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1979 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1979 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Events

January

  • 1 January – French carmaker Peugeot completes its takeover of the European division of financially troubled American carmaker Chrysler, which was agreed last year and includes the British operations of the former Rootes Group and the French Simca brand. The company’s cars continue to be sold under these brands, but are expected to be rebranded in the near future.
  • 5 January – Lorry drivers go on strike, causing new shortages of heating oil and fresh food.
  • 10 January – Prime Minister James Callaghan returns from an international summit to a Britain in a state of industrial unrest. The Sun newspaper reports his comments with a famous headline: "Crisis? What Crisis?"
  • 15 January – British Rail workers begin a 24-hour strike.
  • 22 January – Tens of thousands of public-workers strike in the beginning of what becomes known as the Winter of Discontent.

February

  • 1 February – Grave-diggers call off a strike in Liverpool which has delayed dozens of burials.
  • 2 February – Sid Vicious, the former Sex Pistols guitarist, is found dead in New York after apparently suffocating on his own vomit as a result of a heroin overdose. 21-year-old London-born Vicious was on bail for the second degree murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, who was found stabbed to death in a hotel room on 12 October last year.
  • 9 February – The England international striker Trevor Francis signs for Nottingham Forest from Birmingham City in British football's first £1 million deal.
  • 12 February – Over 1,000 schools close due to the heating oil shortage caused by the lorry drivers' strike.
  • 14 February – "Saint Valentine's Day Concordat" between Trades Union Congress and Government, The Economy, the Government, and Trade Union Responsibilities, marks an end to the Winter of Discontent.
  • 15 February – Opinion polls show the Conservatives up to 20 points ahead of Labour, whose popularity has slumped due to the Winter of Discontent. With a general election due this year, a Conservative victory is now widely expected, just months after prime minister James Callaghan had decided against calling a general election which the opinion polls suggested Labour would have won.
  • 22 February – Saint Lucia becomes independent of the United Kingdom.
  • 26 February – Death of the last Muggletonian.

March

April

  • April – Statistics show that the economy shrank by 0.8% in the first quarter of the year, largely due to the Winter of Discontent, sparking fears that Britain could soon be faced with its second recession in four years.
  • 4 April – Josephine Whitaker, a 19-year-old bank worker, is murdered in Halifax; police believe that she is the 11th woman to be murdered by the Yorkshire Ripper.
  • 7 April – The last RT type buses run in London, on route 62.
  • 23 April – Anti-Nazi League protester Blair Peach is fatally injured after being struck on the head probably by a member of the Metropolitan Police's Special Patrol Group.

May

June

July

  • 5 July – Queen Elizabeth II attends the millennium celebrations of the Isle of Man's Parliament, Tynwald.
  • 12 July – Kiribati (formerly Gilbert Islands) becomes independent of the United Kingdom.
  • 17 July – Athlete Sebastian Coe sets a record time for running a mile, completing it in 3 minutes 48.95 seconds, in Oslo.
  • 23 July – The government announces £4 billion worth of public spending cuts.
  • 26 July – Education Act repeals the 1976 Act, allowing local education authorities to retain selective secondary schools.
  • 31 July – Seventeen people are killed in the Sumburgh air disaster when a Dan-Air Hawker Siddeley HS 748 fails to take off at Sumburgh Airport in the Shetland Islands, crashes into the sea defences and plunges into the sea. The cause is later identified as elevator failure.

August

September

  • 2 September – Police discover a woman's body in an alleyway near Bradford city centre. The woman, 20-year-old student Barbara Leach, is believed to be the 12th victim of the mysterious Yorkshire Ripper mass murderer.
  • 5 September
  • The Queen leads the mourning at the funeral of Lord Mountbatten of Burma.
  • Manchester City F.C. pay a British club record fee of £1,450,000 for Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder Steve Daley.
  • 8 September – Wolverhampton Wanderers set a new national transfer record by paying just under £1,500,000 for Aston Villa and Scotland striker Andy Gray.
  • 10 September – British Leyland announces that production of MG cars will finish in the autumn of next year, in a move which will see the Abingdon, Oxfordshire, plant closed.
  • 14 September – The government announces plans to regenerate the London Docklands with housing and commercial developments.
  • 21 September – A Royal Air Force Harrier jet crashes into a house in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire killing two men and a boy.
  • 25 September – Margaret Thatcher opens the new Central Milton Keynes shopping centre, the largest indoor shopping centre in Britain, after its final phase is completed six years after development of the complex first began.

October

November

  • November – British Leyland chief executive Michael Edwardes wins the overwhelming backing of more than 100,000 of the carmaker's employees for his restructuring plans, which over the next few years will result in the closure of several plants and the loss of some 25,000 jobs.
  • 1 November
  • The government announces £3.5 billion in public spending cuts and an increase in prescription charges.
  • The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh inaugurate the modernised Glasgow Subway with a ride on a new train between Buchanan Street and St Enoch; however, the underground does not open to the public until the following April.
  • 5 November – The two men accused of murdering Lord Mountbatten and three others go on trial in Dublin.
  • 9 November – Four men are found guilty over the killing of paperboy Carl Bridgewater, who was shot dead at a farmhouse in the Staffordshire countryside 14 months ago. James Robinson and Vincent Hickey receive life sentences with a recommended minimum of 25 years for murder, 18-year-old Michael Hickey (also guilty of murder) receives an indefinite custodial sentence, while Patrick Molloy is guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 12 years.
  • 11 November – Last episode of the first series of the sitcom To the Manor Born on BBC One receives 23.95 million viewers, the all-time highest figure for a recorded programme in the UK.
  • 13 November
  • The Times is published for the first time in nearly a year after a dispute between management and unions over staffing levels and new technology.
  • Miners reject a 20% pay increase and threaten to go on strike until they get their desired pay rise of 65%.
  • 14 November – General Motors begins UK sales of the new front-wheel drive Opel Kadett, which is currently produced in the combine’s West German and Belgian factories, and will also be sold from March 1980 as the Vauxhall Astra.
  • 15 November
  • Minimum Lending Rate reaches an all-time high of 17%.
  • Art historian and former Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures Anthony Blunt's role as the "fourth man" of the 'Cambridge Five' double agents for the Soviet NKVD during World War II is confirmed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons; she gives further details on 21 November. He is stripped of his knighthood.
  • 21 November – Six months after winning the general election, the Conservatives are five points behind Labour (who have a 45% share of the vote) in an MORI opinion poll.
  • 23 November – In Dublin, Ireland, Irish Republican Army member Thomas McMahon is sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of Lord Mountbatten.

December

  • 4 December – The Hastie Fire in Hull leads to the deaths of 3 boys and begins the hunt for Bruce George Peter Lee, the UK's most prolific killer.
  • 7 December – Lord Soames appointed as the transitional governor of Rhodesia to oversee its move to independence.
  • 10 December
  • William Arthur Lewis wins the Nobel Prize in Economics with Theodore Schultz "for their pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries".
  • Stunt performer Eddie Kidd performs an 80 ft jump on a motorcycle.
  • 14 December
  • Doubts are raised over the convictions of the four men in the Carl Bridgewater case after Hubert Vincent Spencer is charged with murdering 70-year-old farmer Hubert Wilkes at a farmhouse less than half a mile away from the one where Carl Bridgewater was murdered.
  • The Clash release post-punk album London Calling.
  • 20 December – The government publishes the Housing Bill which will give council house tenants the right to buy their homes from the following year. More than 5 million households in the United Kingdom currently occupy council houses.
  • 21 December – Lancaster House Agreement, an independent agreement for Rhodesia is signed in London.

Undated

Publications

Births

Deaths

See also

References