
• 17 November
  • A teacher and ten children, all from Hagley RC High School near Birmingham, are killed in a minibus crash on the M40 in Warwickshire.
  • England's hopes of World Cup qualification are ended despite victory over San Marino as Holland defeated Poland and joined Norway as the two teams in the group qualifying for the World Cup next summer.
• 18 November - Unemployment fell last month by 49,000 - the biggest monthly fall since April 1989 - as the economic recovery continues.
• 23 November - Graham Taylor announces his resignation as England football team manager after three years in charge.
• 24 November - Two 11-year-old boys are convicted at Preston Crown Court of murdering James Bulger. The trial judge sentences them to detention at Her Majesty's pleasure, with a recommendation that they should be imprisoned for "very, very many years to come" before being considered for release. The judge removes an identity restriction on the two killers, naming them as Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.^[4]
• 25 November - TV entertainer Roy Castle, 61, announces that he is suffering from a recurrence of the lung cancer which he was believed to have overcome one year ago.
• 29 November - The Conservative government comes under a vitriolic attack in the House of Commons over allegations that it has secret contacts with the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
• 3 December - Diana, Princess of Wales, announces her withdrawal from public life.^[13]
• 9 December
  • Danny Blanchflower, who captained Tottenham Hotspur to the first league championship and FA Cup double of the 20th century in 1961 and became a football writer after his retirement as a player in 1964, dies of Alzheimer's disease aged 67.
  • Despite the steady economic recovery, the Tory government is now 18 points behind Labour (who have 47% of the vote) in the latest MORI poll. The Liberal Democrats have also eaten into their support and now have 20% of the vote. [5]
• 10 December - Richard J. Roberts wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Phillip Allen Sharp "for their discoveries of split genes".^[14]
• 14 December - Yasser Arafat makes his first official visit to Britain.
• 15 December - The Downing Street Declaration signed between the UK and Irish governments on the future of Northern Ireland.^[15]
• 20 December - Colin Ireland is sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey for the murder of five gay men in London.
• 25 December - The Queen speaks of her hopes for peace in Northern Ireland in her Christmas Day speech.
• 29 December - The IRA vows to fight on against the British presence in Northern Ireland.

Undated

• With the economy growing for the first time since spring 1990, inflation is at a 33-year low of 1.6%. [6]

Publications

• Iain M. Banks' novel Against a Dark Background.
• Iain Banks' novel Complicity.
• Pat Barker's novel The Eye in the Door.
• Louis de Bernières' novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Men at Arms and his Johnny Maxwell novel Johnny and the Dead.
• Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting.

Births

• June 25 - Barney Clark, actor

Deaths

• 17 January - Albert Hourani, historian (born 1915)
• 20 January - Audrey Hepburn, actress (born 1929)
• 18 February - Jacqueline Hill, actress (born 1929)
• 24 February - Bobby Moore, footballer (born 1941)
• 9 March - C. Northcote Parkinson, historian (born 1909)
• 17 March - Charlotte Hughes, longest-lived person ever documented in the United Kingdom (born 1877)
• 15 April - Robert Westall, author (born 1929)
• 30 April - Tommy Caton, footballer (born 1962)
• 10 June - Les Dawson, comedian (born 1931)
• 19 June - William Golding, writer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1911)
• 5 October - Jim Holton, footballer (born 1951)
• 22 November - Anthony Burgess, author (born 1917)

See also

References