1974 in the United Kingdom

The year is marked by the Three-Day Week, two general elections, a state of emergency in Northern Ireland, extensive Provisional Irish Republican Army bombing of the British mainland, several large company collapses and major local government reorganisation.

1974 in the United Kingdom
Other years
1972 | 1973 | 1974 (1974) | 1975 | 1976
Constituent countries of the United Kingdom
England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales
Popular culture

Events from the year 1974 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Events

January

  • January – Britain enters its first postwar recession after statistics show that the economy contracted during the third and fourth quarters of last year.
  • 1 January
  • 1 January–7 March – The Three-Day Week is introduced by the Conservative Government as a measure to conserve electricity during the period of industrial action by coal miners.[2]

February

March

  • 3 March – 180 Britons are among the dead when Turkish Airlines Flight 981 travelling from Paris to London crashes in a wood near Paris, killing all 346 aboard.
  • 4 March – Ted Heath fails to convince the Liberals to form a coalition and announced his resignation as Prime Minister, paving the way for Harold Wilson to become Prime Minister for the second time as Labour forms a minority government.
  • 6 March – The miners' strike comes to an end due an improved pay offer by the new Labour government.[12]
  • 7 March – The Three-Day Week comes to an end.[13]
  • 10 March – Ten miners die in a methane gas explosion at Golborne Colliery near Wigan, Lancashire.
  • 11 March – Convicted armed robbers Kenneth Littlejohn and his brother Keith, who claim to be British spies in the Republic of Ireland, escape from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.[14]
  • 15 March – Architect John Poulson is jailed for five years for corruption.[15]
  • 18 March – Oil embargo crisis: Most OPEC nations end a 5-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.
  • 20 March – Ian Ball fails in his attempt to kidnap HRH Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips in The Mall, outside Buckingham Palace.
  • 29 March – The government re-establishes direct rule over Northern Ireland after declaring a state of emergency.[1]

April

May

June

July

August

September

  • 12 September – Brian Clough is dismissed after 44 days as manager of defending league champions Leeds United following a disappointing start to the Football League season.[35]
  • 18 September – Harold Wilson confirms that a second general election for the year will be held on 10 October.
  • 23 September – Ceefax is started by the BBC – one of the first public service information systems.[5]
  • 30 September – With the year's second general election 10 days away, opinion polls show Labour in the lead with Harold Wilson well placed to gain the overall majority that no party achieved in the election held seven months earlier.[36]

October

  • October – Five previously all-male Colleges of the University of Oxford admit women undergraduates for the first time.[37]
  • 5 October – The Guildford pub bombings at The Horse and Groom and The Seven Stars kill five people.[38]
  • 10 October – The second general election of the year results in a narrow victory for Harold Wilson, giving Labour a majority of three seats. It is widely expected that Edward Heath's leadership of the Conservative Party will soon be ended, as he has now lost three of the four General Elections that he has contested in almost a decade as leader.[39] The Scottish National Party secures its highest Westminster party representation to date with 11 seats. Enoch Powell is returned to parliament standing for the Ulster Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.[40] Powell, who was dismissed from the Tory shadow cabinet in April 1968 following his controversial Rivers of Blood speech on immigration, had left the Conservative Party at the 28 February Election and recently rejected an offer to stand as a candidate for the National Front.[41]
  • 16 October – Rioting prisoners set fire to the Maze Prison in Belfast.[42]
  • 19 October – Keith Joseph makes a speech in Edgbaston on the cycle of deprivation; the controversy it provokes has the effect of ruling him out of high office in the Conservative Party.
  • 22 October – The IRA bombs Brooks's club in London.[43]
  • 28 October – The wife and son of Sports Minister Denis Howell survive an IRA bomb attack on their car.[44]

November

December

Undated

Publications

Births

Deaths

See also

References

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  2. "British Economics and Trade Union politics 1973–1974". The National Archives (UK Government records). Archived from the original on 9 June 2007. Retrieved 21 May 2007.
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  4. "1974: Heath calls snap election over miners". BBC News. 7 February 1974. Archived from the original on 19 February 2008. Retrieved 10 February 2008.
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  10. "1968: Powell slates immigration policy". BBC News. 20 April 1968.
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