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1958 in the United Kingdom

{{short description|none}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}}

{{Use British English|date=January 2013}}

{{Year in United Kingdom|1958

|label1= Constituent countries of the United Kingdom

|data1 = Northern Ireland {{!}} Scotland {{!}} Wales

|label2= Popular culture

|data2 =

1958 British Grand Prix

1958 English cricket season

Football: England {{!}} Scotland

1958 in British radio

1958 in British television

1958 in British music

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Events from the year 1958 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Events

  • 6 January – Chancellor of the Exchequer Peter Thorneycroft together with junior Treasury Ministers Enoch Powell and Nigel Birch resign over Cabinet opposition to spending cuts, an event dismissed to the Press the following day by the Prime Minister as "little local difficulties".{{cite book|last=Palmer|first=Alan|last2=Palmer |first2=Veronica|year=1992|title=The Chronology of British History|publisher=Century Ltd|location=London|pages=413–414|isbn=0-7126-5616-2}}
  • 14 January – TWW, the ITV franchise for South Wales and the West of England goes on the air.
  • 6 February – The Manchester United F.C. team plane flying back from a European Cup tie in Belgrade crashes on take-off after refuelling at Munich Airport in West Germany. 21 of the 44 people on board are killed. Seven of them are Manchester United players: captain and left-back Roger Byrne (aged 28), centre-half Mark Jones (aged 24), right-half Eddie Colman (aged 21), centre-forward Tommy Taylor (aged 26), full-back Geoff Bent (aged 25), left-winger David Pegg (aged 22), and inside-forward Billy Whelan (aged 22). Eight of the nine sports journalists travelling on the plane are also killed, including the former Manchester City and England national football team goalkeeper Frank Swift. Among the survivors are 10 United players and manager Matt Busby, who is reported to be seriously injured. Outside-right Johnny Berry and left-half Duncan Edwards are also reported to be in a serious condition.{{cite news|title=World Laments Manchester Loss|work=The Sunday Sun|date=7 February 1958|access-date=2011-06-16|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KZRlAAAAIBAJ&pg=2438,1146064&dq=manchester-united&hl=en}}
  • 20 February – The government announces plans to close the 300-year-old naval dockyards at Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey which would result in more than 2,500 workers losing their jobs.{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/20/newsid_2552000/2552135.stm|title=Historic Sheerness docks to close|work=BBC News|access-date=2008-01-27|date=20 February 1958| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080307140236/http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/20/newsid_2552000/2552135.stm| archive-date= 7 March 2008 | url-status= live}}
  • 21 February – Duncan Edwards dies of his injuries in a Munich hospital fifteen days after the Munich air crash. Edwards, twenty-one years old and rated by many as the finest player in England, is the eighth Manchester United player to die.
  • 25 February – Bertrand Russell launches the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, initiated at a meeting called by Canon John Collins on 15 January.{{cite book|first=Andrew|author-link=Andrew Marr|last=Marr|title=A History of Modern Britain|location=London|publisher=Macmillan|year=2007|isbn=978-1-4050-0538-8}} The campaign peace symbol has been launched on 21 February by Gerald Holtom.
  • 27 February – The final death toll of the Munich air disaster reaches 23 with the death of co-pilot Kenneth Rayment in hospital.{{Cite web|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Football%3A+Dudley's+jewel+in+the+crown...+Busby+Babe+Duncan+Edwards...-a0175120455|title = Football: Dudley's jewel in the crown... Busby Babe Duncan Edwards died 50 years ago today, aged just 21. ROGER CLARKE gives his personal account of a sporting legend and the tragedy of Munich. – Free Online Library}}
  • 28 February – The Victorian Society, the pressure group for Victorian architecture, holds its first meeting.
  • March – Removal of Derbyshire county administrative headquarters from Derby to Matlock begins.{{cite news|title=Removal of County Headquarters|work=The Times|date=28 January 1958|page=4}}
  • 2 March – The British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Sir Vivian Fuchs completes the first crossing of the Antarctic using Sno-Cat caterpillar tractors and dogsled teams in 99 days.{{cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=0-14-102715-0|year=2006}}
  • 19 March – The official opening by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh of the London Planetarium, the first of its kind in Britain.[https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0373463300017628 Lieut.-Commander R.B. Michell, "The London Planetarium" on p. 323 Record on Cambridge Core website] Accessed 13 May 2017. Public presentations commence on 20 March.[http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1958Obs....78...89./0000091.000.html The Observatory, Vol. 78, p. 91(1958)]. Accessed 12 May 2017.
  • 24 March – Work on the M1, Britain's first full-length motorway, begins. The first stretch of the motorway, due to open next year, will run from London to the Warwickshire-Northamptonshire border. During the 1960s, the remainder of the motorway will be built to give London an unbroken motorway link with Leeds some 200 miles away.{{Cite web |url=http://www.roadsuk.com/histories/m1.html |title=RoadsUK -- road histories -- berrygrove to crick: The birth of motorway 1 |access-date=28 July 2011 |archive-date=9 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110909043815/http://www.roadsuk.com/histories/m1.html |url-status=dead }}
  • 29 March – Mary Elizabeth Wilson of Windy Nook in County Durham is convicted as a serial mariticide.{{cite news|title=The day I called on Mrs. Wilson|newspaper=Newcastle Chronicle|location=Newcastle upon Tyne|date=1958-03-31|page=3}}
  • 1 April – The BBC Radiophonic Workshop is created.
  • 4–7 April – The first protest march for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from Trafalgar Square to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire, demanding a ban on nuclear weapons.{{cite book|first=Caroline|last=Moorehead|title=Troublesome People: Enemies of War, 1916–1986|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QCyPAAAAMAAJ|year=1987|publisher=Hamilton|isbn=978-0-241-12105-4}}
  • 7 April – The Church of England gives its moral backing to family planning.
  • 27 April – British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC)'s first de Havilland Comet 4 makes its maiden flight.
  • 30 April
  • The Life Peerages Act receives Royal Assent, the Act allows the creation of life peers who can sit in the House of Lords. As life peerages could be bestowed on women, this Act allows them to sit in the House of Lords for the first time.{{cite web|url=http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_publications_and_archives/parliamentary_archives/archives___1958.cfm|title=A Changing House: the Life Peerages Act 1958 |access-date=2008-03-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615190058/http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_publications_and_archives/parliamentary_archives/archives___1958.cfm |archive-date=15 June 2008 |url-status=dead }}
  • The musical My Fair Lady, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, opens in London's Drury Lane theatre.
  • 3 May – Bolton Wanderers win the FA Cup for the fourth time in their history with a 2–0 win over Manchester United at Wembley Stadium. Both goals are scored by centre-forward Nat Lofthouse.{{Cite web |url=http://www.fa-cupfinals.co.uk/1958.htm |title=FA Cup Final 1958 |access-date=4 December 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080922161159/http://www.fa-cupfinals.co.uk/1958.htm |archive-date=22 September 2008 |url-status=dead }}
  • 21 May – United Kingdom Postmaster General Ernest Marples announces that from December, Subscriber Trunk Dialling will be introduced in the Bristol area.{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/21/newsid_2510000/2510289.stm|title=Trunk dialling heralds cheaper calls|work=BBC News|access-date=2008-01-27|date=21 May 1958|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307140232/http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/21/newsid_2510000/2510289.stm|archive-date=7 March 2008|url-status=live}}
  • 27 May – 19-year-old Shelagh Delaney's "kitchen sink drama" A Taste of Honey is staged by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.
  • May – Nuclear development: Dounreay materials test reactor in Scotland achieves criticality.
  • 4 June – The Duke of Edinburgh's Award is presented for the first time at Buckingham Palace.
  • 7 June – Ian Donald publishes an article in The Lancet which describes the diagnostic use of ultrasound in obstetrics{{cite web|url=http://www.ob-ultrasound.net/lancet.html|title=Ian Donald's paper in The Lancet in 1958|access-date=2008-01-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080112010620/http://www.ob-ultrasound.net/lancet.html|archive-date=12 January 2008|url-status=live}} as pioneered in Glasgow.
  • 9 June – The Queen officially reopens Gatwick Airport which has been expanded at a cost of more than £7,000,000.
  • 18 June – Benjamin Britten's one-act children's opera Noye's Fludde premieres at the Aldeburgh Festival.{{cite book|last=Britten|first=Benjamin|editor1-last=Reed|editor1-first=Philip|editor2-last=Cooke|editor2-first=Mervyn|editor3-last=Mitchell|editor3-first=Donald|year=2008|title=Letters from a Life: The Selected Letters of Benjamin Britten, Volume IV, 1952–1957|location=Woodbridge|publisher=The Boydell Press|isbn=978-1-84383-382-6|pages=555, 562}}
  • 3 July
  • The US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, chiefly concerning co-operation over nuclear weapons, is signed in Washington, D.C.
  • The last débutante is formally presented to the Queen, at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.{{cite book|first=Christopher|last=Slee|title=The Guinness Book of Lasts|location=Enfield|publisher=Guinness Publishing|year=1994|isbn=0-85112-783-5}}
  • 10 July – The UK's first parking meters are installed in the City of Westminster.
  • 17 July – British paratroopers arrive in Jordan: King Hussein has asked for help against pressure from Iraq.
  • 18–26 July – The British Empire and Commonwealth Games are held in Cardiff.
  • 26 July
  • The Queen gives her son Charles (the later King Charles III) the heir apparent's customary title of Prince of Wales, announcing this at the Cardiff games.
  • Abolition of the presentation of débutantes to the royal court.
  • 1 August
  • Blind politician Ian Fraser, Baron Fraser of Lonsdale, becomes the first life peer to obtain his letters patent.
  • Carry on Sergeant, the first Carry On film, is released.
  • 8 August – Sociologist Barbara Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger, becomes the first female peer in her own right to obtain letters patent.
  • 28 August – The first Miss United Kingdom beauty pageant is held on Blackpool beach; Eileen Sheridan of Walton-on-Thames is the winner.{{cite news|title=The beauty they gave away|newspaper=Daily Herald|location=London|date=1958-08-29|page=2}}
  • 29 August
  • Project Emily: The first United States Thor missile is delivered to the UK, for operation by No. 77 Squadron RAF at RAF Feltwell.
  • Cliff Richard's debut single Move It is released, reaching #2 in the chart. It is credited with being one of the first authentic rock and roll songs produced outside the United States.{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/soldonsong/songlibrary/indepth/moveit.shtml|title=Sold on Song Top 100|publisher=BBC|access-date=2007-11-18}}{{cite web|url=http://iansamwell.com/bio.html|title=The Ian "Sammy" Samwell Story|work=iansamwell.com|access-date=2007-11-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071212061408/http://iansamwell.com/bio.html#america| archive-date=12 December 2007|url-status=dead}}
  • 30 August
  • Notting Hill race riots in London.{{cite web|url=http://newsfilm.bufvc.ac.uk/article.php?story=2005100819205024|title="Notting Hill Riot Special", newsfilm online|access-date=2008-03-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080618001717/http://newsfilm.bufvc.ac.uk/article.php?story=2005100819205024|archive-date=18 June 2008|url-status=dead}}
  • Southern Television, the ITV franchise for the South of England goes on the air.
  • 1 September – The first Cod War between the UK and Iceland breaks out.
  • 5 September – A severe storm over the South-East of England seriously disrupts communications.{{cite book|first=Rex|last=Kennedy|title=Ian Allan's 50 years of railways, 1942-1992|page=87}}
  • 16 September – Relaxation of restrictions on hire purchase.
  • 20 September – 1958 Syerston Avro Vulcan crash: During a high-speed flyby in an air show at RAF Syerston, Nottinghamshire, prototype Avro Vulcan bomber VX770 suffers total collapse of the starboard wing and crashes, killing its entire crew and three people on the ground.
  • 30 September – Britain's last flying boat is withdrawn from commercial service when Aquila Airways terminates its service on the Southampton–Funchal (Madeira) route, on which it has been using Short Solent planes.
  • 1 October – The UK transfers sovereignty of Christmas Island from Singapore to Australia.{{cite book|last=Kerr|first=Alan|year=2009|title=A federation in these seas: An account of the acquisition by Australia of its external territories, with selected documents|publisher=Attorney General's Dept (Australia)|location=Barton, ACT|isbn=1921241721|page=329}}
  • 4 October – BOAC de Havilland Comet 4 G-APDB makes the first commercial transatlantic flight by a jet airliner, from London Heathrow Airport to New York International Airport, Anderson Field via Gander.
  • 11 October – First broadcast of the long-running BBC Television sports programme Grandstand. It would run until 2007.
  • 16 October – First broadcast of the long-running BBC Television children's programme Blue Peter.
  • 19 October – By finishing second in the Moroccan Grand Prix, Mike Hawthorn becomes the first British racing driver to win the Formula One World Championship.
  • 21 October – The first life peers, including the first female peers, enter the House of Lords. The Baronesses Swanborough (Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading) and Wootton (Barbara Wootton) are the first women to take their seats as life peers, and Lord Parker of Waddington, the Lord Chief Justice of England, the first man to do so.
  • 25 October – The Short SC.1 experimental VTOL aircraft makes its first free vertical flight.
  • 28 October – The State Opening of Parliament is broadcast on television for the first time.
  • 10 November – Donald Campbell sets the world water speed record at 248.62 mph (400.12 km/h) on Coniston Water.
  • 24 November – An exhibition of computers held at Earl's Court, London, the first of its kind in the world.
  • 25 November – The Austin FX4 London taxi goes on sale, it will remain in production until 1997.
  • 30 November – During the live broadcast of the Armchair Theatre play Underground on the ITV network, actor Gareth Jones has a fatal heart attack between scenes.
  • 5 December
  • The Preston Bypass, the UK's first motorway, is opened by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.{{cite web|url=http://www.cbrd.co.uk/histories/chronologymaps/1958.shtml|title=1958|work=CBRD|access-date=30 July 2010|archive-date=20 September 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100920165737/http://cbrd.co.uk/histories/chronologymaps/1958.shtml|url-status=dead}}
  • Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated by The Queen when she dials a call from Bristol to Edinburgh and speaks to Lord Provost.{{cite web|url=http://www.btplc.com/thegroup/BTsHistory/1912to1968/1958.htm|title=Events in Telecommunications History – 1958|access-date=2008-01-27|archive-date=7 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131007024036/http://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/BTsHistory/1912to1968/1958.htm|url-status=dead}}
  • The first service by a Royal National Lifeboat Institution {{Lbc|Oakley}} self-righting lifeboat, RNLB J.G. Graves of Sheffield (ON 942) at Scarborough.{{cite book|title=Oakley Class Lifeboats: an Illustrated History of the RNLI's Oakley and Rother Lifeboats|first=Nicholas|last=Leach|location=Stroud|publisher=Tempus|year=2003|isbn=978-0-7524-2784-3}}
  • 10 December – English biochemist Frederick Sanger wins his first Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin" (his second comes in 1980).{{cite web|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1958/|title=The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1958|access-date=2008-01-27}}
  • 24 December – 1958 Bristol Britannia 312 crash: a BOAC Bristol Britannia airliner crashes near Winkton in Hampshire on a routine test flight.
  • 25 December – Christmas Day is a public holiday in Scotland for the first time.{{cite book|last1=Houston|first1=Rab|last2=Houston|first2=Robert Allan|title=Scotland: a very short introduction|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2008|series=Very short introductions|volume=197|page=172|isbn=978-0-19-923079-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PP8ahdq40P4C&q=Christmas+public+holiday+1958+scotland&pg=PT169|access-date=2012-02-29}}

=Undated=

  • The first boutique, His Clothes, is opened in Carnaby Street, London, by John Stephen.{{cite web|url=http://www.retrowow.co.uk/retro_britain/60s/carnaby_street/carnaby_street.html|publisher=retrowow.co.uk|title=Carnaby Street|access-date=2009-02-22|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090301180324/http://www.retrowow.co.uk/retro_britain/60s/carnaby_street/carnaby_street.html|archive-date=1 March 2009 |url-status=live}}
  • British Nylon Spinners introduce the name Bri-Nylon.
  • The first Little Chef diner is opened in Reading, Berkshire, by Sam Alper.{{cite web|title=Timeline History of Reading|url=http://www.visitoruk.com/Reading/8th-century-T4371.html|work=Welcome to Reading|publisher=VisitorUK.com|access-date=2017-01-10}}
  • German-born British mathematician Klaus Roth wins the Fields Medal for his work on the Thue–Siegel–Roth theorem.
  • The British Rally Championship in motorsport begins its first year.

Publications

Births

=Unknown date=

Deaths

|year=2001|title=Jones, Alfred Ernest|id=s2-JONE-ERN-1879|publisher=National Library of Wales|access-date=25 March 2023}}

See also

References

{{reflist}}

{{UK year nav}}

{{Year in Europe|1958}}

Category:Years of the 20th century in the United Kingdom

Category:1958 by country

Category:1950s in the United Kingdom

Category:1958 in Europe