1995 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister – John Major
• Parliament – 51st

  Events

January

• 1 January –
• * Fred West, the 53-year-old Gloucester builder charged with killing twelve women and children, is found hanged in his cell at Winson Green Prison, Birmingham. He was due to go on trial this year, along with his 41-year-old wife Rosemary, who is charged with ten murders.
• * South Korean industrial giant Daewoo announces plans to build a new car factory in the United Kingdom within the next few years, costing up to £350,000,000 and creating new jobs.
• 10 January – The British transfer fee record is broken when Manchester United sign striker Andy Cole from Newcastle United in a deal valued at £7,000,000.
• 20 January – The first MORI poll of 1995 shows that the Conservative Party have cut Labour's lead in the polls from 39 points to 29.
• 25 January – Eric Cantona, the French international forward, assaults a spectator after being sent off while playing for Manchester United against Crystal Palace in the FA Premier League.
• 27 January – Manchester United confirm that Eric Cantona will not play for the first team for the rest of the current football season.

  February

• 1 February – New domestic electrical appliances must be supplied with an appropriately fused pre-wired plug.
• 7 February – Rumbelows, the electrical goods retailer and former sponsors of the Football League Cup, closes its 311 stores with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs.
• 14 February – Sizewell B nuclear power station, the UK's only commercial pressurised water reactor power station, is first synchronised with the National Grid.
• 15 February –
• * The manufacturing sector has reported its biggest rise in employment since the Conservatives first came to power sixteen years earlier, although the national unemployment rate rose slightly in January, still being in excess 2,500,000 – it has not been below this mark since late-1991.
• * The England football team's friendly match against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin is abandoned due to the behaviour of a small number of English fans, believed to be members of far-right activist groups.
• 16 February – Neil Kinnock, former Leader of the Labour Party, resigns from Parliament after twenty-five years to take up a new role as a European Commissioner, sparking a by-election in his Islwyn constituency in South Wales. Don Touhig retains the seat for Labour, with nearly 70% of the vote.
• 17 February – The famous MG sports car brand, not seen on a volume sports car since 1980, is revived when the Rover Group unveils the new MGF sports car which will go on sale this autumn.
• 21 February – George Graham, who has won six major trophies including two league titles in nearly a decade as manager of Arsenal F.C., is sacked over allegations that he accepted illegal payments from an agent when signing two players in 1992.
• 24 February – The Football Association bans Eric Cantona from football for eight months, meaning that he will not be able to play competitively until after 30 September.
• 26 February – Barings Bank, the UK's oldest merchant bank collapses following $1,400,000,000 of losses by rogue trader, Nick Leeson.
• 28 February – The Diary of Bridget Jones column first published in The Independent.

  March

• 9 March – The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visit Northern Ireland for the first time since the IRA and Loyalist ceasefire which came into force last year.
• 20 March – The Queen arrives in Cape Town for the first royal visit to South Africa in nearly fifty years.
• 23 March – Eric Cantona is sentenced to fourteen days imprisonment at Croydon Crown Court for his assault on a Crystal Palace fan two months ago. He remains free on bail, pending an appeal against his sentence, but if his appeal is unsuccessful he will be the first footballer to be jailed in Britain for an on-field offence. Davie Cooper, footballing genius, tragically dies as he collapses while training.
• 31 March – Eric Cantona wins his appeal against his prison sentence, which is reduced to a 120-hour community service order.

  April

• 1 April – Daewoo begins selling cars in the United Kingdom. It offers a two-model range; the Nexia and Espero – updated versions of the 1984 Vauxhall Astra and 1981 Vauxhall Cavalier respectively.
• 8 April – British-born American national Nicholas Ingram, 31, is executed in Georgia for a murder committed in 1983.
• 16 April – PhONEday changes all telephone area dialing codes UK-wide.

  May

• 4 May – The Conservative government's fortunes continue to decline as the local council elections see them in control of a mere eight councils, while Labour control 155 councils and the Liberal Democrats control 45. The Conservatives now have control of no councils in Wales or Scotland.
• 8 May – The fiftieth anniversary of VE Day is celebrated across Britain.
• 14 May – Blackburn Rovers become FA Premier League champions, earning them their first top division league title since 1914.
• 20 May – Everton win the FA Cup with a 1–0 win over Manchester United at Wembley Stadium.
• 25 May – Roseanna Cunningham wins the Perth by-election for the Scottish National Party, three months after the seat became vacant upon the death of the Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Fairbairn. The Conservative majority has now fallen from 21 seats to 11, in the space of three years since the last general election.

  June

• 9 June – Andrew Richards, a 26-year-old serial sex offender of West Glamorgan, becomes the first person to be convicted of male rape under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
• 14 June – Pauline Clare is appointed as Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary, becoming the first woman to hold the office of Chief Constable.
• 20 June – Arsenal pay a British record fee of £7,500,000 for Inter Milan and Holland striker Dennis Bergkamp.
• 22 June – In an attempt to reassert his authority, John Major resigns as leader of the Conservative Party triggering a leadership election.
• 23 June – The latest MORI opinion poll shows that Conservative support has reached an 18-month high of 32%, but Labour still have a 22-point lead over them.

  July

• 3 July – The British football transfer record fee is broken for the third time in six months when Liverpool sign striker Stan Collymore from Nottingham Forest for £8,400,000.
• 4 July – John Major wins the Conservative Party leadership election, gaining 218 votes to John Redwood's 89.
• 19 July
• * Pensions Act 1995 receives Royal Assent, proposing to phase in a state pension age for women at 65 over a ten-year period and introducing measures intended to safeguard occupational pension schemes.
• * Unemployment is reported to be on the rise again, though the government denies that it is pointing towards another recession.
• 23 July – War in Bosnia and Herzegovina: British forces sent to Sarajevo to help relieve the Siege of Sarajevo.
• 27 July – The Conservative government's majority is slashed further, to nine seats, as the Liberal Democrats win the Littleborough and Saddleworth seat in Lancashire, two months after it was left vacant by the death of Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens.

  August

• 6 August – Pubs in England are permitted to remain open throughout Sunday afternoon for the first time.
• 16 August – Unemployment is now at 2,315,300 – one of the lowest figures recorded in the last four years.
• 20 August – BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir London, Europe's first traditional-style purpose-built Hindu temple, is inaugurated in Neasden.
• 26 August – Middlesbrough F.C. move into their new 30,000-seat Riverside Stadium, to replace Ayresome Park which had been their home since 1903. Their new stadium is the largest club stadium to be built in England since the interwar years.

  September

• 2 September – Boxer Frank Bruno wins the WBC world heavyweight championship.
• 27 September – The BBC begins regular Digital Audio Broadcasting, from the Crystal Palace transmitting station.

  October

• 7 October – Conservative MP Alan Howarth defects to Labour, cutting the government's majority to seven seats.
• 16 October – Julie Goodyear, who joined the ITV soap opera Coronation Street nearly thirty years ago and had been a regular in the series since 1970, departs from the show.
• 18 October – Unemployment is now at less than 2,300,000 – its lowest level for more than four years.
• 20 October – Vauxhall unveils its new Vectra range of large hatchbacks and saloons. The Vectra, which replaces the Cavalier, will be built in Luton and from next year will also be sold as an estate car.
• 22 October – Brilliant!, an exhibition by the Young British Artists group, opens at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA.
• 25 October – Singer Cliff Richard receives a knighthood.

  November

• 16 November –
• * Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother has a hip replacement operation. At ninety-five years of age, she is believed to be the oldest patient to undergo such surgery.
• * Essex teenager Leah Betts dies in hospital four days after slipping into a coma due to taking an ecstasy tablet whilst drinking large amounts of water, sparking a media crusade, backed by Leah's father and stepmother, against the drug and those supplying it.
• 17 November
• * Launch of the European Space Agency's Infrared Space Observatory including a Long Wave Spectrometer built in the UK.
• * The Today newspaper is discontinued after nine years in circulation.
• 20 November – Diana, Princess of Wales gives a revealing television interview to Martin Bashir on the Panorama programme on BBC One. She discusses her adultery, depression and bulimia, her children, the media and the future of the monarchy in candid detail. An estimated 22.78 million watch the broadcast, the all-time record for a UK current affairs programme.
• 22 November – Rose West is found guilty of murdering ten women and children, including her 16-year-old daughter Heather and seven-year-old stepdaughter Charmaine, after a trial at Winchester Crown Court. She is sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that she is never released.
• 24 November – The spy James Bond returns to U.K. cinemas six years after the last film was made, for the seventeenth film GoldenEye, with Irish actor Pierce Brosnan playing the part of Bond, filmed at the newly-created Leavesden Studios.
• 28 November – Budget: Chancellor Ken Clarke cuts the basic level of income tax to 24p in the pound.
• 30 November – President of the United States, Bill Clinton visits Northern Ireland.

  December

• 2 December – "Rogue trader" Nick Leeson is jailed for six-and-a-half years in Singapore on a double fraud charge relating to the recent financial collapse of Barings Bank.
• 8 December – Head teacher Philip Lawrence is murdered outside St George's Catholic School in London.
• 10 December – Joseph Rotblat wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 13 December – A riot takes place in London.
• 20 December – The Queen writes to the Prince and Princess of Wales three years after their separation, urging them to divorce as soon as possible.
• 29 December – The Conservative majority now stands at a mere five seats following the defection of MP Emma Nicholson to the Liberal Democrats.
• 30 December – Altnaharra in the Scottish Highlands matches the lowest temperature UK Weather Record at −27.2^oC.

  Undated

• The driest summer in recorded English meteorological history, with an average EWP series of only, and also the third-hottest with an average Central England temperature of.
• Contingent fee litigation permitted in the Courts of England and Wales.
• 1% of the UK population now have internet access.

  Publications

• Martin Amis's novel The Information.
• Iain Banks' novel Whit.
• Pat Barker's novel The Ghost Road.
• Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity.
• Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Maskerade.
• Philip Pullman's novel Northern Lights.
• Delia Smith's cookery Winter Collection.
• Barry Unsworth's novel Morality Play

  Births

January

• January – Kane Haysman, footballer
• 1 January – Adam Campbell, footballer
• 5 January – Tom John, footballer
• 4 January – Adam Webster, footballer
• 7 January – Jessica Judd, runner
• 8 January
• * Kyle Edmund, South Africa-born tennis player
• * Stephen Hendrie, footballer
• * Romello Nangle, footballer
• 13 January
• * Steven Brisbane, footballer
• * Eros Vlahos, actor
• 16 January – Sam Long, footballer
• 18 January
• * Zack Kotwica, footballer
• * Tommy O'Sullivan, footballer
• 20 January – Calum Chambers, footballer
• 23 January – Clifford Newby-Harris, footballer
• 25 January – Joel Logan, footballer
• 26 January – Lewis Small, footballer
• 29 January – Germain Burton, cyclist
• 30 January – Jack Laugher, diver

  February

• 1 February – Richard Wisker
• 2 February – Paul Digby, footballer
• 5 February – Reece Page, footballer
• 6 February – Jasper Johns, footballer
• 7 February – Tom Glynn-Carney, actor
• 10 February – Harry Finch, cricketer
• 12 February – Reece Hales, footballer
• 13 February
• * Alex Mowatt, footballer
• * Connor Waldon, footballer
• * Craig Watson, footballer
• 18 February
• * Mitchell Oxborrow, footballer
• * Kimberley Reed, athlete
• 19 February
• * Ryan Finnie, footballer
• * Dylan McLaughlin, footballer
• 23 February – Rory Elrick, actor
• 26 February – Liam Fairhurst, charity fundraiser

  March

• 1 March – Danny Mullen, footballer
• 2 March – Joe Hanks, footballer
• 4 March – Bill Milner, actor
• 12 March – Forrayah Bass, footballer
• 20 March – Harry Lee, footballer
• 22 March – Dafydd Howells, rugby union player
• 29 March - Joshua Sinclair-Evans, actor

  April

• 7 April – Will Hughes, footballer
• 9 April – Coll Donaldson, footballer
• 12 April – Harry Middleton, footballer
• 14 April – Alan Frizzell, footballer
• 15 April – Nick Awford, footballer
• 16 April
• *Poppy Lee Friar, actress
• * Josh Meade, footballer
• * Ross M. Stewart, footballer
• 23 April
• *Callum O'Dowda, footballer
• *Kelly Simm, gymnast
• 25 April – Lewis Hornby, footballer
• 30 April – Drey Wright, footballer

  May

• 2 May – Skye Bennett, actress
• 14 May – Fox Jackson-Keen, actor, dancer and singer
• 18 May – Craig Sibbald, footballer
• 20 May – Brandon Zibaka, footballer
• 24 May – Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein
• 25 May – Jamie Allen, footballer
• 30 May – Jonah Hauer-King, actor

  June

• June – Arran Fernandez, student
• 5 June
• * Beckii Cruel, dancer and singer
• * Ross Wilson, tennis player
• 8 June
• *Bessie Cursons, actress
• *Tom Grennan, singer
• 12 June – Hannah Starling, diver
• 16 June
• * Jake Dennis, racing driver
• * Oliver Lines, snooker player
• 17 June – Richie Fallows, squash player
• 22 June – Jack Lynch, footballer
• 23 June – Lauren Aquilina, singer–songwriter
• 29 June – Tyler Harvey, footballer
• 30 June – Declan John, footballer

  July

• 5 July – Baily Cargill, footballer
• 7 July – Cameron Dawson, footballer
• 9 July – Georgie Henley, actress
• 12 July – Luke Shaw, footballer
• 15 July
• * Matt Grimes, footballer
• * Joseph N'Guessan, footballer
• 16 July – Kortney Hause, footballer
• 23 July – Faryl Smith, singer
• 26 July
• * Holly Bodimeade, actress
• * Darren Petrie, footballer
• 28 July – Ben Watton, actor

  August

• 4 August – Chris Sutherland, footballer
• 5 August – Leo Chambers, footballer
• 11 August – Ben Davies, footballer
• 17 August – Alex Skeel, football coach and domestic violence survivor
• 22 August – Dua Lipa, singer and songwriter
• 24 August – Cammy Smith, Scottish footballer
• 29 August – Shaquille Hunter, footballer
• 31 August – Ceallach Spellman, actor

  September

• 1 September – Dannielle Khan, cyclist
• 5 September – Dominic Sibley, cricketer
• 7 September – George Williams, footballer
• 13 September – Robbie Kay, actor
• 20 September
• * Kirsty Howard, charity fundraiser
• * Rob Holding, footballer
• 24 September
• * Conor McGrandles, footballer
• * George Whiteoak, footballer
• 26 September – Hayley Jones, racing cyclist
• 27 September – Ryan Haynes, footballer
• 30 September – Harry Stott, actor

  October

• 5 October – Diego De Girolamo, footballer
• 12 October – Jordan Howe, athlete
• 28 October – Wesley Burns, footballer

  November

• 1 November – Nick D'Aloisio, Australia-born entrepreneur, computer programmer and designer
• 6 November – Bradley Tarbuck, footballer
• 9 November – Finn Cole, actor
• 16 November – Rolando Aarons, footballer
• 17 November – Leyci Wightman, actress and dancer
• 22 November – Declan McDaid, footballer
• 28 November – Libby Rees, author
• 29 November – Siobhan-Marie O'Connor, swimmer

  December

• 4 December – Dina Asher-Smith, sprinter
• 7 December – Jaanai Gordon, footballer
• 8 December – Jordon Ibe, footballer
• 12 December – Mark O'Hara, footballer
• 16 December – Ryan Gauld, footballer
• 19 December – Elliot Evans, singer
• 24 December – Taryam Boyd, actor
• 27 December – Laurence Belcher, actor

  Full date unknown

• Ashleigh Butler, dog trainer
• Tex Jacks, actor
• Joshua Pascoe, actor

  Deaths

• 1 January – Fred West, serial killer
• 7 January
• * Harry Golombek, chess grandmaster
• * Larry Grayson, comedian and gameshow host
• 9 January – Peter Cook, comedy actor, satirist, writer and comedian
• 14 January – Sir Alexander Gibson, conductor
• 30 January – Gerald Durrell, naturalist, zookeeper, author and television presenter
• 2 February
• * Fred Perry, tennis player
• * Donald Pleasence, actor
• 12 February – Robert Bolt, writer
• 23 February – James Herriot, veterinary surgeon and writer
• 17 March – Ronnie Kray, jailed crime leader
• 23 March – Davie Cooper, footballer
• 4 April – Kenny Everett, comic broadcast presenter
• 7 April – Nicholas Ingram, first British citizen to be executed by the electric chair in the United States
• 2 May – Sir Michael Hordern, actor
• 5 May – Sir Anthony Wagner, herald and Clarenceux King of Arms
• 15 May – Eric Porter, actor
• 24 May – Harold Wilson, Prime Minister, 1964–70 & 1974–76
• 28 May – Jean Muir, fashion designer
• 30 May – Ted Drake, former footballer and football manager
• 22 July – Harold Larwood, fast bowler
• 24 July – George Rodger, photojournalist
• 3 August – Ida Lupino, actress and director
• 7 August – Dursley McLinden, actor
• 19 August – Johnny Carey, former footballer and football manager
• 25 September – Dave Bowen, former footballer and football manager
• 28 September – Albert Johanneson, South African born, British based footballer
• 8 October – John Cairncross, Scottish-born public servant, spy for the Soviet Union, academic and writer
• 9 October – Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister, 1963–64
• 22 October – Kingsley Amis, writer
• 31 October – Alan Bush, composer, pianist and conductor
• 4 November – Paul Eddington, actor
• 12 November – Sir Robert Stephens, actor
• 16 November – Leah Betts, high-profile victim of the drug ecstasy
• 21 November – Wilfred White, equestrian
• 25 November – Alan Nicholls, English football goalkeeper
• 22 December – James Meade, economist, Nobel Prize laureate