Number 10 Downing Street

Alec Douglas-Home was born in Mayfair, London, into an aristocratic family. Home attended Eton College followed by Oxford University, where he graduated with a third class BA in Modern History. He also played first class cricket for prominent clubs.

In 1931, he entered Parliament as a Scottish Unionist Party (merged with the Conservative Party in 1965) MP for Lanark. As Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin from 1937-39, he attended the Munich Conference in 1938, though was not tainted by the fallout. Severe illness during World War Two prevented him from active participation, and he lost his seat in the 1945 General Election. After Home’s father passed away, he became the 14th Earl of Home and took a seat in the House of Lords. He served as Commonwealth Secretary during the Suez Crisis of 1956, in addition to holding the positions of Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council.

In 1959, the Conservative Party under Harold Macmillan won the General Election. The following year, Home was appointed Foreign Secretary. He remained in the role until 18 October 1963, when Macmillan suddenly resigned due to a prostate condition that was exacerbated by the Profumo Affair.

Home’s “emergence” as the new leader of the Conservative Party attracted some claims that Macmillan had worked to ensure ‘The Magic Circle’ deny Rab Butler the leadership, but Reginald Maudling had also been a strong candidate. Nonetheless, Home renounced his peerage on 23 October 1963 and became Sir Alec Douglas-Home. On 7 November he contested and won the constituency of Kinross and West Perthshire – but for the intervening two weeks he was a Prime Minister who belonged to neither the House of Commons nor the House of Lords.

Home did not originally seek the position of Prime Minister, but was widely respected by his Party and its future leaders. By the time he took over, the Conservative Party had been in office for 12 years and had contested three elections; Home was the fourth party leader during the period. In contrast, Harold Wilson was a formidable leader of the Labour Party. Despite this, Home focused heavily on winning the next election and as a result he narrowed the Labour lead in the opinion polls.

As his biographer D.R Thorpe notes, the legacy of Home’s government was the abolition of resale price maintenance, which enabled the cut price stickers on goods we see today. The reform – led by President of the Board of Trade Edward Heath – faced opposition within the party, but Home held firm and the bill was eventually passed. He also took a tough stance in dealing with the trade unions. During Home’s premiership, American President J. F. Kennedy was assassinated, and relations with Kennedy’s successor Lyndon B. Johnson deteriorated after the sale of British Leyland buses to Cuba. Macmillan famously described Home to the Queen as ‘steel painted as wood’.

Home was an unexpected Prime Minister and served for a short 363 days, the second shortest premiership in the 20th century – but he pushed his agenda as he did not see any reason why the Conservative Party would not win a fourth term. The General Election held on 15 October 1964 saw Wilson win a four-seat majority. Despite defeat, Home went on to serve as Foreign Secretary throughout Edward Heath’s premiership from 1970-74.

Michelle Clement, Mile End Group