1928 in the United Kingdom

1928 in the United Kingdom:

Other years

1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930

Individual countries of the United Kingdom

England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Sport, Television and music

1928 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland 1928 in British television

Events from the year 1928 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

• Monarch - George V
• Prime Minister - Stanley Baldwin (Conservative)

Events

• January - Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly proving the existence of DNA.^[1][2]
• 1 January - Abolition of domestic slavery in the British Protectorate of Sierra Leone comes into effect.^[3]
• 6–7 January - River Thames floods in London; 14 drown. On 7 January the moat at the Tower of London (drained in 1843 and planted with grass) is completely refilled by a tidal wave.
• 8 February - John Logie Baird broadcasts a transatlantic television signal from London to Hartsdale, New York.^[4]
• 11–19 February - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland and win one bronze medal.
• 12 February
  • An underground explosion at Haig Pit, Whitehaven, in the Cumberland Coalfield, kills thirteen miners undertaking clearance after an earlier fatal accident.^[5]
  • Heavy hailstorms kill eleven in England.
• 15 February - The Oxford English Dictionary is completed after 70 years.
• 18 February - The Australian sport of Speedway is competitively demonstrated for the first time in the UK with a meet at High Beach in Epping Forest.
• 12 March - Malta becomes a British dominion.
• 1 April - Cinematograph Films Act 1927 comes into force, setting a minimum quota for British films to be shown in UK cinemas.
• May - The Scottish county of Forfarshire resolves to revert to its historic name of Angus.^[6]
• 1 May - The London and North Eastern Railway's Flying Scotsman steam-hauled express train begins to run non-stop over the 393 miles (632 km) of the East Coast Main Line from London King's Cross to Edinburgh.^[7]
• 5 May - William Ralph "Dixie" Dean finishes the football season with a Football League record of 60 goals for First Division champions Everton.^[8]
• 7 May - Passage of the Representation of the People Act lowers the voting age for women from 30 to 21 giving them equal suffrage with men from 2 July.^[9]
• 16 May - Opening of Royal Tweed Bridge, Berwick-upon-Tweed, constructed from reinforced concrete to the design of L. G. Mouchel & Partners.^[10]
• 17 May–12 August - Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Olympics in Amsterdam and win 3 gold, 10 silver and 7 bronze medals.
• 27 June - 25 people killed in the Darlington rail crash.
• 3 July - John Logie Baird demonstrates the world's first colour television transmission.^[11]
• 27 July - Tich Freeman becomes only bowler ever to take 200 first-class wickets before the end of July.
• 26 August - In Paisley, May Donoghue finds the remains of a snail in her ginger beer, leading to the landmark negligence case Donoghue v. Stevenson.^[12]
• 3 September - Alexander Fleming, at St Mary's Hospital, London, accidentally rediscovers the antibiotic Penicillin.^[13]
• 15 September - Tich Freeman sets all-time record for number of wickets taken in an English cricket season.
• 28 September - Dangerous Drugs Act 1925 comes into effect, placing restrictions on the use of cannabis.^[14]
• 10 October - Tyne Bridge opens, connecting Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead.^[15]
• 9–16 November - Radclyffe Hall's novel The Well of Loneliness (published on 27 July by Jonathan Cape in London) is tried and convicted on the grounds of obscenity due to its theme of lesbian love, following a campaign by James Douglas in the Sunday Express newspaper.^[16][17]
• 12 November - Randall Davidson becomes the first Archbishop of Canterbury to retire, having served for twenty-five years, the longest in this office since the Reformation.^[18] He is created 1st Baron Davidson of Lambeth three days later.^[19]
• 15 November - The Mary Stanford life-boat capsizes on service in Rye Harbour: all 17 crew lost.
• 22 November - Following passage of the Currency and Banknotes Act on 2 July, the Bank of England resumes responsibility for issue of banknotes from HM Treasury and issues pound and (for the first time) ten shilling notes, the first to be printed in colour and on both sides.^[20]
• 4 December - Cosmo Lang enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.^[21]
• 20 December - The first Harry Ramsden's fish and chip shop opens in Yorkshire.^[9]
• 24 December - First Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols to be broadcast from King's College, Cambridge, by BBC Radio.^[22]

Undated

• Mond–Turner talks between industrialist Sir Alfred Mond and chairman of the Trades Union Congress Ben Turner on consensual approaches to industrial relations.^[23]
• First high-voltage electricity pylon for the National Grid is erected, near Edinburgh.^[24][25]
• Owen Willans Richardson wins the 1928 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him". This award is announced on 12 November 1929.^[26]
• Heinz Baked Beans are manufactured in the UK for the first time.
• British Home Stores opens its first department store at Brixton, London.^[27]

Sport

• Everton F.C. win the Championship.
• Blackburn Rovers F.C. 3 Huddersfield F.C. 1 (F.A. Cup)
• René Lacoste Wimbledon Men's Champion
• Helen Wills Wimbledon Women's Champion
• Swinton win rugby league's All Four Cups in season 1927-28

Publications

• Edmund Blunden's biographical Undertones of War.
• Elizabeth Bowen's novel The Hotel.
• Joyce Lankester Brisley's children's collection Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories, introducing the title character in book form.
• Leslie Charteris's first Simon Templar novel Meet the Tiger.
• Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel The Mystery of the Blue Train.
• Ford Madox Ford's novel Last Post, last of the Parade's End tetralogy.
• Radclyffe Hall's novel The Well of Loneliness.
• Aldous Huxley's novel Point Counter Point.
• D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover published in Italy; it will not be published in Britain until 1960.
• Compton MacKenzie's satirical novel Extraordinary Women.
• W. Somerset Maugham’s short stories Ashenden: Or the British Agent.^[28]
• Oxford English Dictionary completed (19 April).
• Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novel The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club and collected short stories Lord Peter Views the Body.
• Evelyn Waugh's satirical novel Decline and Fall.
• Clough Williams-Ellis' tract England and the Octopus.
• Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando: A Biography.

Births

• 2 January - Harry Hyams, property speculator (died 2015)
• 17 January - Vidal Sassoon, cosmetologist (died 2012)
• 24 January - Desmond Morris, anthropologist and writer
• 29 January - Peter Byrne, actor and director
• 14 February - David Kimche, British-born Israeli diplomat (died 2010)
• 22 February - Bruce Forsyth, entertainer
• 4 March - Alan Sillitoe, writer (died 2010)
• 30 March - Tom Sharpe, author (died 2013)
• 6 April - Peter Townsend, sociologist (died 2009)
• 8 April - Eric Porter, actor (died 1995)
• 19 April - Alexis Korner, musician (died 1984)
• 9 May - Colin Chapman, automotive engineer (died 1982)
• 1 June - Bob Monkhouse, comedian and game show host (died 2003)
• 5 June - Tony Richardson, film director (died 1991)
• 6 June
  • Nicolas Rea, 3rd Baron Rea, physician and politician
  • R. D. Wingfield, novelist and radio dramatist (died 2007)
• 19 June - Barry Took, comedian, writer and television presenter (died 2002)
• 21 June - Maurice Line, librarian (died 2010)
• 28 June - Harold Evans, newspaper editor
• 16 July - Anita Brookner, novelist and art historian (died 2016)
• 22 July - Jimmy Hill, footballer and television sports presenter (died 2015)
• 26 July - Bernice Rubens, novelist (died 2004)
• 5 August - Carla Lane, born Romana Barrack, television comedy scriptwriter (died 2016)
• 15 August - Nicolas Roeg, film director
• 17 September - Roddy McDowall, actor (died 1998)
• 8 October - Bill Maynard, actor
• 15 November - John Orchard, actor (died 1995)
• 22 November - Pat Smythe, show jumper (died 1996)
• 10 December - Jeremy Morse, English banker, academic and crossword compiler (died 2016)
• 20 December - Donald Adams, actor and opera singer (died 1996)
• 29 December - Bernard Cribbins, comic actor

Deaths

• 11 January - Thomas Hardy, writer (born 1840)
• 29 January - Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, soldier (born 1861)
• 13 February - Reginald Hargreaves, cricketer (born 1852)
• 15 February - Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1852)
• 5 April - Jane Ellen Harrison, scholar, linguist and feminist (born 1850)
• 5 April - Roy Kilner, cricketer (born 1890)
• 1 May - Ebenezer Howard, urban planner (born 1850)
• 14 June - Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette (born 1858)
• 10 December - Charles Rennie Mackintosh, architect (born 1868)

References

1. Griffith, Fred. (January 1928). "The Significance of Pneumococcal Types". Journal of Hygiene. Cambridge University Press. 27 (2): 113–159. doi:10.1017/S0022172400031879. JSTOR 4626734. PMC 2167760. PMID 20474956.
2. Downie, A. W. (1972). "Pneumococcal transformation – a backward view: Fourth Griffith Memorial Lecture" (PDF). Journal of General Microbiology. 73 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1099/00221287-73-1-1. PMID 4143929. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
3. "250,000 Slaves in Sierra Leone, Africa, Freed". Chicago Daily Tribune. 1928-01-03. p. 3.
4. "Transatlantic Television in 1928". Baird Television. Retrieved 2015-09-29. Extract from The New York Times 1928-02-09.
5. "Haig Pit Disasters - 13th Dec. 1927 & 12th Feb. 1928". HealeyHero. Retrieved 2010-10-18.
6. "Forfarshire's New Name". The Times (45032). London. 1928-10-24. p. 8. It was last May that the Forfarshire County Council passed a resolution...
7. Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 369–370. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
8. "Dixie Dean: Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian". Mirror Football. Daily Mirror. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
9. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
10. "Royal Tweed Bridge". Engineering Timelines. Retrieved 2010-11-01.
11. The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. ISBN 1-85986-000-1.
12. Chapman, Matthew (2010). The Snail and the Ginger Beer: the story of Donoghue v Stevenson. London: Wildy, Simmons & Hill. ISBN 0-85490-049-7.
13. "Culture shock will highlight penicillin discovery" (PDF) (Press release). London: Royal Society of Chemistry. 2 September 2003. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
14. Blackwood, Sean. "How cannabis was criminalised". Independent Drug Monitoring Unit. Retrieved 2010-08-17.
15. "The Tyne Bridge". Bridges On The Tyne. 2006. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
16. Baker, Michael (1985). Our Three Selves: A Life of Radclyffe Hall. London: GMP Publishers. ISBN 0-85449-042-6.
17. Foster, Jeanette H. (1956). Sex Variant Women in Literature: A Historical and Quantitative Survey. New York: Vantage Press.
18. Mews, Stuart (2004). "Davidson, Randall Thomas, Baron Davidson of Lambeth (1848–1930)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2011-03-29. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
19. The London Gazette: no. 33439. p. 7465. 16 November 1928.
20. "United Kingdom Banknotes". Archived from the original on 16 April 2010. Retrieved 2010-10-20.
21. Wilkinson, Alan (2004). "Lang, (William) Cosmo Gordon, Baron Lang of Lambeth (1864–1945)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2010-10-20.
22. Nine lessons and carols: History of the service, King's College Chapel, retrieved 2008-03-09.
23. "The Mond-Turner talks". TUC. 1968. Retrieved 2011-01-09.
24. Shaw, Alan (29 September 2005). "Kelvin to Weir, and on to GB SYS 2005" (PDF). Royal Society of Edinburgh. Retrieved 2011-01-10.
25. BBC: The Genius of Design - Designs for living
26. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1928". Retrieved 2008-01-28.
27. "Our History". British Home Stores. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
28. Keating, H. R. F. (1982). Whodunit? – a guide to crime, suspense and spy fiction. London: Windward. ISBN 0-7112-0249-4.

See also

• 1928 in British music
• 1928 in British television

External links