1973 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister – Edward Heath
• Parliament – 45th

  Events

January

• 1 January – The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark entered the European Economic Community.
• 4 January – 400 children attacked British Army troops in Derry, Northern Ireland.
• 11 January – The Open University awarded its first degrees.
• 19 January – The super tug Statesman was sent to protect British fishing vessels from Icelandic ships in the Cod War.
• 22 January – British share values fell by £4,000,000,000 in one day.
• 25 January – English actor Derren Nesbitt was convicted of assaulting his wife Anne Aubrey.

  February

• 20 February – Two Pakistanis were shot dead by police in London after being spotted carrying pistols, which are later established to have been fake pistols.
• 27 February – Rail workers and civil servants went on strike.

  March

• 1 March – Pink Floyd released The Dark Side of the Moon, the all-time best-selling album by British artists.
• 3 March – Two IRA bombs exploded in London, killing one person and injuring 250 others. Ten people were arrested hours later at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of being involved in the bombings.
• 8 March
• * Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum : 98.9% of those voting in the province wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the UK. Turnout was 58.7%, although less than 1% for Catholics. This was the first referendum on regional government in the UK.
• * IRA bombs exploded in Whitehall and the Old Bailey in London.
• 10 March – The governor of Bermuda Richard Sharples and his aide-de-camp, were assassinated.
• 17 March – Elizabeth II opened the new London Bridge.
• 21 March – Seven men are killed in the Lofthouse Colliery disaster.
• 26 March – Women were admitted into the London Stock Exchange for the first time.

  April

• 1 April
• * Value-added tax came into effect in the UK.
• * Phase 2 of the Price and Pay Code came into effect, restricting rises in pay and prices as a counter-inflation measure.
• 6 April – Peter Niesewand, a correspondent of The Guardian newspaper and the BBC, was jailed in Rhodesia for an alleged breach of the Official Secrets Act.
• 17 April – British Leyland launches its new Austin Allegro, a range of two and four door family saloons which will eventually replace the long-running 1100 and 1300 models, which are set to continue in production alongside the Allegro until next year.
• 28 April – Liverpool and Celtic F.C. were crowned league champions of football in England and Scotland respectively.

  May

• 1 May – 1.6 million workers went on strike over government pay restraints.
• 5 May–28 July – A BBC Television series The Ascent of Man, written and presented by Jacob Bronowski, aired – there was also an accompanying best-selling book.
• 5 May – Sunderland A.F.C. achieved a shock 1-0 win over Leeds United in the FA Cup final at Wembley. Ian Porterfield scores the only goal of the game. It was the first time that an FA Cup winning team had not contained a single player to be capped at full international level, and the first postwar FA Cup won by a side outside the First Division.
• 10 May – The Liberal Party gained control of Liverpool council in the local council elections.
• 15 May – In the House of Commons, Prime Minister Edward Heath, described large payments made by Lonrho to Duncan Sandys through the tax haven of the Cayman Islands at a time when the government is trying to implement a counter-inflation policy as the "unacceptable face of capitalism".
• 20 May – The Royal Navy sent three frigates to protect British fishing vessels from Icelandic ships in the Cod War dispute.
• 23 May – Matrimonial Causes Act amended the law of divorce in England and Wales.
• 29 May – The Princess Royal announced her engagement to Mark Phillips.

  June

• 23 June – A fire at a house in Hull which killed a six-year-old boy is initially thought to be an accident but it later emerged as the first of 26 fire deaths caused over the next seven years by arsonist Peter Dinsdale.

  July

• 1 July – The British Library was established by merger of the British Museum Library in London and the National Lending Library for Science and Technology at Boston Spa in Yorkshire.
• 6 July – The James Bond film Live and Let Die was released in British cinemas, with the spy being played by 45-year-old The Saint star Roger Moore.
• 10 July – The Bahamas gained full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.
• 26 July – Parliamentary by-elections at the Isle of Ely and Ripon resulted in both seats being gained from the Conservatives by the Liberal Party candidates, media personality Clement Freud and David Austick respectively.
• 30 July
• * Markham Colliery disaster: eighteen coal miners were killed at the coal mine near Staveley, Derbyshire, when the brake mechanism on their cage fails.
• * £20,000,000 compensation was paid to victims of Thalidomide following an eleven-year court case.
• 31 July – Militant protesters of Ian Paisley disrupted the first sitting of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

  August

• 8 August – Gordon Banks, the Stoke City and England goalkeeper, announced his retirement from football having lost the sight in one eye in a car crash in October last year.
• 20 August – Football League president Len Shipman called for the government to bring back the birch as a tactic of dealing with the growing problem of football hooliganism.
• 21 August – The coroner in the Bloody Sunday inquest accused the British army of "sheer unadulterated murder" after the jury returns an open verdict.

  September

• 8 September – The IRA detonated bombs in Manchester and Victoria Station in London.
• 10 September
• * IRA bombs at King's Cross and Euston railway stations in London injured 13 people.
• * The fashion store Biba re-opened in Kensington High Street.
• 12 September – Further IRA bombs exploded in Oxford Street and Sloane Square.
• 28 September – Somerset Coalfield last worked.

  October

• 8 October
• * London Broadcasting Company, Britain's first legal commercial Independent Local Radio station, begins broadcasting.
• * Prime Minister Edward Heath announced government proposals for its counter-inflationary Price and Pay Code Stage Three, including limiting pay rises to 7%, restricting price rises, and paying £10 bonuses to pensioners before Christmas - a move which would cost around £80,000,000 funded by a 9p rise in National Insurance contributions.
• 16 October
• * The film Don't Look Now, containing one of the most graphic sex scenes hitherto shown in mainstream British cinema, is released in a double bill with The Wicker Man.
• * Capital Radio, Britain's first legal music themed commercial Independent Local Radio station, begins broadcasting.
• 20 October – The Dalai Lama made his first visit to the UK.
• 26 October – Firefighters in Glasgow stage a one-day strike as part of a pay dispute; troops are drafted in to run the fire stations.
• 31 October – The sixth series of BBC television sitcom Dad's Army opens with the episode "The Deadly Attachment" containing the "Don't tell him, Pike!" exchange which becomes rated as one of the top three greatest comedy moments of British television.

  November

• 8 November
• * The Second Cod War between Britain and Iceland ended.
• * The government made £146,000,000 compensation available to three nationalised industries to cover losses resulting from the price restraint policies.
• 12 November
• * Miners began overtime ban; ambulance drivers began selective strikes.
• * Television sitcom Last of the Summer Wine began its first series run on BBC One, following a premiere in Comedy Playhouse on 4 January. It would run for 31 series spanning 37 years.
• 14 November
• * Eight members of the Provisional IRA were convicted of the March bombings in London.
• * The Princess Royal married Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey.
• 26 November – Peter Walker, the Secretary for Trade and Industry, warned that petrol rationing may have to be introduced in the near future as a result of the oil crisis in the Middle East which was restricting petrol supply.
• November – Unemployment in the United Kingdom reached a low of 3.4%; it went no lower for at least 40 years.

  December

• 5 December – The speed limit on motorways was reduced to 50 mph from 70 mph until further notice.
• 9 December – The Sunningdale Agreement was signed in Sunningdale, Berkshire by Prime Minister Edward Heath, Irish premier Liam Cosgrave, and representatives of the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.
• 10 December
• * Brian Josephson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects".
• * Geoffrey Wilkinson won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Ernst Otto Fischer "for their pioneering work, performed independently, on the chemistry of the organometallic, so called sandwich compounds".
• 19 December - Ealing rail crash: The 17.18 Paddington to Oxford express train was derailed between Ealing Broadway and West Ealing resulting in 10 dead and 94 injured.
• 31 December – As a result of coal shortages caused by industrial action, the electricity consumption reduction measure – the Three-Day Week, announced on 17 December - came into force at midnight.

  Undated

• Inflation has risen to 8.4%.
• Start of Secondary banking crisis of 1973-1975.
• Darul Uloom Bury, the UK's oldest Islamic seminary, is established.
• Vindolanda tablets discovered by Robin Birley near Hadrian's Wall.
• Pizza Hut opens its first UK restaurant in Islington.
• The National House Building Council is formed.
• Completion of Cromwell Tower, the first tower block on the Barbican Estate in the City of London and at this date London's tallest residential tower at 42 storeys and high.
• Death of last pure-bred Norfolk Horn ram.

  Publications

• Martin Amis's novel The Rachel Papers.
• Agatha Christie's novel Postern of Fate.
• J. G. Farrell's novel The Siege of Krishnapur.
• Graham Greene's novel The Honorary Consul.
• B. S. Johnson's novel Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry.
• Iris Murdoch's novel The Black Prince.

  Births

January–March

• 18 January - Crispian Mills, British musician
• 7 February - Kate Thornton, TV presenter
• 8 February - Sonia Deol, presenter
• 27 February - Peter Andre, singer
• 4 March - Penny Mordaunt, politician

  April–June

• 3 April - Jamie Bamber, actor
• 26 April - Geoff Lloyd, radio host
• 26 April - Chris Perry, English footballer
• 10 May - Dario Franchitti, Scottish race car driver
• 21 May - Noel Fielding, English comedian
• 24 May - Dermot O'Leary, British television presenter
• 30 May - Leigh Francis, British comedian
• 30 May - Andrew Stephen Cole, British DJ
• 9 June - Iain Lee, British comedian and radio and television presenter
• 27 June - Tom Tugendhat, English politician

  July–September

• 2 July - Peter Kay, comedian
• 3 July - Emma Cunniffe, actress
• 6 July - Bradley Dredge, golfer
• 23 July - Fran Healy, singer
• 26 July - Kate Beckinsale, actress
• 12 August - Richard Reid, terrorist
• 20 August - Stephen Nolan, Northern Irish radio presenter
• 12 September - Darren Campbell, athlete
• 20 September - Jason MacIntyre, racing cyclist

  October–December

• 21 October - Beverley Turner, British TV and radio presenter
• 29 November - Ryan Giggs, Welsh footballer
• 17 December - Paula Radcliffe, British athlete
• 18 December - Lucy Worsley, English historian
• 24 December
• * Paul Foot, English comedian
• * Matt Tebbutt, British TV presenter and chef

  Undated

• Katie Carr, actress and model
• Frances Hardinge, young adult fiction writer
• Miranda Krestovnikoff, archaeologist and television host

  Deaths

January–March

• 15 January - Neil M. Gunn, Scottish novelist, critic, and dramatist
• 19 January - Max Adrian, Northern Irish actor
• 28 January - Francis Romney, English cricketer
• 16 February - Harold Gibbons, English cricketer
• 22 February - Elizabeth Bowen, novelist
• 12 March - David Lack, British ornithologist and biologist
• 26 March - Noël Coward, English composer and playwright
• 30 March - Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, British politician and Conservative peer

  April–June

• 9 May - Owen Brannigan, English singer
• 11 May - Russell Everitt, English cricketer
• 14 May - A. C. Ewing, British philosopher
• 21 May - Montague Dawson, English maritime painter
• 6 June - Jimmy Clitheroe, aka 'The Clitheroe Kid', English comedian
• 18 June - Roger Delgado, English actor

  July–September

• 1 July - Charles Ernest Garforth, English soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross
• 8 July - Wilfred Rhodes, English cricketer
• 18 July
• * John Brown Hamilton, Scottish soldier and recipient of the Victoria Cross
• * Jack Hawkins, English actor The Cruel Sea
• 29 July
• * Roger Williamson, British race car driver
• * Cecil Griffiths, British athlete, winner of gold medal in 4 × 400 m relay at the 1920 Summer Olympics
• 6 August - James Beck, actor
• 15 August - Edward Turner, English motorcycle designer
• 16 August - A. K. Chesterton, British politician and journalist
• 17 August - George Benson, British Labour Party politician
• 18 August - Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, British Ulster Unionist politician
• 29 August - Stringer Davis, English actor
• 2 September - J. R. R. Tolkien, British writer
• 6 September - William Henry Harris, English organist and composer
• 11 September - E. E. Evans-Pritchard, British anthropologist
• 21 September - C. H. Dodd, Welsh scholar and theologian
• 24 September - Barbara Freyberg, Baroness Freyberg, British peeress
• 25 September - George Porter, British Labour Party politician
• 29 September - W. H. Auden, English poet

  October–December

• 4 October - Walter Montagu Douglas Scott, 8th Duke of Buccleuch, British politician and Conservative peer
• 9 October - Hilda Plowright, English actress
• 10 November - Gerald Cock, British broadcasting executive
• 21 November - Sir Roy Fedden, English aircraft engine designer
• 5 December - Sir Robert Watson-Watt, Scottish inventor
• 9 December - Anthony Gilbert, British crime fiction writer
• 13 December - Henry Green, novelist