Evelyn Waugh publishes Brideshead Revisited, a novel about a rich Catholic family in England between the wars

In George Orwell's fable Animal Farm a ruthless pig, Napoleon, controls the farmyard using the techniques of Stalin

Sadler's Wells Ballet moves to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden (and is known from 1956 as the Royal Ballet)

The takeover of the Bank of England launches an extensive programme of nationalization by the Attlee government

Frederick Ashton choreographs Symphonic Variations, to music by César Franck

David Lean directs Trevor Howard and and Celia Johnson in Noel Coward's Brief Encounter

Benjamin Britten bases his Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra on a theme by Purcell

Rationing in Britain gets worse rather than better, with bread and potatoes now added to the list

Titus Groan begins British author Mervyn Peake's trilogy of gothic novels

British conductor Thomas Beecham founds the third orchestra of his career, calling it the Royal Philharmonic

Winston Churchill, in a speech in Fulton, Missouri, expresses the harsh truth that an iron curtain has descended across Europe

English author and alcoholic Malcolm Lowry publishes an autobiographical novel, Under the Volcano

Hungarian-born British engineer Dennis Gabor creates the first three-dimensional image from reflected light, subsequently known as a hologram

J.B. Priestley challenges audiences with An Inspector Calls, a play in which moral guilt spreads like an infection

British dancer Robert Helpmann choreographs the ballet scenes in the film The Red Shoes, featuring Moira Shearer

The Morris Minor is launched, designed by Alec Issigonis, and becomes one of Britain's best-selling cars

Christopher Fry's verse drama The Lady's Not For Burning engages in high-spirited poetic word play

British astronomer Fred Hoyle puts forward a 'steady-state' theory of the universe, in which matter is continually created

Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears together establish an annual festival in the Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh

Frederick Ashton's Cinderella, to music by Prokofiev, is the first full-length ballet by an English choreographer

Ealing Studios produce a film of Compton Mackenzie's 1947 novel Whisky Galore, about an alcoholic windfall on the island of Barra

Carol Reed directs The Third Man, starring Orson Welles and written by Graham Greene

Enid Blyton introduces her most successful character, Noddy, a small boy who can't avoid nodding when he speaks

British atomic physicist Klaus Fuchs is discovered to be a Soviet agent, passing nuclear secrets to the USSR

The world's first commercial jet airliner, the Comet, designed by de Havilland, goes into service with BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation)