1975 in the United Kingdom

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1975 in the United Kingdom:
Other years
1973 \| 1974 \| 1975 \| 1976 \| 1977
British and Irish current events
Sport and Music
1975 English cricket season
Football England \| Scotland
1975 in British music

Events from the year 1975 in the United Kingdom.

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

[edit] Incumbents

Monarch - HM Queen Elizabeth II
Prime Minister - Harold Wilson, Labour Party

[edit] Events

14 January - Heiress Lesley Whittle (17), the daughter of late bus operator George Whittle (1905-1967), is kidnapped from her home near Bridgnorth in Shropshire. Her mother and brother have received a letter demanding a £50,000 ransom.^[1]
24 January - Donald Coggan enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury.^[2]
11 February - Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election.^[3]
26 February - A fleeing IRA terrorist shoots and kills off-duty London police officer Stephen Tibble, 22, as he gives chase.^[4]
28 February - A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London kills 43 people.^[5]
4 March - Charlie Chaplin is knighted by the Queen.^[6]
7 March - The body of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle, who disappeared from her Shropshire home in January, is discovered in Staffordshire. She had been strangled on a ledge in drains below Bathpool Park near Kidsgrove.^[7]
25 March - A large National Front rally in London protests against European integration.^[8]
April - Carmaker Vauxhall launches the entry-level Chevette, a small three-door hatchback which has rear-wheel drive and from next year will also be available as a saloon and an estate.
13 April - A 22-year-old woman is raped at her bedsit in Cambridge. Cambridgeshire Police believe that she is the sixth victim of a mystery rapist who has been operating across the city since October last year. In June, Cambridgeshire Police arrest 47-year-old Peter Cook in connection with the rapes; he is sentenced to life imprisonment in October.^[9]
26 April - A conference of members of the Labour Party vote against continued membership of the EEC.^[10]
5 June - 67% of voters support continued membership of the EEC in a referendum.^[11]
9 June - Proceedings in Parliament broadcast on radio for the first time.^[12]
19 June - Lord Lucan is found guilty in absentia of the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett.^[13]
14 August Hampstead enters the UK Weather Records with the Highest 155-min total rainfall at 169 mm. As of July 2006 this record remains.
19 August - Headingley cricket ground vandalised by supporters of the armed robber George Davis campaigning for his release from prison. A scehduled test match between England and Australia due to take place there had to be abandoned.^[14]
September - Chrysler UK launches its new Alpine five-door family hatchback, a modern front-wheel drive car to compete with the conventional Ford Cortina, Morris Marina and Vauxhall Cavalier rear-wheel drive saloons. The new car is also built in France as the Simca 1307.^[15]
5 September - The London Hilton hotel bombed by the IRA killing two people and injuring 63 others.^[16]
19 September - the first episode of the popular sitcom Fawlty Towers broadcast.^[17]
24 September - Dougal Haston and Doug Scott become the first British people to climb Mount Everest.^[18]
28 September–3 October - The Spaghetti House siege, in which nine people were taken as hostages, takes place in London.^[19]
October - Vauxhall announces its second new model launch of the year - the Cavalier, which replaces the Victor and is based on the German Opel Ascona, is a direct competitor for the big-selling Ford Cortina.
9 October - An IRA bomb explosion outside Green Park tube station near Piccadilly in London kills one and injures 20.^[20]
10 October - West Yorkshire Police launch a murder investigation after 28-year-old prostitute Wilma McCann is found dead in Leeds.
3 November - The first petroleum pipeline in the UK is formally opened by the Queen, running from Cruden Bay to Grangemouth in Scotland.^[21]
6 November - First public performance by punk rock band the Sex Pistols.^[17]
12 November - Employment Protection Act establishes ACAS to arbitrate industrial disputes, and legislates against unfair dismissal.^[2]
27 November - Ross McWhirter, the co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records, is shot dead by the Provisional Irish Republican Army for offering reward money to informers.^[22]
29 November - Former racing driver Graham Hill, 46, dies in an air crash in Hertfordshire.^[23]
December - Donald Neilson, 39, is arrested in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, on suspicion of being the "Black Panther" murderer who is believed to have carried out five murders in the last two years.^[1]
5 December - Government ends Internment of suspected terrorists in Northern Ireland.^[2]
6 December–12 December - Balcombe Street Siege: IRA members on the run from police break into a London flat taking the residents hostage. The siege ended after six days with the gunmen giving themselves up to the police.^[24]^[25]
11 December - British and Icelandic ships clash marking the beginning of the third Cod War.^[26]
29 December - two new laws, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Equal Pay Act 1970, came into force aiming to end unequal pay of men and women in the workplace.^[27]