Sir Alec John Jeffreys, is a British geneticist known for developing techniques for genetic fingerprinting and DNA profiling which are now used worldwide in forensic science to assist police detective work and to resolve paternity and immigration disputes. He is Professor of Genetics at the University of Leicester, and he became an honorary freeman of the City of Leicester on 26 November 1992. In 1994, he was knighted for services to genetics.
The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by Scottish author John Buchan. It first appeared as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine, credited to “H de V.”, in July, August and September 1915 before being published in book form in October that year by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. It is the first of the five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a miraculous knack for getting himself out of tricky situations.
Peter Malcolm Gordon Moffett, known professionally as Peter Davison, is an English actor with many credits in television dramas and sitcoms. He made his television acting debut in 1975 and became famous in 1978 as Tristan Farnon in the BBC's television adaptation of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small stories.
Peter William Sutcliffe, also known as Peter William Coonan, was an English serial killer who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper by the press. On 22 May 1981, he was found guilty of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was sentenced to 20 concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of Sutcliffe's murders took place in Manchester; all the others were in West Yorkshire.
William Andrew Murray Boyd is a Scottish novelist, short story writer and screenwriter.
Robert Heath Foxworth is an American film, stage, and television actor.
Keith Miles is a writer of historical fiction and mystery novels. He has also written children's books, radio and television dramas and stage plays. He is best known under the pseudonym Edward Marston, and has also written as Martin Inigo and Conrad Allen.
Kriss Donald was a 15-year-old white Scottish boy who was kidnapped and murdered in Glasgow in 2004 by a gang of British men of Pakistani origin, some of whom fled to Pakistan after the crime. Daanish Zahid, Imran Shahid, Zeeshan Shahid and Mohammed Faisal Mustaq were later found guilty of racially motivated murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. A fifth man, Zahid Mohammed, pleaded guilty to kidnapping, assault and lying to police and was sentenced to five years in prison. He later went on to testify against the other four at their trials.
Allan Johnstone Massie is a Scottish journalist, columnist, sports writer and novelist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has lived in the Scottish Borders for the last 25 years, and now lives in Selkirk.
Gang-related organised crime in the United Kingdom is concentrated around the cities of London, Manchester and Liverpool and regionally across the West Midlands region, south coast and northern England, according to the Serious Organised Crime Agency. With regard to street gangs the cities identified as having the most serious gang problems, which also accounted for 65% of firearm homicides in England and Wales, were London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Glasgow in Scotland also has a historical gang culture with the city having as many teenage gangs as London, which had six times the population, in 2008.
David Hayman is a Scottish film, television and stage actor and director, known for his role as DCS Mike Walker in ITV drama Trial & Retribution, as Jonas Franks in BBC period drama The Paradise and as Brace in the drama Taboo.
Edgar Marcus Lustgarten was a British broadcaster and noted crime writer.
Dora Amy Turnbull, known by pen name Patricia Wentworth, was a British crime fiction writer.
Dhruva Mistry is an Indian sculptor.
James Albert Needle, known as Jan Needle, is an English author. He was born and grew up in Portsmouth on the south coast of England, coming from a family with strong naval and military connections. He has written over thirty novels, as well as books and plays for adults and children, books of criticism, cartoons and radio and television serials and series.
Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy.
Alasdair James Gray was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy, and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards.
The CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction is a British literary award established in 1978 by the Crime Writers' Association, who have awarded the Gold Dagger fiction award since 1955.
Peter Ackroyd, is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a particular interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William Blake, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Charles Chaplin and Sir Thomas More, he won the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards. He is noted for the volume of work he has produced, the range of styles therein, his skill at assuming different voices, and the depth of his research.
Events from the year 1983 in Scotland.
