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1974 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1974 in the United Kingdom.

The year is marked by the Three-Day Week, two general elections, a state of emergency in Northern Ireland, extensive Provisional Irish Republican Army bombing of the British mainland, several large company collapses and major local government reorganisation.

Incumbents

Events

January

February

  • 4 February – M62 coach bombing: A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb planted on a coach carrying off-duty soldiers and their families kills 11. On 8 February the toll reaches 12 with the death in hospital of an 18-year-old soldier seriously injured in the bombing.
  • 7 February
  • The Prime Minister, Edward Heath, calls a general election for 28 February in an attempt to end the dispute over the miners' strike. During the campaign, the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress agree a 'Social Contract' intended to produce wage restraint.
  • Grenada becomes independent of the United Kingdom.
  • 12 February – BBC1 first airs the children's television series Bagpuss, made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate's Smallfilms in stop motion animation. Despite only 13 episodes being made, it becomes fondly remembered and gains a cult following.
  • 14 February
  • Bob Latchford, the Birmingham City centre forward, becomes Britain's most expensive footballer in a £350,000 move to Everton.
  • Opinion polls show the Conservative government in the lead.
  • 27 February – Enoch Powell, the controversial Conservative MP who was dismissed from the shadow cabinet in 1968 for his "Rivers of Blood" speech opposing mass immigration, announces his resignation from the Conservative Party in protest against Edward Heath's decision to take Britain into the EEC.
  • 28 February – The general election results in the first hung parliament since 1929, with the Conservative government having 297 seats – four fewer than Labour, who have 301 – and the largest number of votes. Prime Minister Edward Heath hopes to form a coalition with the Liberal Party in order to remain in power.

March

April

May

June

July

  • 3 July – Don Revie, the manager of Football League champions Leeds United since 1961, accepts the Football Association's £200,000-a-year deal to become the new England manager.
  • 12 July – Bill Shankly, manager of FA Cup holders Liverpool, stuns the club by announcing his retirement after 15 years as manager. Shankly, 62, had arrived at Liverpool when they were in the Football League Second Division and transformed them into one of the world's top club sides with three top division titles, two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup triumph.
  • 17 July – A bomb planted by the IRA explodes in the Tower of London's White Tower, killing one person and injuring 41. Another bomb explodes outside a government building in South London.
  • 20 July – Leeds United appoint Brighton & Hove Albion manager Brian Clough, formerly of Derby County as their new manager.
  • 21 July – 10,000 Greek-Cypriots protest in London against the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
  • 26 July – Liverpool appoint 55-year-old first team coach Bob Paisley as their new manager.
  • 28 July – Last production of steel by the Bessemer process in Britain, at Workington.
  • 31 July – Town and Country Amenities Act passed.

August

September

  • 12 September – Brian Clough is dismissed after 44 days as manager of defending league champions Leeds United following a disappointing start to the Football League season.
  • 18 September – Harold Wilson confirms that a second general election for the year will be held on 10 October.
  • 23 September – Ceefax is started by the BBC – one of the first public service information systems.
  • 30 September – With the year's second general election 10 days away, opinion polls show Labour in the lead with Harold Wilson well placed to gain the overall majority that no party achieved in the election held seven months earlier.

October

  • October – Five previously all-male Colleges of the University of Oxford admit women undergraduates for the first time.
  • 5 October – Guildford pub bombings: Bombs planted by the IRA at pubs patronised by off-duty soldiers, The Horse and Groom and The Seven Stars, kill five people.
  • 10 October – The second general election of the year results in a narrow victory for Harold Wilson, giving Labour a majority of three seats. It is widely expected that Edward Heath's leadership of the Conservative Party will soon be at an end, as he has now lost three of the four General Elections that he has contested in almost a decade as leader. The Scottish National Party secures its highest Westminster party representation to date with 11 seats. Enoch Powell is returned to Parliament standing for the Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland. Powell, who was dismissed from the Conservative Shadow Cabinet in April 1968 following his controversial Rivers of Blood speech on immigration, had left the Conservative Party at the general election on 28 February and recently rejected an offer to stand as a candidate for the National Front.
  • 16 October – Rioting prisoners set fire to the Maze Prison in Belfast.
  • 19 October – Keith Joseph makes a speech in Edgbaston on the cycle of deprivation; the controversy it provokes has the effect of ruling him out of high office in the Conservative Party.
  • 22 October – The IRA bombs Brooks's club in London.
  • 28 October – The wife and son of Sports Minister Denis Howell survive an IRA bomb attack on their car.

November

December

Undated

Publications

Births

Deaths

See also

References