1970 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

Monarch – Elizabeth II

Prime Minister – Harold Wilson (Labour) (until 19 June), Edward Heath (Conservative) (starting 19 June)

January

1 January

The age of majority for most legal purposes was reduced from 21 to 18 under terms of the Family Law Reform Act 1969.

The half crown coin ceased to be legal tender.

The National Westminster Bank began trading following merger of National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank.

Control of London Transport passed from the London Transport Board (reporting to the Minister of Transport) to the London Transport Executive of the Greater London Council, except for country area (green) buses which passed to London Country Bus Services, a subsidiary of the National Bus Company.

18 January – The grave of Karl Marx was vandalised by anti-Germanic racists at Highgate in London.

21 January – Fraserburgh life-boat Duchess of Kent, on service to the Danish fishing vessel Opal, capsized with the loss of five of the six crew.

22 January – A Boeing 747 landed at Heathrow Airport, the first jumbo jet to land in Britain.

26 January – Rolling Stone Mick Jagger was fined £200 for possession of cannabis.

February

February – Chrysler UK launched its new Hillman Avenger small family car, which would be built at the Ryton plant near Coventry and compete with the likes of the Ford Escort and Vauxhall Viva.

13 February

Garden House riot, Cambridge: A demonstration at the Garden House Hotel by Cambridge University students against the Greek military junta led to police intervention; eight students subsequently received custodial sentences for their part in the affair.

English band Black Sabbath released their self titled debut album in the U.K., credited as the first major album in the heavy metal genre.

19 February – The Prince of Wales joined the Royal Navy.

23 February – Rolls Royce asked the government for £50 million towards the development of the RB 211-50 Airbus jet engine.

27 February–1 March – First National Women's Liberation Conference held, at Ruskin College, Oxford.

March

2 March – Ian Smith declared Rhodesia a republic breaking all ties with the British Crown, four years after the declaration of independence. Wilson's government refused to recognise the new state.

6 March – The importation of pets was banned after an outbreak of rabies in Newmarket, Suffolk.

12 March – The quarantine period for cats and dogs was increased to one year as part of the government's anti rabies measures.

13 March – The Bridgwater by-election became the first election in which 18-year-olds can vote. Tom King won the election for the Conservative Party.

17 March – Martin Peters, who scored for England in their 1966 World Cup final win, became the nation's first £200,000 footballer in his transfer from West Ham United to Tottenham Hotspur.

23 March - Eighteen victims of thalidomide were awarded a total of nearly £370,000 in compensation.

April

1 April – Everton won the Football League First Division title.

10 April

Paul McCartney announces that he has left The Beatles.

The Elton John album is released, the second album by Elton John.

11 April – Chelsea and Leeds United drew 2-2 in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium, forcing a replay.

16 April – Dr Ian Paisley entered the Parliament of Northern Ireland after winning the Bannside By-election.

18 April – British Leyland announced that the Morris Minor, its longest running model which had been in production since 1948, would be discontinued at the start of next year and be replaced with a new larger car available as a four-door saloon and three-door fastback coupe, and possibly a five-door estate by 1975.

29 April – David Webb scored the winning goal as Chelsea defeated Leeds United 2-1 in the FA Cup final replay at Old Trafford, gaining them the trophy for the very first time. Last year's winners Manchester City clinched the European Cup Winners' Cup with a 2-1 win over Górnik Zabrze of Poland in Vienna, Austria.

May

19 May – The government made a £20 million loan available to help save the financially troubled luxury car and aircraft engine manufacturer Rolls Royce.

22 May – A tour by the South African cricket team was called off after several African and Asian countries threaten to boycott the Commonwealth Games.

24 May – The Britannia Bridge, carrying the railway across the Menai Strait, was badly damaged by fire.

28 May – Bobby Moore, captain of the England national football team, was arrested and released on bail in Bogotá, Colombia, on suspicion of stealing a bracelet in the Bogotá Bracelet incident.

29 May – Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act abolished actions for breach of promise and the right of a husband to claim damages for adultery with his wife.

June

1 June – Harold Wilson was hit in the face with an egg thrown by a Young Conservative demonstrator.

2 June – Cleddau Bridge, in Pembrokeshire, collapsed during erection, killing four, leading to introduction of new standards for box girder bridges.

4 June – Tonga became independent of the UK.

10 June – Just a few months after the Conservatives had enjoyed opinion poll leads of more than 20 points, opinion polls were showing Labour several points ahead of the Tories with eight days to go before the general election. If Labour won the election, it would be a record third consecutive general election win for the party and would probably result in the end of Edward Heath's five-year reign as Conservative leader.

13 June – Actor Laurence Olivier was made a life peer in the Queen's Birthday Honours list. He was the first actor to be made a lord.

14 June – England's defence of the FIFA World Cup ended when they lost 3-2 to West Germany in the Mexico quarter final.

17 June

The bodies of two children were found buried in shallow graves in woodland at Waltham Abbey, Essex. They were believed to be those of Susan Blatchford (11) and Gary Hanlon (12), who were last seen alive near their homes in North London on 31 March this year.

British Leyland created a niche in the four-wheel drive market by launching its luxury Range Rover, which was to be marketed as a more upmarket alternative to the utilarian Land Rover that had been in production since 1948.

David Storey's Home premiered at the Royal Court Theatre.

18 June – The General Election is held, the first in which 18-year-olds could vote. Opinion polls point towards a third successive victory for Harold Wilson and the Labour government.

19 June – The General Election results are announced and Edward Heath's Conservative Party comes to power with a majority of 30 seats, a major surprise as most of the opinion polls had shown that Harold Wilson's Labour were likely to stay in power. Among the new members of parliament are Neil Kinnock and John Smith for Labour, and Kenneth Clarke, Kenneth Baker, Norman Fowler and Geoffrey Howe for the Tories.

21 June – British golfer Tony Jacklin won the U.S. Open.

22 June – The Methodist Church allowed women to become full ministers for the first time.

26 June – Riots broke out in Derry over the arrest of Mid-Ulster MP Bernadette Devlin.

29 June – Caroline Thorpe, 32-year-old wife of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe and the mother of his two-year-old son Rupert, died in a car crash.

July

3 July

Three civilians were killed and 10 troops injured when British Army soldiers battled with IRA troops in Belfast.

Dan-Air Flight 1903: 112 were killed when a Manchester to Barcelona flight crashed in the mountains of Northern Spain, with no survivors.

8 July – Roy Jenkins became deputy leader of the Labour Party.

12 July – Jack Nicklaus won the Open Golf Championship at St Andrews, defeating fellow American Doug Sanders in an eighteen-hole play-off.

15 July – Dockers voted to strike leading to the docks strike of 1970.

16 July – A state of emergency was declared to deal with the dockers' strike.

16–25 July – The British Commonwealth Games were held in Edinburgh.

17 July – Lord Pearson proposed settlement of docks strike.

30 July – The docks strike was settled.

31 July – The last issue of grog in the Royal Navy was distributed.

August

9 August – Police battled with black rioters in Notting Hill, London.

20 August – England national football team captain Bobby Moore was cleared of stealing a bracelet while on World Cup duty in Colombia.

21 August – The moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party was established in Northern Ireland.

26–31 August – Third Isle of Wight Festival attracted over 500,000 pop music fans, with appearances by Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Doors and Joan Baez.

27 August – The Royal Shakespeare Company's revolutionary production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Peter Brook, opened at Stratford.

September

9 September – BOAC Flight 775 was hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine after taking off from Bahrain—the first time a British plane had been hijacked.

18 September – American rock star Jimi Hendrix, 27, died in London from a suspected drug-induced heart attack.

19 September – The first Glastonbury Festival was held, as the Worthy Farm Pop Festival. Tyrannosaurus Rex (replacing The Kinks) headlined and about 1500 attended.

September – The Album musical Jesus Christ Superstar, by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, was released.

October

3 October – Tony Densham, driving the "Commuter" dragster, set a British land speed record at Elvington, Yorkshire, averaging 207.6 mph over the flying kilometre course.

5 October – BBC Radio 4 first broadcast consumer affairs magazine programme You and Yours; it would still be running forty years later.

12 October – After a debacled launch only 18 months previously, British Leyland announce a much improved Austin Maxi featuring a new gearchange, increased engine size and much improved trim, answering many of the critical points raised by the motoring press at the car's original launch.

15 October

The government created the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of the Environment.

Thames sailing barge Cambria, the last vessel trading under sail alone in British waters, loaded her last freight, at Tilbury.

The last narrowboats to carry long-distance freight commercially on the canals of the United Kingdom arrived with their last load, coal from Atherstone for a west London jam factory.

19 October – British Petroleum discovered a large oil field in the North Sea.

23 October – The Mark III Ford Cortina went on sale. At launch a full range of models are offered including 2 door and estate variants. Unlike previous models this Cortina was developed as a Ford Europe model sharing the floor-pan with the similar German Ford Taunus

25 October – The Canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope Paul VI took place.

November

17 November – The first Page Three girl appeared in The Sun.

20 November – The ten shilling note ceased to be legal tender.

27 November – The Gay Liberation Front organised its first march in London.

December

10 December – Bernard Katz won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod "for their discoveries concerning the humoral transmittors in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation".

26 December – Athlete Lillian Board, 22, died in Munich, West Germany, after a three-month battle against cancer.

31 December – The Beatles split up after 10 years.

Undated

Richard Branson started the Virgin Group with discounted mail-order sales of popular records.

The last forced child migration to Australia took place.

Nijinsky became the first horse for 35 years to win the English Triple Crown by finishing first in the Epsom Derby, 2,000 Guineas and St Leger.

Mathematician Alan Baker won a Fields Medal.

Trade union membership now accounts for nearly 50% of the workforce.

Publications

Agatha Christie's novel Passenger to Frankfurt.

Len Deighton's 1943-set novel Bomber (the first written on a word processor).

Lawrence Durrell's novel Nunquam, second in The Revolt of Aphrodite pair.

J. G. Farrell's novel Troubles.

Germaine Greer's book The Female Eunuch.

Ted Hughes' poetry collection Crow.

Bernice Rubens' novel The Elected Member.

Mary Wilson's Selected Poems.

The complete New English Bible (the New Testament having been published in 1961).

The Ecologist magazine founded by Edward Goldsmith (July).

January – March

7 January – Andy Burnham, politician

19 January – Tim Foster, rower

20 January – Mitch Benn, comedian and songwriter

24 January – Maria Balshaw, art curator

31 January – Minnie Driver, actress

10 February – Rob Shearman, television and radio scriptwriter

14 February – Simon Pegg, comedian, writer and actor

25 February – Ian Walker, English sailboat racer

1 March – Tina Cullen, field hockey player

2 March – James Purnell, politician

April – June

27 April – Kylie Travis, actress and model

6 May – Chris Adams, cricketer

15 May – Nat Rich, All round good guy

20 May – Louis Theroux, television personality and author

21 May – Jason Lee, field hockey player and coach

22 May – Naomi Campbell, model and actress

27 May – Joseph Fiennes, actor

19 June – MJ Hibbett, singer-songwriter

20 June – Russell Garcia, field hockey player

22 June – Christine Cook, field hockey player

25 June – Lucy Benjamin, actress

July – September

2 July – Steve Morrow, footballer

6 July – Martin Smith, singer and songwriter

7 July – Wayne McCullough, boxer

10 July

Jason Orange, singer

John Simm, actor

11 July – Saj Karim, politician

29 July – Andi Peters, television presenter and producer

30 July – Christopher Nolan, writer and director

31 July – Ben Chaplin, actor

13 August – Alan Shearer, footballer

27 August – Peter Ebdon, snooker player

18 September – Darren Gough, cricketer

29 September – Emily Lloyd, actress

October – December

4 October

Richard Hancox, footballer

Jason Cousins, footballer

10 October – Sir Matthew Pinsent, Olympic winning rower

11 October – Andy Marriott, footballer

7 November – Neil Hannon, musician (The Divine Comedy)

12 November – Harvey Stephens, child-actor

13 November – Verity Snook-Larby, race walker

22 November – Stel Pavlou, novelist and screenwriter

23 November – Zoë Ball, television and radio presenter

29 December – Aled Jones, singer and television presenter

31 December – Louise Rickard, Welsh rugby union player

January – March

7 January – Allan Wilkie. English Shakespearean actor of Scottish descent noted for his career in Australia (born 1878)

13 January – Jimmy Hanley, actor (born 1918)

23 January – Ifan ab Owen Edwards, founder of the Urdd (born 1895)

26 January – Albert Evans-Jones (Cynan), poet (born 1895)

29 January – Basil Liddell Hart, military historian (born 1895)

2 February – Bertrand Russell, logician and philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (born 1872)

14 February – Herbert Strudwick, cricketer (born 1880)

15 February – Hugh Dowding, commander of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain (born 1882)

28 February – Arthur Henry Knighton-Hammond, painter (born 1875)

April – June

20 April – Thomas Iorwerth Ellis, academic (born 1899)

7 May – Jack Jones, novelist (born 1884)

17 May – Jeremy Browne, politician, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs

7 June – E. M. Forster, novelist (born 1879)

15 June – Robert Morrison MacIver, Scottish-born sociologist (born 1882)

27 June – Edwin La Dell, artist (born 1914)

30 June – Githa Sowerby, dramatist (born 1876)

July – September

7 July – Allen Lane, publisher (born 1902)

20 July – Iain Macleod, politician (born 1913)

29 July – John Barbirolli, conductor (born 1899)

5 September – Jesse Pennington, footballer (born 1883)

October – December

8 November – Alasdair Mackenzie, Liberal MP (born 1903)

26 December – Lillian Board, Olympic athlete (born 1948)