1953 in the United Kingdom

All you want to know about 1953 in the United Kingdom

1953 in the United Kingdom:
Other years
1951 \| 1952 \| 1953 \| 1954 \| 1955
Sport and Music
British and Irish current events
1955 English cricket season
Football England \| Scotland
1953 in British music

Events from the year 1953 in the United Kingdom.

1 Incumbents
2 Events
- 2.1 Undated
3 Publications
4 Births
5 Deaths
6 References
7 See also

Incumbents

Monarch - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Prime Minister - Winston Churchill Conservative Party

Events

28 January - Derek Bentley is executed at Wandsworth Prison in London for his part in the murder of PC Sidney Miles.^[1]
31 January - The car ferry, MV Princess Victoria sailing from Stranraer, Scotland to Larne, Northern Ireland, sinks in the Irish Sea killing 133 people onboard. Among the dead included Northern Ireland Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Major Maynard Sinclair, and Sir Walter Smiles, the Ulster Unionist MP for North Down.^[2]
31 January/1 February - The North Sea flood of 1953 kills hundreds of people on the east coast of Britain.^[3]
5 February - The rationing of sweets, introduced during World War II, ends.^[4]
28 February - James D. Watson and Francis Crick announce that they have discovered the structure of the DNA molecule.
16 March - Josip Tito, the Communist leader of Yugoslavia visits the UK, the first Communist leader to do so.^[5]
24 March
- Queen Mary, the consort of the late King George V dies in her sleep at Marlborough House.^[6]
- The 10 Rillington Place murders are uncovered.^[7]
31 March - The funeral of Queen Mary takes place at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.^[8]
13 April - Ian Fleming publishes his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale.^[9]
16 April - The Queen launches the Royal Yacht Britannia at the John Brown & Company shipbuilders on the Clyde.^[10]
24 April - Winston Churchill receives a knighthood from the Queen.^[7]
25 April - Francis Crick and James D. Watson publish their description of the double helix structure of DNA in the paper Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids.^[11]^[12]
2 June - The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II takes place at Westminster Abbey.^[13]
25 June - John Christie, a 54-year-old London man, is sentenced to death for the murder of his wife Ethel Christie.^[14]
26 June - Eskdalemuir enters the UK Weather Records for the highest rainfall in a 30 minute period with 80mm. As of July 2006 this record remains.
15 July - John Christie is hanged at Pentonville Prison.
19 August - the England cricket team defeat Australia to win The Ashes for the first time in 19 years.^[7]
26 September - End of post-War sugar rationing.^[15]
6 October - Government sends troops to the colony of British Guiana blaming communists for causing unrest.^[16]
11 November - Long running current affairs television series Panorama first airs.^[7]
17 November - An Italian steamer collides with a French motor vessel in the English Channel, killing 20 people.^[17]
21 November - The Piltdown Man, which was discovered in 1912 and thought to be the fossilised remains of a hitherto unknown form of early human, exposed as a hoax.^[7]
26 November - The House of Lords votes in favour of the government's proposals for commercial television.^[18]
10 December
- Winston Churchill wins the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values".^[19]
- Hans Adolf Krebs wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discovery of the citric acid cycle".^[20]