1939 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1939 in the United Kingdom. This year sees the start of the Second World War, ending the Interwar period.

1939 in the United Kingdom

Other years

1937 | 1938 | 1939 (1939) | 1940 | 1941

Constituent countries of the United Kingdom

England | Northern Ireland | Scotland | Wales

Popular culture

1939 English cricket season Football: England | Scotland 1939 in British television 1939 in British music

Incumbents

• Monarch – George VI
• Prime Minister – Neville Chamberlain (Coalition)
• Parliament – 37th

Events

January–June

• 2 January – The all-time highest attendance for a British association football league game is set as 118,567 people watch Rangers beat Celtic in an "Old Firm derby" played at Ibrox Park in Glasgow.[1]
• 4 February – The Irish Republican Army bombs two London Underground stations, Tottenham Court Road and Leicester Square, injuring seven, two seriously.[2][3]
• 25 February – The first Anderson shelter is built in London.[4]
• 27 February – Borley Rectory, a reputed haunted house, is destroyed by fire.[4]
• 31 March – Britain pledges support to Poland in the event of an invasion.[5]
• 4 April – The Royal Armoured Corps is formed.
• 11 April – The Women's Royal Naval Service is re-established.[6]
• 27 April – The Military Training Act (coming into force 3 June) introduces conscription; men aged 20 and 21 must undertake six months military training.[7]
• May–September –The Sutton Hoo treasure – an Anglo-Saxon ship burial – is excavated. On 28 July the Sutton Hoo helmet is uncovered. The principal treasures are presented to the British Museum by the landowner, Edith Pretty, at this time its largest ever gift from a living donor.[8]
• 6 May – Dorothy Garrod is elected to the Disney Professorship of Archaeology in the University of Cambridge, the first woman to hold an Oxbridge chair.[9]
• 15 May – The film Goodbye, Mr. Chips is released, for which actor Robert Donat will win the Academy Award for Best Actor.
• 17 May – George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrive in Quebec City to begin the first-ever visit to Canada by a reigning British sovereign.
• 1 June – The submarine HMS Thetis sinks during trials in Liverpool Bay. 99 men are lost.[10]
• 7 June – George VI and Queen Elizabeth visit New York City on the first visit to the United States by a reigning British sovereign.[4]
• 14 June–20 August – Tientsin Incident: the Imperial Japanese Army blockades British trading settlements in the north China treaty port of Tientsin.
• 28 June – The Women's Auxiliary Air Force is created, absorbing the forty-eight RAF companies of the Auxiliary Territorial Service which have been formed since 1938.[11]
• 30 June – The Mersey Ferry stops running to Rock Ferry.[4]

July–September

• 1 July – Women's Land Army re-formed to work in agriculture.[12]
• 8 July – the Pan American Airways Boeing 314 flying boat Yankee Clipper inaugurates the world's first heavier-than-air North Atlantic air passenger service between the United States and Britain (Southampton).
• 26 July – the Barber Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Birmingham, designed by Robert Atkinson, is officially opened by Queen Mary.[13][14]
• 5 August – weekly transatlantic flights scheduled by Imperial Airways; suspended in September.[5]
• 15 August – first personnel of the Government Code and Cypher School move to Bletchley Park.
• 19 August – Sir Malcolm Campbell sets the water speed record in Blue Bird K4 on Coniston Water.
• 23 August–2 September – most paintings from the National Gallery in London are evacuated to Wales.[15]
• 24 August – as details of the previous day's Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact become public, Parliament is recalled several weeks early; the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939 gives full authority to defence regulations,[5] Army reservists are called up and Civil Defence workers placed on alert.
• 25 August – 1939 Coventry bombing: An Irish Republican Army bomb explodes in Coventry, killing 5 and injuring 70.[16]
• 30 August – Royal Navy proceeds to war stations.
• 1 September
  • "Operation Pied Piper": 4-day evacuation of children from London and other major U.K. cities begins.[17]
  • Blackout imposed across Britain.[5]
  • The Army is officially mobilised.
  • The BBC Home Service begins broadcasting[4] but BBC Television shuts down at 12:35 p.m. until 1946.
• 2 September – British Expeditionary Force headquarters formed.
• 3 September – World War II
  • Declaration of war by the United Kingdom on Nazi Germany following the German invasion of Poland on 1 September.[4] Shortly after 11.00, Chamberlain announces this news on BBC Radio, speaking from 10 Downing Street. Twenty minutes later, air raid sirens sound in London (a false alarm). Chamberlain creates a small War Cabinet which includes Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty.
  • General mobilisation of the armed services begins. The signal "Total Germany" is sent to ships.
  • National Service (Armed Forces) Act passed by Parliament introduces National Service for all men aged 18 to 41.[18]
  • British liner SS Athenia becomes the first civilian casualty of the war when she is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-30 between Rockall and Tory Island. Of the 1,418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew are killed.[19]
  • In the week beginning today 400,000 pets are euthanised.[20]
• 4 September – first bombing of Wilhelmshaven in World War II by Royal Air Force Vickers Wellingtons.
• 5 September – National Registration Act.[21]
• 9 September – British Expeditionary Force crosses to France.[5]
• 10 September – British submarine HMS Triton torpedoes and sinks another British submarine, HMS Oxley, believing her to be a German U-boat, with the loss of 52 crew.
• 16 September – the Duke of Windsor is appointed a major-general attached to the British Military Mission to France.[22]
• 17 September – aircraft carrier HMS Courageous is torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-29 in the Western Approaches with the loss of 519 crew, the first British warship loss of the War.
• 18 September – Fascist politician William Joyce, at this time holding a British passport, begins broadcasting Nazi propaganda from Berlin, inheriting the nickname Lord Haw-Haw.[4]
• 19 September – popular radio comedy show It's That Man Again with Tommy Handley first broadcast on the BBC Home service, following trial broadcasts from 12 July.[5][23] Known as "ITMA", it runs for ten years.
• 24 September – petrol rationing introduced.[5]
• 26 September – flying from HMS Ark Royal in the North Sea, Lieutenant B. S. McEwen of the Fleet Air Arm scores the first British victory over a German aircraft of the war, shooting down a flying boat. The aircraft carrier comes under air attack but survives.[24]
• 27 September – first war tax is revealed by the Cabinet, including a significant rise in income taxes.
• 29 September – national register of citizens compiled to support the introduction of identity cards and rationing.[21]
• 30 September – Identity cards introduced.[5]

October–December

• 1 October – call-up proclamation: All men aged 20–21 must register with the military authorities.
• 7 October – Cruiser HMS Emerald departs Plymouth in convoy for Halifax, Nova Scotia, carrying £2M in gold bar to be used for purchase of military materiel in North America, a predecessor of Operation Fish.[25]
• 14 October – HMS Royal Oak sunk by a German U-boat in Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands with the loss of 833 crew.[4]
• 16 October – first enemy aircraft shot down by RAF Fighter Command, a Junkers Ju 88 brought down into the sea by Spitfires following an attack on Rosyth Naval Dockyard in Scotland.[26]
• 17 October – first bomb lands in the U.K., at Hoy in the Orkney Islands.[27]
• 21 October – registration of men aged 20 to 23 for National Service begins.[18]
• 30 October – British battleship HMS Nelson is unsuccessfully attacked by U-56 under the command of captain Wilhelm Zahn off Orkney and is hit by three torpedoes, none of which explode; Winston Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty), Admiral of the Fleet Dudley Pound (First Sea Lord) and Admiral Charles Forbes (Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet) are on board.[28]
• 4 November – Stewart Menzies is appointed head of the Secret Intelligence Service.
• 8 November – Venlo Incident: two British agents of SIS are captured by the Germans.
• 23 November – British armed merchantman HMS Rawalpindi is sunk in the GIUK gap in an action against the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
• 24 November – British Overseas Airways Corporation formed by merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. effective from 1 April 1940.
• 4 December
  • HMS Nelson strikes a mine (laid by U-31) off the coast of Scotland and is laid up for repairs until August 1940.
  • German submarine U-36 is torpedoed and sunk by British submarine HMS Salmon off Stavanger, the first enemy submarine lost to a British one during the War.
• 9 December – first soldier of the British Expeditionary Force killed: Corporal Thomas Priday triggers a French land mine.
• 12 December – escorting destroyer HMS Duchess (H64) sinks after a collision with battleship HMS Barham (04) off the Mull of Kintyre in heavy fog with the loss of 124 men.[29]
• 13 December – the Battle of the River Plate takes place between HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax, HMNZS Achilles and the German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee,[4] forcing the latter to scuttle herself on 17 December.
• 18 December – Battle of the Heligoland Bight: RAF Bomber Command, on a daylight mission to attack Kriegsmarine ships in the Heligoland Bight, is repulsed by Luftwaffe fighter aircraft.
• December – Pilgrim Trust establishes Committee for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, predecessor of the Arts Council.

Publications

• H. E. Bates' short story collection My Uncle Silas.
• Joyce Carey's novel Mister Johnson.
• James Hadley Chase's thriller No Orchids for Miss Blandish.
• Agatha Christie's novels Murder Is Easy and And Then There Were None.
• Henry Green's novel Party Going.
• Aldous Huxley's novel After Many a Summer.
• Richard Llewellyn's novel How Green Was My Valley.
• Jan Struther's short story collection Mrs. Miniver.
• Poetry London: a Bi-Monthly of Modern Verse and Criticism, founded by Tambimuttu, first published (January/February).

Births

• 15 January – Neil Cossons, industrial archaeologist and museum director
• 20 January – Chandra Wickramasinghe, Ceylonese-born British astronomer and poet
• 29 January – Tony Green, sportscaster
• 5 February – Derek Wadsworth, jazz trombonist and composer (died 2008)
• 10 February – Peter Purves, actor and television presenter
• 20 February – Frank Arundel, footballer (died 1994)
• 3 March – Bill Frindall, cricket statistician (died 2009)
• 8 March – Christopher Story, editor and intelligence analyst (died 2010)
• 9 March – John Howard Davies, child screen actor and television comedy director (died 2011)
• 23 March
  • Robin Herd, engineer and businessman (d. 2019)
  • Terry Paine, footballer
• 17 March – Robin Knox-Johnston, yachtsman
• 5 April – David Winters, English-American actor, choreographer and director (died 2019)
• 7 April – David Frost, television personality (died 2013)[30]
• 10 April – Penny Vincenzi, novelist (died 2018)[31]
• 12 April – Alan Ayckbourn, playwright
• 13 April – Seamus Heaney, Irish poet, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (died 2013)[32]
• 22 April
  • Mark Jones, actor (died 2010)
  • Alex Murphy, rugby league footballer and coach
  • Ann Mitchell, English actress
• 4 May – Neil Fox, rugby league footballer
• 7 May – David Hatch, radio broadcaster and actor (died 2007)
• 10 May – Bill Cash, English lawyer and politician
• 31 May – Terry Waite, humanitarian, author and hostage
• 5 June – Margaret Drabble, novelist and biographer
• 8 June – Francis Jacobs, English lawyer and judge
• 11 June
  • Rachael Heyhoe Flint, England cricketer (died 2017)
  • Jackie Stewart, Scottish racing driver
• 14 June – Peter Mayle, writer (died 2018)
• 19 June – Michael Standing, actor
• 26 June – Arthur Sutton, cricketer
• 30 June – Tony Hatch, musical theatre and television composer
• 2 July – Ferdinand Mount, journalist and novelist
• 7 July – Stanley Henig, academic and politician
• 10 July – John Dunlop, racehorse trainer (died 2018)
• 15 July – Reg Pridmore, motorcycle road racing national champion
• 16 July – Corin Redgrave, actor and political activist (died 2010)
• 17 July – Spencer Davis, Welsh musician, multi-instrumentalist (The Spencer Davis Group)
• 18 July – Brian Auger, jazz and rock keyboardist
• 22 July – Robert Phelps, modern pentathlete
• 4 August – Jack Cunningham, politician
• 11 August – Naseem Khan, journalist (died 2017)
• 15 August – Bill Wratten, air marshal
• 16 August – Carole Shelley, actress (died 2018)
• 19 August
  • Alan Baker, mathematician (died 2018)[33]
  • Ginger Baker, rock drummer (died 2019)
• 30 August – John Peel, né Ravenscroft, disc jockey and radio presenter (died 2004)
• 12 September – John Pearse, guitarist (died 2008)
• 19 September – Louise Botting, businesswoman and radio presenter
• 25 September – Leon Brittan, politician (died 2015)
• 27 September – Nicholas Haslam, interior designer
• 29 September – Rhodri Morgan, Welsh politician (died 2017)
• 6 October – Melvyn Bragg, media arts presenter, critic and novelist
• 7 October – Harry Kroto, organic chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (died 2016)
• 19 October – David Clark, Baron Clark, Scottish politician
• 24 October – John Adye, intelligence officer
• 25 October – Dave Simmonds, road racer (died 1972)
• 27 October – John Cleese, comic actor
• 4 November – Michael Meacher, politician (died 2015).[34]
• 8 November – Elizabeth Dawn, actress (died 2017)
• 11 November – Alf Adams, physicist
• 12 November – Terry McDonald, footballer and coach
• 16 November – Michael Billington, drama critic
• 17 November – Auberon Waugh, journalist (died 2001)
• 18 November
  • Bill Giles, weather forecaster
  • Margaret Jay, Baroness Jay of Paddington, née Callaghan, politician
  • Ian McCulloch, actor
• 16 December – Gordon Miller, Olympic high jumper
• 20 December – Tony Bentley, footballer
• 26 December – Carol M. Black, physician and academic

Deaths

• 9 January – Edwin Farley, mayor (born 1864)
• 2 March – Howard Carter, archaeologist (born 1874)
• 18 April – Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, patron and promoter of women's interests (born 1857)[35]
• 9 May – Sophie Williams, previously Mary, Lady Heath, aviator and athlete (born 1896)
• 25 June – Richard Seaman, racing driver (car crash) (born 1913)
• 26 June – Ford Madox Ford, novelist, poet, critic and editor (born 1873)
• 20 July – Sir Dan Godfrey, conductor (born 1868)[36]
• 6 September – Arthur Rackham, illustrator (born 1867)
• 13 September – Henry Halcro Johnston, botanist, physician, rugby union international and Deputy Lieutenant for Orkney (born 1856)
• 18 September - Gwen John, artist (born 1876)[37]
• 19 September – Ethel M. Dell, romantic fiction writer (born 1881)
• 26 September - Leif Jones, politician (born 1862)[38]
• 3 December – Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, daughter of Queen Victoria (born 1848)
• 19 December – Eric Fogg, composer and conductor (killed by train) (born 1903)[39]

See also

• List of British films of 1939

References

1. "Old Firm's enduring appeal". FIFA.com. FIFA. 16 April 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2018. The clubs [Celtic and Rangers] also hold the British record attendance for a league match - 118,567 at Ibrox on 2 January 1939
2. Bodwen, Tom (1976). "The IRA and the changing tactics of terrorism". Political Quarterly. 47 (4): 425–437. doi:10.1111/j.1467-923X.1976.tb02203.x.
3. "London Bomb Outrages". The Times (48221). London. 4 February 1939. col D, p. 12.
4. Penguin Pocket OnThis Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
5. Palmer, Alan; Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 385–386. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
6. Fletcher, Marjorie H. (1989). The WRNS: a history of the Women's Royal Naval Service. London: Batsford. p. 90. ISBN 0-7134-6185-3.
7. "WW2 People's War Timeline, BBC". Retrieved 2 March 2008.
8. Libraries and Culture, Stanley Chodorow
9. Callander, Jane (2004). "Garrod, Dorothy Annie Elizabeth (1892–1968)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/37443. Retrieved 14 February 2011. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
10. Warren, C. E. T.; Benson, James (1958). "The Admiralty regrets ...": the story of His Majesty's submarine Thetis and Thunderbolt. London: Harrap.
11. Narracot, A.H. (1941). "9 – Woman in Blue". How The R.A.F. Works. Frederick Muller Ltd. p. 108 (n115). Retrieved 30 July 2009.
12. Twinch, Carol (1990). Women on the Land: their story during two World Wars. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press. p. 67. ISBN 0-7188-2814-3.
13. Spencer-Longhurst, Paul (2004). "Atkinson, Robert (1883–1952)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/38347. Retrieved 31 December 2010.
14. "The Barber Institute: A Cultural Centre For Birmingham". The Times (48366). London. 25 July 1939. p. 17.
15. Bosman, Suzanne (2008). The National Gallery in Wartime. London: National Gallery Company. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-85709-424-4.
16. Scott, Jenny (25 August 2014). "Coventry IRA bombing: The 'forgotten' attack on a British city". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 30 March 2018.
17. Clouting, Laura. "The Evacuated Children of the Second World War". London: Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
18. "Conscription". Spartacus Educational. Archived from the original on 18 February 2002. Retrieved 2 March 2008.
19. Brennecke, Jochen (2003). The Hunters and the Hunted. Naval Institute Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 1-59114-091-9.
20. Kean, Hilda (2017). The Great Cat and Dog Massacre. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-31832-5.
21. "1939: An emergency population count in wartime". 2011 Census. 2011. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
22. Matthew, H. C. G. (2004). "Edward VIII, later Prince Edward, duke of Windsor (1894–1972)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31061. Retrieved 8 March 2012.
23. "The BBC Story – 1930s" (PDF). Retrieved 31 May 2010.
24. Sturtivant, Ray (1990). British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. pp. 33–34. ISBN 0-87021-026-2.
25. Draper, Alfred (1979). Operation Fish: The Fight to Save the Gold of Britain, France and Norway from the Nazis. Don Mills: General Publishing. ISBN 9780773600683.
26. Duncan, George. "Lesser-Known Facts of World War II". Retrieved 19 January 2012.
27. Doyle, Peter (2010). ARP and Civil Defence in the Second World War. Oxford: Shire Publications. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-7478-0765-0.
28. Flower, Stephen (2011). No Phoney War. Stroud: Amberley. ISBN 978-1-84868-960-2.
29. English, John (1993). Amazon to Ivanhoe: British Standard Destroyers of the 1930s. Kendal: World Ship Society. ISBN 0-905617-64-9.
30. Jeffries, Stuart (1 September 2013). "Sir David Frost obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
31. "Penny Vincenzi: 'I never plot what will happen'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
32. Cocoran, Neil (30 August 2013). "Seamus Heaney obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
33. Wüstholz, Gisbert (9 April 2018). "Alan Baker obituary". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
34. Steven, Alasdair (22 October 2015). "Obituary: Michael Meacher, politician". The Scotsman. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
35. Ewan, Elizabeth; Pipes, Rose; Rendall, Jane; Reynolds, Siân (eds.). The new biographical dictionary of Scottish women. Edinburgh University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9781474436281.
36. Sean Street; Ray Carpenter (1 January 1993). The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, 1893-1993: a centenary celebration. Dovecote Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-874336-10-5.
37. Gwen John; Michael Holroyd; Anthony d'Offay (Firm) (1982). Gwen John, 1876-1939. Anthony d'Offay.
38. Llewelyn Gwyn Chambers. "Jones, Leifchild Stratten (1862-1939), Liberal politician and temperance advocate". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
39. The Listener. British Broadcasting Corporation. July 1939. p. 1270.

See also

• Military history of the United Kingdom during World War II