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| Period in Office: | 9 June, 1970 - 6 March 1974 |
| PM Predecessor: | Harold Wilson |
| PM Successor: | Harold Wilson |
| Date of Birth: | 9 July, 1916 |
| Place of Birth: | St. Peters-in-Thanet , Kent |
| Political Party: | Conservative |
| Retirement honour: | Knighthood of the Garter |
The Right Honourable Sir Edward Richard George Heath, KG, MBE (born July 9, 1916) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975Events January January 1 Watergate scandal: John N. Mitchell, H. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up and are sentenced to 30 months to 8 years in jail on February 21 January 5 The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, i. His spell in office represented a transition between the traditional, rotating leadership of the party under among senior figures such as Harold MacmillanMaurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton OM ( 10 February 1894 29 December 1986), nicknamed " Supermac" and " Mac the Knife" was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Early life Macmillan was b and that of later, self consciously meritocratic figures starting with Margaret ThatcherMargaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS (born October 13, 1925) is a British politician and the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a position she held from 1979 to 1990. She is a member of the Conservative Party and still.
Heath was the son of a carpenter from Broadstairs in Kent. He went to a state grammar school, and succeeded in the exam to get to Balliol College, Oxford. A talented musician, he had won an Organ Scholarship to support himself there. While at university he got involved in Conservative politics but unlike many Conservatives, was an active opponent of appeasement. He was elected as President of the Oxford Union Society in 1939 as an anti-appeasement candidate sponsored by Balliol.
He served in the Royal Artillery during World War II, and after demobilization in 1946 joined the Territorial Army. He became a civil servant in the Ministry of Civil Aviation until he was elected as MP for Bexley in 1950 (defeating an old colleague from the Oxford Union, Ashley Bramall).
He was swiftly appointed as a Government Whip when the Conservatives won the 1951 election. In December 1955 he became Government Chief Whip. Because of the convention that Whips do not speak in Parliament, he managed to keep out of the controversy over the Suez Crisis. On the announcement of Anthony Eden's resignation, Heath submitted a report on the attitude of Conservative MPs to those choosing Eden's successor which was extremely favourable to Harold Macmillan and was instrumental in securing Macmillan the job. Macmillan made him Minister of Labour after the 1959 election.
Heath was a fervent pro-European, believing in political as well as economic union. He was made Lord Privy Seal in 1960 with responsibility for the (ultimately unsuccessful) first round of negotiations to secure the UK's accession to the Common Market (as the European Community was then called). Under Sir Alec Douglas-Home he was President of the Board of Trade and oversaw the abolition of retail price maintenance.
After the Conservative Party lost the 1964 general election, Douglas-Home changed the rules to allow a ballot for party leader, and then resigned. Heath won the election in 1965, and became the youngest leader in the party's history. He retained the office despite defeat in the 1966 general election. The success of his party in the general election of 1970 surprised almost all contemporary commentators and was seen as a personal triumph.