Events from the year 1927 in the United Kingdom.
This year saw the renaming of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, recognising in name the Irish Free State's independence, it having come into existence with the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922.
Incumbents Monarch – George V Prime Minister – Stanley Baldwin (Conservative)
Events 1 January – the British Broadcasting Company becomes the British Broadcasting Corporation, when it is granted a Royal Charter. John Reith becomes the first Director-General. 7 January – first transatlantic telephone call from New York City to London. 15 January – first live sports broadcast on the BBC. The rugby union international England v Wales is commented on by former player Teddy Wakelam. A week later the first Association football match is broadcast. 19 January – Britain sends troops to China. 28–30 January – gale-force winds batter the British Isles, with a gust of recorded in Paisley (Scotland) and 23 killed. 4 February – at Pendine Sands, Sir Malcolm Campbell sets a new world land speed record covering the Flying Kilometre in a mean average of 174.883 mph (281.44 km/h) and the Flying Mile in 174.224 m.p.h. driving the Napier-Campbell Blue Bird, the last time this record will be attained on British soil. 12 February – first British troops land in Shanghai. 14 February – Alfred Hitchcock's silent film thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (starring Ivor Novello) is released. 19 February – general strike in Shanghai in protest at the presence of British troops. 1 March – an underground gas and coal dust explosion at Marine Colliery, Cwm, Monmouthshire, kills 52. 6 March – 1000 people a week die from an influenza epidemic. 29 March – Henry Segrave breaks the land speed record driving the Sunbeam 1000 hp at Daytona Beach, Florida. 5 April – Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 forbids strikes of support. 12 April – the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act renames the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The change acknowledges that the Irish Free State is no longer part of the Kingdom. 21 April – the National Museum of Wales is officially opened in Cathays Park, Cardiff. 23 April – Cardiff City F.C. (members of the English Football League despite being based in Wales) win the FA Cup beating Arsenal 1–0 at Wembley Stadium and taking the trophy out of England for the first time. 1 May – Dioceses of Guildford and of Portsmouth are created in the Church of England. 7 May – Newcastle United finish the football season as First Division champions. George Camsell, centre-forward of their local rivals Middlesbrough, scores a Football League record of 59 goals this season and a total of 63 in all competitions. 9 May – Joe Davis wins the first World Snooker Championship final held in Birmingham, an event he will continue to win each year until 1940. 12 May – British police raid the London office of the Soviet trading company ARCOS. 13 May – George V proclaims the change of his style from King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to King of Great Britain and Ireland. 20 May – Treaty of Jeddah: Saudi Arabia becomes independent of the United Kingdom. 24 May – Britain severs diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union because of revelations of espionage and underground agitation. 9 June – the Soviet Union executes twenty British for alleged espionage. 23 June – England and Yorkshire cricketer Wilfred Rhodes becomes the first person to play in 1,000 first-class cricket matches. 29 June – Solar eclipse of June 29, 1927: totality is visible across Northern England and Wales (though weather conditions are poor for viewing). 7 July Diocese of Derby created in the Church of England. Christopher Stone presents a record programme on BBC radio, becoming the first British disc jockey. 7 September – the Television Society is founded. It will gain Royal patronage in 1966, becoming the Royal Television Society. 5 October – the Labour Party votes in favour of nationalisation of the coal industry. 7 October – Mercedes Gleitze becomes the first British woman to swim the English Channel. 28 October – Cleggan Bay Disaster: A severe windstorm batters the British Isles, with coastal flooding in the Irish Sea along Cardigan Bay and 5 fatalities in Fleetwood, Lancashire. 5 November – Britain's first automatic traffic lights are deployed experimentally in Wolverhampton. 17 November – Leyland Titan double deck bus introduced. Its low chassis sets a significant trend in bus design which lasts for forty years. December – Joshua Powell of Clacton begins the domestic radio relay service which will become Rediffusion. 21 December ("Slippery Wednesday") – 1,600 people are hospitalised in the London area when they hurt themselves on icy streets. 25 December – a Christmas Day blizzard affects Cardiff and much of South Wales together with the Midlands and London area.
Undated Last new cotton mills completed in Lancashire: Holden's Astley Bridge Mill, Bolton and Elk Mill, Royton (powered by a steam turbine). Yorkshire captaincy affair: controversy over the decision (eventually reversed) to appoint a professional cricketer, Herbert Sutcliffe, as captain of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. The National Gardens Scheme is established to open private gardens of interest to the public to raise money to assist the Queen's Nursing Institute. Stanley Spencer completes his painting The Resurrection, Cookham. Winalot dog biscuits are first marketed by Spillers.
Publications Board of Education's Report of the Consultative Committee on the Education of the Adolescent (Chairman: W. H. Hadow; dated 1926) recommending a division between primary and secondary schools at age 11. Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel The Big Four and the first appearance of Miss Marple in the short story "The Tuesday Night Club" (in The Royal Magazine, December). F. Tennyson Jesse's children's story Moonraker, or, The Female Pirate and Her Friends. H. V. Morton's travelogue In Search of England, in book form. Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novel Unnatural Death. Evelyn Sharp's The London Child about the plight of slum children in London. Nevil Sidgwick's The Electronic Theory of Valency, an important work in chemistry. Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, 2nd edition of Principia Mathematica, one of the most important and seminal works in mathematical logic and philosophy. Henry Williamson's novel Tarka the Otter. P. G. Wodehouse's short story "Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey", introducing Lord Emsworth's prize pig, Empress of Blandings. Virginia Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse. The Countryman magazine begins publication (23 April), continuing until 2023. The Economic History Review begins publication (January), continuing as of 2026.
Births 8 January – Charles Tomlinson, poet and academic (died 2015) 12 January Richard Bebb, actor (died 2006) Leslie Orgel, chemist (died 2007) 13 January – Sydney Brenner, South African-born biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 2019) 14 January – John Mallard, medical physicist (died 2021) 20 January – Bill Le Sage, jazz pianist (died 2001) 28 January – Ronnie Scott, jazz saxophonist and club owner (died 1996) 31 January – Arnold Ziff, businessman and philanthropist (died 2004) 7 February – John Buller, composer (died 2004) 9 February – David Wheeler, computer scientist (died 2004) 10 February – Nigel Bagnall, army general (died 2002) 11 February – Robert Squires, admiral (died 2016) 15 February – Frank Dunlop, theatre director (died 2026) 16 February – June Brown, actress (died 2022) 18 February – Peter Fryer, English journalist and author (died 2006) 21 February – Anne Sunnucks, English author and chess player (died 2014) 25 February – David Oates, English archaeologist (died 2004) 26 February – Gerald Priestland, English journalist and broadcaster (died 1991) 1 March – George Davies, English footballer (died 2025) 3 March Nicolas Freeling, novelist (died 2003) Martin Lovett, cellist (died 2020) 5 March – Robert Lindsay, 29th Earl of Crawford, politician and aristocrat (died 2023)Earl of Crawford and Balcarres obituary 9 March – Julian Tudor-Hart, physician, writer and political campaigner (died 2018) 10 March – H. Douglas Keith, physicist (died 2003) 11 March – Ron Todd, trade union leader (died 2005) 12 March – Francis Wilford-Smith, cartoonist (died 2009) 15 March – Brian Shenton, track and field sprinter (died 1987) 17 March – Patrick Allen, actor (died 2006) 26 March Harold Chapman, photographer (died 2022) Tom Christie, doctor, Olympic rower (died 2017) 29 March – John Vane, pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 2004) 30 March – Robert Armstrong, Baron Armstrong of Ilminster, English civil servant (died 2020) 1 April – Peter Cundall, English-Australian soldier, horticulturist and author (died 2021) 2 April – Kenneth Tynan, theatre critic (died 1980) 6 April – John Brooke-Little, herald (died 2006) 8 April – Tilly Armstrong (alias Tania Langley and Kate Alexander), British writer (died 2010) 9 April – Clive Lythgoe, pianist (died 2006) 15 April – Colin Bean, actor (died 2009) 16 April Alan Geldard, cyclist (died 2018) Robert Wilson, astrophysicist (died 2002) 18 April – Sidney Cooke, English serial killer and paedophile 25 April – Dickie Dale, English motorcycle road racer (died 1961) 26 April Jack Douglas, actor (died 2008) Anne McLaren, geneticist and developmental biologist (died 2007) Derek Waring, actor (died 2007) 27 April Sheila Scott, aviator (died 1988) Elizabeth Craig-McFeely, former director of the Women's Royal Naval Service 2 May – Michael Broadbent, wine critic (died 2020) 4 May – Terry Scott, actor and comedian (died 1994) 5 May – Babs Beverley (d. 2018) and Teddie Beverley (d. 2026), close harmony singers 9 May – Keith Ross, surgeon (died 2003) 11 May – Bernard Fox, actor (died 2016) 21 May – Brian Manning, historian (died 2004) 25 May – Paul Oliver, architectural historian (died 2017) 27 May John Chapman, actor and screenwriter (died 2001) Bryan Cowgill, television executive (died 2008) 29 May – Trevor Holdsworth, businessman (died 2010) 31 May – Joe Robinson, actor and wrestler (died 2017) 2 June Colin Brittan, footballer (died 2013) Christopher Slade, lawyer and judge (died 2022) 4 June – Geoffrey Palmer, actor (died 2020) 6 June – David Chipp, journalist (died 2008) 7 June – Ian McColl, footballer and football manager (died 2008) 8 June Michael Levey, art historian (died 2008) Anne Warburton, academic and diplomat (died 2015) 11 June Marcus Fox, politician (died 2002) Beryl Grey, ballet dancer (died 2022) 12 June – Al Fairweather, jazz musician (died 1993) 13 June Paul Ableman, novelist (died 2006) Brian Wilde, actor (died 2008) 15 June – R. A. C. Parker, historian (died 2001) 18 June – Paul Eddington, actor (died 1995) 23 June John Habgood, Archbishop of York (died 2019) Kenneth McKellar, singer (died 2010) 25 June – Arnold Wolfendale, astronomer (died 2020) 28 June Correlli Barnett, military historian (died 2022) Pauline Webb, ecumenist, author, and broadcaster (died 2017) 1 July – Richard Chaloner, 3rd Baron Gisborough 3 July Ken Rowlands, Welsh boxer (died 2011) Ken Russell, film director (died 2011) 4 July – Derek Bond, English bishop (d. 2018) 10 July – Don Revie, footballer and football manager (died 1989) 12 July – Harold Walker, politician (died 2003) 11 July – Chris Leonard, English footballer (died 1987) 15 July – Ted Slevin, professional rugby league footballer (died 1998) 16 July Derek Hawksworth, footballer (died 2021) Shirley Hughes, children's book author and illustrator (died 2022) John Warr, Middlesex cricketer (died 2016)