Events from the year 1957 in the United Kingdom.
Incumbents Monarch – Elizabeth II Prime Minister - Anthony Eden (Conservative) (until 10 January), Harold Macmillan (Conservative) (starting 10 January)
Events 1 January – Sexual Offences Act 1956 (a consolidation of the English criminal law) comes into effect. 9 January – Resignation of Anthony Eden as Prime Minister due to ill health. 10 January – Harold Macmillan succeeds Anthony Eden as Prime Minister through "the customary processes of consultation". 16 January Royal Ballet granted a Royal Charter. The Cavern Club opens in Liverpool as a jazz club. 24 January – Sunday Express newspaper editor John Junor is called to the Bar of the House of Commons to be reprimanded for contempt of Parliament – the last non-politician to be so called. January The first operational Avro Vulcan strategic V bomber enters service with the Royal Air Force, at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. National Trust for Scotland agrees to accept the bequest of the islands of St Kilda. February – Norwich City Council becomes the first British local authority to install a computer (an Elliott 405). 11 February – East Midlands earthquake. 16 February – The "Toddlers' Truce" (an arrangement whereby there have been no television broadcasts between 18:00–19:00 to allow parents to put their children to bed) is abolished. 22 February – The Queen grants her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom. 6 March – The Northern Territories protectorate and British Togoland are annexed to the Crown, which territories together with Ashanti and Gold Coast become Ghana which is independent of the United Kingdom. 13 March – The Anglo-Jordanian Treaty of 1948 expires. 21 March – Homicide Act amends the common law offence of murder in English law by introducing the partial defences of diminished responsibility and suicide pact, reforming the partial defence of provocation, and largely abolishing the doctrine of constructive malice; it also restricts the application of the death penalty to aggravated murder (creating a new offence of capital murder), allowing commutation of sentence to life imprisonment in other cases. It is no longer a requirement for the Attorney General to prosecute poisoning cases in person. 1 April – The BBC's Panorama current affairs programme presented by Richard Dimbleby broadcasts a spaghetti tree hoax report purporting to show spaghetti being harvested in Switzerland, believed to be the first April Fool's Day joke on television. 4 April – 1957 Defence White Paper presented by Duncan Sandys, Minister of Defence, introduces major cuts in conventional land and air forces.Defence: The Outline of Future Policy. Cmd.124. 10 April – Royal Court Theatre (London) premieres John Osborne's The Entertainer with Laurence Olivier in the title role.The Daily Express, 10 April 1957, p. 4. 11 April – The UK Government agrees to allow Singapore its independence. 15 April – Suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams is controversially found not guilty at the Old Bailey after Britain's longest murder trial. Political interference is suspected. 20 April – Manchester United retain the Football League First Division title with a 4–0 win over Sunderland. 24 April – The first broadcast of BBC Television astronomy series The Sky at Night, presented by Patrick Moore. This will run with him as presenter until his final episode is broadcast on 7 January 2013, one month following his death. 2 May – The Hammer Film Productions' The Curse of Frankenstein is released. 4 May – Aston Villa win the FA Cup for a record seventh time with a 2–1 win over Football League First Division champions Manchester United at Wembley Stadium. Peter McParland scores both of Villa's goals with United's consolation goal coming from Tommy Taylor. The result ends Manchester United's hopes of becoming the first team this century to win the double of the league title and FA Cup. 14 May – The end of petrol rationing following the Suez Crisis. 15 May Operation Grapple: Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb at Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean. Stanley Matthews plays his final international football game, ending an English record international career of almost 23 years. 21 May – Project E: agreement for the United States to supply Thor intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Britain under US control. 1 June – The first Premium Bond winners are selected by the computer ERNIE. 3 June – The actor and playwright Noël Coward returns to Britain from the West Indies amid criticism that he is living abroad to avoid having to pay tax. 13 June – Eight people are killed in Oxford Street, London after a bus on route 7 collides with a queue of people at a bus stop. 26 June – Six miners are killed in Barnburgh Main Colliery after an underground explosion. 27 June – A report by the Medical Research Council reveals that there is evidence to support a link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer. Late June – The 1957–1958 influenza pandemic ("Asian flu") which has already killed thousands of people worldwide, reaches Britain where it will kill a number estimated at between 20,000 and 33,000. 6 July – Future members of The Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney first meet as teenagers at a garden fête at St. Peter's Church, Woolton, Liverpool at which Lennon's skiffle group The Quarrymen is playing. 20 July Prime Minister Harold Macmillan makes a speech to his fellow Conservative Party members at Bedford, telling them that "most of our people have never had it so good".Originally reported by Michael Freedland. Civic Trust (England), founded by Duncan Sandys to promote improvement of the built environment, holds its inaugural conference in London. Stirling Moss finishes the British Grand Prix at Aintree in first position in a Vanwall VW5, the first World Championship victory for a British car. 20–28 July – The Transport and General Workers' Union stages a national strike by provincial (non-municipal) bus crews; some violence against non-strikers is reported. 31 July – The Tryweryn Bill, permitting Liverpool City Council to build a reservoir which will drown the village of Capel Celyn, becomes law. Every Welsh MP votes against (or, in one case, abstains). 5 August – The cartoon character Andy Capp first appears in northern editions of the Daily Mirror. 31 August The Federation of Malaya becomes independent from Britain. Central Scotland's ITV channel Scottish Television goes on the air, the first 7-day-a-week ITV franchise to do so. August – The ZETA fusion reactor begins operating at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, Oxfordshire. 4 September – Publication of the Wolfenden report, recommending "homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence", although it will be a decade before the necessary legislation is passed. The report also proposes stricter laws against street prostitution. 10 September – Tony Lock becomes the last bowler to reach 200 wickets in a first-class season, a feat subsequently impossible due to limited-overs cricket and covered pitches. 1 October 1957–1958 influenza pandemic: The UK introduces a vaccine against the "Asian flu". Deaths from the condition will peak in week ending 17 October at 600 in England and Wales. Which? magazine is first published by The Consumers' Association. 2 October – David Lean's Academy Award-winning film The Bridge on the River Kwai is released. 10 October – Windscale fire: The graphite core of the nuclear reactor at Windscale, Cumbria, catches fire, releasing substantial amounts of radioactive contamination into the surrounding area. 11 October – Jodrell Bank Observatory becomes operational. 28 October – Today is first broadcast as a daily early-morning topical radio show on the BBC Home Service. It will still be running more than 60 years later. 30 October – The government unveils plans which will allow women to join the House of Lords for the first time. 8 November Operation Grapple: First successful (test) explosion of a British hydrogen bomb, at Christmas Island in the Pacific. An inquiry into last month's fire at Windscale nuclear power plant blames the accident on a combination of human error, poor management and faulty instruments. 15 November – 1957 Aquila Airways Solent crash: A flying boat crash on the Isle of Wight kills 45. 4 December – The Lewisham rail crash kills 90 and injures 173. 10 December – Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes". 12 December – Wales gets its own minister of state in the Westminster government for the first time. 25 December – The Royal Christmas Message is broadcast on television with the Queen on camera for the first time. 28 December – A case of foot-and-mouth disease is found at an abattoir in Liverpool. Undated Minting of the sovereign as a bullion piece resumes. The Manchester Guardian newspaper reintroduces a women's page, with Mary Stott as editor.
Publications John Braine's novel Room at the Top. B2FH, an astrophysics paper by British astronomers Geoffrey Burbidge, Margaret Burbidge and Fred Hoyle and American astronomer William Fowler describing the synthesis of the lightest elements through nuclear processes in stars. Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel 4:50 from Paddington. Lawrence Durrell's novel Justine, first of The Alexandria Quartet, and his memoir Bitter Lemons. Ian Fleming's James Bond novel From Russia, with Love. Richard Hoggart's study The Uses of Literacy. Ted Hughes' first collection of poems The Hawk in the Rain. Alistair MacLean's wartime adventure novel The Guns of Navarone. Stevie Smith's poem "Not Waving but Drowning". Evelyn Waugh's novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold. Bert Weedon's guitar tutorial Play in a Day. John Wyndham's novel The Midwich Cuckoos. Michael Young and Peter Willmott's sociological study Family and Kinship in East London.
Births 4 January – Charles Allen, television magnate 6 January – Michael Foale, astronaut 11 January – Bryan Robson, footballer 15 January – Patrick Dixon, business guru and author 16 January – Mark Pawsey, businessman and politician 17 January – Keith Chegwin, actor and television presenter (died 2017) 22 January – Francis Wheen, English journalist and author 24 January – Adrian Edmondson, comedian and actor 27 January – Janick Gers, heavy metal guitarist 28 January – Frank Skinner, English comedian, actor and television personality 1 February – Kenny Morris, musician (died 2026) 6 February – Matthew Best, conductor and singer (died 2025) 9 February – Gordon Strachan, footballer and manager 10 February – Helen Alexander, businesswoman (died 2017) 13 February – Tony Butler, bass guitarist 19 February – Ray Winstone, actor 22 February – Robert Bathurst, actor 27 February – Timothy Spall, character actor 5 March – Mark E. Smith, singer-songwriter (died 2018) 7 March – Robert Harris, novelist and journalist 10 March Hilary Devey, businesswoman and television personality (died 2022) Barry Gardiner, politician 21 March – Haydn Gwynne, actress (died 2023)Haydn Gwynne, star of stage and screen, dies aged 66 22 March – Michael Mosley, broadcaster and medic (died 2024)Dr Michael Mosley obituary 25 March – Christina Boxer, middle-distance runner 31 March – Alan Duncan, politician 1 April David Gower, cricket player and commentator Stephen O'Brien, lawyer and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills 3 April – Julia Hills, actress 7 April – Simon Climie, English singer-songwriter (Climie Fisher) 17 April – Nick Hornby, novelist 20 April – Graeme Fowler, English cricketer, coach and sportscaster 23 April – Richard Keys, sport presenter 24 April Nazir Ahmed, Baron Ahmed, Pakistani-British Labour Party politician