1939 in the United Kingdom

Incumbents

• Monarch – George VI
• Prime Minister – Neville Chamberlain
• Parliament – 37th

  Events

January–June

• 2 January – The all-time highest attendance for a British association football league game is set as 118,567 people watch Rangers beat Celtic in an "Old Firm derby" played at Ibrox Park in Glasgow.
• 4 February – The Irish Republican Army bombs two London Underground stations, Tottenham Court Road and Leicester Square, injuring seven, two seriously.
• 25 February – The first Anderson shelter is built in London.
• 27 February – Borley Rectory, a reputed haunted house, is destroyed by fire.
• 31 March – Britain pledges support to Poland in the event of an invasion.
• 4 April – The Royal Armoured Corps is formed.
• 11 April – The Women's Royal Naval Service is re-established.
• 27 April – The Military Training Act introduces conscription; men aged 20 and 21 must undertake six months military training.
• May–September –The Sutton Hoo treasure – an Anglo-Saxon ship burial – is excavated. On 28 July the Sutton Hoo helmet is uncovered. The principal treasures are presented to the British Museum by the landowner, Edith Pretty, at this time its largest ever gift from a living donor.
• 6 May – Dorothy Garrod is elected to the Disney Professorship of Archaeology in the University of Cambridge, the first woman to hold an Oxbridge chair.
• 15 May – The film Goodbye, Mr. Chips is released, for which actor Robert Donat will win the Academy Award for Best Actor.
• 17 May – George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrive in Quebec City to begin the first-ever visit to Canada by a reigning British sovereign.
• 1 June – The submarine HMS Thetis sinks during trials in Liverpool Bay. 99 men are lost.
• 7 June – George VI and Queen Elizabeth visit New York City on the first visit to the United States by a reigning British sovereign.
• 14 June–20 August – Tientsin Incident: the Imperial Japanese Army blockades British trading settlements in the north China treaty port of Tientsin.
• 28 June – The Women's Auxiliary Air Force is created, absorbing the forty-eight RAF companies of the Auxiliary Territorial Service which have been formed since 1938.
• 30 June – The Mersey Ferry stops running to Rock Ferry.

  July–September

• 1 July – Women's Land Army re-formed to work in agriculture.
• 8 July – the Pan American Airways Boeing 314 flying boat Yankee Clipper inaugurates the world's first heavier-than-air North Atlantic air passenger service between the United States and Britain.
• 26 July – the Barber Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Birmingham, designed by Robert Atkinson, is officially opened by Queen Mary.
• 5 August – weekly transatlantic flights scheduled by Imperial Airways; suspended in September.
• 15 August – first personnel of the Government Code and Cypher School move to Bletchley Park.
• 19 August – Sir Malcolm Campbell sets the water speed record in Blue Bird K4 on Coniston Water.
• 23 August–2 September – most paintings from the National Gallery in London are evacuated to Wales.
• 24 August – as details of the previous day's Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact become public, Parliament is recalled several weeks early; the Emergency Powers Act 1939 gives full authority to defence regulations, Army reservists are called up and Civil Defence workers placed on alert.
• 25 August – 1939 Coventry bombing: An Irish Republican Army bomb explodes in Coventry, killing 5 and injuring 70.
• 30 August – Royal Navy proceeds to war stations.
• 1 September
• * "Operation Pied Piper": 4-day evacuation of children from London and other major U.K. cities begins.
• * Blackout imposed across Britain.
• * The Army is officially mobilised.
• * The BBC Home Service begins broadcasting but BBC Television shuts down at 12:35 p.m. until 1946.
• 2 September – British Expeditionary Force headquarters formed.
• 3 September – World War II
• * Declaration of war by the United Kingdom on Nazi Germany following the German invasion of Poland on 1 September. Shortly after 11.00, Chamberlain announces this news on BBC Radio, speaking from 10 Downing Street. Twenty minutes later, air raid sirens sound in London. Chamberlain creates a small War Cabinet which includes Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty.
• * General mobilisation of the armed services begins. The signal "Total Germany" is sent to ships.
• * National Service Act passed by Parliament introduces National Service for all men aged 18 to 41.
• * British liner becomes the first civilian casualty of the war when she is torpedoed and sunk by between Rockall and Tory Island. Of the 1,418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew are killed.
• * In the week beginning today 400,000 pets are euthanised.
• 4 September – first bombing of Wilhelmshaven in World War II by Royal Air Force Vickers Wellingtons.
• 5 September – National Registration Act.
• 9 September – British Expeditionary Force crosses to France.
• 10 September – British submarine torpedoes and sinks another British submarine,, believing her to be a German U-boat, with the loss of 52 crew.
• 16 September – the Duke of Windsor is appointed a major-general attached to the British Military Mission to France.
• 17 September – aircraft carrier is torpedoed and sunk by in the Western Approaches with the loss of 519 crew, the first British warship loss of the War.
• 18 September – Fascist politician William Joyce, at this time holding a British passport, begins broadcasting Nazi propaganda from Berlin, inheriting the nickname Lord Haw-Haw.
• 19 September – popular radio comedy show It's That Man Again with Tommy Handley first broadcast on the BBC Home service, following trial broadcasts from 12 July. Known as "ITMA", it runs for ten years.
• 24 September – petrol rationing introduced.
• 26 September – flying from in the North Sea, Lieutenant B. S. McEwen of the Fleet Air Arm scores the first British victory over a German aircraft of the war, shooting down a flying boat. The aircraft carrier comes under air attack but survives.
• 27 September – first war tax is revealed by the Cabinet, including a significant rise in income taxes.
• 29 September – national register of citizens compiled to support the introduction of identity cards and rationing.
• 30 September – Identity cards introduced.

  October–December

• 1 October – call-up proclamation: All men aged 20–21 must register with the military authorities.
• 7 October – Operation Fish: Cruiser departs Plymouth in convoy for Halifax, Nova Scotia, carrying £2M in gold bar to be used for purchase of military materiel in North America.
• 14 October – HMS Royal Oak sunk by a German U-boat in Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands with the loss of 833 crew.
• 16 October – first enemy aircraft shot down by RAF Fighter Command, a Junkers Ju 88 brought down into the sea by Spitfires following an attack on Rosyth Naval Dockyard in Scotland.
• 17 October – first bomb lands in the U.K., at Hoy in the Orkney Islands.
• 21 October – registration of men aged 20 to 23 for National Service begins.
• 30 October – British battleship is unsuccessfully attacked by under the command of captain Wilhelm Zahn off Orkney and is hit by three torpedoes, none of which explode; Winston Churchill, Admiral of the Fleet Dudley Pound and Admiral Charles Forbes are on board.
• 4 November – Stewart Menzies is appointed head of the Secret Intelligence Service.
• 8 November – Venlo Incident: two British agents of SIS are captured by the Germans.
• 23 November – British armed merchantman is sunk in the GIUK gap in an action against the German battleships and.
• 24 November – British Overseas Airways Corporation formed by merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. effective from 1 April 1940.
• 4 December
• * strikes a mine off the coast of Scotland and is laid up for repairs until August 1940.
• * German submarine U-36 is torpedoed and sunk by British submarine HMS Salmon off Stavanger, the first enemy submarine lost to a British one during the War.
• 9 December – first soldier of the British Expeditionary Force killed: Corporal Thomas Priday triggers a French land mine.
• 12 December – escorting destroyer sinks after a collision with battleship off the Mull of Kintyre in heavy fog with the loss of 124 men.
• 13 December – the Battle of the River Plate takes place between,, and the German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, forcing the latter to scuttle herself on 17 December.
• 18 December – Battle of the Heligoland Bight: RAF Bomber Command, on a daylight mission to attack Kriegsmarine ships in the Heligoland Bight, is repulsed by Luftwaffe fighter aircraft.
• December – Pilgrim Trust establishes Committee for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, predecessor of the Arts Council.

  Publications

• H. E. Bates' short story collection My Uncle Silas.
• Joyce Carey's novel Mister Johnson.
• James Hadley Chase's thriller No Orchids for Miss Blandish.
• Agatha Christie's novels Murder Is Easy and And Then There Were None.
• Henry Green's novel Party Going.
• Aldous Huxley's novel After Many a Summer.
• Richard Llewellyn's novel How Green Was My Valley.
• Jan Struther's short story collection Mrs. Miniver.
• Poetry London: a Bi-Monthly of Modern Verse and Criticism, founded by Tambimuttu, first published.

  Births

• 15 January – Neil Cossons, industrial archaeologist and museum director
• 20 January – Chandra Wickramasinghe, Ceylonese-born British astronomer and poet
• 29 January – Tony Green, sportscaster
• 5 February – Derek Wadsworth, jazz trombonist and composer
• 10 February – Peter Purves, actor and television presenter
• 20 February – Frank Arundel, footballer
• 3 March – Bill Frindall, cricket statistician
• 8 March – Christopher Story, editor and intelligence analyst
• 9 March – John Howard Davies, child screen actor and television comedy director
• 23 March
• *Robin Herd, engineer and businessman
• *Terry Paine, footballer
• 17 March – Robin Knox-Johnston, yachtsman
• 5 April – David Winters, English-American actor, choreographer and director
• 7 April – David Frost, television personality
• 10 April – Penny Vincenzi, novelist
• 12 April – Alan Ayckbourn, playwright
• 13 April – Seamus Heaney, Irish poet, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
• 22 April
• * Mark Jones, actor
• * Alex Murphy, rugby league footballer and coach
• * Ann Mitchell, English actress
• 4 May – Neil Fox, rugby league footballer
• 7 May – David Hatch, radio broadcaster and actor
• 10 May – Bill Cash, English lawyer and politician
• 31 May – Terry Waite, humanitarian, author and hostage
• 5 June – Margaret Drabble, novelist and biographer
• 8 June – Francis Jacobs, English lawyer and judge
• 11 June
• * Rachael Heyhoe Flint, England cricketer
• * Jackie Stewart, Scottish racing driver
• 14 June – Peter Mayle, writer
• 19 June – Michael Standing, actor
• 26 June – Arthur Sutton, cricketer
• 30 June – Tony Hatch, musical theatre and television composer
• 2 July – Ferdinand Mount, journalist and novelist
• 7 July – Stanley Henig, academic and politician
• 10 July – John Dunlop, racehorse trainer
• 15 July – Reg Pridmore, motorcycle road racing national champion
• 16 July – Corin Redgrave, actor and political activist
• 17 July – Spencer Davis, Welsh musician, multi-instrumentalist
• 18 July – Brian Auger, jazz and rock keyboardist
• 22 July – Robert Phelps, modern pentathlete
• 4 August – Jack Cunningham, politician
• 11 August – Naseem Khan, journalist
• 15 August – Bill Wratten, air marshal
• 16 August – Carole Shelley, actress
• 19 August
• * Alan Baker, mathematician
• * Ginger Baker, rock drummer
• 30 August – John Peel, né Ravenscroft, disc jockey and radio presenter
• 12 September – John Pearse, guitarist
• 19 September – Louise Botting, businesswoman and radio presenter
• 25 September – Leon Brittan, politician
• 27 September – Nicholas Haslam, interior designer
• 29 September – Rhodri Morgan, Welsh politician
• 6 October – Melvyn Bragg, media arts presenter, critic and novelist
• 7 October – Harry Kroto, organic chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• 19 October – David Clark, Baron Clark, Scottish politician
• 24 October – John Adye, intelligence officer
• 25 October – Dave Simmonds, road racer
• 27 October – John Cleese, comic actor
• 4 November – Michael Meacher, politician.
• 8 November – Elizabeth Dawn, actress
• 11 November – Alf Adams, physicist
• 12 November – Terry McDonald, footballer and coach
• 16 November – Michael Billington, drama critic
• 17 November – Auberon Waugh, journalist
• 18 November
• *Bill Giles, weather forecaster
• *Margaret Jay, Baroness Jay of Paddington, née Callaghan, politician
• *Ian McCulloch, actor
• 16 December – Gordon Miller, Olympic high jumper
• 20 December – Tony Bentley, footballer
• 26 December – Carol M. Black, physician and academic

  Deaths

• 9 January – Edwin Farley, mayor
• 2 March – Howard Carter, archaeologist
• 18 April – Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, patron and promoter of women's interests
• 9 May – Sophie Williams, previously Mary, Lady Heath, aviator and athlete
• 25 June – Richard Seaman, racing driver
• 26 June – Ford Madox Ford, novelist, poet, critic and editor
• 20 July – Sir Dan Godfrey, conductor
• 6 September – Arthur Rackham, illustrator
• 13 September – Henry Halcro Johnston, botanist, physician, rugby union international and Deputy Lieutenant for Orkney
• 18 September - Gwen John, artist
• 19 September – Ethel M. Dell, romantic fiction writer
• 26 September - Leif Jones, politician
• 3 December – Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, daughter of Queen Victoria
• 19 December – Eric Fogg, composer and conductor