Events from the year 1963 in the United Kingdom. This year sees changes in the leadership of both main political parties, the Profumo affair and the rise of The Beatles as well as the launch of the long-running sci-fi series Doctor Who.

Incumbents Monarch – Elizabeth II Prime Minister - Harold Macmillan (Conservative) (until 18 October), Alec Douglas-Home (Conservative) (starting 19 October)

Events January–April – Winter of 1963: The UK experiences the worst winter since 1946–47. Low temperatures keep snow lying around until early-April in some areas. 7 January – Granada Television first broadcasts World in Action, its influential investigative current affairs series, which will run for thirty-five years. 11 January – Musical film Summer Holiday starring Cliff Richard premieres in London. 16 January – The Macmillan-led Conservative government announces that a new town will be developed in Shropshire. Dawley New Town will incorporate existing communities including: Dawley, Ironbridge and Madeley, and is intended to be largely used as an overspill town for Birmingham and Wolverhampton. 18 January – The Labour Party leader, Hugh Gaitskell, dies suddenly aged 56 in London. 23 January – Double agent Kim Philby disappears from Beirut having defected to the Soviet Union. 29 January – Charles de Gaulle, President of France, vetoes the UK's entry into the European Economic Community. February – The Royal Air Force deploys Blue Steel nuclear standoff missiles to arm its V bomber force. 11 February – The Beatles record their debut album Please Please Me in a single day at the Abbey Road Studios in London. 14 February – The Labour Party elects 46-year-old Huyton MP, Harold Wilson as its new leader and Leader of the Opposition. Missing out in the leadership contest is Cardiff South East MP James Callaghan. Opinion polls are currently showing strong support for the Labour Party, with a general election due before the end of next year. 16 February – Opinion polls indicate that in a general election Labour would defeat the Conservatives, who have governed since 1951. March – The divorce case of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll takes place. 15 March – Ridge v. Baldwin, a landmark case in the law of judicial review, is decided on appeal: a public official is held to be wrongfully dismissed because he had no notice of the grounds on which the decision was made, and no opportunity to be heard in his own defence. 22 March – The Beatles release their debut album, Please Please Me. 27 March – Chairman of British Railways Dr. Richard Beeching issues a report calling for huge cuts to the UK's rail network. This is expected to result in the closure of more than 2,000 railway stations as well as the loss of up to 68,000 jobs and the scrapping of some 8,000 coaches. c. April – Engineering Building at the University of Leicester is completed, the first major work by James Stirling with James Gowan, and a leading example of Brutalist architecture. 6 April – Polaris Sales Agreement with the United States, leading to commencement of construction of nuclear submarine facilities at Faslane Naval Base. 9 April – Sir Winston Churchill becomes an honorary citizen of the United States. 15 April – 70,000 protesters arrive in London, having marched 50 miles (80 km) from Aldermaston to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. 24 April – Princess Alexandra of Kent marries the Hon. Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey. 30 April – The Bristol Bus Boycott arises, due to the refusal of the Bristol Omnibus Company to employ Black or Asian bus crews in the city of Bristol, and lasts for 4 months. 2 May The Beatles reach #1 in the UK Singles chart for the first time with "From Me to You". The Rootes Group's new car plant at the town of Linwood, Renfrewshire is opened by The Duke of Edinburgh for the production of its new rear-engined mini-car – the Hillman Imp – to compete against BMC's Mini. It has an economical 875cc engine, and is expected to be developed into luxury Singer and sporty Sunbeam variants in the near future. It is the first new car to be produced in Scotland for thirty years. 7–13 May – The last servicemen are released from conscription as National Service ends. 11 May The Beatles album Please Please Me goes to the top of the UK Albums Chart. Everton F.C. win the Football League First Division title. 15 May – Tottenham Hotspur become the first British football team to win a European trophy when a 5–1 win over Atlético Madrid in Rotterdam gives them the European Cup Winners' Cup. 25 May – Manchester United F.C. beat Leicester City 3–1 in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium with two goals from David Herd and another from Denis Law. It is Manchester United's first major trophy since eight of their players died in the Munich air disaster five years earlier. 4 June – The high society nightclub Annabel's opens at 44 Berkeley Square, Mayfair. 5 June – Profumo affair: John Profumo, Secretary of State for War, admits to misleading Parliament and resigns over his affair with Christine Keeler. 8 June – Profumo affair: Stephen Ward is charged with living on immoral earnings. 17 June – The Profumo affair has done the Conservative government no favours in the opinion polls, which continue to show that a Labour victory would be inevitable at a general election. 1 July – Kim Philby named as the "Third Man" in the Burgess and Maclean spy ring. 12 July – Pauline Reade, 16, is reported missing on her way to a dance in Gorton, Manchester, the first victim of the Moors murders. 31 July – Water Resources Act provides for the regulation of water abstraction, principally through the establishment of regional river authorities.Water Resources Act August – Race riots in Dudley. 5 August – The United States, United Kingdom and Soviet Union sign a nuclear test ban treaty. 8 August – The Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire. 20 August – The Royal Shakespeare Company introduces its performance cycle of Shakespeare's history plays under the title The War of the Roses, adapted and directed by John Barton and Peter Hall, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. September First Leeds International Piano Competition: Michael Roll is the winner. The Sindy fashion doll is first marketed by Pedigree. 5 September – Christine Keeler is arrested for perjury. On 6 December, she is sentenced to nine months in prison. 7 September – Geophysicists Fred Vine and Drummond Matthews publish proof of seafloor spreading on the Atlantic Ocean floor. 12 September – The Beatles reach #1 for the second time, with the single "She Loves You" (released on 23 August). 17 September – RAF Fylingdales radar station on the North York Moors begins operation as part of the United States Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. 18 September – Rioters burn down the British Embassy in Jakarta to protest against the formation of Malaysia. 23 September – The Robbins Report (the report of the Committee on Higher Education, chaired by Lord Robbins) is published. It recommends immediate expansion of universities, and that university places "should be available to all who were qualified for them by ability and attainment". Its conclusions are accepted by the government on 24 October. 25 September – The Denning Report on the Profumo affair is published. 26 September – Vauxhall launches the new Viva, a small family saloon, similar in size to BMC's 1100 and the Ford Anglia. 29 September The University of East Anglia opens in Norwich. Release of the film Tom Jones. 2 October – Ford Motor Company begins production of its Ford Anglia car at their new Halewood Body & Assembly plant on Merseyside. 10 October Prime Minister Harold Macmillan announces his resignation after nearly seven years in office, at the age of 69, on the grounds of ill health. From Russia with Love, the second James Bond film, premieres at Odeon Leicester Square in London. 17 October – Two British scientists (Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Fielding Huxley) and an Australian (John Carew Eccles) are announced in Stockholm as winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the ionic mechanisms involved in excitation and inhibition in the peripheral and central portions of the nerve cell membrane". 18 October – Macmillan resigns as Prime Minister. 19 October – Alec Douglas-Home replaces Macmillan as Prime Minister following discussion among members of the Cabinet, renouncing his peerage. 22 October – The National Theatre Company, newly formed under artistic director Laurence Olivier, gives its first performance, with Peter O'Toole as Hamlet at The Old Vic in London. November – Publication of Traffic in Towns, a report on urban transport planning policy produced for the Department of Transport by a team headed by Colin Buchanan. 18 November – The Dartford Tunnel opens. 22 November – C. S. Lewis, the author most famous for the Narnia books (1950–1955), dies aged 65 in Oxford. However, media coverage of his death (as also that of Aldous Huxley in the United States on the same day) is overshadowed by the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy, news of which reaches the UK just after 18:30 UTC. 23 November First episode of the BBC Television science fiction series Doctor Who is broadcast with William Hartnell as the First Doctor. The series runs until 1989 and is revived from 2005. Police in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, begin a missing persons investigation following the disappearance of 12-year-old John Kilbride; he is the second victim of the Moors murders. 25 November – The Duke of Edinburgh, Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Leader of the Opposition Harold Wilson attend the funeral of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Washington, D.C. 30 November – After an unbroken 30-week spell at the top of the UK Albums Chart, The Beatles album Please Please Me is knocked off the top of the charts by the group's latest album With the Beatles (released on 22 November). 12 December Kenya gains independence from the United Kingdom, with Jomo Kenyatta as Prime Minister. The Beatles reach #1 for the third time with "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (released on 29 November). 19 December – Zanzibar gains independence from the United Kingdom, as a constitutional monarchy under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah. 21 December – First episode of the seven-part serial The Daleks broadcast in the Doctor Who series, introducing the alien Daleks (revealed fully in the following week's episode).

Undated BMC's new Rover P6 luxury saloon is the first winner of the prestigious European Car of the Year award. S. Hille & Co market the Polypropylene stacking chair designed by Robin Day. The launch of the Astro or lava lamp by the founder of Mathmos, Edward Craven-Walker. The motorway network continues to grow with the opening of the first section of the M4 in Berkshire, the M6 between Warrington and Preston in Lancashire, and the M2 in Kent. Economic growth for the year reaches a postwar high of 7.5% (slightly above the previous record of 7.2% in 1959), with GDP reaching 4.3% in the second quarter of the year.

Publications Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel The Clocks. Margaret Drabble's first novel A Summer Bird Cage. Ian Fleming's James Bond novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service. John Fowles' novel The Collector. The Group's poetry collection A Group Anthology edited by Edward Lucie-Smith and Philip Hobsbaum. John le Carré's novel The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Alistair MacLean's thriller Ice Station Zebra. Sylvia Plath's only novel The Bell Jar (under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas). John Robinson (bishop of Woolwich)'s controversial religious book Honest to God. C. P. Snow's novel Corridors of Power. E. P. Thompson's social history The Making of the English Working Class. The Sunday Pictorial newspaper is rebranded as the Sunday Mirror.

Births

January – April