1932 in the United Kingdom

1932 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1930 | 1931 | 1932 (1932) | 1933 | 1934

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport, Television and music

1932 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland 1932 in British television

Events from the year 1932 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George V
• Prime Minister – Ramsay MacDonald (national coalition)

Events

• 8 January – The Archbishop of Canterbury forbids church remarriage of divorcees.
• 24 January – Inmates at Dartmoor Prison mutiny.
• 26 January – British submarine HMS M2 sinks off the Dorset coast with all fifty hands.
• 4 February–15 February – Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete in the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York but do not win any medals.

Broadcasting House

• 1 February–29 February – With an average precipitation of 8.8 millimetres or 0.35 inches, this period constitutes the driest calendar month over the United Kingdom as a whole since records began in 1910.
• 1 March – Import Duties Act re-establishes protective trade tariffs.
• 15 March – First broadcast from the newly opened Broadcasting House.
• 6 April – Ministry of Health encourages local councils to engage in widespread slum clearance.
• 13 April – Mass trespass of Kinder Scout, a willful trespass by ramblers at Kinder Scout, in the Peak District of England, to protest against lack of free public access to open country.
• 23 April – New Shakespeare Memorial Theatre opens in Stratford-upon-Avon. Designed by Elisabeth Scott, it is the country's first important work by a woman architect.
• 1 May – Protestors and police clash in Hyde Park, London, during a May day protest against Japan's attitude towards China when they try to march on the Japanese Embassy.
• 10 May – James Chadwick discovers the neutron.
• 26 May – The Scots law case of Donoghue v Stevenson is decided in the House of Lords, establishing the modern concept of a duty of care in cases of negligence.
• 4 July – George Carwardine patents the Anglepoise lamp.
• 12 July – Hedley Verity of Yorkshire establishes a new first-class cricket record by taking all ten wickets for only ten runs against Nottinghamshire on a pitch affected by a storm.
• 19 July – King George V opens the replacement Lambeth Bridge.
• 30 July–14 August – Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Olympics in Los Angeles, California and win 4 gold, 7 silver and 5 bronze.
• 1 August – Forrest Mars produces the first Mars bar in his Slough factory.
• 22 August – First experimental television broadcast by the BBC.
• 20 September – Methodist Union: The Methodist Church is formed in Britain by merger of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Primitive Methodists and the United Methodist Church.
• 26 September – First contingent of the National Hunger March leaves Glasgow.
• October – Oswald Mosley founds the British Union of Fascists.
• 3 October – The Times newspaper first appears set in the Times New Roman typeface devised by Stanley Morison.
• 7 October – Thomas Beecham establishes the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
• 13 October – Britain grants independence to Iraq in exchange for a restrictive long-term military alliance.
• 27 October – Arrival of the Hunger March in London leads to several violent clashes with police.
• 14 November – Book tokens go on sale in the UK.
• 30 November – The BBC begins a series of radio broadcasts to mark the 75th birthday of Sir Edward Elgar.
• 2 December – English cricket team in Australia in 1932–33: Opening of the 'bodyline' series.
• 5 December – The comic strip character Jane first appears in the Daily Mirror.
• 10 December
  • John Galsworthy wins the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga".
  • Charles Scott Sherrington and Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian, win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries regarding the functions of neurons".
• 19 December – The BBC Empire Service, later known as the BBC World Service, begins broadcasting using a shortwave facility at its Daventry transmitting station.
• 25 December – King George V delivers the first Royal Christmas Message.

Undated

• Opening of the Hoover Building on the Western Avenue in Perivale, Middlesex, a noted example of Art Deco architecture, designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners for The Hoover Company.
• English Folk Dance and Song Society formed by merger of the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society.
• Completion of the Becontree housing estate in East London, the largest housing estate in the world, consisting of some 27,000 new council houses which are home to more than 100,000 people. The first families had moved to the estate, which straddles the borders of Dagenham, Barking and Ilford, back in 1921.

Publications

• Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel Peril at End House.
• Lewis Grassic Gibbon's novel Sunset Song, first in A Scots Quair trilogy.
• Stella Gibbons' parodic novel Cold Comfort Farm.
• J. B. S. Haldane's book The Causes of Evolution, unifying Mendelian genetics and evolutionary science.
• Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World.
• Captain W. E. Johns' first collection of Biggles aviation stories The Camels are Coming.
• F. R. Leavis' book New Bearings in English Poetry.
• Q. D. Leavis' book Fiction and the Reading Public.
• John Cowper Powys' novel A Glastonbury Romance.
• Evelyn Waugh's novel Black Mischief.
• First issue of the journal of literary criticism Scrutiny: a quarterly review edited by F. R. Leavis (published in May).
• First issue of the magazine Woman's Own.

Births

• 29 January
  • Tommy Taylor, footballer (died 1958)
  • George Allen, footballer
• 1 February – John Nott, politician
• 27 February – Elizabeth Taylor, actress (died 2011)
• 25 April – William Roache, actor (Coronation Street)
• 26 April – Michael Smith, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2000)
• 8 May – Phyllida Law, actress
• 12 May – Derek Malcolm, historian and critic
• 19 May – Alma Cogan, singer (died 1966)
• 30 May – Ivor Richard, politician
• 18 June – Geoffrey Hill, poet
• 22 June – Prunella Scales, actress
• 25 June – Peter Blake, artist
• 6 August – Howard Hodgkin, painter and print-maker
• 17 August – V. S. Naipaul, writer
• 20 August – Anthony Ainley, actor (died 2004)
• 4 September – Dinsdale Landen, actor (died 2003)
• 7 September – Malcolm Bradbury, author and academic (died 2000)
• 11 September – Peter Anderson, footballer
• 27 September – Michael Colvin, politician (died 2000)
• 8 October – Ray Reardon, snooker player
• 10 October – Harry Smith, footballer
• 15 October – Vince Karalius, English rugby league footballer and coach (died 2008)
• 15 November – Petula Clark, singer, actress, and songwriter
• 20 November – Richard Dawson, comedian and game show host (died 2012)
• 21 November – Beryl Bainbridge, novelist (died 2010)
• 24 December – Colin Cowdrey, cricketer (died 2000)
• 28 December – Roy Hattersley, politician

Deaths

• 21 January – Lytton Strachey writer and biographer (born 1880)
• 24 January – Sir Alfred Yarrow, shipbuilder and philanthropist (born 1842)
• 10 February – Edgar Wallace, novelist and screenwriter (born 1875)
• 26 April – William Lockwood, cricketer (born 1868)
• 6 July – Kenneth Grahame, author (born 1859)
• 16 September – Ronald Ross, physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (born 1857)
• 12 November – Sir Dugald Clerk, mechanical engineer (born 1854)