1972 in the United Kingdom

1972 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1970 | 1971 | 1972 (1972) | 1973 | 1974

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport, Television and music

1972 British Grand Prix 1972 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland 1972 in British television 1972 in British music 1972 in British radio UK in the Eurovision Song Contest 1972

Events from the year 1972 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister – Edward Heath (Conservative)

Events

January

• 9 January – The National Union of Mineworkers held a strike ballot in which 58.8% voted in favour. Coal miners begin a strike which lasts for seven weeks, including picketing of Saltley coke depot in Birmingham.
• 20 January – Unemployment exceeded 1,000,000 for the first time since the 1930s-almost double the 582,000 who were unemployed when Edward Heath's Conservative government came to power less than two years ago.
• 30 January – 'Bloody Sunday' in Northern Ireland: fourteen killed when troops open fire on demonstrators in Derry.

February

• 2 February – Protesters burned down the British Embassy in Dublin.
• 3 – 13 February – Great Britain and Northern Ireland competed at the Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, but do not win any medals.
• 9 February – A State of emergency was declared as a result of the miners' strike.
• 22 February – An Official Irish Republican Army bomb killed six people in the Aldershot Barracks bombing.
• 25 February – The miners' strike ended after seven weeks.

March

• March – Ford announces its new Granada model, available as a saloon, coupé or estate car, which will be built at the Dagenham plant in England as well as the Cologne plant in West Germany. It is designed to compete with the likes of the Rover P6 and Vauxhall Victor, and on the continent it will be sold as the Ford Consul.
• 21 March – Chancellor Anthony Barber announced a £1.2 billion tax reduction in the Budget.
• 26 March – The UK's last trolleybus system, in Bradford, closed.
• 30 March – The Troubles: The Parliament of Northern Ireland was suspended.
• 31 March – A CND demonstration was held protesting against the nuclear base at Aldermaston.

April

• 1 April – William Whitelaw was appointed as the first Northern Ireland Secretary.
• 19 April – A report into the Bloody Sunday shootings by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery, exonerated the British troops of blame because the demonstration had been illegal.
• 30 April – The Brighton Belle Pullman car train made its last journey from London to Brighton.

May

• 3 May
  • In the first UEFA Cup final, Tottenham Hotspur beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 in the first leg at the Molineux.
  • The General Synod of the Church of England failed to agree union with the Methodist Church.
• 6 May – Leeds United won the FA Cup for the first time with a 1-0 win over last year's winners Arsenal at Wembley Stadium. The only goal is a header by Allan Clarke from a Mick Jones pass.
• 9 May – Derby County won the Football League First Division title for the first time in their history.
• 17 May – Tottenham Hotspur completed a 3-2 aggregate win over Wolverhampton Wanderers at White Hart Lane to win the first UEFA Cup.
• 18 May
  • Queen Elizabeth last met her uncle, Edward, Duke of Windsor, at his Paris home.
  • Four troopers of the Special Air Service and Special Boat Service were parachuted onto the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 1,000 miles (1,600 km) across the Atlantic after a bomb threat and ransom demand which turned out to be bogus.
• 22 May – The Dominion of Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka.
• 24 May
  • The final stretch of the M6 motorway opened between junctions 6 (Spaghetti Junction) and 7 north of Birmingham, with the fully operational motorway stretching more than 200 miles from Rugby to Carlisle, more than a decade after the first sections were opened.
  • Glasgow Rangers F.C. won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, defeating FC Dynamo Moscow 3-2 in the final at Camp Nou in Barcelona (Spain). A pitch invasion by their supporters led to the team being banned from defending the trophy the following season.
• 26 May – The state-owned travel firm Thomas Cook & Son was privatised.
• 28 May – Edward, Duke of Windsor, died of cancer in France at the age of 77, 35 years after his abdication as king.
• 30 May – Official Irish Republican Army declared a cease fire in Northern Ireland.

June

• 1 June – Hotels and boarding houses became required to obtain certification under the Fire Precautions Act 1971.
• 3 June – A Protestant demonstration in Derry turned into a battle.
• 5 June – The funeral of The Duke of Windsor (formerly Edward VIII) is held at Windsor Castle.
• 18 June – British European Airways Flight 548 crashed near Staines and 118 people are killed, making it the UK's worst air disaster at this date. The only two survivors are both dead by the time they reach hospital.
• 23 June – The Chancellor of the Exchequer Anthony Barber announced a decision to float the Pound.

July

• 1 July – The first official gay pride march in London was held.
• 21 July – Bloody Friday: Nine people died and over a hundred were injured in a series of IRA explosions in Belfast city centre.
• 28 July – A strike by thousands of dockers led to the government announcing a state of emergency on 4 August.
• 31 July – The Troubles in Northern Ireland:
  • Operation Motorman, 4:00 AM: British Army began to regain control of the "no-go areas" established by Irish republican paramilitaries in Belfast, Derry and Newry.
  • Claudy bombing ("Bloody Monday"), 10:00 AM: Three car bombs in Claudy, County Londonderry, killed nine. It became public knowledge only in 2010 that a local Catholic priest was an IRA officer believed to be involved in the bombings but his role was covered up by the authorities.

August

• 6 August – Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda, announced that 50,000 Asians with British passports are to be expelled from Uganda to Britain within the next three months as they are "sabotaging the Ugandan economy".
• 9 August – The Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Jesus Christ Superstar made its West End debut.
• 26 August –10 September – Great Britain and Northern Ireland competed at the Olympics in Munich, West Germany, and win 4 gold, 5 silver and 9 bronze medals.
• 28 August – Prince William of Gloucester, a cousin of the Queen, is killed in an air crash near Wolverhampton. He was 30 years old, a bachelor and ninth in line to the throne.

September

• 1 September – Raising of school leaving age in England and Wales to 16 for pupils leaving school at the end of the academic year began. Many temporary new buildings were erected in secondary modern and comprehensive schools to accommodate the older pupils, while some authorities raised the secondary school transfer age from 11 to 12 or 13.
• 11 September – The BBC quiz programme Mastermind was first broadcast.
• 12 September – The sinking of two British trawlers by an Icelandic gunboat triggered the second Cod War.
• 13 September – Hypermarkets make their debut in the United Kingdom some twenty years after debuting in France, when French retail giant Carrefour opens a hypermarket in Caerphilly, South Wales.
• 18 September – Thousands of Ugandan Asians arrived in Britain after being expelled by Idi Amin.
• 19 September – A parcel bomb killed a diplomat at the Israeli embassy in London.

October

• Three previously all-male Colleges of the University of Cambridge admitted women undergraduates.
• The lifting of restrictions on broadcasting hours permits extension of daytime television.
• 10 October – John Betjeman was appointed Poet Laureate.
• 13 October – Bank rates were abolished and replaced with the Minimum Lending Rate.
• 16 October – The first episode of Emmerdale Farm, a soap opera set in rural Yorkshire, was aired on ITV.
• 19 October – Royce Ryton's play about the Abdication Crisis of Edward VIII, Crown Matrimonial, premiered at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, for the first time includes the portrayal of a living member of the Royal Family (Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother as Duchess of York) on the legitimate stage.
• 22 October – Gordon Banks, the England national football team goalkeeper, suffered a serious eye injury in a car crash in Staffordshire.
• 23 October – Access credit cards were introduced.

November

• 6 November – The government introduced price and pay freezes to counter inflation.
• 18 November – England women's national football team played its first official association football match, against Scotland in Greenock, 100 years after the equivalent men's match.

December

• 10 December
  • John Hicks was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics with Kenneth Arrow for "pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory."
  • Rodney Robert Porter won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Gerald Edelman "for their discoveries concerning the chemical structure of antibodies".

Undated

• Inflation falls slightly during the year to 6.4% from 8.6%.
• Marriage rates peak.
• Crown Court established by the Courts Act 1971 to replace the courts of Assize and Quarter Sessions in England and Wales. Property qualifications requiring jurors to be householders are abolished.
• United Reformed Church formed by merger of most of the Congregational Church in England and Wales with the Presbyterian Church of England.
• Honda, the Japanese manufacturer whose motorcycles are already popular with British buyers, begins importing passenger cars to the United Kingdom, beginning only with its small Civic hatchback - one of the first medium-sized cars sold in Europe to feature this bodystyle - which competes with similar sized saloons including the Ford Escort. A larger hatchback and saloon model is due within the next four years to compete with the likes of the Ford Cortina.
• British car production peaks at more than 1.9million units, despite regular strikes and increasing foreign competition.
• Japanese carmaker Nissan enjoys a surge in sales, with more than 30,000 cars sold in Britain this year compared to just over 6,000 in 1971.

Publications

• Richard Adams novel Watership Down.
• John Berger's novel G.
• Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel Elephants Can Remember.
• Archie Cochrane's Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services, drawing attention to collective ignorance about the outcomes of health care.
• A Blueprint for Survival first published as a special edition of The Ecologist magazine (January).

Births

January – March

• 23 January – Gavin Barwell, politician
• 27 January – Mark Owen, singer (Take That)
• 11 February – Steve McManaman, footballer
• 19 February – Malky Mackay, footballer
• 6 March – Terry Murphy, snooker player
• 20 March – Alexander Kapranos, singer and guitarist (Franz Ferdinand)
• 28 March – Nick Frost, actor

April – June

• 17 April – Vicky Lupton, English racewalker
• 22 April – Sarah Patterson, actress
• 2 May – Paul Adcock, footballer
• 5 May – James Cracknell, Olympic winning rower
• 4 June – Debra Stephenson, actress
• 7 June – Curtis Robb, athlete
• 28 June – Anthony Claughan, Vampire Slayer

July – September

• 3 July – Asha Gill, British-born television host
• 6 August – Geri Halliwell, singer (Spice Girls)
• 7 August – Sarah Cawood, television presenter
• 17 August – David Ralph, Scottish field hockey forward
• 18 August – Victoria Coren Mitchell, writer, presenter and champion poker player
• 9 September – Natasha Kaplinsky, newsreader

• 21 September
  • Liam Gallagher, singer (Oasis)
  • Richard Maden, breaststroke swimmer

October – December

• 20 October – Debbie McLeod, Scottish field hockey goalkeeper
• 29 September – Robert Webb, comedian and actor
• 2 November – Samantha Janus, actress
• 7 November – Danny Grewcock, rugby player
• 6 November – Thandie Newton, actress
• 6 December – Ewan Birney, scientist
• 12 December – Nicky Eaden, English footballer and coach
• 14 December
  • Miranda Hart, actress, comedienne
  • Jonathan Slinger, actor
• 29 December – Jude Law, actor

Deaths

January – March

• 19 February - John Grierson, documentary film maker (born 1898)
• 29 February - Violet Trefusis, writer and socialite (born 1894)
• 13 March - Tony Ray-Jones, photographer (born 1941)
• 21 March - David McCallum, Sr., violinist and the father of David McCallum (born 1897)
• 29 March - J. Arthur Rank, industrialist and film producer (born 1888)

April – June

• 22 May
  • Cecil Day-Lewis, poet (born 1904)
  • Margaret Rutherford, actress (born 1892)
• 28 May - The Duke of Windsor (formerly Edward VIII; born 1894)

July – September

• 26 August - Francis Chichester, aviator and sailor (born 1901)
• 28 August - Prince William of Gloucester (air crash) (born 1941)
• 15 September - Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury (born 1887)

October – December

• 1 October - Louis Leakey, palaeontologist (born 1903)
• 15 October - Douglas Smith, broadcaster (year of birth unknown)
• 28 November - Havergal Brian, composer (born 1876)
• 30 November - Compton Mackenzie, novelist and Scottish nationalist (born 1883)
• 13 December - L. P. Hartley, writer (born 1895)
• 24 December - Gisela Richter, art historian (born 1882)