1994 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

Events

January
  • 4 January – Following the expulsion of the British ambassador from Sudan, the Foreign Office orders the Sudanese ambassador to leave Britain.
  • 8 January – Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean win the British ice-dancing championship at the Sheffield Arena.
  • 10 January – Two government ministers resign: Lord Caithness following the suicide of his wife, and Tim Yeo following the revelation that he fathered a child with Conservative councillor Julia Stent.
  • 14 January – The Duchess of Kent joins the Roman Catholic Church, the first member of the Royal Family to convert to Catholicism for more than 300 years.[1]
  • 18 January – The Prince of Wales (now Charles III) retires from competitive polo at the age of 45.
  • 20 January
  • 25 January – Jimmy Boyce, the newly elected Labour MP for Rotherham in South Yorkshire, dies suddenly of a heart attack aged 47.
  • 31 January – British Aerospace sells its 80% stake in Rover to BMW, leaving Britain without an independent volume carmaker.[3] It is envisaged that the new Rover Group will produce more than 1 million cars per year worldwide and will be Europe's seventh largest carmaker.

February
  • 1 February
  • 4 February – British Coal confirms the closure of four more pits, a move which will claim some 3,000 jobs.
  • 7 February – Stephen Milligan, Conservative MP for Eastleigh in Hampshire, is found dead aged 45 at his home in Chiswick, West London. On 11 February it is announced that forensic tests have revealed that he died of asphyxiation and that his death was probably the result of an auto-erotic sex practice.[4]
  • 10 February – Three men are jailed in connection with the IRA bombings of Warrington gasworks 11 months previous. Pairic MacFhloinn is jailed for 35 years, Denis Kinsella for 25 years and John Kinsella for 20 years.
  • 12–27 February – Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, and win 2 bronze medals.
  • 21 February – Honda sells its 20% stake of the Rover Group, allowing BMW to take full control. This marks the end of the 13-year venture between the two carmakers, although the Honda-based Rover 400 will still go into production next year, becoming the seventh and final product of the venture.
  • 24 February – Police in Gloucester begin excavations at 25 Cromwell Street, the home of 52-year-old builder Fred West, investigating the disappearance of his daughter Heather, who was last seen alive in the summer of 1987 when she was 16 years old.
  • 28 February
    • Fred West is charged with the murder of his daughter Heather and of the murder of Shirley Robinson, an 18-year-old woman who was last seen alive in 1978.[5]
    • Ron Leighton, the Labour MP for Newham North East in London, dies in office aged 64.

March

April
  • April – Economic growth for the first quarter of this year exceeded 1% – the highest for five years.
  • 1 April – Women's Royal Air Force fully merged into Royal Air Force.
  • 10 April – Human remains are found at Kempley, Gloucestershire, by police working on the Gloucester mass murder case. The body is believed to be that of Catherine "Rena" Costello, Fred West's first wife, who was last seen alive in 1971.
  • 12 April – Bob Cryer, the Labour MP for Bradford South in West Yorkshire, is accidentally killed after his car overturns on the M1 near Watford, Hertfordshire, aged 59.
  • 20 April – Unemployment has fallen to just over 2,500,000 – the lowest level in two years – as the economy continues to make a good recovery from the recession that ended a year ago.
  • 28 April – Rosemary West, 40-year-old wife of suspected serial killer Fred West, is charged with three of the murders her husband stands accused of. Rosemary West was first arrested seven days ago, two months after her husband was first taken into custody.
  • 29 April – An opinion poll shows that Conservative support has fallen to 26% – their worst showing in any major opinion poll since coming to power 15 years ago.

May

June
  • 2 June – Chinook crash on Mull of Kintyre: an RAF Chinook helicopter carrying more than twenty leading intelligence experts crashes on the Mull of Kintyre, killing everyone on board.[15]
  • 7 June
    • Television playwright Dennis Potter, 59, dies of cancer in Ross-on-Wye, a week after his wife Margaret died of the same illness.
    • Police working on the Gloucester mass murder case find and begin the 2-day recovery of human remains from a field at Much Marcle, near Gloucester (a site located by Fred West), which are identified on 30 June to be those of Anne McFall, who was last seen alive in 1967 at the age of 18 and pregnant with West's child.[16]
  • 9 June
  • 13 June – The Conservatives suffer their worst election results this century, winning a mere 18 out of 87 of the nation's seats in the European parliament elections. The resurgent Labour Party, still without a leader as the search for a successor to the late John Smith continues, wins 62 seats.
  • 16 June – Sir Norman Fowler resigns as chairman of the Conservative Party.
  • 15 June – Britain's railways grind to a virtual standstill with a strike by more than 4,000 signalling staff.
  • 29 June – Jonathan Dimbleby's film on Charles III, Charles: The Private Man, the Public Role is broadcast on ITV.
  • 30 June
    • Magistrates in Gloucester charge Fred West with a total of 11 murders believed to have been committed between 1967 and 1987, while Rose West is charged with nine murders which are believed to have been committed between 1970 and 1987. On 3 July he is charged with a 12th murder, that of Anna McFall.[16]
    • Helen Liddell, a former aide to Robert Maxwell, is elected as the new Labour MP for Monklands East in the by-election caused by the death of John Smith.

July

August
  • 1 August
  • 13 August – Fifteen-year-old Richard Everitt is stabbed to death in London by a gang of British Bangladeshis in a racially motivated murder.[18]
  • 18 August – The first MORI poll since Tony Blair became Labour Party leader gives him a massive boost in his ambition to become prime minister as his party scores at 56% and has a 33-point lead over the Conservatives, who are now just five points ahead of the Liberal Democrats.[2]
  • 20 August – Huddersfield Town move into their new all-seater Alfred McAlpine Stadium, which has an initial capacity of 16,000 and will rise to 20,000 later this year on the completion of a third stand; a fourth stand is also planned and would take the capacity to around 25,000.[19]
  • 26 August – Sunday Trading Act 1994 (5 July) comes into full effect, permitting retailers to trade on Sundays, though restricting opening times of larger stores to a maximum of six hours, which must be between 10 am and 6 pm. This will have a significant social effect on shopping habits.
  • 31 August – The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares a ceasefire.[20]

September

October
  • October – Rover Group launches the Rover 100 – a facelifted version of the Metro.
  • 10 October – With the economic recovery continuing at a strong rate, unemployment is now falling at twice the rate in Conservative constituencies than in Labour ones, giving the Conservatives hope that they could win the next general election (which has to be held by May 1997) despite Labour having led the way in the opinion polls for virtually all of the two-and-a-half years since the last election.
  • 12 October – John Blackburn, the Conservative MP for Dudley West in the West Midlands, dies suddenly of a heart attack aged 61.
  • 20 October – Cash-for-questions affair: The Guardian newspaper reports that two Conservative MPs, Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith, took bribes from Harrods chief Mohamed Al-Fayed to ask questions in the House of Commons.[24]
  • 30 October – Korean industrial giant Daewoo announces that it will start selling cars in Britain next year, selling directly to customers through its own sales organisation rather than a traditional dealer network.[25]
  • 31 October – The Duke of Edinburgh attends a ceremony in Israel where his late mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg is honoured as "Righteous among the Nations" for sheltering Jewish families from the Nazis in Athens, during World War II.

November
  • 3 November – Criminal Justice and Public Order Act receives Royal Assent. This changes the right to silence of an accused person, allowing for inferences to be drawn from their silence; increases police powers of "Stop and search" and gives them greater rights to take and retain intimate body samples; changes the law relating to collective trespass to land, criminalising some previously civil offences; tightens the law in some areas relating to obscenity, pornography and sexual offences; and lowers the age of consent for male homosexual acts from twenty-one years to eighteen, while setting the age for female acts at sixteen, for the first time in English law recognising the existence of lesbianism.
  • 10 November – BBC1 broadcasts the first episode of sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, created by Richard Curtis for Dawn French, who plays the title role.
  • 15 November – The Daily Telegraph becomes the first national newspaper in Britain to launch an online edition, the Electronic Telegraph. Some 600,000 people in Britain now have access to the internet at home.
  • 16 November – Unemployment has fallen to under 2,500,000 for the first time since the end of 1991.
  • 19 November – The first UK National Lottery draw takes place.[6]

December
  • December – Rover Group ends production of its long-running Maestro and Montego ranges which were strong sellers during the 1980s but in recent years has been produced in lower volumes due to the success of models like the Rover 200.
  • 9 December – First meeting between the British government and Sinn Féin in more than 70 years.[6]
  • 14 December – Moors murderer Myra Hindley, who has been in prison since 1966, is informed by the Home Office that she will never be released from prison. She is one of an estimated 15 life sentence prisoners who have been issued with the whole life tariff. The decision was taken by former Home Secretary David Waddington in 1990. Ian Brady who was also jailed with Hindley in May 1966, is also on the list.
  • 15 December
    • Tony Blair continues to enjoy dominance in the opinion polls as the latest MORI poll shows Labour support at an unprecedented 61%, putting them a massive 39 points ahead of the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats have suffered a slump in popularity, gained just 13% of the vote in this poll compared to 20% a year ago.[2]
    • Ian Pearson wins the Dudley West by-election for Labour with nearly 70% of the votes, becoming the new MP for the constituency which was left vacant with the death of Conservative John Blackburn two months ago. The Conservative majority has now fallen to 13 seats.[26]
  • 28 December – Tony Blair claims that 40% of the workforce have been unemployed at some time since 1989, although there has never been more than 10.6% of the workforce out of work at the same time since then.

Undated

Publications

Births

Deaths

January
Brian Johnston
Matt Busby

February
Gwen Watford

March
Donald Swann

April
Pamela Mitford

May
Lady May Abel Smith

June

July
Dorothy Hodgkin

August
Peter Cushing

September
Billy Wright
Karl Popper

October
Philip Burton Moon

November
George Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Earl of Selkirk

December
Heinz Bernard
Cyril Garnham
Fanny Cradock

See also

References
  1. "Duchess of Kent joins Catholic church". BBC News. 14 January 1994. Archived from the original on 13 January 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  2. "Poll tracker: Interactive guide to the opinion polls". BBC News. 29 September 2009. Archived from the original on 17 December 2009. Retrieved 19 December 2009.
  3. "MPs condemn sale of Rover". BBC News. 1 February 1994. Archived from the original on 11 January 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  4. "1994: Police probe MP's suspicious death". BBC News. 8 February 1994. Retrieved 25 May 2007.
  5. Bennett, Will (2 January 1995). "The Bodies: Litany of sadness: the lives of West's twelve female victims". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  6. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
  7. Brown, Andrew (13 March 1994). "'Send down your Holy Spirit upon your servant Angela': History is made as the Church of England ordains its first women priests". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022.
  8. Riccardo, Orizio (13 March 1994). "Le sacerdotesse di Sua Maesta". Corriere della Sera. p. 5.
  9. Darnton, John (13 March 1994). "After 460 Years, The Anglicans Ordain Women". The New York Times.
  10. "A female Archbishop? The contenders". The Guardian. London. 25 July 2002.
  11. Schwarz, Walter (12 March 1994). "Day of reckoning: First women priests embraced as equals". The Guardian. London.
  12. Bennett, Will (22 November 1995). "Step-daughter Charmaine was first to die". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2010.
  13. Dadds, Kimberley (19 July 2007). "The UK's longest-running chart toppers". Digital Spy. Archived from the original on 10 November 2010. Retrieved 15 November 2010.
  14. "Camelot wins UK lottery race". BBC News. 25 May 1994. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  15. "MI5 officers killed in helicopter crash". BBC News. 2 June 1994. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  16. "House of Horrors timeline: Day-by-day investigation into Cromwell Street killers Fred and Rose West". GloucestershireLive. 22 February 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  17. "Labour chooses Blair". BBC News. 21 July 1994. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  18. McKie, John (1 November 1995). "Gang leader gets life for killing boy". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  19. "Galpharm Stadium – Huddersfield".
  20. "IRA declares 'complete' ceasefire". BBC News. 31 August 1994. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  21. Richardson, Andy, ed. (28 April 2017). "Goths descend on town to celebrate weekend". Darlington & Stockton Times. No. 2017–17. p. 22. ISSN 2040-3933.
  22. "Aldwych station – History". Underground History. Retrieved 25 August 2016.
  23. "History". Epping Ongar Railway. Archived from the original on 22 April 2012. Retrieved 25 August 2016.
  24. Hencke, David (20 October 1994). "Tory MPs were paid to plant questions says Harrods chief". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  25. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  26. "How the Government's Majority Disappeared (Dudley West)". BBC News. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
  27. "One Direction | Members, Songs, & Facts | Britannica". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  28. Pepper, Terence (12 May 1994). "Obituary: Lady Victoria Wemyss". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022. Retrieved 13 October 2010.
  29. "Obituary: Mark McManus". The Independent. 6 June 1994. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
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