Eric Chapman's Chronicle of 20th Century Britain
This is a reference work, begun by my late father in 1992. It was designed to be of use mainly to writers who might have set a work in a particular year, and who required appropriate background information and facts. For example, how much did it cost to post a letter? Who was the prime minister? What important events happened around that time?
It is not exactly a scholarly work. For example when dates are not known question marks appear, and sometimes even the year is uncertain. There is bias towards certain areas, based partly on my father's own interests, and partly on the reference works that happened to be available to him. Also, he doesn't always remain objective in his description of events.
Remember this was started before the Web and Google took off, so facts that we can check in seconds are often omitted. (With this in mind I have added quick links to Google, shown by a letter G, which may help checking facts.) It is nowhere near comprehensive, and I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any of it. Having said that I still believe the year by year approach is unusual enough to make it useful. I'd love to hear from you if you find it helpful.
You can read my father's original files on the project on the left. If you are interested you can read here how I converted 100 separate WordPerfect files into the pages you see before you.
NB SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION. DATA FOR YEARS 1965 - 1998 STILL TO BE EDITED.
Greg Chapman 2008
Select year of interest: