1933 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – George V
• Prime Minister – Ramsay MacDonald
• Parliament – 36th

  Events

• January – The London Underground diagram designed by Harry Beck is introduced to the public.
• 9 February – The King and Country debate: The Oxford Union student debating society passes a resolution stating, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and country."
• 28 February – English cricket team in Australia in 1932–33: Tour concludes with the England cricket team winning The Ashes using the controversial bodyline tactic.
• 25 March – First car race at Donington Park circuit in Leicestershire.
• 28 March – 1933 Imperial Airways Dixmude crash: The Imperial Airways Armstrong Whitworth Argosy biplane airliner City of Liverpool catches fire in the air over Belgium and crashes, killing the crew of three and all twelve passengers, the deadliest accident in the history of British civil aviation to this date. The fire onboard may have been started deliberately.
• 2 April – As a member of the English cricket team touring New Zealand, 1933, batsman Wally Hammond scores a record 336 runs in a test match at Eden Park, Auckland.
• 3 April – The Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale leads an expedition to be the first to fly an aircraft over Mount Everest.
• 27 April – The Jessop & Son department store in Nottingham is acquired by the John Lewis Partnership, its first store outside London.
• 30 April – First air service internal to Scotland, Renfrew-Campbeltown, operated by Midland & Scottish Air Ferries Ltd. Winifred Drinkwater, "the world's first female commercial pilot", is hired to fly the route.
• 2 May – First modern "sighting" of the Loch Ness Monster.
• 3 May
• * Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald arrives back in the UK following talks with U.S. President Roosevelt on the global economic situation.
• * In the Irish Free State, Dáil Éireann abolishes the Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown.
• 1 July – London Passenger Transport Board begins operations, unifying multiple earlier services.
• 15 July – Signing of the Four-Power Pact by the UK, France, Germany and Italy.
• 26 July – Battersea Power Station, London, first generates electricity.
• 28 July – Grand jury abolished in English law.
• 12 August – Winston Churchill makes his first public speech warning of the dangers of German rearmament.
• 17 August – Release of the film The Private Life of Henry VIII. Charles Laughton receives an Academy Award for the title rôle, making this the first British film to win an Oscar.
• September – National Grid completed.
• 6 October – Milk Marketing Board established.
• 13 October – British Interplanetary Society founded in Liverpool.
• 15 October – The Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine is run for the first time.
• 23 October – Birmingham city council's 40,000th council house is opened by Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain.
• 27 October – George Eyston achieves a world land speed record for a diesel car of 101.98 mph at Brooklands.
• 21 December
• * Newfoundland returns to Crown Colony status following financial collapse.
• * The British Plastics Federation is founded.

  Undated

• Norman Angell wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Albert Einstein makes several visits to Britain and campaigns against the Nazi regime in Germany from which he has been exiled.
• Ronald Lockley establishes the first British bird observatory on the Welsh island of Skokholm.

  Publications

• Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel Lord Edgware Dies.
• Robert Hichens' novel The Paradine Case.
• James Hilton's utopian novel Lost Horizon.
• A. G. Macdonell's comic novel England, Their England.
• George Orwell's book Down and Out in Paris and London.
• Angela Thirkell's novel High Rising.
• H.G. Wells' novel The Shape of Things to Come.
• Dennis Wheatley's first published novel The Forbidden Territory.

  Births

• 5 January – Derek Johnson, athlete
• 6 January
• * John Clive, author and actor
• * Ian McColl, Baron McColl of Dulwich, surgeon and academic
• 13 January – Janet Kear, ornithologist
• 18 January
• * David Bellamy, botanist, author, broadcaster and environmental campaigner
• * John Boorman, film director
• 2 February
• * Rodney Gordon, architect
• * Tony Jay, British-American actor
• 6 February – Leslie Crowther, television comedian and game show host
• 7 February – John Anderton, footballer
• 8 February – Donald Burgess, track cyclist
• 9 February – John Michell, writer
• 18 February
• * Bobby Robson, footballer and football manager
• * Mary Ure, actress
• 22 February – Katharine, Duchess of Kent, née Worsley
• 27 February – Stan Anderson, English football player, manager
• 9 March – Sir David Weatherall, physician
• 12 March – Ken Hodgkisson, English footballer
• 14 March – Michael Caine, actor
• 17 March – Penelope Lively, novelist
• 25 March – Ray Spencer, footballer
• 4 April – Brian Hewson, track and field athlete
• 6 April
• *Roy Goode, legal academic
• *Dudley Sutton, actor
• 16 April – Joan Bakewell, broadcaster
• 18 April – Michael Bradshaw, actor
• 21 April – Ian Carr, jazz musician
• 24 April – Claire Davenport, actress
• 27 April – Peter Imbert, Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
• 9 May – Jessica Steele, romance novelist
• 10 May – Barbara Taylor Bradford, English–born novelist
• 15 May – Peter Broadbent, footballer
• 17 May – Shelley Rohde, journalist and author
• 23 May – Joan Collins, actress
• 24 May – Anne Mustoe, teacher, cyclist and travel writer
• 25 May – Ray Spencer, footballer
• 2 June – David Mudd, politician
• 7 June – Stanley Clarke, businessman
• 8 June – Robert Stevens, English lawyer and academic
• 14 June – John McHardy Sinclair, linguist
• 22 June – Tony Booth, poster artist
• 26 June – David Winnick, Labour Party politician
• 1 July – Joe Buick, Scottish footballer
• 6 July – Frank Austin, footballer
• 7 July – Bruce Wells, boxer, actor
• 8 July – Jeff Nuttall, actor, poet and painter
• 9 July – Oliver Sacks, English-born neurologist
• 13 July – David Storey, novelist and playwright
• 15 July – Julian Bream, guitarist and lutenist
• 22 July – Alexander Trotman, businessman
• 29 July – Peter Baldwin, actor
• 2 August – Tom Bell, actor
• 5 August – Nicholas Scott, politician
• 9 August – Albert Quixall, footballer
• 10 August
• * Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, judge
• * Keith Duckworth, automotive engineer
• 11 August – Chris Harris, basketball player
• 15 August – Michael Rutter, Lebanese-English psychiatrist and academic
• 18 August – Michael Baxandall, art historian
• 21 August
• * Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano
• * Barry Norman, film critic
• 2 September – Victor Spinetti, actor
• 8 September – Michael Frayn, playwright and novelist
• 20 September – Dennis Viollet, English footballer
• 26 September – Nicholas J. Phillips, physicist
• 2 October – John Gurdon, developmental biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 9 October – Peter Mansfield, physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 11 October – Richard Abel Smith, British army officer
• 13 October – Thomas Bingham, judge
• 24 October – Kray twins, gangsters
• 25 October – Peter Dennis, actor
• 3 November – John Barry, film score composer
• 8 November – Peter Arundell, racing driver
• 9 November – Geoff Gunney, English rugby league footballer
• 2 December – Peter Robin Harding, air marshal and pilot
• 14 December – David Maloney, television producer

  Deaths

• January – Bowman Malcolm, railway engineer, Belfast and Northern Counties Railway
• 7 January – Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, artist and designer
• 14 January – Sir Robert Jones, 1st Baronet, orthopaedic surgeon
• 31 January – John Galsworthy, novelist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 2 February – Sir James Cory, 1st Baronet, politician
• 22 April – Sir Henry Royce, car manufacturer
• 14 June – Sir Ernest William Moir, civil engineer
• 16 July – Sir Tudor Walters, politician
• 25 July – John May, Scottish international footballer
• 31 July – Robert Fleming, financier
• 10 August – Alf Morgans, Welsh-born Prime Minister of Western Australia
• 12 October – John Lister, politician
• 18 October – Ivor Herbert, 1st Baron Treowen, soldier and politician
• 20 November – Augustine Birrell, author and politician
• 19 December – George Jackson Churchward, locomotive engineer, Great Western Railway
• 26 December – Henry Watson Fowler, lexicographer
• 30 December – Dugald Cowan, educationalist and Liberal politician