1982 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1982 in the United Kingdom. The year was dominated by the Falklands War.

1982 in the United Kingdom
Other years
1980 | 1981 | 1982 (1982) | 1983 | 1984
Constituent countries of the United Kingdom
England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales
Popular culture

Incumbents

Events

January

  • 1 January – ITV launches three regional TV stations – Central, TV South and TV South West, replacing ATV Midlands, Southern Television and Westward Television respectively.
  • 2 January –
  • 10 January – The lowest ever UK temperature of −27.2 °C is recorded at Braemar, in Aberdeenshire. This equals the record set in the same place in 1895, and the record will be equalled again at Altnaharra in 1995.[2]
  • 11 January – Mark Thatcher, son of the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, disappears in the Sahara during Paris-Dakar rally.[3]
  • 14 January – Mark Thatcher is found safe and well in the Sahara Desert, six days after going missing.[4]
  • 21 January – Miners vote against strike action and accept the National Coal Board offer of a 9.3% pay rise.
  • 26 January – Unemployment in the United Kingdom is recorded at over 3,000,000 people for the first time since the 1930s.[5][6] However, the 11.5% of the workforce currently unemployed is approximately half of the record percentage which was reached half a century ago.[7]

February

March

April

  • 1 April – A twelve-year-old unnamed Birmingham boy becomes one of the youngest people in England and Wales to be convicted of murder after he admits murdering an eight-year-old boy, and is sentenced to be detained indefinitely.[1]
  • 2 April – Falklands War begins as Argentina invades the Falkland Islands.[2]
  • 4 April – Falklands War: The British Falkland Islands government surrenders, placing the islands in Argentine control.
  • 5 April – Falklands War: Royal Navy task force sets sail to the Falklands from Portsmouth.[17]
  • 7 April – Britain declares a 200-mile "exclusion zone" around the Falklands.
  • 17 April – By proclamation of the Queen of Canada on Parliament Hill, Canada repatriates its constitution, granting full political independence from the United Kingdom; included is the country's first entrenched bill of rights.
  • 21 April – Walsall F.C.'s hopes of becoming the first Football League club to ground-share are dashed when officials condemn their plans to sell their Fellows Park stadium and become tenants at the Molineux (home of Wolverhampton Wanderers).[18]
  • 24 April
  • 25 April – Falklands War: Royal Marines recapture South Georgia.[17]
  • 29 April – Daniel and Christopher Smith, Britain's first test tube twins, are born to parents Josephine and Stewart, at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
  • 30 April – The Conservatives return to the top of the opinion polls for the first time since late 1979, with the latest MORI poll showing that they have 43% of the vote, ahead of the SDP-Liberal Alliance.[19]

May

June

July

August

September

  • 7 September – Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expresses her concern at the growing number of children living in single-parent families, but says that she is not opposed to divorce.
  • 22 September – An estimated 14% of the workforce is now reported to be unemployed.[29]
  • 23 September – Nigel Lawson announces that no industry should remain in state ownership unless there is an "overwhelming" case.
  • 27 September – General Motors launches the Spanish-built Opel Corsa, which will be sold in Britain from April next year as the Vauxhall Nova. The new front-wheel drive range of small hatchbacks and saloons will effectively replace the Chevette. However, the transport workers union has thrown the future of the new car, which is expected to sell around 50,000 units a year, into jeopardy by blocking imports to Britain.[30]
  • 30 September – Lord Denning delivers his last judgement as Master of the Rolls.
  • 30 September – After well over 100 years, the UK Inland Telegram service closed. Telegram figures peaked after the first world war with over 100m sent annually, by the time the service closed the annual figure was down to less than 3 million.

October

  • 8 October – With the economy now climbing out of recession after more than two years, Margaret Thatcher vows to stick to her economic policies, and blames previous governments for the decline that she inherited when entering power more than three years ago.
  • 11 October – The Mary Rose, flagship of Henry VIII of England that sank in 1545, is raised from the Solent.[31]
  • 12 October – A victory parade is held in London to mark the end of the Falklands war.
  • 15 October – The Ford Sierra is launched as a replacement for the long-running Cortina, and its ultra-modern aerodynamic styling causes controversy among potential buyers who for years had been drawn to the conventional Cortina.[32]
  • 21 October – Sinn Féin win their first seats on the Northern Ireland Assembly, with Gerry Adams winning the Belfast West seat.[33]
  • 27 October – Three RUC officers killed by an IRA bomb near Lurgan in Northern Ireland.[34]

November

  • November – The Government announces that more than 400,000 council houses have been sold off under the right-to-buy scheme within the last three years.[35]
  • 1 November
    • The Welsh language television station, S4C, launches in Wales.
    • Opinion polls show the Conservatives still firmly in the lead, suggesting that a general election will be held by next summer.
  • 2 November – The fourth terrestrial television channel, Channel 4, begins broadcasting,[2] the first programme broadcast being the game show Countdown, hosted by Richard Whiteley. Another flagship programme is the Liverpool-based soap opera Brookside.[36]
  • 7 November – The Thames Barrier is first publicly demonstrated.
  • 12 November – Express Lift Tower in Northampton officially opened.
  • 15 November – Unemployment remains in excess of 3,000,000 people – 13.8% of the workforce.
  • 28 November – Opinion polls show the Conservative government with an approval rating of up to 44% and well on course for a second successive electoral victory, 13 points ahead of Labour. Support for the Alliance has halved in the space of a year.[37]

December

Undated

  • Inflation has fallen to a 10-year low of 8.6%, although some 1,500,000 jobs have reportedly been lost largely due to Government policy in attaining this end.[40]
  • Vauxhall drops Opel symbol from cars.

Publications

Births

Deaths

See also

References

  1. "Those were the days". Expressandstar.com. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
  2. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
  3. "1982: Mark Thatcher missing in Sahara". BBC News. 12 January 1982. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  4. "1982: Mark Thatcher found safe and well". BBC News. 15 January 1982. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  5. "1982: UK unemployment tops three million". BBC News. 26 January 2008. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
  6. The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. p. 665. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
  7. "Britain Since 1948". www.localhistories.org.
  8. "1982: Laker Airways goes bust". BBC News. 5 February 1982. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  9. "Next history". Next PLC. Retrieved 12 October 2010.
  10. "Apostolic Nunciature of Great Britain". GCatholic.org. 2014. Retrieved 29 November 2014.
  11. "Parents win right to forbid school caning". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  12. Skow, John (8 March 1982). "Music: Final Curtain for D'Oyly Carte". Time. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
  13. "1982: Queen opens Barbican Centre". BBC News. 3 March 1982. Archived from the original on 18 October 2007. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  14. "1982: Judge halts 'obscenity' trial". BBC News. 18 March 1982. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  15. Brenton, Howard (28 January 2006). "Look back in anger". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  16. Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 446–447. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
  17. "Those were the days". Express & Star. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
  18. "Trend | Voting Intention in Great Britain: 1976–present". Ipsos MORI. Archived from the original on 21 February 2011. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
  19. "The Hacienda Manchester". Manchester District Music Archive. Retrieved 5 March 2011.
  20. "1982: Pope makes historic visit to Canterbury". BBC News. 29 May 1982. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  21. "1982: Israeli ambassador shot in London". BBC News. 3 June 1982. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  22. "1982: Fifty die in Argentine air attack". BBC News. 8 June 2008. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
  23. "The Royal Mint – Twenty Pence Coin".
  24. "1982: Welsh miners back health workers". BBC News. 16 June 1982. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  25. "Michael Fagan: 'Her nightie was one of those Liberty prints, down to her knees'". The Independent. 19 February 2012. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  26. Marr, Andrew (2007). A History of Modern Britain. London: Macmillan. p. 438. ISBN 978-1-4050-0538-8.
  27. "Announcement of the christening of Lady Louise Windsor". Royal.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
  28. "Britons mount massive anti-Thatcher demonstration". Record-Journal. Meriden, CT. 23 September 1982. p. 14. Retrieved 19 February 2016.
  29. "Opel gives details of car in union row". Glasgow Herald. 28 September 1982. p. 7. Retrieved 19 February 2016.
  30. "1982: Mary Rose rises after 437 years". BBC News. 11 October 1982. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  31. "The Glasgow Herald - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com.
  32. "1982: Sinn Féin triumph in elections". BBC News. 21 October 1982. Archived from the original on 23 October 2007. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  33. "1982: RUC officers killed by IRA bomb". BBC News. 27 October 1982. Archived from the original on 29 October 2007. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  34. "1979: Council tenants will have 'right to buy'". BBC News. 20 December 1979.
  35. Moffatt, Simon (November 2007). "Brookside". BBC. Liverpool. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
  36. Johnson, Maureen (28 November 1982). "Britons willing to continue with Thatcher's economics". The Gadsden Times. Gadsden, Alabama. p. 2. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
  37. "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1982". Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  38. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1982". Archived from the original on 30 October 2007. Retrieved 30 November 2007.
  39. "Inflation: the Value of the Pound 1750–1998" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 February 2010. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
  40. Carr, Tim; Dale, Iain; Waller, Robert (7 September 2017). The Politicos Guide to the New House of Commons 2017. ISBN 9781785902789.
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