1978 in the United Kingdom

1978 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1976 | 1977 | 1978 (1978) | 1979 | 1980

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport, Television and music

1978 British Grand Prix 1978 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland 1978 in British television 1978 in British music 1978 in British radio UK in the Eurovision Song Contest 1978

Events from the year 1978 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch – Elizabeth II
• Prime Minister – James Callaghan (Labour)

Events

January

• 11 January – A North Sea storm surge ruins four piers in the UK: Herne Bay, Margate, Hunstanton and Skegness.
• 16 January – The firefighters strike ends after three months when fire crews accept an offer of a 10% pay rise and reduced working hours.
• 18 January – The European Court of Human Rights finds the United Kingdom government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture.
• 30 January – Opposition leader Margaret Thatcher says that many Britons fear being "swamped by people with a different culture".
• 31 January – 18-year-old prostitute Helen Rytka is murdered in Huddersfield; she is believed to be the eighth victim of the Yorkshire Ripper.

February

• 9 February – Gordon McQueen, 25-year-old Scotland central defender, becomes Britain's first £500,000 footballer in a transfer from Leeds United to Manchester United.
• 13 February –
  • - Anna Ford becomes the first female newsreader on ITN.
  • - An opinion poll conducted for the Daily Mail shows the Conservative opposition 11 points ahead of the Labour government, with an election due by October next year. The turnaround in fortunes for the Conservatives, who last month were narrowly behind Labour, is attributed to Margaret Thatcher's recent comments on immigration.
• 17 February – Inflation has fallen to 9.9% – the first time since 1973 that it has been in single figures.
• 18 February – Twenty suspects arrested in connection with the Provisional Irish Republican Army La Mon restaurant bombing in County Down which had killed 12 people and injured 30.
• 20 February – Severe blizzards hit the south west of England.

March

• 8 March – The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy first broadcast by BBC Radio 4.
• 26 March – The body of 21-year-old prostitute and mother-of-two Yvonne Pearson, who was last seen alive on 21 January, is found in Leeds. The Yorkshire Ripper is believed to have been responsible.
• 30 March – Conservative Party recruit advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi to revamp their image.

April

• April – First official naturist beach opens at Fairlight Glen in Covehurst Bay near Hastings.
• 3 April – Permanent radio broadcasts of proceedings in the House of Commons begin.
• 6 April – State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme introduced.
• 23 April – Nottingham Forest win the Football League First Division title for the first time in their history. Their manager Brian Clough, who guided their East Midlands rivals Derby County to the title six years ago, is only the second manager in history to lead two different clubs to top division title glory; the other was the late Herbert Chapman with Huddersfield Town and Arsenal during the interwar years.

May

• 1 May – May Day becomes a bank holiday for the first time.
• 6 May – Ipswich Town win the FA Cup for the first time by beating Arsenal 1–0 in the Wembley final.
• 10 May – Liverpool F.C. retain the European Cup with a 1–0 win over Club Brugge K.V., the Belgian champions, at Wembley Stadium.
• 16 May – 40-year-old prostitute Vera Millward is found stabbed to death in the grounds of the Manchester Royal Infirmary Hospital; she is believed to have been the tenth woman to die at the hands of the Yorkshire Ripper. Both of the victims killed outside Yorkshire have been killed in Manchester.
• 25 May – Liberal Party leader David Steel announces that the Lib-Lab pact will be dissolved at the end of the current Parliamentary session by mutual consent, leaving Britain with a minority Labour government.
• 31 May – Labour wins the Hamilton by-election, retaining it in the face of a strong challenge from the Scottish National Party in that seat.

June

• 1 June – William Stern is declared bankrupt with debts of £118 million, the largest bankruptcy in British history at the time.
• 3 June – Freddie Laker is knighted.
• 8 June – Naomi James becomes the first woman to sail around the world single-handedly.
• 17 June - Media reports suggest that a general election will be held this autumn as the minority government led by James Callaghan and Labour appears to be nearing the end of its duration. Callaghan's chances of an election win are now looking brighter than they were four months ago, as the 11-point Conservative lead has evaporated.
• 19 June – Cricketer Ian Botham becomes the first man in the history of the game to score a century and take eight wickets in one innings of a Test match.
• 21 June
  • An outbreak of shooting between Provisional IRA members and the British Army leaves one civilian and three IRA men dead.
  • The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita opens at the Prince Edward Theatre in London.

July

• 6 July – Taunton train fire: eleven people killed in worst rail accident since Hither Green rail crash in 1967.
• 7 July – The Solomon Islands become independent from the United Kingdom.
• 25 July
  • Louise Brown becomes the world's first human born from in vitro fertilisation, in Oldham.
  • Motability, a charity which provides cars to disabled people, founded.

August

• 20 August – Gunmen open fire on an Israeli El Al airline bus in London.
• 25 August – U.S. Army Sergeant Walter Robinson "walks" across the English Channel in 11 hours 30 minutes, using homemade water shoes.

September

• 7 September
  • Prime Minister James Callaghan announces that he will not call a general election for this autumn, and faces accusations from Tory leader Margaret Thatcher and Liberal leader David Steel of "running scared", in spite of many opinion polls showing that Labour (currently a minority government) could win an election now with a majority, safeguarding its place in government until 1983. Callaghan also announces that the Lib-Lab pact, formed 18 months ago when the government lost its majority, has reached its end.
  • Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is stabbed with a poison-tipped umbrella as he walks across Waterloo Bridge, London, probably on orders of Bulgarian intelligence; he dies 4 days later.
• 15 September – German terrorist Astrid Proll arrested in London.
• 19 September – British Police launch a massive murder hunt, following the discovery of the dead body of newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater (13) at a farmhouse near Kingswinford in the West Midlands. Carl is believed to have been shot dead after disturbing a burglary at the property.
• 26 September – 23 Ford car plants are closed across Britain due to strikes.

October

• 17 October – A cull of Grey seals in the Orkney and Western Islands reduced after a public outcry.
• 23 October – The government announces plans for a new single exam to replace O Levels and CSEs.
• 25 October – A ceremony marks the completion of Liverpool Cathedral, for which the foundation stone was laid in 1904.
• 27 October – Four people die and four others are wounded in a shooting spree which began in a residential street in West Bromwich and ends at a petrol station some 20 miles away in Nuneaton.
• 28 October – Barry Williams, aged 36, is arrested in Derbyshire and charged with yesterday's shootings following a high-speed police chase.

November

• 3 November – Dominica gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
• 4 November – Many British bakeries impose bread rationing after a baker's strike led to panic buying of bread.
• 5 November – Rioters sack the British Embassy in Tehran.
• 10 November – Panic buying of bread stops as most bakers go back to work.
• 18 November - The British leg of the 1978 Kangaroo tour concludes with Australia winning the Ashes series by defeating Great Britain in the third and deciding Test match in Leeds.
• 20 November – Buckingham Palace announces that The Prince Andrew is to join the Royal Navy.
• 23 November – Pollyanna's nightclub in Birmingham is forced to lift its ban on black and Chinese revellers, after a one-year investigation by the Commission for Racial Equality concludes that the nightclub's entry policy was racist.
• 29 November – Viv Anderson, the 22-year-old Nottingham Forest defender, becomes England's first black international footballer when he appears in 1–0 friendly win over Czechoslovakia at Wembley Stadium – six months after he became the first black player to feature in an English league championship winning team and was also on the winning side in the final of the Football League Cup.
• 30 November – An industrial dispute closes down The Times newspaper (until 12 November 1979).

December

• 10 December – Peter D. Mitchell wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his contribution to the understanding of biological energy transfer through the formulation of the chemiosmotic theory".
• 14 December – The Labour minority government survives a vote of confidence.

Undated

• Inflation reaches a six-year low of 8.3%, although unemployment is at a postwar high of 1,500,000.
• West midlands motorcycle manufacturer Norton Villiers Triumph is liquidated.
• Concrete Cows first erected in Milton Keynes.
• Financially troubled carmaker Chrysler sells its European operations, including the former Rootes Group factories in Britain, to French carmaker Peugeot.

Publications

• J. G. Farrell's novel The Singapore Grip.
• Ken Follett's novel Eye of the Needle.
• Graham Greene's novel The Human Factor.
• Ian McEwan's novel The Cement Garden.
• Iris Murdoch's novel The Sea, the Sea.

Births

• 1 January – Alex Leigh, model
• 1 January – Phillip Mulryne, footballer
• 17 January – Warren Feeney, footballer
• 20 February – Jakki Degg, model
• 24 February – Janine Machin, radio presenter
• 22 March – Samantha Judge, Scottish field hockey forward
• 31 March – Stephen Clemence, footballer
• 3 April – Matthew Goode, actor
• 7 April – Duncan James, actor & singer (Blue)
• 9 April – Rachel Stevens, singer
• 24 April – Beth Storry, English field hockey goalkeeper
• 14 May – Emma Rochlin, Scottish field hockey defender
• 22 May – Katie Price, model and television personality
• 6 June – Carl Barât, singer and guitarist (The Libertines)
• 9 June – Matthew Bellamy, lead singer of the band Muse
• 22 June – Dan Wheldon, race car driver (died 2011)
• 23 July – Stuart Elliott, footballer
• 19 August – Callum Blue, actor
• 25 September – Jodie Kidd, model
• 13 October - Clare Claughan, Zombie Killer
• 25 October – Russell Anderson, footballer
• 26 October – Jimmy Aggrey, footballer
• 18 November – Damien Johnson, footballer

Deaths

• 14 January – Harold Abrahams, athlete (born 1899)
• 18 January – Walter H. Thompson, Scotland Yard detective, bodyguard of Winston Churchill (born 1890)
• 22 January – Herbert Sutcliffe, cricketer (born 1894)
• 1 March – Paul Scott, novelist, playwright and poet (born 1920)
• 4 April – Sir Morien Morgan, aeronautics engineer (born 1912)
• 9 April – Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, architect (born 1883)
• 21 April – Sandy Denny, singer (born 1947)
• 18 May – Selwyn Lloyd, politician (born 1904)
• 7 June – Ronald George Wreyford Norrish, chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1897)
• 30 July – John Mackintosh, politician (born 1929)
• 14 August – Nicolas Bentley, writer and illustrator (born 1907)
• 28 August - Robert Shaw, actor and novelist (born 1927)
• 7 September – Keith Moon, drummer (The Who) (drug overdose) (born 1946)
• 9 September – Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish poet (born 1892)