18 January 1955Birth of Simon RattleSimon Rattle
Birth of Simon Rattle
Historical records for Great Britain in 1955, rendered directly from the World History Database and ordered by month, day and event.
Birth of Simon Rattle
MacMillan advises Churchill to retire
Advises Churchill to retire, the only member of the Government brave enough to do so
Cabinet decides to grant Prince Philip the title, Prince of the United Kingdom
Turkey & Iraq sign a Treaty of alliance, Parliament votes to support it
Churchills budget includes expenditure on the hydrogen bomb
Churchills budget includes expenditure on the hydrogen bomb
Supports the debate in Parliament for investing in a British hydrogen bomb
Opens the debate in Parliament in favour of investing in a British hydrogen bomb
Finishes off the debate in Parliament, "we have to prevent hot war & win the cold war"
Death of Alexander Flemming
Print Workers go on strike
Resigns due to ill health
Resigns due to ill health. Chairs the Cabinet for the last time & announces his resignation
Succeeds Winston Churchill as Prime Minister.
Succeeds Churchill as Prime Minister
Appointed Prime Minister of Great Britain, 1st term
Calls a general election, the 1st in which television is extensively used
West Germany joins NATO. Without West Germany it would have been impossible to field enough conventional forces to resist a Soviet invasion
Loses Plymouth Devonport to Conservative Joan Vickers at the general election.
Retains Coventry East at the 1955 general election.
Wins the general election and increases the Conservative majority
Retains Birmingham Stechford for Labour as the Conservatives win nationally.
Wins the general election and increases the Conservative majority
General election outcome recorded for Robert Anthony Eden: Wins the general election and increases the Conservative majority
Government context for this general election: Wins the general election and increases the Conservative majority
Healey moves to Leeds East at the general election and holds it for decades.
Healey wins the newly created Leeds East constituency and represents it until retiring from the Commons.
Through the Black Sash organisation, Hayman offered free legal advice to many people, usually women, who had approached the Black Sash Advice Centre in Johannesburg, and often appeared herself in court to represent them
Birth of Tim Berners-Lee
Birth of Michael Geoffrey "Mick" Jones, Brixton
Visits Norway
Breaks the world land speed record
Attends the Geneva Summit conference
Appointed Governor of Cyprus
Birth of Stephen Michael James "Steve" Ovett
Decides not to marry Peter Townsend
Visited by the President of Portugal
Declares a state of emergency in Cyprus
Resigns as Party Leader of the Labour Party after losing two general elections
Resigns as Party Leader of the Labour Party after losing two general elections
Patents the Hovercraft
Elected Party Leader of the Labour Party
Loses the Labour leadership contest to Hugh Gaitskell.
Appointed Party Leader of the Labour Party
Created Earl Attlee and Viscount Prestwood
Becomes Government Chief Whip and manages Conservative parliamentary discipline.
Wins the Labour leadership contest against Bevan and Morrison.
Appointed Leader of the House of Commons
Appointed Lord Privy Seal
Directs & Stars in, "A Man Alone"
Appears in Above Us the Waves
Begins accountancy articles with Peat Marwick & Mitchell while also developing property interests in London.
Winner of a BAFTA for best actress for her part in The Divided Heart
Birth of Howard Devoto was born Howard Trotter
Birth of Peter Lord, later co-founder of Aardman Animations.
Begins serving on the Board of Governors of the British Film Institute.
Eden's government joins the preliminary Western offer to support the High Dam.
Reduces taxation prior to the general election
Works with nuclear physicists at Caltech on stellar element formation.
Appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
Appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer
Appointed Chief Whip
Appointed Secretary of State for the Commonwealth
Discusses German reunification, there is no agreement between East & West
The West forward the "Eden Plan" for demilitarization of East Germany & free elections
Heads a subcommittee on the organisation of the Labour Party
Reports that the Labour Party is too centralized. Heads an NEC working group into why Labour had lost the last 2 elections
Death of Hubert Cecil Booth
The West forward the "Eden Plan" for demilitarization of East Germany & free elections
Appointed Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
Publication of Don Revies autobiography Soccers Happy Wanderer
Produces early radio maps of M31 with the Cambridge Radio Astronomy Group, revealing the galaxy as an extended radio source rather than a single point.
The West forward the "Eden Plan" for demilitarization of East Germany & free elections. The East rejects the "Eden Plan"
Rejoins Tribune as editor from 1955 to 1960
Attends Western Hill pre-pre school
The Conservatives win 344 seats, Labour 277, Liberals 6 and Sinn Fein 2
Reduces taxation prior to the general election
The Conservatives win an overall majority of 59. The Conservatives win 49.7% of votes cast & 345 seats to Labour's 277
The West forward the "Eden Plan" for demilitarization of East Germany & free elections
Healey wins Leeds East at the 1955 general election.
Increases his majority at Bromley by 1,014
Heads an NEC working group into why Labour had lost the last 2 elections
At the General Election doubles his majority in Huyton to 2,558
Appointed Shadow Chancellor after Gaitskell wins the leadership election
Appointed Foreign Minister
Appointed Foreign Minister
Aligns with Hugh Gaitskell's modernising and revisionist wing of the Labour Party.
Invents the Hovercraft
Retires from playing to become manager of Ipswich Town. Guides the Suffolk-based side to third place in the 3rd Division South in his debut season, the side scoring 106 goals in the 46 league fixtures
Sellers portrays Police Constable Diamond in John and Julie.
Appointed Junior Housing Minister
Directs The Ladykillers
Forms the influential London Blues and Barrelhouse Club
Appointed Lord President of the Council, 1st term
Retires from playing to become manager of Ipswich Town
The Pugwash Manifesto is signed by 9 Nobel Prize winners
Challenges unsuccessfully for the leadership of the Labour Party, wins 70 votes
Unsuccessfully stands for the Party leadership, defeated in the first round
Healey begins representing Leeds East, a constituency he retains until his Commons retirement in 1992.
Unsuccessfull for the leadership of the Labour Party, defeated in the 1st round
Decemberides not to stand for the leadership of the Labour Party but to support Gaitskell. At the General Election doubles his majority in Huyton to 2,558
Forms the property venture Michian with Oxford friend Ian Josephs, combining their first names in the company name.
Leads development of practical scanning electron microscopes with improved detectors and electronic imaging systems.
Livingstone's Newcastle United lift the cup after a 3-1 final success over Manchester City.
Produces a White Paper for the adoption of the British hydrogen bomb
Has the party whip withdrawn because of opposition to Attlee's support for the H-bomb
Takes part in Labour debates over nuclear weapons, defence policy and disarmament.
Publication of "Officers & Gentlemen"
Becomes head of Parlophone Records, then a smaller EMI label with strong comedy and novelty releases.
Appointed Party Leader of the Conservative Party
Regains party standing after internal Labour conflict.
Winner of the Football Writers Association Footballer of the Year
Becomes the Right Honourable Edward Heath
Co-authors Biography of a Nation with Angus Maude, presenting an interpretation of Britain's political and social development.
Publishes Thucydidis historia through the Clarendon Press, continuing his work on Greek historical texts.
Hoyle and Martin Schwarzschild developed influential models explaining how low-mass stars evolve into luminous red giants.
Retires from playing to become manager of Ipswich Town
Adopts the Revie Plan for England in a 7-2 victory over Scotland at Wembley, this was seen as something of a restoration in national pride at the time after recent humiliations inflicted by Hungary and Ireland
Revie plays a pivotal role in the introduction to English football of the playing position of a deep-lying centre forward which evolves into the so-called Revie Plan, with Revie as the central figure, this role derives from the more traditional inside right position, and is based on the style of the successful Hungarian national team
Appointed Secretary of State for the Commonwealth
Appointed Minister of Defence
Appointed Shadow Chancellor after Gaitskell wins the leadership election
Lonnie Donegans version of "Rock Island Line" begins skiffle music which inspires many young people to have a go, including John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Declares as state of emergency in Cyprus
Publication of "That Certain Feeling"
Starts in "The Ladykillers"
Appears in The Ladykillers
Sellers plays Harry Robinson in the Ealing black comedy The Ladykillers.
Publication of "The Tree Of Idleness"
Uses inherited capital and borrowing with Ian Josephs to acquire a lease on the Thurston Court Hotel property near Notting Hill.
Rejoins Tribune as editor from 1955 to 1960
This page is generated from stored World History Database records matching the exact country and year shown above. Exact duplicate display records are collapsed. Records without a month are listed after the monthly sections. Source provenance varies by record; formal academic citation should be checked against the relevant primary source, archive or specialist historical reference.