Portal:University of Oxford/Selected biography/56

Alec Douglas-Home (1903–1995) was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister from October 1963 to October 1964. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford (where he obtained a third-class degree in Modern History and played cricket for the university), he entered Parliament in 1931. He lost his seat in the 1945 election, regained it in 1950, but became a member of the House of Lords on the death of his father in 1951. Under the premierships of Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan he was appointed to a series of increasingly senior posts, including Leader of the House of Lords and Foreign Secretary. Home was chosen to succeed Macmillan in 1963, and renounced his earldom to do so. Home's premiership was the second briefest of the twentieth century. After narrow defeat in the general election of 1964, Douglas-Home resigned as party leader. From 1970 to 1974 he served in the cabinet of Edward Heath as Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. After the defeat of the Heath government in 1974 he returned to the House of Lords as a life peer, and retired from front-line politics. (more...)