1945 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – George VI
• Prime Minister
• * Winston Churchill
• * Clement Attlee
• Parliament
• * 37th
• * 38th

  Events

• 2 January – General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference at Zonhoven describing his contribution to the Battle of the Bulge.
• 23 January – announcement of the establishment of the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation by the Bank of England and the major commercial banks to provide long term investment funding for small and medium-sized enterprises.
• 4 February – Prime Minister Winston Churchill attends the Yalta Conference.
• 13 February – the RAF Bomber Command begins the strategic bombing of Dresden in Saxony, Germany, resulting in a lethal firestorm which kills tens of thousands of civilians.
• 10 March – sixty-seven German prisoners of war tunnel their way out of Island Farm Camp 198 at Bridgend, the biggest escape attempt by German POWs in the UK during the War.
• 14 March – the RAF uses the Grand Slam bomb for the first time on the Bielefeld railway viaduct.
• 17 March – 13 people are killed and 22 injured when a lone Heinkel 111 bomber opens fire and drops bombs on people leaving a cinema in Kingston upon Hull.
• 27 March – last day of V-2 rocket attacks aimed at the UK. One hits Hughes Mansions, Stepney in East London, killing 134 and the last falls in Orpington with one fatality.
• 29 March – the last V-1 flying bomb attack on the UK takes place. The last enemy action of any kind on British soil occurs when one strikes Datchworth in Hertfordshire without any fatalities or injuries.
• 13 April – the first Scottish National Party Member of Parliament, Robert McIntyre, is elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom after his victory at the Motherwell by-election.
• 15 April – British troops liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; Richard Dimbleby reports on it for the BBC.
• 19 April – Geoffrey Fisher enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.
• April – Sybil Campbell is appointed a stipendiary magistrate in London, the first woman to become a professional judge in the UK.
• 7 May – at 23:00 the is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-2336 off the Firth of Forth with two killed, the last British-flagged merchant ship lost to German action.
• 8 May – eight days after the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the collapse of the Nazi rule in Berlin, V-E Day is celebrated throughout the UK. Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes a victory speech and appears on the balcony of Buckingham Palace with George VI, Queen Elizabeth and Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. Street parties take place throughout the country.
• 9 May – German forces in the Channel Islands, the only occupied part of the British Isles, surrender.
• 23 May – Churchill forms a "caretaker" Conservative Party administration, pending an election, officially ending the wartime Coalition government.
• 28 May – William Joyce, known as "Lord Haw-Haw" is captured on the German border. He is later charged with high treason in London for his English-language wartime broadcasts on German radio. He is hanged in January 1946.
• 1 June – the UK takes over administration of Lebanon and Syria.
• 4 June – Churchill, in a broadcast election speech, claims that a future socialist government "would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo".
• 7 June – the Benjamin Britten opera Peter Grimes first performed at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London.
• 13 June – Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts renamed Arts Council of Great Britain.
• 15 June – Parliament passes the Family Allowances Act to provide payments to families with children.
• 18 June – the demobilisation of the wartime armed forces begins.
• 5 July – polling day for the first general election to be held since 1935; the vote count is not made for another three weeks so that votes from the servicemen overseas can be added to the total.
• 17 July – Potsdam Conference – the three main Allied leaders begin their final summit of the war. The meeting will end on 2 August.
• 26 July – general election results are announced; Winston Churchill resigns as prime minister after his Conservative Party is soundly defeated by the Labour Party, who have a majority of 146 seats, and Clement Attlee becomes the new Prime Minister. However, Churchill will remain as Leader of the Conservative Party, in opposition. It will be the first time that a Labour government with a majority in the House of Commons has governed Britain. Among the new Labour members of parliament is 29-year-old Harold Wilson, MP for Ormskirk in Lancashire. He will become the next Labour Prime Minister in 1964. A notable casualty of the election is Harold Macmillan, who has now lost the Stockton-on-Tees seat twice for the Conservative Party. Ernest Brown, leader of the National Liberal Party, loses his seat at Leith to Labour and Sir Archibald Sinclair, leader of the Liberal Party, comes third in the poll at Caithness and Sutherland, while their parties are reduced to 11 and 12 seats respectively.
• 27 July – just one day after entering parliament, Alfred Dobbs, the Labour MP for Smethwick, near Birmingham, is killed in a car crash.
• 29 July – the BBC Light Programme radio station is launched, concentrating on the broadcasting of mainstream light music and entertainment, superseding the BBC General Forces Programme within the UK using its longwave frequency from the Droitwich Transmitting Station.
• 5 August – the Giles family cartoon first appears in the Sunday Express.
• 13 August – Zionist World Congress approaches the British government to talk about the establishment of the state of Israel.
• 14 August
• * The 1945 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours are announced, to mark the resignation of Winston Churchill.
• * Polish-Jewish orphans liberated from Theresienstadt concentration camp arrive in England for rehabilitation.
• 15 August – V-J Day is celebrated in the UK following the Japanese surrender.
• 16 August – in the House of Commons, Leader of the Opposition Winston Churchill speaks of an "Iron Curtain" descending across Europe.
• 17 August – George Orwell's Animal Farm published.
• 30 August – British sovereignty of Hong Kong restored following the end of the Japanese occupation of the territory.
• 2 September
• * Press censorship ends.
• * Lend-Lease from the United States terminates.
• September – J. B. Priestley's drama An Inspector Calls is premièred in Leningrad.
• 2 October – Piccadilly Circus tube station becomes the first to be lit by fluorescent light.
• 24 October – the British government signs the United Nations Charter.
• 14 November – Harold Macmillan begins his third term as a Conservative MP, after winning the by-election in Bromley, Kent.
• 15 November – Gainsborough Pictures releases the period melodrama The Wicked Lady starring Margaret Lockwood, Patricia Roc and James Mason.
• 26 November – J. Arthur Rank releases David Lean's film of Noël Coward's Brief Encounter starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard.
• 28 November – British fascist John Amery pleads guilty to treason and is immediately sentenced to hang.
• December
• * Alexander Fleming and Ernst Boris Chain win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Howard Florey "for the discovery of penicillin and it's curative effect in various infectious diseases".
• * John Maynard Keynes secures a fifty-year $3,750,000,000 Anglo-American loan for the Government from the United States at 2%, effective from 1946.
• 10 December – forced repatriation of Liverpool Chinese seamen begins.
• 31 December – Britain receives its first shipment of bananas since the beginning of the war.

  Undated

• Bernard Lovell establishes the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire.
• The grammar school at Windermere reorganises itself to become Britain's first comprehensive school.

  Publications

• Rev. W. V. Awdry's children's book The Three Railway Engines, first of The Railway Series.
• Agatha Christie's novel Sparkling Cyanide.
• E. B. Ford's book Butterflies, first of the New Naturalist series.
• Winston Graham's novel Ross Poldark, first of the Poldark Novels.
• Henry Green's novel Loving.
• C. S. Lewis' novel That Hideous Strength.
• Nancy Mitford's novel The Pursuit of Love.
• George Orwell's novel Animal Farm.
• Karl Popper's book The Open Society and its Enemies.
• Bertrand Russell's book History of Western Philosophy.
• Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited

  Births

• 3 January – David Starkey, English historian
• 6 January – Barry John, Welsh rugby union footballer
• 10 January
• * Jennifer Moss, actress
• * Rod Stewart, rock singer
• 15 January – Princess Michael of Kent, German-born wife of Prince Michael of Kent
• 18 January – Rocco Forte, hotelier
• 21 January – Martin Shaw, English actor
• 26 January
• * Jacqueline du Pré, English cellist
• * Ashley Hutchings, folk rock musician
• 23 January – Richard Dearlove, English intelligence officer
• 29 January – Jim Nicholson, Northern Irish Unionist politician and MEP for Northern Ireland
• 31 January – Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond, President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
• 3 February – Roy 'Chubby' Brown, stand-up comedian
• 5 February – Charlotte Rampling, English actress
• 7 February – Gerald Davies, Welsh rugby player
• 13 February – Simon Schama, historian
• 20 February - Alan Hull, English singer and songwriter
• 16 February – Jeremy Bulloch, English screen actor
• 25 February – Elkie Brooks, English singer
• 26 February – Michael Marmot, English epidemiologist
• 22 March – Peter Williams, English physicist and academic
• 30 March – Eric Clapton, English rock guitarist
• 6 April – Rodney Bickerstaffe, English trade union leader
• 14 April – Ritchie Blackmore, English rock guitarist
• 20 April – Alistair Cooke, Baron Lexden, historian and author
• 21 April
• *Ian Bruce, author and academic
• *Diana Darvey, actress, singer and dancer
• 29 April – Hugh Hopper, English rock guitarist
• 9 May
• *Peter J. Hammond, academic economist
• *Nicholas Wilson, Lord Wilson of Culworth, lawyer and judge
• 12 May – Nicky Henson, actor
• 12 May - Alan Ball, English footballer
• 14 May – George Nicholls, English rugby league footballer
• 16 May – Nicky Chinn, English songwriter
• 19 May – Pete Townshend, English rock guitarist and singer-songwriter
• 29 May – Gary Brooker, English rock pianist and singer
• 3 June
• *Brian Barnes, golfer
• *John Derbyshire, English-American journalist and author
• *Roger Lane-Nott, admiral
• 8 June – Anthony Bagnall, air marshal
• 12 June – Pat Jennings, Northern Irish soccer goalkeeper
• 17 June – Ken Livingstone, politician
• 19 June – John Hind, English bishop and theologian
• 28 June – David Knights, English rock guitarist
• 3 July – Iain MacDonald-Smith, English racing yachtsman
• 7 July – Michael Ancram, Conservative politician and MP for Devizes
• 19 July – Richard Henderson, Scottish molecular biologist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 20 July – John Lodge, English rock singer/songwriter
• 21 July
• * Wendy Cope, English poet
• * John Lowe, English darts player
• 24 July - Martin Edwards, businessman
• 26 July
• * Suzanna Leigh, actress
• * Helen Mirren, actress
• 28 July – Richard Wright, English keyboardist
• 1 August – Laila Morse, English television actress
• 6 August – Ron Jones, television director
• 8 August – Tom O'Carroll, paedophilia advocate
• 9 August – Posy Simmonds, English cartoonist and illustrator
• 13 August – Howard Marks, Welsh cannabis smuggler, writer and campaigner
• 19 August – Ian Gillan, English hard rock singer
• 31 August – Van Morrison, Northern Irish singer and songwriter
• 8 September – Kelly Groucutt, English rock guitarist
• 14 September – Martin Tyler, sports broadcaster
• 21 September – Shaw Clifton, General of The Salvation Army
• 24 September – John Rutter, choral composer
• 26 September – Bryan Ferry, pop rock singer and musician
• 27 September – Bob Spiers, television director
• 15 October – Dave Hill, actor
• 19 October – Angus Deaton, Scottish-born economist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 31 October – Al Jones, folk singer
• 14 November – Louise Ellman, academic and politician
• 25 November - Bobby Knutt, English actor and comedian
• 26 November – John McVie, English rock bass guitarist
• 30 November
• * Hilary Armstrong, politician
• * Mary Millington, pornographic film actress
• 7 December – Clive Russell, English actor
• 17 December – Jacqueline Wilson, English children's writer
• 24 December – Ian "Lemmy" Kilminster, bassist and singer
• 25 December – Eve Pollard, newspaper editor
• 30 December – Davy Jones, English-born pop singer and actor

  Deaths

• 2 January – Bertram Ramsay, admiral
• 9 January – Dennis O'Neill, Welsh child murder victim
• 30 January – William Goodenough, admiral
• 21 January – Archibald Murray, Army general
• 21 February – Eric Liddell, athlete; died in Weixian Internment Camp
• 5 March – Albert Richards, war artist; killed on active service
• 7 March – Daniel Everett, RAF pilot; killed in action
• 8 March – Frederick Bligh Bond, architect, archaeologist and psychical researcher
• 20 March – Lord Alfred Douglas, poet and former lover of Oscar Wilde
• 26 March – David Lloyd George, former Prime Minister
• 29 March – Jack Agazarian, spy; executed
• 7 April – Elizabeth Bibesco, writer and socialite
• 18 April – John Ambrose Fleming, electrical engineer and physicist
• 3 May – Herbert Farjeon, man of the theatre
• 15 May
• *Kenneth J. Alford, composer of military marches
• *Charles Williams, author
• 27 July – Alfred Dobbs, politician
• 6 September – Maximilian von Herff, Waffen-SS officer and Knight's Cross recipient
• 18 September – C. H. Middleton, gardening broadcaster
• 22 September – Thomas Burke, fiction writer
• 31 October
• *Henry Ainley, actor
• *Alfred Edward Taylor, philosopher
• 20 November – Francis William Aston, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 4 December – Arthur Morrison, writer
• 5 December – Cosmo Gordon Lang, former Archbishop of Canterbury
• 14 December – Princess Maud, Countess of Southesk, granddaughter of Edward VII
• 26 December
• * Roger Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, admiral
• * Charlie Trigg, jockey