1929 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – George V
• Prime Minister
• * Stanley Baldwin
• * Ramsay MacDonald
• Parliament
• * 34th
• * 35th

  Events

• 23 January – The Lancashire Cotton Corporation is set up by the Bank of England to rescue the Lancashire cotton milling industry by means of horizontal integration.
• 18 March – An underground fire at Coombs Wood colliery near Halesowen kills 8 miners, the last major disaster in the Black Country coalfield.
• 30 March – Imperial Airways begins operating the first commercial flights between London and Karachi.
• 22 April – Chat Moss airport opens in Manchester, Britain's first municipal airport.
• 10 May
• * Age of Marriage Act 1929 passed, raising the legal marriageable age to sixteen years for both parties to a marriage.
• * Yorkshire cricketer Wilfred Rhodes takes his 4000th first-class wicket during a match against Oxford University.
• 14 May – The North East Coast Exhibition opens, and would run for six months.
• 31 May – The general election returns a hung parliament. Liberals will determine who has power. Amongst the Conservative casualties is future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, the 35-year-old MP for Stockton-on-Tees, who first entered parliament five years earlier.
• 7 June – The Conservatives concede power rather than risk courting Liberals for a fragile majority.
• 8 June – Ramsay MacDonald forms a new Labour government. Margaret Bondfield becomes the first female member of the Cabinet when she is named Minister of Labour.
• 17 June – Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail shown for the first time in London, the first British sound film.
• 1 July – C. P. Scott retires after 57 and a half years as editor of The Manchester Guardian and is succeeded by his son, Ted Scott.
• 5 July – Scotland Yard seizes thirteen paintings of male and female nudes by D. H. Lawrence from a Mayfair gallery on grounds of indecency under the Vagrancy Act 1838.
• 11 July – Gillingham Fair fire disaster kills fifteen people as a firefighting demonstration goes catastrophically wrong in Kent.
• 4 August – Bekonscot opens to the public in Buckinghamshire, the world's oldest original miniature park.
• 20 August – First transmissions of John Logie Baird's experimental 30-line television system by the BBC.
• 2 October – The union between the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church of Scotland takes place.
• 28 October – Sharp fall on the London Stock Exchange, following a similar crash on Wall Street on 24 October.
• 1 November
• * The Pony Club established.
• * Release in the United States of the historical film Disraeli. George Arliss plays the title rôle, for which he will be awarded the Academy Award for Best Actor, the first British winner.
• 10 November – Première of John Grierson's documentary film Drifters about North Sea herring fishermen, made for the Empire Marketing Board, effectively inaugurating the British Documentary Film Movement.
• 1 December – Underground Electric Railways Company of London officially opens its new headquarters building at 55 Broadway designed by Charles Holden and incorporating sculptures by Jacob Epstein, Eric Gill and Henry Moore.
• 10 December
• * Arthur Harden wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Hans von Euler-Chelpin "for their investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes".
• * Frederick Hopkins wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discovery of the growth-stimulating vitamins".
• 31 December – Glen Cinema disaster in Paisley, Scotland: 69 children die trying to escape smoke.

  Undated

• First Tesco store opens, at Burnt Oak, Edgware, Middlesex.
• Coypu introduced to East Anglia for their fur.
• Ross County F.C. founded in Dingwall, Scotland. They initially play in the Highland League.

  Publications

• Agatha Christie's novel The Seven Dials Mystery.
• Robert Graves' memoir Good-Bye to All That.
• Patrick Hamilton's play Rope.
• Richard Hughes' novel A High Wind in Jamaica.
• Charles Kay Ogden's book Basic English.
• J. B. Priestley's novel The Good Companions.
• Alison Uttley's children's book The Squirrel, The Hare and the Little Grey Rabbit, introducing Little Grey Rabbit.
• Virginia Woolf's essay A Room of One's Own.

  Births

• 10 January – Tony Soper, naturalist, author and broadcaster
• 21 January – John Hayes, art historian
• 28 January – Acker Bilk, jazz clarinetist and band leader
• 30 January – Richard Long, 4th Viscount Long, politician
• 31 January – Jean Simmons, actress
• 6 February – Keith Waterhouse, novelist and journalist
• 8 February – Roger Byrne, footballer
• 15 February – Graham Hill, race car driver
• 17 February
• *Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, English lieutenant and politician, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
• *Patricia Routledge, actress
• 18 February – Len Deighton, author
• 21 February – James Beck, actor
• 5 March – David Sheppard, cricketer and Bishop of Liverpool
• 13 March
• * Keith Schellenberg, Olympic sportsman, businessman and laird
• * Jim Slater, investor
• 23 March – Sir Roger Bannister, runner
• 24 March – Francis Essex, television producer
• 1 April – Barbara Bryne, actress
• 5 April – Nigel Hawthorne, actor
• 10 April – Mike Hawthorn, racing driver
• 17 April – John Raymond Hobbs, pathologist
• 18 April – Peter Jeffrey, actor
• 21 April – Barbara Keogh, actress
• 22 April
• *Michael Atiyah, mathematician
• *John Nicks, figure skater and skating coach
• 29 April – Jeremy Thorpe, Liberal leader
• 4 May – Audrey Hepburn, actress
• 9 May – Anthony Lloyd, Baron Lloyd of Berwick, lawyer and judge
• 10 May – Thomas McGhee, footballer
• 12 May – Don Gibson, footballer
• 14 May – Henry McGee, actor
• 15 May – Andrew Bertie, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
• 18 May
• *William Kerr Fraser, civil servant
• *Adrian Morris, artist
• 23 May – Peter Wells, athlete
• 26 May – John Jackson, lawyer and businessman
• 5 June – Denis Coe, soldier, educator and politician
• 8 June – Robert Shirley, 13th Earl Ferrers, politician
• 10 June – Thomas Taylor, Baron Taylor of Blackburn, Labour Party politician
• 12 June – Brigid Brophy, author
• 13 June – Alan Civil, horn player
• 29 June – Anne Weale, romantic novelist
• 30 June
• * Ron Phoenix, English footballer
• * Ivor Seemley, English professional footballer
• 5 July – Tony Lock, cricketer
• 6 July – Jack Edwards, Welsh footballer and manager
• 7 July – Colin Walker, footballer
• 9 July
• *Christopher Morahan, stage, television director and production executive
• *Derek Ratcliffe, conservationist
• 12 July – Brian Woodward, professional footballer
• 15 July – Larry Lamb, newspaper editor
• 17 July – Kenneth Grange, industrial designer
• 20 July – Irving Wardle, writer and theatre critic
• 21 July – John Woodvine, stage and screen actor
• 22 July – U. A. Fanthorpe, poet
• 24 July – Peter Yates, film director
• 25 July – Bryan Pearce, artist
• 30 July – Donald Hamilton Fraser, artist
• 31 July
• *Lynne Reid Banks, author
• * Johnny Carlyle, ice hockey player and coach
• 2 August – David Waddington, Baron Waddington, politician
• 8 August – Ronald Biggs, criminal
• 11 August – Alun Hoddinott, Welsh composer
• 12 August – Jean Miller, actress and painter
• 23 August – Pete King, saxophonist
• 25 August – Clifford Forsythe, politician
• 28 August – John Evans, footballer
• 29 August
• * Thom Gunn, poet
• * Susan Shaw, actress
• 30 August – Ian McNaught-Davis, television presenter
• 4 September – Robin Hunter, actor
• 15 September – John Julius Norwich, historian
• 17 September – Stirling Moss, racing driver
• 18 September
• * Richard Grimsdale, electrical engineer
• * Elizabeth Spriggs, actress
• 19 September – Charles Gordon-Lennox, 10th Duke of Richmond
• 21 September – Bernard Williams, philosopher
• 25 September – Ronnie Barker, comic actor
• 2 October – Robin Hardy, film director and author
• 6 October – George Carman, lawyer
• 7 October
• * Tony Beckley, character actor
• * Robert Westall, author
• 11 October – Vivian Matalon, theatre director
• 16 October
• *Ray Jessel, Welsh songwriter, screenwriter, orchestrator and musical theatre composer
• * Mary Parry, figure skater
• 20 October – Colin Jeavons, actor
• 24 October – Clifford Rose, actor
• 28 October – Joan Plowright, actress
• 30 October – Jean Chapman, romantic novelist
• 7 November
• * Peter Evans, musicologist
• * Lila Kaye, actress
• 23 November – Maurice Flitcroft, golfer
• 27 November – Alan Simpson, comedy scriptwriter
• 8 December – Ali Bongo, magician
• 9 December – Reay Tannahill, writer
• 11 December – Kenneth MacMillan, ballet dancer and choreographer
• 12 December – John Osborne, playwright and film producer
• 16 December
• * Nicholas Courtney, actor
• * Bernard Crick, political theorist
• * James Moore, author
• 17 December – Jacqueline Hill, actress
• 23 December – Hugh Millais, actor and author
• 24 December – Tim Brinton, politician
• 28 December – Brian Redhead, journalist and broadcaster
• 31 December – Peter May, English cricketer

  Deaths

• 12 February – Lillie Langtry, British singer and actress
• 12 April – Flora Annie Steel, writer
• 21 May – Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• 16 June – Bramwell Booth, General of The Salvation Army
• 24 June – Queenie Newall, archer
• 28 June – Edward Carpenter, English poet
• 5 August – Millicent Fawcett, British suffragist and feminist
• 26 August – Sir Ernest Satow, British diplomat and scholar
• 7 September – Frederic Weatherly, English lyricist
• 30 October – Gertrude Keightley, English-born Northern Ireland local government and charity official